The impact of different types of physical activity on total and regional bone mineral density in young Brazilian athletes

Bone turnover is affected by exercise throughout the lifespan, especially during childhood and adolescence. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of different sports on total and regional bone mineral density in male Brazilian adolescent athletes. Forty-six adolescents aged 10-18 years participated in the study: 12 swimmers, 10 tennis players, 10 soccer players, and 14 sedentary individuals. The athletes had engaged in physical activities for more than 10 h per week in the previous 6 months. Bone mineral density of the lumbar spine (L1-L4), left proximal femur region, and whole body was evaluated by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Results showed higher mean values in the proximal femur region of tennis and soccer players (1.02 ± 0.18; 0.96 ± 0.16, respectively) than swimmers and controls (0.91 ± 0.14 and 0.87 ± 0.06, respectively) (P < 0.05). In relation to the impact of sporting activities based on bone age determination, we observed significant differences in bone mineral density at all evaluated sites at the end of puberty (16-18 years) compared with 10-12 years, with increases of 78% in the lumbar spine, 47% in the proximal femur, and 38% in the whole body.     

The relationship between work conditions and perceptions of organizational justice among library employees

Library employees hold perceptions about the fairness of the outcomes, processes, and interpersonal treatment in their workplaces. When employees feel the workplace is fair they are more likely to feel commitment to the organization, perform in-role and extra-role tasks, and experience job satisfaction. When employees perceive injustice in the workplace, research points to negative outcomes such as withholding work or even sabotage. To understand the antecedents of organizational justice, researchers carried out a national survey of librarians to compare the predictive power of perceived organizational support, job autonomy, job feedback, and job stress. Results indicate that increasing librarians' perceptions of organizational support and their autonomy, and providing meaningful and timely job feedback can increase overall perceptions of justice. Managers can enhance a climate of justice in their workplaces by developing strategies that target organization support, autonomy, and feedback to reduce a sense of injustice between and among employees.     

Promoting Inquiry-Based Teaching in Laboratory Courses: Are We Meeting the Grade?

Over the past decade, repeated calls have been made to incorporate more active teaching and learning in undergraduate biology courses. The emphasis on inquiry-based teaching is especially important in laboratory courses, as these are the courses in which students are applying the process of science. To determine the current state of research on inquiry-based teaching in undergraduate biology laboratory courses, we reviewed the recent published literature on inquiry-based exercises. The majority of studies in our data set were in the subdisciplines of biochemistry, cell biology, developmental biology, genetics, and molecular biology. In addition, most exercises were guided inquiry, rather than open ended or research based. Almost 75% of the studies included assessment data, with two-thirds of these studies including multiple types of assessment data. However, few exercises were assessed in multiple courses or at multiple institutions. Furthermore, assessments were rarely based on published instruments. Although the results of the studies in our data set show a positive effect of inquiry-based teaching in biology laboratory courses on student learning gains, research that uses the same instrument across a range of courses and institutions is needed to determine whether these results can be generalized.     

Literacy for All: a Consideration of the Many Opportunities for Language Acquisition

There are lots of opportunities in a classroom day for the development of literacy. Reading aloud to children is one of the most important of these. Carole Silva here reminds us of the potential of this activity and gives several practical suggestions for working with children.     

Human capital and innovation: the importance of the optimal organizational task structure

Management literature has identified high-skilled human capital as a crucial dimension of innovation processes at the firm level. In this study, we introduce an alternative view of human capital based on the tasks that firms’ workers perform. We propose a measure of cognitive analytical and interpersonal tasks: the degree of abstractism. We argue that the level of abstractism of a firm has an effect on a firm's propensity to innovate and on its product innovation performance. We hypothesize that while the degree of abstractism has a linear positive relationship with the propensity to innovate, the relationship between abstractism and product innovation performance follows an inverted u-shaped relationship. We find partial support to our hypotheses using data from more than six thousand Portuguese firms. We discuss how these results change our understanding of the relationship between human capital and innovation at the firm level.     

论美国会计准则的国际协调

会计准则国际趋同已成为大势所趋,美国在此过程中更加注重国际会计准则的高质量,即满足可比性、透明度、充分性等重要特征．这就表明美国在迫于各方压力不得不开展会计准则国际趋同工作的同时,也不愿放弃原本已较为完善的公认会计原则,并试图以高质量作为条件使IFRS与美国GAAP趋同．在此背景下,加强中美会计对话,促使美国认同中国的会计准则,无疑具有重要的现实和长远意义．     

Training and psychosocial patterns during the early development of Portuguese national team athletes

This study explored the early development of expert athletes compared to a group of athletes that did not achieve an expert level of performance despite being involved in youth events with their national squads. In particular, the activities, training patterns, and psychosocial influences that characterized their paths in competitive sports were examined. Male and female participants (N?=?42) from different sports were interviewed. Overall, athletes showed several commonalities. However, experts were selected to national squads later and also started thinking about investing in becoming elite athletes later. Non-experts revealed more parental pressure and less individual training with coaches.