The relationships between exercise intensity, heart rate, and blood pressure during an incremental isometric exercise test

Currently, it is not possible to prescribe isometric exercise at an intensity that corresponds to given heart rates or systolic blood pressures. This might be useful in optimizing the effects of isometric exercise training. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the relationships between isometric exercise intensity and both heart rate and systolic blood pressure during repeated incremental isometric exercise tests. Fifteen participants performed seated isometric double-leg knee extension, during which maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) was assessed, using an isokinetic dynamometer. From this, a corresponding peak electromyographic activity (EMG(peak)) was determined. Subsequently, participants performed two incremental isometric exercise tests (at least 48 h apart) at 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30% EMG(peak), during which steady-state heart rate and systolic blood pressure were recorded. In all participants, there were linear relationships between %EMG(peak) and heart rate (r at least 0.91; P < 0.05) and between %EMG(peak) and systolic blood pressure (r at least 0.92; P < 0.05). Also, when repeated tests were compared, there were no differences in the slopes (P > 0.50) or elevations (P > 0.10) for either of the relationships. Therefore, these linear relationships could be used to identify isometric exercise training intensities that correspond to precise heart rates or systolic blood pressures. Training performed in this way might provide greater insight into the underlying mechanisms for the cardiovascular adaptations that are known to occur as a result.     

The Right Stuff in the Right Place: The Institution of Contemporary Art

Abstract A long walk in the “world” of contemporary art gives multiple views of interlocking ecologies that, in their particularities, contradict the stereotypes suggested by language, invert “north” and “south,” question what is “traditional” in artistic practices, reflect on the intermix of society and art, glimpse the colonial mind in postmodern dress, and illuminate a restless subculture of professional migrants. What does our ramble reveal about the institution of contemporary art? “Diversity” hardly seems an adequate word.     

Contextual factors affecting the utility of surrogates within exploratory search

In this paper we investigate how information surrogates might be useful in exploratory search and what information it is useful for a surrogate to contain. By comparing assessments based on artificially created information surrogates, we investigate the effect of the source of information, the quality of an information source and the date of information upon the assessment process. We also investigate how varying levels of topical knowledge, assessor confidence and prior expectation affect the assessment of information surrogates. We show that both types of contextual information affect how the information surrogates are judged and what actions are performed as a result of the surrogates.     

Testing a model of antecedents and consequences of defensive pessimism and self-handicapping in school physical education

There has been very limited research on the use of self-worth protection strategies in the achievement context of school physical education (PE). Thus the aim of the present study was to examine some antecedents and consequences of defensive pessimism and self-handicapping. The sample comprised 534 British pupils (275 females, 259 males) recruited from two schools who responded to established questionnaires. Results of structural equation modelling analysis indicated that self-handicapping and defensive pessimism were positively predicted by fear of failure and negatively predicted by competence valuation. In addition, defensive pessimism was negatively predicted by physical self-concept. In turn, defensive pessimism negatively predicted enjoyment in PE and intentions to participate in future optional PE programmes. Self-handicapping did not predict enjoyment or intentions. Results from multi-sample structural equation modelling showed the specified model to be largely invariant across males and females. The findings indicate that although both strategies aim to protect one's self-worth, some of their antecedents and consequences in PE may differ.     

Electron coincidence spectroscopy: a new way of looking into matter

In electron coincidence spectroscopy, kinematically complete measurements are made of symmetric ionising collisions initiated by an electron beam on a gaseous atomic or molecular target. The reaction measures the shapes of individual orbitals, and provides a sensitive measurement of the charge density far from the atomic nuclei. The technique promises to be of outstanding importance in developing an improved understanding of molecular structures.     

Great Teaching and the Fullness of Life

Abstract

Issues in Academic Freedom George S. Worgul, Jr., editor Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1992, 184 pages, $32.50 Reviewed by Robert L. Spaeth

A Different Sort of Time: The Life of Jerrold R. Zacharias, Scientist, Engineer, Educator By Jack S. Goldstein Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1992, 310 pages, $35.00 Reviewed by Frieda A. Stahl     

Students' perceptions of teaching and learning in first-year university physics

The transition from school to university involves substantial change in the structure and organization of teaching, and in the nature and purpose of learning contexts. This paper, which reports some data from a broader study of learning and teaching in first year university physics, focuses on aspects of the school-university transition. In particular, we report perceptions of first year physics students about how they should learn physics, what it is intended they should learn, and what they believe to be the functions of the various teaching situations in which they are placed.     

The contradictory managerialism of university quality assurance

This paper investigates how Australian universities are being disciplined to behave as commercial enterprises by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA). The manual produced by AUQA, for the purpose of conducting audits of Australian universities, is analysed. I use an analytical framework that provides a means by which a text from the ‘manual’ genre can be analysed with respect to social and political contexts, using Critical Discourse Analysis. I analyse changes in the language used in subsequent editions of the manual, drawing inferences about how the AUQA manual constructs universities to behave as particular kinds of business entities. Depictions of the globalised and virtualised university are silenced in the texts. Contrary to the rhetoric of the university being a flexible, globalised enterprise, I find that universities are constructed as localised businesses appearing to be independent of direct government control but nevertheless constrained in the scope of their operation.     

Economic ‘revelations’ and the metaphors of the meltdown: an educational deconstruction

This article subjects contemporary informed discourse on the Credit Crunch/Great Recession/Long Recession to educational analysis and deconstruction. Such pro‐capitalist but not uncritical discourse is well represented by the UK Financial Times, whose columns between 2008 and 2012 comprise most of our data. We argue that the metaphors of the ‘meltdown’ are significant and performative, allowing variously moralised narratives to emerge as implicit diagnoses and remedies. In particular we identify a ‘domestic’ register of metaphors whose contained and homely tropes of austerity, prudence, book‐balancing and so on stand in dramatic contrast to a more melodramatic register, centring on various disaster scenarios. What is of most interest is that financial journalists and commentators switch between these registers, and allow ‘crossovers’ between them which are powerful in their discursive effects and political persuasiveness. These metaphorical discursive resources are intimately connected to the sorts of educational registers that characterise the ‘knowledge economy’. We conclude that our cultural ability to tell these sorts of stories rests as much on an underlying moral and theological storying as it does on any ‘scientific’ economic account (if such there can be, which we doubt). In this way we seek to educate economic discourses that are, as it were, ‘economical with the truth’.