Anthropometric, physiological, performance, and nutritional profile of the Brazil National Canoe Polo Team

The purpose of this study was to determine the physiological, anthropometric, performance, and nutritional characteristics of the Brazil Canoe Polo National Team. Ten male canoe polo athletes (age 26.7 ± 4.1 years) performed a battery of tests including assessments of anthropometric parameters, upper-body anaerobic power (Wingate), muscular strength, aerobic power, and nutritional profile. In addition, we characterized heart rate and plasma lactate responses and the temporal pattern of the effort/recovery during a simulated canoe polo match. The main results are as follows: body fat, 12.3 ± 4.0%; upper-body peak and mean power, 6.8 ± 0.5 and 4.7 ± 0.4 W · kg(-1), respectively; 1-RM bench press, 99.1 ± 11.7 kg; peak oxygen uptake, 44.3 ± 5.8 mL · kg(-1) · min(-1); total energy intake, 42.8 ± 8.6 kcal · kg(-1); protein, carbohydrate, and fat intakes, 1.9 ± 0.1, 5.0 ± 1.5, and 1.7 ± 0.4 g · kg(-1), respectively; mean heart rate, 146 ± 11 beats · min(-1); plasma lactate, 5.7 ± 3.8 mmol · L(-1) at half-time and 4.6 ± 2.2 mmol · L(-1) at the end of the match; effort time (relative to total match time), 93.1 ± 3.0%; number of sprints, 9.6 ± 4.4. The results of this study will assist coaches, trainers, and nutritionists in developing more adequate training programmes and dietary interventions for canoe polo athletes.     

The Impact of an Engineering Design Curriculum on Science Reasoning in an Urban Setting

This study examines the use of engineering design to facilitate science reasoning in high-needs, urban classrooms. The Design for Science unit utilizes scaffolds consistent with reform science instruction to assist students in constructing a design solution to satisfy a need from their everyday lives. This provides a meaningful context in which students could reason scientifically. Eighth grade students from two urban schools participated in the unit. Both schools contained large percentages of racial/ethnic minority and economically disadvantaged students. Students demonstrated statistically significant improvement on a paper-and-pencil, multiple-choice pre and post assessment. The results compare favorably with both a high-quality inquiry science unit and a traditional textbook curriculum. Implications for the use of design-based curricula as a viable alternative for teaching science reasoning in high-needs, urban settings are discussed.

Risks and Risk-Based Regulation in Higher Education Institutions

Tertiary Education and Management - Risk-based regulation is a relatively new mode of governance. Not only does it offer a way of controlling institutions from the outside but it also provides the...     

Expertise of Team Leaders in Analysing Team Conflicts

Team leaders are expected to adequately analyse team conflicts. Both content and analytical depth of cognitive processes determine team leaders’ performance and are assumed to differ with level of expertise. A study is reported in which team leaders at four different levels of expertise (novices, semi-experts, experts, mediators) were compared in their analysis of a team conflict presented in a computer-based simulation. Few differences were found between novices and semi-experts, whereas team leaders and mediators differed both in content and in analytical depth of cognitive processes. It is not the amount of practice time itself, which substantially impacts the content and depth of team leaders’ analyses of conflicts. Rather the quality of experience is crucial for developing the ability to conduct an elaborated analysis of team conflicts.     

Exploring the Mechanisms of Knowledge Transfer in University‐Industry Collaborations: A Study of Companies,Students and Researchers

This article discusses mechanisms, enablers and barriers for knowledge transfer in university‐industry collaboration projects involving companies, students and researchers. Data is collected through 35 qualitative interviews with Danish and Norwegian representatives from the above categories. All respondents have been involved in collaborative projects, such as student‐industry cooperation or collaboration projects between scientists and businesses. This research shows that to secure real value adding through knowledge transfer in university‐industry collaboration projects, it is important that the involved parties view each other as equal partners. It is argued that creating a better understanding of roles and competences of the involved parties can help diminish this problem. A final conclusion is that continuous knowledge sharing throughout the project seems more highly valued by the involved parties than a final report does. Best practice for collaborative projects is suggested.     

