Validity and reliability of rating perceived exertion in women with fibromyalgia: exertion-pain discrimination

The present study aimed (1) to assess the validity and reliability of the Borg category-ratio (CR-10) scale for monitoring exercise intensity in women with fibromyalgia (FM) and (2) to examine whether women with FM can discriminate between perceived exertion and exercise-induced pain. Thirty-three women with FM performed two incremental treadmill tests (1 week separated). Heart rate, oxygen uptake, minute ventilation and respiratory quotient were measured. The ratings of perceived exertion (RPE: CR-10 scale) and exercise-induced pain were obtained at each workload. The Spearman’s correlation of RPE with the physiological responses ranged from 0.69 to 0.79. The regression models explained ~50% of the variability of the studied physiological responses. We found “perfect acceptable” agreement in 69% of the observations. Weighted Kappa was 0.66 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.59–0.72). There were differences between RPE and pain at workloads 3 (1.50; 95%CI: 0.85–2.16), 4 (2.10; 95%CI: 1.23–2.96), 5 (3.40; 95%CI: 1.29–5.51) and 6 (3.97; 95%CI: 1.61–6.33). The main findings of the present study suggest that the Borg CR-10 scale is valid and moderately reliable for monitoring exercise intensity in women with FM, and these patients were able to discriminate between exertion and exercise-induced pain.     

Motor-Cognitive Stimulation of the Elderly

This article shows the cognitive and motor-perceptive effects of the application of a cognitive stimulating program through motor function on 234 elderly people. The assessment was carried out prior to and after the program. Significant improvements in the experimental group were observed (p ≤ .05) in six of the eight measurements. The control group achieved significant improvements (p ≤ .05) in two of the measurements and significant deterioration in motor memory.     

Nothing to do with me! Teachers’ perceptions on cultural diversity in Spanish secondary schools

One of the key effects of globalisation is the extraordinary increase in migratory movements. Spain, a country traditionally accustomed to emigration, has seen a considerable rise in the influx of immigrant population, with notable demographic, social and cultural transformations. Particularly, since the early 90s, schools have been experiencing increasing ethnic diversity in their student enrolments. Especially, over the last 10 years, their presence has multiplied 10-fold, reaching 9.53% of the total student body. Thus, along with linguistic difference, class, gender or ability, the most characteristic feature of Spanish schools in recent years is their multicultural nature. For these reasons, it seems reasonable to focus on how Spanish schools, and particularly teachers, perceive and manage cultural diversity. This article reports on a multiple case design study concerning the teachers’ views on cultural diversity and the impact on daily practice in their classrooms. Participants included 16 teachers, with experience ranging from 2 to 20 years of teaching, from four Spanish secondary schools. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with the teachers from each school were chosen as the research method. Additionally, the principal and four immigrant student families from each school were also interviewed. Further information was obtained through a focus-group interview with the four school counsellors. Over a six-month period, all the interviews and complementary field work were carried out by a researcher in each school. While recognising the efforts to accommodate ethnic groups and immigrant populations, the results indicated that teachers perceive cultural diversity as a particular problem whose management is marginalised and excluded from the set of school activities and teaching practices. Teachers agree that the issue is one of adaptation, a problem to be solved by the students themselves with the support of school counsellors and other educational specialists. This way, neither school policies nor teaching practices assume the commitments arising from cultural diversity, so we cannot say that teachers incorporate it in their work, putting culturally relevant teaching into practice in their classrooms. While one of the benchmarks achieved in recent years is the presence of educational specialists in schools to address cultural diversity, the next step is to create the conditions to articulate a joint and collaborative effort between the teaching body and these professionals, bringing cultural diversity management closer to the classroom. Another pending challenge would be determining how we can best prepare teachers for organising and managing their culturally diverse classrooms. Teachers in these schools are doing their job without a professional knowledge base concerning multicultural education. Therefore, pre-service and in-service teacher education programmes should consider questions related to multicultural education and classroom management, which are absent or rarely taken into account in teacher training to date.     

Models for Adolescent Ministry: Exploring Eight Ecumenical Examples 1

This study addresses eight models for “doing” ecclesial adolescent ministry in the United States from both a Catholic and ecumenical perspective. The article offers youth ministers in the field with creative insights to further enhance their ministry with adolescents. The eight models represent an inclusive theological and pastoral framework on three levels that youth ministers will find helpful. First, the study examines theologically each model under consideration. Second, the article provides pastoral insights for integration into the youth ministry. Third, the essay will address the possible strengths and limitations that a parish youth minister may encounter and find useful. Evangelical, Protestant, and Catholic youth ministers will find each model appropriate and applicable to adolescent needs and church demands as they embark on their valuable and important work.     

Meta‐analyses from a collaborative project in mobile lifelong learning

This paper focuses on the use of mobile technologies in relation to the aims of the European Union's Lifelong Learning programme. First, we explain the background to the notion of mobile lifelong learning. We then present a methodological framework to analyse and identify good practices in mobile lifelong learning, based on the outcomes of the MOTILL project (‘Mobile Technologies in Lifelong Learning: Best Practices’). In particular, we give an account of the methodology adopted to carry out meta‐analyses of published literature and accounts of mobile learning experiences. Furthermore, we present the results of an implementation of our Evaluation Grid and the implications arising from it in terms of management, pedagogy, policies and ethical issues. Finally, we discuss lessons learnt and future work.     

