Validity of self-reported sedentary time differs between Australian rural men engaged in office and farming occupations

Rural Australians have a higher likelihood of chronic disease than urban Australians, particularly male farmers. Chronic disease has been associated with occupational sedentary time. The aim was to validate the self-report of sedentary time in men in contrasting rural occupations. Farmers (n = 29) and office workers (n = 28), age 30–65 years, were recruited from the Riverland region of South Australia. Daily sedentary time and number of breaks in sedentary time were self-reported and measured objectively using body-worn inclinometers. Correlational analyses were conducted between self-reported and objectively measured variables, separately by occupation. There was a significant correlation between self-reported and objectively measured sedentary time in the whole sample (r = 0.44, P = 0.001). The correlation among office workers was significant (r = 0.57, P = 0.003) but not among farmers (r = 0.08, P = 0.68). There were no significant correlations between self-reported and measured number of breaks in sedentary time, for the whole sample (rho = ?0.03, P = 0.83), office workers (rho = 0.17, P = 0.39) and farmers (rho = ?0.22, P = 0.25). In conclusion, the validity of self-report of sedentary behaviours by farmers was poor. Further research is needed to develop better performing self-report instruments or more accessible objective measures of sedentary behaviour in this population.     

The rule counts! Acquisition of mathematical competencies with a number board game

The study evaluates the linear number board game 100 House. Taking into account Krajewski's (2003, 2013) development model of mathematical competencies, this game supports the development of mathematical competencies in 6-year-old children. The board game design is based on the American cognitive alignment framework approach and aims to enhance the number board game Race to Space (Laski & Siegler, 2014). German 6-year-old children (N = 48) received four game-playing sessions, either counting on from their current position on the board game (count-on condition) or counting their steps from one (count-from-1 condition). In a pretest, posttest, and follow-up session, children's mathematical performance was assessed. The results show that playing the game led to stable improvements, especially in mathematical competencies of the first and second level of the underlying development model. Children in the count-on condition displayed a greater benefit. Supporting mathematical competencies by playing number board games is discussed.     

Conditioned inhibition of analgesia

Stimuli that predict the occurrence of aversive events come to elicit conditioned analgesia. Experiments 1A and 1B examined the possibility that conditioning can inhibit analgesia when stimuli are paired in a backward fashion with a shock US (Pavlovian CS- s). Analgesia conditioned in response to shock context exposure was reversed during the CS- (light) presentation after four sessions. The ability of the CS- to function as a conditioned inhibitor of analgesia was then evaluated in both summation (Experiment 1A) and retardation-of-acquisition testing (Experiments 1A and 1B). The results support the conclusion that a stimulus presented after shock in a backward fashion comes to be a conditioned inhibitor of analgesia. Experiments 2A and 2B examined the assumption that the results obtained with our pain sensitivity measure (tailflicking in response to radiant heat) reflect changes in responsiveness to painful input, rather than a general motor inhibition or general insensitivity to sensory input. In Experiment 2A, tailflick responding to painful and nonpainful input was compared in animals receiving either morphine or saline. In Experiment 2B, tailflick responding to painful and nonpainful input to the tail was compared in both the shock and a neutral context. In both experiments, only the painful input yielded changes in responsivity. The results support the conclusion that the alterations in pain sensitivity produced by the CS- for shock represents a conditioned inhibition specific to pain.     

Conditioned and unconditioned stress-induced analgesia: Stimulus preexposure and stimulus change

Aversive events such as electric shock lead to analgesia. There have been differing views with regard to whether the aversive event itself can lead to analgesia as a direct unconditioned reaction, or whether the analgesia is instead a reaction to fear conditioned to cues present during shock or to other associative processes initiated by the aversive event. Maier (1989, 1990) has argued that aversive events such as shock lead to both types of analgesia, with the type observed depending on test conditions. Unconditioned analgesia was argued to be present soon after shock, with conditioned analgesia replacing the unconditioned form if the subject is allowed to remain in the shock environment. Consistent with this argument, the experiments reported here show that (1) preexposure to the environment in which shock later occurs has no effect on the analgesia soon after shock, but eliminates the later analgesia; (2) the initial postshock analgesia is unaffected by removing the subject from the shock environment to a different environment, but the later reaction is prevented by such a change; (3) returning the subject to the shock environment after confinement in a nonshock environment rearouses an analgesic reaction; and (4) this rearousal does not occur if the subject has first been confined to the shock environment without shock.     

Finnish Mothers’ and Fathers’ Constructions of and Emotions in Their Daily Lives

This article focuses on parents’ construction of and emotions in their everyday lives. The study brings into focus the meanings in the foreground of everyday life, while also revealing new insights into cultural beliefs and prejudices. Interviews were conducted with five nuclear and four divorced families, and each participant (N?=?18) was interviewed twice. The second interview was a photo-narrative interview, for which each participant took photographs pertaining to their daily life. Content and thematic analysis were applied to the data. Three main categories of everyday life emerged from the data: family daily life, couples’ daily life, and one’s own daily life. The importance of and pleasure derived from one’s own daily life were emphasized as the foundation of well-being for both the individual and the whole family.     

Foreword

Tertiary Education and Management -     

Vergleichsarbeiten im Vergleich – Akzeptanz und wahrgenommener Nutzen standardbasierter Leistungsmessungen in Baden-Württemberg und Thüringen

Test-based reforms of schools and teaching have become popular instruments of German educational policy. However, performance assessment and its implementation differ widely between the German states. The differences between the comparative tests used in Thuringia (years 6 and 8) and Baden-Württemberg (year 6) are particularly clear. For instance, the Thuringia competency tests are embedded within an extensive concept for teachers’ continual professional development and the teachers receive fair, criteria-based feedback. A quantitative teacher survey in both German states (n=1136) was carried out in order to find out whether these differences led to differences in the respective teachers’ acceptance and appraisal of the tests and whether the test results initiated internal discussions amongst teachers. The results show that teachers from Thuringia had a higher acceptance and estimation of curricular validity, uses of the data for learning diagnosis and for future lesson planning. Singularly, the use of the central test results to mark students received a higher evaluation from teachers in Baden-Württemberg. The tests results are also more frequently the subject of systematic discussions in school forums in Thuringia.     

Adverse events and placebo effects: African scientists, HIV, and ethics in the 'global health sciences'

This paper builds on the growing literature in 'postcolonial technoscience' by examining how science and ethics travel in transnational HIV research. I use examples of two controversial US-funded studies of mother-to-child transmission in Africa as case studies through which to explore quandaries of difference and inequality in global health research. My aim is not to adjudicate the debates over these studies, but rather to raise some questions about transnational research, science, and ethics that often get lost in public controversies over the moral status of such trials. Using interviews conducted with American and Ugandan HIV researchers as well as relevant material published in the popular and medical press, I argue that debates over research practice and the conditions under which practices are deemed ethically legitimate or questionable reflect the challenges faced by African researchers seeking to participate in global health science. In doing so, I show how questions of scientific legitimacy and authority are played out in debates over who decides what constitutes 'the normal' in human biological research and who can legitimately 'speak for Africa' regarding the ethics of research design and practice. I conclude that researchers from'resource-poor settings' must often walk a tightrope between claims of difference from the global North and assertions of sameness, in which a claim too forceful in either direction can undermine the ethical--and thus scientific--legitimacy of their research.     

Integrating competency-based education with a case-based or problem-based learning approach in online health sciences

Asia Pacific Education Review - In the current competitive and globalized economy, employers and professional organizations call for higher education institutions to deliver graduates with relevant...