Properties of Isokinetic Fatigue at Various Movement Speeds in Adult Males

Abstract

Eighteen male subjects, ages 20–28 years, engaged in three fatigue bouts using an isokinetic dynamometer (Cybex II). Maximum knee extension contractions were given for 100 s at a rate of 30 per minute. The three contraction speeds chosen were 120° · s ^–1 160° · s ^–1 and 200° · s ^–1.Peak torque at 120° · s ^–1 was significantly greater (p <.05) than at 200° · s ^–1 for the first 60 s, and 160° · s ^–1 for the first 50 s. Thereafter, no significant differences existed among conditions. All three curves were found to follow two-component exponential functions as shown by the equation y_t =a ₂ e^k2^t – a ₁ e^k1^t + c. The three curves possessed similar rate constants for both components. Time to peak torque was achieved at similar times for testing at 160 and 200° · s ^–1 (p <.05). It is concluded that peak torque varies inversely with movement speed, and that the pattern of decrement is independent of movement speed. Time to peak torque does not appear to change significantly across trials in isokinetic fatigue.     

Heritability,Social Disadvantage and Psychosocial Intervention

To argue that anything as complex as human behaviour has multifactorial origins demanding a systems analysis is today almost a statement of the obvious. This does not, however, mean that a search for significant main effects in populations is unwarranted, provided that these can be shown in replicated studies across place and time. In this article two such effects will be examined. In both cases there is a massive amount of data available, much of it recent, and some of it based on sophisticated research designs.     

Education for girls in Ireland: secondary and vocational curricular provision 1930–1960

A challenge for historians of education is to explain the ways in which the development of education has been a gendered process. The literature tends to focus on primary and secondary schools; the role played by religious orders; the experiences of female teachers; ideological influences on curriculum; and the preparation of young girls for their role in society. Few historians, however, have examined vocational education and the impact of its ‘social efficiency’ orientation on girls. The literature that exists tends to treat both systems separately, and little effort has been made to compare the impact of both systems on girls’ opportunities within the society in which they lived. This omission in the literature is significant as such a comparison facilitates insights regarding state policies and priorities for the education of girls, the impact of social class, and national and local circumstances. This article compares both systems of education in Ireland and their impact on girls during the period 1930–1960.     

Implementing information technology at the Border Technikon in South Africa

The mission of Border Technikon in South Africa is to provide the best vocational and career education to students of all racial and cultural backgrounds in the East London area. The staff believes that an important component of this mission includes giving students marketable skills for the information age. Therefore, in 1996, the Technikon undertook an extensive program to implement new information technologies that would help fulfill the institution's mission. Implementing information technology at academic institutions in developing countries must address a special set of problems, some of which are technology gaps, educational deficits, and lack of adequate facilities. This paper describes some of the more unique problems the Technikon encountered, and a few solutions. During 1996, she served as a Senior Librarian at Border Technikon, East London, South Africa, under the Educators for Africa Program of the International Foundation of Education and Self-Help.     

Quality assurance for distance learning: a case study at Brunel University

Brunel University currently has four distance learning MSc courses, with over 500 students registered, and one undergraduate distance learning course. Some have been running for over five years, and well‐established practices have been developed and provide a basis of support for the university. Quality assurance in the university has always been considered in three, equally important, ways: the curriculum and its assessment; the handling of coursework and assignments; and the liaison with students. The lesson we have learned is that a distance learning programme must be based on an existing full‐time MSc programme, which is the gold standard for curriculum and its assessment, and where possible, common examinations and assessment be used. This can be further assured by scrutinisation by the associated research council. This is going to become ever more important with the increasing scrutiny by overseas governments on the academic quality of distance learning courses, which seek assurance on the comparability and quality of degrees. Quality assurance for the handling of coursework and assignments must be secure and demands a high overhead of paperwork. Detailed feedback to students on their assignments is essential, but this can, at the same time, form a quality assurance check for later progression decisions. We also copy and retain approximately 10% of the assignments for the same purpose. Rapid turnaround is essential if feedback is to be timely and therefore useful, and quality checks on processing time should be standard. Quality assurance for the procedures for liaison with distance learning students are somewhat harder to measure quantitatively. The mark of good distance learning must be its tutorial support. This demands good communications. Our own course, entitled Data Communications Systems, benefits from the high proportion of use of electronic communications, namely email, which allows fast turnaround of questions, yet is not intrusive. However, it is deemed essential that hard copy of all such correspondence is kept. Migration to other Internet support services, such as the World Wide Web, videoconferencing and groupware, is inevitable.     