Ageism at university: A comparative analysis of young and older adult students

ABSTRACT

This study undertakes a comparative analysis of the negative stereotypes of older persons described by young and older adult university students at the University of Castilla-La Mancha. This study is innovative in that it compares three analytical perspectives: the perception of young students (18–27 years); the perception of older adult students (50 years and above) regarding older persons (hetero-stereotypes); and, finally, the perception of older adult students with regard to themselves as part of the group of older adult students (self-stereotypes).

The sample is made up of 460 young students and 148 older adult students who completed the Questionnaire on Negative Ageing Stereotypes (QNAS), comprising three dimensions: health; character and personality; and social relationships and motivation. A statistical analysis was subsequently carried out using the independent samples t-test in the IBM Statistics 19.0 program.

Of note among the principal results is the low level of negative stereotypes reported among the groups studied, as well as the existence of significant differences in their means, which indicate that the negative stereotypes of the groups differed. The most stereotyped of the dimensions analyzed was character and personality. In contrast, the least-stereotyped dimension was that of social relationships and motivation. Finally, the dimension of health occupied an intermediate position. With regard to the three perspectives studied, the older adult group (hetero-stereotypes) was the most stereotyped, followed by the young students and, finally, the older adult students with reference to self-stereotypes.     

Association of physical fitness and fatness with cognitive function in women with fibromyalgia

This study assessed the association of fitness and fatness with cognitive function in women with fibromyalgia, and the independent influence of their single components on cognitive tasks. A total of 468 women with fibromyalgia were included. Speed of information processing and working memory (Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task), as well as immediate and delayed recall, verbal learning and delayed recognition (Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test) were assessed. Aerobic fitness, muscle strength, flexibility and motor agility were assessed with the Senior Fitness Test battery. Body mass index, percent body fat, fat-mass index and waist circumference were measured. Aerobic fitness was associated with attention and working memory (all, p < 0.05). All fitness components were generally associated with delayed recall, verbal learning and delayed recognition (all, p < 0.05). Aerobic fitness showed the most powerful association with attention, working memory, delayed recall and verbal learning, while motor agility was the most powerful indicator of delayed recognition. None of the fatness parameters were associated with any of the outcomes (all, p > 0.05). Our results suggest that fitness, but not fatness, is associated with cognitive function in women with fibromyalgia. Aerobic fitness appears to be the most powerful fitness component regarding the cognitive tasks evaluated.     

From soul to matter: the new Spanish Francoist pedagogy’s plunge into experimental pedagogy and the influence of Raymond Buyse

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the approach to experimental pedagogy adopted by the new Spanish pedagogy which arose after Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War. To this end, it first outlines the spiritualist and anti-scientific approaches which prevailed in the new pedagogy of the postwar era, before charting the survival, lying beneath this anti-modernist rhetoric, of an experimental tradition linked to certain clergymen. It then shows how the leading pedagogue of Franco’s Spain, Víctor García Hoz, ended up endorsing this school of thought, and analyses the influence in this evolution of the neo-scholasticism of the University of Louvain and the experimental pedagogy developed by Raymond Buyse, who maintained close ties with Spain throughout the 1940s. The paper also focuses on the key role played by Spanish pedagogy in the construction of an international network of Catholic pedagogues. Finally, a number of explanatory hypotheses are presented to explain the paradox posed by this endorsement of the more scientific version of pedagogy by a vehemently Catholic group of academics.     

Robust observer design by sign-stability for the monitoring of population systems

Monitoring problem in population ecology can be formalized as observer design for the population system in question: Supposing that we observe only certain species considered indicators, we want to recover or estimate the whole state process of the population system, where the state vector is usually composed from the biomasses of the single populations. In the present paper, for stably coexisting population systems, a new approach to the design of the corresponding observer system is proposed which, from the knowledge of the observed indicator(s), estimates the state process with exponential convergence. In the usual observer design, an auxiliary matrix, the so-called gain matrix must be found that guarantees the mentioned exponential convergence. The novelty is in that due to the required sign-stability (or qualitative stability) of the interaction pattern, the designed observer system (i.e. the gain matrix) is robust against quantitative changes in the inter- and intra-specific interactions. (Here the interaction pattern is described by a matrix having the signs as entries, indicating the quality of the interactions within and between the considered species.) In other words, under sign-stability conditions, in the observer design the same gain matrix can be used even if, due to environmental changes, the intensities of certain interactions suffer a quantitative change in the meanwhile. The requirement of sign-stability of the interaction pattern can be considered rather natural, since in a stably coexisting population system, it means for example that a predator–prey relation does not change into a prey–predator interaction, and interactions neither appear nor disappear within the system. Our approach to robust observer design is illustrated on model population systems, such as trophic chains of type resource-producer-primary consumer-secondary consumer and Lotka–Volterra system with vertical structure. For the latter system a Lyapunov function is also constructed that guarantees the global asymptotic stability of the positive equilibrium of the considered model.     

A new space for a new science: the transformation of the JAE Campus after the Spanish Civil War

This article explores the way in which different concepts of education are expressed through architecture. It analyses the case of the transformation of the campus of the Colina de los Chopos in Madrid after the Spanish Civil War. The victor’s vision for education was captured physically in a new space that expressed the opposite values to those of the precedent democratic period. Francoism aspired to erase every physical trace of the Spanish liberal and democratic culture. Thus, a new campus was designed to stress physically new scientific, cultural and educational values. Aesthetically the former austerity and rationalism were substituted by monumentality and historicism; symbolically, the submission of any kind of knowledge to religion was highlighted through the transformation of the former Auditorium into a church and the erection of several religious monuments.