Attitudes toward an enemy and personality in a war environment

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of war environment on political attitudes toward an enemy and on personality development. High school students from an Israeli town on the border of “Fatahland” and a town in central Israel were asked to fill out: A questionnaire on their political views toward the Israel-Arab conflict and the Repression-Sensitization (R-S) scale (Byrne et al., 1963). Results showed three factors in the students' political views: (a) Return of the Controversial Territories (Samaria, Judea, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai); (bj Credibility of the Arabs in negotiation; (c) The policy of the previous government in its return of certain territories in Sinai.It was found that the students in the border town were less opposed to return the Controversial Territories than the students in the non-border town. Repressers in both towns gave more credibility to the Arabs in negotiation than did sensitizers. Girls agreed more with the policy of the previous government in its return of the territories in Sinai than boys. Results also showed that the students in the border area as well as boys in both towns were more repressive in their personality type than the students in the more peaceful area and girls of both towns respectively.     

Audience Currencies in the Age of Big Data

ABSTRACT

Audience ratings data have long occupied the attention of marketers and media managers. These are the “currencies” that support the operation of commercial media. Today, metrics can be derived from many large datasets, raising the possibility that new kinds of currencies might emerge. We argue that data on exposure are the most likely to support currencies, and that these might well go beyond traditional measures of audience size and composition. We explore the relationship between the most plausible contenders for audience currencies: size and engagement as measured by time spent. Contrary to the “Law of Double Jeopardy,” we find these metrics to be uncorrelated in an online environment, suggesting that each might have a role to play as a currency. We conclude with a discussion of how the political economy of audience measurement is likely to affect audience currencies in the age of big data.     

International collaborations in learning and teaching: perspectives from a visiting professorship

This article provides a reflection on the outcomes of an international collaboration between health librarians and academics at York St John University and Pacific University Oregon. In particular, it describes how a month‐long visiting professorship from an academic with a clinical librarian background at the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences helped to develop and inform teaching practice in the areas of information literacy and evidence‐based health practice on health programmes at Pacific University. Perspectives are offered from both institutions on the rich exchange of knowledge and practice that took place during the visit and the ongoing impact it has had on teaching practices. H. S.     

Full Steam Ahead: A Conceptual Analysis of User-Supplied Tags on Steam

This article describes a conceptual analysis of user-generated tags applied to video games in the Steam video game distribution system. The research team scraped all user-generated tags available on Steam and then conducted a conceptual analysis of the tags, sorting them into categories and comparing them to the current version of the Video Game Metadata Schema. This analysis allowed the team to identify new metadata elements and terms useful to game players. We present a discussion covering the major issues in organizing the terms, as well as the implications for the future work in the area of video game metadata.     

Segment coupling and coordination variability analyses of the roundhouse kick in taekwondo relative to the initial stance position

The initial stance position (ISP) has been observed as a factor affecting the execution technique during taekwondo kicks. In the present study, authors aimed to analyse a roundhouse kick to the chest by measuring movement coordination and the variability of coordination and comparing this across the different ISP (0°, 45° and 90°). Eight experienced taekwondo athletes performed consecutive kicking trials in random order from every of the three relative positions. The execution was divided into three phases (stance, first swing and second swing phase). A motion capture system was used to measure athletes’ angular displacement of pelvis and thigh. A modified vector coding technique was used to quantify the coordination of the segments which contributed to the overall movement. The variability of this coordination (CV) for each ISP was also calculated. Comparative analysis showed that during the stance phase in the transverse plane, athletes coordinated movement of the trunk and thigh with a higher frequency of in-phase and lower frequency of exclusive thigh rotation in the 0° stance than the 90° stance position (P < 0.05). CV was also influenced by the different ISP. During the first swing and the majority of the second swing phase, predominant in-phase coordination of the pelvis and thigh was observed. Including exercises that require in-phase movement could not only help athletes to acquire coordination stability but also efficiency. The existence of a constraint such as ISP implies an increase of the variability when the athletes have to kick from ISP they are not used to adopt (i.e., 0° and 90° ISP) as an evidence of adaptability in the athletes’ execution technique.