Having students create short video clips to help transition from naïve conceptions about mechanics to true Newtonian physics

Most students enter their first university physics course with a system of beliefs and intuitions which are often inconsistent with the Newtonian frame of reference. This article presents an experiment of collaborative learning aiming at helping first-year students in an engineering programme to transition from their naïve intuition about dynamics to the Newtonian way of thinking. In a first activity, students were asked to critically analyse the contents of two video clips from the point of view of Newtonian mechanics. In a second activity, students had to design and realise their own video clip to illustrate a given aspect of Newtonian mechanics. The preparation of the scenario for the second activity required looking up and assimilating scientific knowledge. The efficiency of the activity was assessed on an enhanced version of the statistical analysis method proposed by Hestenes and Halloun, which relies on a pre-test and a post-test to measure individual learning.     

Pricing decisions of consumer innovators

Increasing numbers of consumers who engage in the development of new products are selling their innovations on online marketplaces. We contribute to the scarce research on the commercialization activities of consumer innovators by comparing the consumers’ price decisions with the pricing of firms. Our predictions build on the baseline assumption that the price decisions of consumers are influenced by the same motivations that originally prompt them to innovate. We use a sequential mixed-method approach with a quantitative main study and follow-up qualitative research. The quantitative results draw on a matched-pair analysis of 4,242 computer games released on the online game platform Steam. We find that consumer innovators charge lower prices than firms for comparable games and that consumers and firms show different inclinations in aligning prices with the games’ development costs and perceived quality. The subsequent interview study with 29 hobbyist game developers provides clear support for the motivational explanations of consumers’ pricing decisions. The findings contribute to research on consumer innovation marketing and nascent entrepreneurship. They also improve the understanding of welfare effects resulting from increasing commercial activities of consumers.     

Need-solution pair recognition by household sector individuals: Evidence,and a cognitive mechanism explanation

Problem-solving by everyday individuals is thought to occur as a two-step process. First, an individual identifies or formulates a problem, followed by entering into a subsequent search to find the best solution. Here, however, we consider an alternative process that everyday individuals may use for solution finding first theorized by von Hippel and von Krogh (2016). Specifically, von Hippel and von Krogh proposed that everyday individuals may sometimes discover a solution and the need it satisfies simultaneously without the need for apriori problem formation, a cognitive process they called “need-solution pair recognition”. Utilizing a rich literature from psychology and neuroscience, we propose that seemingly spontaneous discoveries found by need-solution pair recognition are natural products of the object recognition system and its underlying mechanisms. This view asserts that on encountering an object and reasoning how it might be used (i.e. functional object understanding), an individual's perception of an object may culminate in recognizing the object as a solution, and in some cases, as a solution to a problem previously unknown to him or her, thus bypassing formal problem-formulation and active solution searching entirely. To empirically test this view, we manipulated the ability of everyday individuals to functionally reason about objects while we examined the spontaneous occurrence of solutions found by either need-solution pair recognition or traditional problem-first problem-solving. Consistent with our hypothesized mechanism, our results indicate that need-solution pair recognition occurs more frequently when constraints on functional object understanding are reduced. That is, we found that needsolution pair discoveries outpaced solutions found from traditional problem solving, in environments with unfamiliar objects, where participants were not directed to solve specific problems. Our results provide clear evidence that everyday individuals in the household sector do not always innovate through traditional problem-solving processes, but instead may arrive at solutions as they recognize and reason about objects. Implications for research and practice in household innovation, and for innovation more generally are considered.     

大型体育赛事东道主国家形象研究

采用议程设置理论对2008年北京奥运前后国际电视传媒有关中国的报道进行内容分析,旨在探索大型事件如何影响东道国国家形象。以国家形象可见性、效价、主题结构、归因四个要素为框架,对美国、英国、德国、法国等九个国家的电视媒体报道中有关中国的新闻进行定量内容分析。结论如下:1)大型事件之前,东道主国家形象的可见性将升高,然而,在大型事件之后,东道国在国际媒体中的可见性甚至低于往常;2)奥运会后一年有关中国的新闻与会前一年相比,不明确的效价显著减少,正面和负面的效价比例均显著增加,2008北京奥运对中国的贡献在于增进了世界媒体和公众对中国的理解,但奥运会后中国的国际形象并没有显著改善;3)中国形象的主题结构和归因两个属性保持相对稳定,大型事件仅仅能够激发国际媒体对东道国的兴趣,并使东道国国家形象清晰化。