Heroes and villains: the insistence of the imaginary and the novice teacher’s need to believe

This paper stems from research in Australia examining pre-service teacher and mentor teacher experiences on the practicum. The paper focuses on findings from the research, highlighting the tendency among the pre-service teachers to either valorise or demonise their mentor teachers, reflective of what we describe, following Kristeva and Britzman, as their powerful need to believe. The paper draws on psychoanalytic theory in order gain insights into this process, viewing the pre-service teachers’ accounts of their mentors as fantasies that serve a stabilising function in order to manage the intense emotional demands of schools and classrooms. The paper concludes with considerations of how teacher educators might ameliorate the ideality of novice teachers, reflecting the insistence of the imaginary, and hence enable them to benefit more from the practicum experience. We briefly suggest the use of tools that work within the symbolic register to exercise a mediating role in the context of these intense demands.     

中、澳、芬数学课程标准中内容分布的比较研究

以中国、澳大利亚维多利亚州、芬兰官方数学课程标准为研究对象,通过对三国数学课程标准的内容数量、结构框架、详略程度、要求程度、内容分布、内容变化方面进行比较发现:中国数学课程标准内容条目最多、最详细,其次是澳大利亚维州数量居中,芬兰最少、概括性强;三个国家数学课程标准中数与运算、几何内容都较其他内容所占比重更大、强调更多;中国数学课程标准在不同学段上所侧重的内容不同,呈动态变化趋势,而澳大利亚维州各学段各部分内容比重相当,随学段增长,不同内容所占比重无明显变化,芬兰不同学段内容设置不固定,内容所占比重也不固定,不受统一模式限制。     

The sublime objects of education policy: quality,equity and ideology

Quality and equity are touchstones of education policy in the twenty-first century in a range of global contexts. On the surface, this seems fitting: after all, who could object to more quality and greater equity in education? Yet what do we mean by quality and equity, and how are they related? This paper draws on Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to argue that not only are quality and equity far more complex than education policy formulations typically imply, but also that despite their elevated place in policy debates they remain elusive, serving as sublime objects that function as sites for the investment of desire, while simultaneously covering over and compensating for the ultimate impossibility of a complete and harmonious society. The paper argues that it is a result of their occupying this empty place, and through their holding out the (illusive) promise of enjoyment, rather than as a consequence of their specific or intrinsic content, that sublime objects such as equity and quality exert their particular ideological force.     

Increasing evaluation sensitivity to diversity

Many queries have multiple interpretations; they are ambiguous or underspecified. This is especially true in the context of Web search. To account for this, much recent research has focused on creating systems that produce diverse ranked lists. In order to validate these systems, several new evaluation measures have been created to quantify diversity. Ideally, diversity evaluation measures would distinguish between systems by the amount of diversity in the ranked lists they produce. Unfortunately, diversity is also a function of the collection over which the system is run and a system’s performance at ad-hoc retrieval. A ranked list built from a collection that does not cover multiple subtopics cannot be diversified; neither can a ranked list that contains no relevant documents. To ensure that we are assessing systems by their diversity, we develop (1) a family of evaluation measures that take into account the diversity of the collection and (2) a meta-evaluation measure that explicitly controls for performance. We demonstrate experimentally that our new measures can achieve substantial improvements in sensitivity to diversity without reducing discriminative power.