The many faces of mobility: Using bibliometric data to measure the movement of scientists

This paper presents a methodological framework for developing scientific mobility indicators based on bibliometric data. We identify nearly 16 million individual authors from publications covered in the Web of Science for the 2008–2015 period. Based on the information provided across individuals’ publication records, we propose a general classification for analyzing scientific mobility using institutional affiliation changes. We distinguish between migrants--authors who have ruptures with their country of origin--and travelers--authors who gain additional affiliations while maintaining affiliation with their country of origin. We find that 3.7% of researchers who have published at least one paper over the period are mobile. Travelers represent 72.7% of all mobile scholars, but migrants have higher scientific impact. We apply this classification at the country level, expanding the classification to incorporate the directionality of scientists’ mobility (i.e., incoming and outgoing). We provide a brief analysis to highlight the utility of the proposed taxonomy to study scholarly mobility and discuss the implications for science policy.     

Non-formal education,personhood and the corrosive power of neoliberalism

The aim of this paper is to explore the extent to which non-formal education is being corroded by neoliberal values. Given non-formal education is frequently used to develop young people’s notions of citizenship, and that non-formal education providers are increasingly forced to operate within the free-market paradigm, it is significant to consider what forms of personhood are being championed. Qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and observations with coaches and young people from a youth sports charity in the UK. Focusing on a core aspect of non-formal education – caring relationships (as understood by Nel Noddings and Carl Rogers) – the findings suggest that the quality of coaches’ care for young people was conditioned by the extent to which adolescents re-shaped their personhood to align with neoliberal values of individual responsibility and discipline. Thus, the meanings of ‘care’ and ‘good citizenship’ were corroded by a neoliberal rationality.     

An Investigation of the Potential of Interactive Simulations for Developing System Thinking Skills in Elementary School: A case study with fifth‐graders and sixth‐graders

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a simulation‐based learning environment on elementary school students’ (11–12 years old) development of system thinking skills. The learning environment included interactive simulations using the Stagecast Creator software to simulate the ecosystem of a marsh. Simulations are an important tool in any effort to develop system thinking, because they have the potential to highlight the dynamic nature of systems. Before the implementation of the learning environment (over a period of five 90‐min lessons) two written tests were administered to the students, investigating the development of seven aspects of system thinking. The same tests were administered after the implementation. Specifically, four of the tasks included in each test were associated with skills concerning the structure and the elements of a system and three were associated with the processes and interactions taking place within a system. The findings indicated that elementary school students have the potential to develop system thinking skills. The proposed learning environment provoked considerable improvements in some system thinking skills during a relatively brief learning process. However, the learning environment was not successful in promoting feedback thinking. We interpret these results in view of the difficulties encountered by the students. We also discuss the implications of our findings for the design of learning environments.     

Redesign and initial validation of an instrument to assess the motivational qualities of music in exercise: The Brunel Music Rating Inventory-2

Abstract

In the present study, a measure to assess the motivational qualities of music in exercise was redesigned, extending previous research efforts (Karageorghis et al., 1999 Karageorghis, C. I., Terry, P. C. and Lane, A. M. 1999. Development and initial validation of an instrument to assess the motivational qualities of music in exercise and sport: The Brunel Music Rating Inventory. Journal of Sports Sciences, 17: 713–724. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The original measure, the Brunel Music Rating Inventory (BMRI), had shown limitations in its factor structure and its applicability to non-experts in music selection. Redesign of the BMRI used in-depth interviews with eight participants (mean age 31.9 years, s = 8.9 years) to establish the initial item pool, which was examined using a series of confirmatory factor analyses. A single-factor model provided a good fit across three musical selections with different motivational qualities (comparative fit index, CFI: 0.95–0.98; standardized root mean residual, SRMR: 0.03–0.05). The single-factor model also demonstrated acceptable fit across two independent samples and both sexes using one piece of music (CFI: 0.86–1.00; SRMR: 0.04–0.07). The BMRI was designed for experts in selecting music for exercise (e.g. dance aerobic instructors), whereas the BMRI-2 can be used both by exercise instructors and participants. The psychometric properties of the BMRI-2 are stronger than those of the BMRI and it is easier to use. The BMRI-2 provides a valid and internally consistent tool by which music can be selected to accompany a bout of exercise or a training session. Furthermore, the BMRI-2 enables researchers to standardize music in experimental protocols involving exercise-related tasks.     

