Movement planning reflects skill level and age changes in toddlers

Kinematic measures of children's reaching were found to reflect stable differences in skill level for planning for future actions. Thirty-five toddlers (18-21 months) were engaged in building block towers (precise task) and in placing blocks into an open container (imprecise task). Sixteen children were retested on the same tasks a year later. Longer deceleration as the hand approached the block for pickup was found in the tower task compared with the imprecise task, indicating planning for the second movement. More skillful toddlers who could build high towers had a longer deceleration phase when placing blocks on the tower than toddlers who built low towers. Kinematic differences between the groups remained a year later when all children could build high towers.     

Analysis of author affiliation across four school psychology journals from 2000 to 2008: Where is the practitioner research?

Articles published between 2000 and 2008 in four major school psychology journals—School Psychology Review, Journal of School Psychology, Psychology in the Schools, and School Psychology Quarterly—were classified based on type (empirical or narrative) and on the primary and secondary authors' affiliations. Results showed that more than 90% of the primary and secondary authors were university affiliated with little difference across article type. Although more than 85% of school psychologists are practitioners, these results suggest that their contributions to these school psychology journals are limited because they account for less than 10% of the authors of articles. Discussion focuses on practitioners' involvement in the research base that is intended to inform their professional behaviors. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Transfers of user process innovations to process equipment producers: A study of Dutch high-tech firms

A detailed survey of 498 high technology small and medium-sized enterprises in the Netherlands shows process innovation by user firms to be common practice. Fifty-four percent of these firms reported developing entirely novel process equipment or software for their own use and/or modifying these, both at significant private expense. Twenty-five percent of the user innovations in our sample were transferred to commercializing producer firms. Many transfers were made without any direct compensation. Very importantly from the perspective of effective diffusion of user innovations, innovations with higher commercial potential - and more general appeal for users - are much more likely to be transferred to producers. The pattern we document of frequent innovation by individual user firms at substantial cost, followed in many cases by voluntary, no-charge information spillovers to producers, suggests that “open source economics” may be a general pattern in the economy.     

“Pyramiding: Efficient search for rare subjects”

The need to economically identify rare subjects within large, poorly mapped search spaces is a frequently encountered problem for social scientists and managers. It is notoriously difficult, for example, to identify “the best new CEO for our company,” or the “best three lead users to participate in our product development project.” Mass screening of entire populations or samples becomes steadily more expensive as the number of acceptable solutions within the search space becomes rarer.The search strategy of “pyramiding” is a potential solution to this problem under many conditions. Pyramiding is a search process based upon the idea that people with a strong interest in a topic or field tend to know people more expert than themselves. In this paper we report upon four experiments empirically exploring the efficiency of pyramiding searches relative to mass screening. We find that pyramiding on average identified the most expert individual in a group on a specific topic with only 28.4% of the group interviewed - a great efficiency gain relative to mass screening. Further, pyramiding identified one of the top 3 experts in a population after interviewing only 15.9% of the group on average. We discuss conditions under which the pyramiding search method is likely to be efficient relative to screening.     

A theoretical framework for productive education

having held various posts specializing in educational administration in different private institutions in California. Author of several articles dealing with the issue of productive work combined with academic study.     

Visual-spatial strength in dyslexia: rapid discrimination of impossible figures

It has often been conjectured that visual-spatial talents accompany dyslexia. But do individuals with dyslexia have unusual visual-spatial talents? Individuals with dyslexia were compared to controls on two computer-based visual-spatial tasks in two studies. In accordance with a diverging ability hypothesis, it was predicted that the dyslexia group would perform better on a global task, identifying impossible figures, and worse on a feature-oriented task, matching figures. These hypotheses were partially supported. On the global task, the dyslexia group was faster but no more accurate than the control group at identifying impossible objects. On the feature-oriented task, the control group outperformed the dyslexia group. The results indicate that the diverging ability hypothesis of dyslexia merits further investigation.     

Inventive progress measured by multi-stage patent citation analysis

Studies of technological change constitute a field of growing importance and sophistication. In this paper we contribute to the discussion with a methodological reflection and application of multi-stage patent citation analysis for the measurement of inventive progress. Investigating specific patterns of patent citation data, we conclude that single-stage citation analysis cannot reveal technological paths or lineages. Therefore, one should also make use of indirect citations and bibliographical coupling. To measure aspects of cumulative inventive progress, we develop a “shared specialization measure” of patent families. We relate this measure to an expert rating of the technological value added in the field of variable valve actuation for internal combustion engines. In sum, the study presents promising evidence for multi-stage patent citation analysis in order to explain aspects of technological change.     

Gender matters in transition to adulthood: A survey study of adolescents with disabilities and their families

This survey study explored gender differences in transition imperatives and opportunities for youth with disabilities (N = 521). Results indicated that males and females differ in terms of the adult outcomes they hope to achieve, transition training opportunities they have received, and their access to teachers and other nonfamilial adults to assist them. Youth and parents who responded to the survey indicated that gender stereotypes continue to exist and that these stereotypes result in lowered expectations for girls. Gender stereotypes were found to vary by ethnicity. Access to health insurance and a good doctor were rated as top priorities for all youth transitioning to adulthood. Implications for educators, psychologists, and counselors are discussed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.