‘It's not just about the football’: leading social change in a Sunday league football team

The recent growth of ‘alternative’ football teams has presented politicized amateur footballers with the opportunity to play the game in a safe environment alongside like-minded people. However, for those desiring and pursuing authentic social change, a politicization process needs to be facilitated within mainstream community clubs. This paper will discuss one such club, where the coach has attempted to instil an inclusive culture which tackles sexist, racist and homophobic behaviour and attitudes. Based in the North East of England, in a club strongly committed to developing the qualities of its play, the paper outlines the process of challenging interactions played out within the club and among players. More specifically, it addresses the journey of developing awareness of these social issues. By deploying thoughtful action and more specific work related to sport and politics, the potential for transformational change within the club and the leadership process involved is discussed. Comparisons of these factors are made to an established ‘alternative’ football club.     

Interplay between motility and cell-substratum adhesion in amoeboid cells

The effective migration of amoeboid cells requires a fine regulation of cell-substratum adhesion. These entwined processes have been shown to be regulated by a host of biophysical and biochemical cues. Here, we reveal the pivotal role played by calcium-based mechanosensation in the active regulation of adhesion resulting in a high migratory adaptability. Using mechanotactically driven Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae, we uncover the existence of optimal mechanosensitive conditions—corresponding to specific levels of extracellular calcium—for persistent directional migration over physicochemically different substrates. When these optimal mechanosensitive conditions are met, noticeable enhancement in cell migration directionality and speed is achieved, yet with significant differences among the different substrates. In the same narrow range of calcium concentrations that yields optimal cellular mechanosensory activity, we uncovered an absolute minimum in cell-substratum adhesion activity, for all considered substrates, with differences in adhesion strength among them amplified. The blocking of the mechanosensitive ion channels with gadolinium—i.e., the inhibition of the primary mechanosensory apparatus—hampers the active reduction in substrate adhesion, thereby leading to the same undifferentiated and drastically reduced directed migratory response. The adaptive behavioral responses of Dictyostelium cells sensitive to substrates with varying physicochemical properties suggest the possibility of novel surface analyses based on the mechanobiological ability of mechanosensitive and guidable cells to probe substrates at the nanometer-to-micrometer level.     

An empirical investigation of Web session workloads: Can self-similarity be explained by deterministic chaos?

Several studies of Web server workloads have hypothesized that these workloads are self-similar. The explanation commonly advanced for this phenomenon is that the distribution of Web server requests may be heavy-tailed. However, there is another possible explanation: self-similarity can also arise from deterministic, chaotic processes. To our knowledge, this possibility has not previously been investigated, and so existing studies on Web workloads lack an adequate comparison against this alternative. We conduct an empirical study of workloads from two different Web sites: one public university, and one private company, using the largest datasets that have been described in the literature. Our study employs methods from nonlinear time series analysis to search for chaotic behavior in the web logs of these two sites. While we do find that the deterministic components (i.e. the well-known “weekend effect”) are significant components in these time series, we do not find evidence of chaotic behavior. Predictive modeling experiments contrasting heavy-tailed with deterministic models showed that both approaches were equally effective in modeling our datasets.     

Modified breastfeeding attrition prediction tool: prenatal and postpartum tests

In earlier studies, the Breastfeeding Attrition Prediction Tool (BAPT) demonstrated predictive validity in the postpartum period. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of a modified version of the BAPT when given in the last trimester (BAPT1) and following delivery (BAPT2) in predicting breastfeeding attrition among 117 women who planned to breastfeed for at least 8 weeks. Subjects completed the BAPT during a prenatal breastfeeding class and again at delivery, and they received a phone call at 8 weeks to determine breastfeeding status. In this study, neither of the two administrations of the BAPT was predictive of breastfeeding status at 8 weeks. Findings here may differ because subjects in the current study were all committed enough to attend breastfeeding class and, thus, varied less on commitment than women in earlier studies. Significant associations were found with level of education and having a close relative who breastfed. To assist the perinatal educator in identifying women most at risk for early cessation of breastfeeding, the use of three questions regarding level of education, family support, and breastfeeding preparation is suggested.     

Small fingers,big data: Preschoolers’ subitizing speed and accuracy during interactions with multitouch technology

This study focused on 18 students 4–5?years old in an urban full-day preschool program in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Over the course of a month, students used a touchscreen tablet to interact with Fingu, an app designed to develop students’ early number sense. Using backend data generated by the app, 8,153 individual task attempts were recorded. Multilevel growth modeling, with task attempts nested within students, was used to examine the extent to which students’ speed of response and response accuracy changed over the course of the study, as well as whether any individual characteristics were associated with either speed or accuracy. Results indicate that, on average, students become both faster and more accurate. Girls were also found to be more accurate than boys, and older students were found to be both slightly slower to respond and less accurate.     

The Role of Content Knowledge and Problem Features on Preservice Teachers’ Appraisal of Elementary Mathematics Tasks

The objective of this study was to examine the nature of preservice teachers’ evaluations of elementary mathematics problems using the Mathematical Tasks Framework (MTF), a model designed to discriminate among tasks according to their cognitive complexity. We also tested the relationship between mathematics content knowledge and problem length on the preservice teachers’ evaluations. Twenty-six undergraduate students enrolled in an elementary mathematics methods course at a large urban university were introduced to the MTF and cognitive complexity during a class lecture and were subsequently required to sort 32 mathematics problems according to the framework. Results demonstrated that overall, the preservice teachers had more difficulty accurately classifying problems considered to represent high levels of cognitive complexity compared to problems that were less complex. Those with strong mathematics content knowledge, as measured by a standardized test, were able to sort the problems more accurately than those with weaker content knowledge. Two open-ended items assessing content knowledge were not related to sorting performance. Finally, the preservice teachers were influenced by the surface characteristic of task length; the data indicated that the teachers tended to label short problems as less cognitively demanding and long problems as more so. Implications for preservice professional development include an increased emphasis on mathematics content knowledge as well as expert modeling of the identification of deep conceptual principles at the heart of the mathematics curriculum.     

eVALUate: an evaluation instrument for measuring students’ perceptions of their engagement and learning outcomes

In the current climate in Australian higher education, quality assurance in university teaching is a priority. In particular, the introduction of the Learning and Teaching Performance Fund (LTPF) has refocused attention on universities’ internal student evaluation survey instruments. This paper reports the development, validation and implementation of a new unit survey instrument which prompts students to reflect on what helps their achievement of unit learning outcomes, and to report their levels of motivation, engagement and overall satisfaction with a semester‐long course or unit of study. The instrument (eVALUate) was created from precepts reported in the research literature, current practices in evaluating teaching, and sound quality assurance practices appropriate to a university outcomes‐focused education paradigm.