Allometric scaling of Wingate anaerobic powertest scores in women

In this study, we developed allometric exponents for scaling Wingate anaerobic test (WAnT) power data that are effective in controlling for body mass (BM) and lean body mass (LBM) and established a normative WAnT data set for college-age women. One hundred women completed a standard WAnT Allometric exponents and percentile ranks for peak (PP) and mean power (MP) were established. Allometric exponents were applied to WAnT scores for an independent sample (n=31) to assess external validity. PP and MP were 477.0 W (SD = 80.0) and 372.6 W (SD = 61.5), respectively. Allometrice exponents for PP and MP scaled for BM were b = 0.92 and b = 0.76, respectively, and for LBM they were b = 0.93 and b = 0.91, respectively. In the independent sample, these exponents produced correlations between allometrically scaled PP and MP and BM of r = -.02 and r = .02, respectively. Correlations between allometrically scaled PP and MP and LBM were r = .004 and r = -.02, respectively. The allometric exponents were effective in partialing out the effect of BM for PP and MP and demonstrated acceptable levels of external validity when applied to an independent sample. The allometric exponents and normative values provide a useful tool for comparing WAnT scores in college-age women without the confounding effects of BM or LBM.     

Creating a Digital Jamaican Sign Language Dictionary: A R2D2 Approach

The Jamaican Association for the Deaf, in their responsibilities to oversee education for individuals who are deaf in Jamaica, has demonstrated an urgent need for a dictionary that assists students, educators, and parents with the practical use of “Jamaican Sign Language.” While paper versions of a preliminary resource have been explored with some success, the need for a digital version, including multimedia, is both timely and boasts better pedagogical potential. In a joint action research project, the author has prepared a pilot DVD in Adobe Acrobat format using a collaborative recursive, reflective design, and development (R2D2) design model. This article addresses the design and concomitant processes involved as the pilot study and feedback loops become implemented.     

Going beyond technology: Knowledge sharing as a tool for enhancing customer-oriented attitudes

Numerous articles, books and essays have shown that ongoing efforts to meet customers’ needs characterize market leaders. For a firm to successfully develop customer-oriented attitudes throughout the entire organization, employees at all levels and sections need to be committed to providing a high level of service. It is therefore essential to understand what drives employees – especially those who do not interact daily with customers – to adopt a customer-oriented attitude. The aim of this study is to shed some light on one facet of this relationship, namely the mechanism of knowledge sharing that may impact employee customer orientation. The underlying notion is that technology, in its various advanced forms of CRM software, enhances and enables client “knowing.” In other words, it leads to a greater ability on the part of employees to share knowledge, which brings about real customer orientation.This paper provides empirical evidence, based on a sample of 345 Hi-Tech workers from a telecommunication company, of a link between sharing explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge to enhance customer orientation. The findings indicate that sharing tacit knowledge has a positive effect on increasing employee customer orientation and increases sharing of explicit knowledge, while also strengthening communication about customers in the organization. It is concluded that firms should encourage tacit knowledge sharing and its transformation by technology into explicit knowledge to augment employees’ customer-oriented attitudes.     

Developing students' referencing skills: a matter of plagiarism,punishment and morality or of learning to write critically?

Just as plagiarism is viewed poorly in the academic community, so is plagiarism viewed poorly in student writing, with a range of sanctions and penalties applying for not displaying academic integrity. Yet learning to cite effectively to progress one's argument, position or understandings is a skill that takes time to develop and hone. This paper examines the skills underlying effective use of citation and the problems students have in citing effectively. It compares these to the messages that beginning students receive about citation through a focus on academic integrity, plagiarism and punishment. It examines the prevalence of plagiarism and the development of citation skills in student writing when the teaching focuses instead on developing critical writing abilities through the skillful selection, use and acknowledgement of sources.     

Building literacy in alphabetic, abjad and morphosyllabic systems

Preschoolers?? metalinguistic and visual capabilities may be associated with the writing system of their culture. We examined patterns of performance in phonological awareness, naming of letters, morphological awareness, and visual-spatial relations, in 5-year-old native speakers of Spanish (n?=?43), Hebrew (n?=?40), and Cantonese (n?=?63) and the relations of these literacy related skills to concurrent word writing and word reading. The writing systems in these languages represent three major categories, i.e., alphabetic (Spanish), abjad (Hebrew), and morphosyllabic (Chinese). Phonological awareness, letter naming, and perception of visual-spatial relations differed across groups, whereas morphological awareness showed a similar level of attainment in all three languages. Stepwise regression analyses explaining writing and reading for each language separately revealed both commonalities and differences between languages. Phonological awareness assessed by initial syllable deletion contributed to writing and to reading in Cantonese and in Spanish. Phonological awareness assessed by final phoneme isolation explained reading in Hebrew, whereas final and initial phoneme isolation explained writing in Hebrew. Letter naming predicted both writing and reading in Spanish and in Hebrew, while perception of visual-spatial relations did so in Cantonese. At age 5, children??s metalinguistic knowledge and visual discrimination abilities are already attuned to the particular features of the writing system to which they are exposed.