Music in the exercise domain: a review and synthesis (Part II)

Since a 1997 review by Karageorghis and Terry, which highlighted the state of knowledge and methodological weaknesses, the number of studies investigating musical reactivity in relation to exercise has swelled considerably. In this two-part review paper, the development of conceptual approaches and mechanisms underlying the effects of music are explicated (Part I), followed by a critical review and synthesis of empirical work (spread over Parts I and II). Pre-task music has been shown to optimise arousal, facilitate task-relevant imagery and improve performance in simple motoric tasks. During repetitive, endurance-type activities, self-selected, motivational and stimulative music has been shown to enhance affect, reduce ratings of perceived exertion, improve energy efficiency and lead to increased work output. There is evidence to suggest that carefully selected music can promote ergogenic and psychological benefits during high-intensity exercise, although it appears to be ineffective in reducing perceptions of exertion beyond the anaerobic threshold. The effects of music appear to be at their most potent when it is used to accompany self-paced exercise or in externally valid conditions. When selected according to its motivational qualities, the positive impact of music on both psychological state and performance is magnified. Guidelines are provided for future research and exercise practitioners.     

Interprofessional/multiprofessional health professions education: designing an efficient search to scope the literature of this exploding field

Background and objective: With the advent of an interprofessional approach to delivering health care in today's health care systems, should health care professionals be educated together? Supported by policy‐making circles worldwide, interprofessional education is accumulating a research literature at an exponential rate. Using one‐word search terms in the medline query box for scoping this body of literature, we obtained an unmanageable number of articles (342 338 in all fields). The objective of our study was to outline an efficient specific query. Methods: We created 1072 phrasal search terms consisting of a prefix, an adjective and a noun. Of those, 66 were prolific for the whole indexed period (1950–2006). Results: Only 2510 citations have the search term in all medline fields; of those 2049 were in title/abstract and 652 in title alone. From the 1950s, the citations were published at a slow rate, but the rate then exploded during the decade 1995 to 2006. The combination of prefixes ‘inter’ and ‘multi’ with the adjectives ‘professional’, ‘disciplinary’ and ‘shared’, and the nouns ‘education’, ‘learning’ and ‘training’ may retrieve almost all the relevant citations, while the terms ‘collaborative’ and ‘common’ may retrieve mainly irrelevant ones. The adjective ‘cohesive’ and nouns ‘practice’ and ‘role’ should be also considered. Conclusion: Phrasal search terms highly increased the relevance of medline ‐retrieved citations.     

Multireceiver architecture analysis of a synchronous WDMA protocol

In this paper, we propose the design and analysis of a reservation-based protocol for synchronous WDM multi-channel optical networks. The network architecture is based on a passive star topology and a new architecture for the network interface per station. The main objective of the scheduling algorithm and network interface is to maximize the performance measures by studying the problem of receiver collision phenomena at destination that multichannel nature of WDM networks introduces. We develop an analytical model based on a finite number of tunable receivers and a finite number of stations, following the “tell and go” policy for the access to communication system. Numerical results are showing the performance behavior for various number of channels, stations, and tunable receivers. Also, simulation results are presented for comparison with the results obtained by the performance analysis.     

An adaptive controller for nonlinear teleoperators with variable time-delays

In most real-life bilateral teleoperators the available physical parameters are uncertain and the communications exhibit variable time-delays. In order to confront these situations and only assuming that a bound of the time-delays is known, the present work reports an adaptive controller which ensures asymptotic convergence of both position errors and velocities to zero, provided that a sufficient condition on the control gains is met. Compared to previous related works that only treated constant time-delays, the stability analysis does not rely on the cascade interconnection structure of the local and remote nonlinear dynamics and the linear interconnection map. Instead, the paper employs a different Lyapunov candidate function that incorporates a strictly positive term, the local and remote position error. Some simulations, in free space and interacting with a rigid wall, and experiments, using two nonlinear manipulators, illustrate the performance of the proposed control scheme in the presence of uncertain parameters and variable time-delays.     

Laser-based patterning for fluidic devices in nitrocellulose

In this report, we demonstrate a simple and low cost method that can be reproducibly used for fabrication of microfluidic devices in nitrocellulose. The fluidic patterns are created via a laser-based direct-write technique that induces polymerisation of a photo-polymer previously impregnated in the nitrocellulose. The resulting structures form hydrophobic barriers that extend through the thickness of the nitrocellulose and define an interconnected hydrophilic fluidic-flow pattern. Our experimental results show that using this method it is possible to achieve microfluidic channels with lateral dimensions of ∼100 μm using hydrophobic barriers that form the channel walls with dimensions of ∼60 μm; both of these values are considerably smaller than those that can be achieved with other current techniques used in the fabrication of nitrocellulose-based fluidic devices. A simple grid patterned nitrocellulose device was then used for the detection of C-reactive protein via a sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, which served as a useful proof-of-principle experiment.