Blogging in Support of Health Information Outreach

Social media technologies are transforming the way librarians are collaborating, creating, and disseminating information. This article discusses how librarians at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio created a blog to support their health information outreach activities. Launched in 2007, the Staying Well Connected blog was established with the goal of promoting access to biomedical and health information for consumers and health professionals in the South Texas region. Postings highlight relevant health news, conferences, funding opportunities, and outreach events.     

Circular formation control for cooperative target tracking with limited information

This paper addresses the problem of encircling and tracking a moving target with a fleet of unicycle-like vehicles. A new control law is developed to steer the vehicles to an evenly spaced formation along a circumference, the center of which tracks the motion of the target. The strategy proposed relies only on the relative positions of the agents with respect to the target, expressed in the local frame of each vehicle. The absolute position, velocity and acceleration of the target are unknown. Additionally, the robustness of the proposed control law in the presence of external disturbances is analyzed. Communication among agents is used to maintain the vehicles equally spaced in the circular formation. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategies.     

Effect of cadence on volume and myoelectric activity during agonist-antagonist paired sets (supersets) in the lower body

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of cadence on volume load (VLoad) and muscle activity during agonist –antagonist paired sets (APS) in the lower body. Twelve trained men (24.0 ± 3.3 years; 78.3 ± 9.7 kg; 1.77 ± 0.58 m) volunteered to participate in this study. After the 10 maximum repetition test for leg extension and seated leg curl, participants performed three experimental protocols: first protocol (traditional)—three sets of only leg extension (60 bpm); second protocol (fast cadence)—three sets of leg extension, with each set preceded by one set on the seated leg curl with fast cadence (90 bpm); third protocol (slow cadence)—similar to the second, but seated leg curl with slow cadence (40 bpm). The total number of repetitions, VLoad and the electromyography activity for the vastus lateralis, vastus medialis and rectus femoris muscles were recorded. The VLoad was higher during APS than the traditional method, but the cadence (fast or slow) of antagonist exercise did not influence VLoad. Muscle activity of vastus lateralis was higher during traditional protocol; on the other hand, rectus femoris showed higher activity on APS fast cadence protocol, indicating that APS has a different influence on quadriceps components.     

Home Language and Literacy Environments and Early Literacy Trajectories of Low-Socioeconomic Status Chilean Children

This study used Latent Class Analysis to identify groups of children exposed to similar Home Language and Literacy Environments (HLLE) and explored whether belonging to a given HLLE group was related to children’s language and early literacy growth from prekindergarten to kindergarten. Participants were 1,425 Chilean mothers and their children (M_age = 52.52 months at baseline) from low-socioeconomic status households. Four HLLE groups were identified, which were associated with different trajectories of language and early literacy development. Children from groups whose mothers either read and talk about past events with them or teach them letters in addition to reading and talking about past events, showed higher relative vocabulary and letter knowledge. Implications for research and interventions are discussed.     

Is There a Relationship between Training Quality and Premature Contract Terminations in VET?

The dominant organizational form of vocational education and training in Switzerland is the dual-track system, in which trainees sign an apprenticeship contract with a training company. Notably, 10 % to 40 % of those contracts are terminated prematurely each year, depending on region and occupational category, which is an important topic of concern for politics, practice and research. Thus, premature contract terminations (PCTs) are associated with high costs for society, companies, and young people. This study of 335 companies involving cooks and painters from German-speaking Switzerland aims to investigate the relationship between training quality and PCT. Of these companies, 136 had been affected by a PCT, and 199 had not. The results indicate that training at the workplace is universally of rather high quality. In line with the previous literature, trainees evaluate quality significantly lower than trainers. Furthermore, there are considerable differences between the two occupations: cooks evaluate their training quality more positively than painters. Moreover, cluster analyses indicate that high quality training can help companies avoid PCTs.     

Art as mode and medium: a pedagogical approach to teaching and learning about self-reflexivity and artistic expression in qualitative research†

This article highlights the ways in which arts-based approaches to research can be used in teaching and learning about the qualitative research process. Specifically, in our qualitative research class graduate students used the arts as a form of reflexivity to highlight various aspects of their research process, including their positionality, their values, any ethical issues that arose during the research process, and the various methodological steps taken. This collaborative article features the voices of the instructor and three graduate students, who used the mediums of visual art, a blog and a digital diary approach to represent their reflexivity. From the voice of the instructor, we share her rationale for using arts-based approaches in the classroom, her detailed assignment, and the ways in which we can incorporate the arts in teaching about qualitative research. In the form of case examples, three graduate students illustrate their unique qualitative research studies, describing their approach and how they incorporated various artistic mediums as a form of reflexivity within their research. Concluding thoughts will discuss the strengths, limitations and possibilities of using arts-based approaches to teaching and learning about qualitative research.     

Convergence of sequences and series: Interactions between visual reasoning and the learner's beliefs about their own role

This paper examines part of a set of students who were followed during their first-term, first-year studies in formal definition-based real analysis at a British university. It explores the approaches to problems about convergence of sequences and series made by students who have a tendency to include visual imagery in their reasoning. We explore links between the students' mathematical behavior in solving these problems and their perception of their roles as learners. We develop a theory in which the tendency to visualize, coupled with the students' view of their role, can be used to account for their mathematical behavior. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

From censure to reinforcement: developmental changes in the association between aggression and social status

Developmental changes were examined in the associations among physical and relational aggression, and sociometric and perceived popularity based on peer nominations. Participating in the longitudinal study were 905 children (440 girls, 465 boys) from ages 10 to 14. Associations between the forms of status and between the forms of aggression decreased over time. Relational aggression increasingly predicted high social prominence but low social preference; physical aggression was increasingly less disliked but decreasingly predictive of prominence. The effect of relational aggression on perceived popularity was strong for girls. Perceived popularity preceded physical and relational aggression for both genders. Implications for the attainment of high status, processes of peer influence on antisocial behavior, and gender differences in the meaning of status are discussed.