‘Power on’: Googlecracy,privatisation and the standardisation of sources

The paper aims to contribute to the sociological analysis of power through the study of the structuration and retrieval of information on the internet. The main argument of the paper is that, paradoxically, in an age when the availability of information has increased exponentially, there is a risk that diversity in the use of sources for the construction of knowledge becomes more restricted than in the past and that information search moves towards greater objectification and centralisation. Knowledge management systems increasingly shape the ways in which we think about the questions we ask and how we try to answer them, which raises fundamental and largely neglected questions for education policy. The paper illustrates these trends with particular reference to the use of Google and Google Scholar.     

Improving Social Competence Through Emotion Knowledge in 2-Year-Old Children: A Pilot Study

Research Findings: The goal of this study was to determine the efficacy of an educational intervention program to improve emotion knowledge, emotion regulation, and social competence in 2-year-old Spanish children. This study makes two original contributions because there are no validated education programs for such young children and because it aims to show how an intervention focused on emotion-related aspects affects children’s social competence. The pilot study was conducted on 57 Spanish 2-year-olds divided into an experimental group (n = 38) and a control group (n = 19). The children were assessed for overall development, emotion knowledge, emotion regulation, and social competence before and after the intervention. The program was carried out in the classroom in 30-min weekly sessions over a 6-month period. The findings showed significant progress in emotion knowledge and social competence as well as slight progress in emotion regulation. Practice or Policy: Our results show that emotions should be part of the curriculum starting in early childhood. On the one hand, 2-year-olds can benefit from planned interventions that improve social competence through emotion knowledge. On the other hand, 24 months is developmentally speaking the perfect age to start acquiring emotion knowledge through the simplest components.     

Foreign Film

George Perry's The Great British Picture Show from the 90s to the 70s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1974---$12.50)

Mildred Constantine and Alan Fern's Revolutionary Soviet Film Posters (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1974---$12.95)

Michael Jon Stoil's Cinema Beyond the Danube: The Camera and Politics (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974---$6.00)

Antonin J. Liehn's Closely Watched Films: The Czechoslovak Experience (International Artistic Sciences Press, 901 North Broadway, White Plains, N.Y. 10603, 1974---$15.00)

Eleanor Beatty's A Handbook of Canadian Film (Toronto: Peter Martin Association with Take One, 1973---price not known, paper)

Kuleshov on Film: Writings by Lev Kuleschov (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974--- $10.00)

Susan Sontag's Brother Carl (New York: Noonday Press/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1974---$10.95/4.95)     

A fuzzy linguistic model to evaluate the quality of Library 2.0 functionalities

Libraries incessantly undergo change determined by evolving user needs. These are often induced by the emergence of previously unavailable tools. Web 2.0 represents an example of such a need-shifting technology, which has led to an embrace of new user interactivity services for many library websites, thus coined Library 2.0. This paradigm shift calls for new evaluation models to include the implementation of Web 2.0 technologies. The aim of this paper is to present such a model, and to evaluate the quality of Library 2.0 functionalities, measuring the quality of the 2.0 services offered through the websites based on user perception. We adopt fuzzy linguistic modeling to represent user perception, and apply aggregation operations to linguistic labels in order to evaluate the quality of the new services. Furthermore, our model subsumes the LibQUAL+ methodology, allowing for the identification of specific 2.0 functionalities in need of improvement and of those outstandingly satisfied by the system.     

Effects of 6-month soccer and traditional physical activity programmes on body composition,cardiometabolic risk factors,inflammatory, oxidative stress markers and cardiorespiratory fitness in obese boys

Physical activity is important in obesity prevention, but the effectiveness of different physical activity modalities remains to be determined among children. The main purpose of this study was to compare the effects of a 6-month soccer programme and a traditional physical activity programme on changes in body composition, cardiometabolic risk factors, inflammatory and oxidative markers, cardiorespiratory fitness and perceived psychological status in obese boys. Eighty-eight boys (8–12 years; BMI > +2 standard deviations of WHO reference values) participated in one of three groups: soccer, traditional activity and control. Soccer and traditional activity programmes involved 3 sessions per week for 60–90 min at an average intensity of 70–80% of maximal heart rate. Control group participated in activities of normal daily living. All boys participated in school physical education, two sessions per week of 45–90-min. Measurements were taken at baseline and after 6 months, and included body size and composition, cardiometabolic risk factors, inflammatory and oxidative markers, cardiorespiratory fitness and perceived psychological status. Physical activity and dietary intake were assessed before and immediately following the intervention. The three groups had similar characteristics at baseline. After 6 months, both intervention groups had significantly lower relative fatness (% fat), waist circumference and total cholesterol, and higher cardiorespiratory fitness, self-esteem, perceived physical competence and attraction to physical activity compared with control group. In conclusion, physical activity interventions over 6 months positively influenced several indicators of health status among obese boys. The results also suggested that soccer has the potential as an effective tool for the prevention and reduction of childhood obesity and associated consequences.     

Science Letters：Visual odometry for road vehicles —— feasibility analysis

Estimating the global position of a road vehicle without using GPS is a challenge that many scientists look forward to solving in the near future. Normally, inertial and odometry sensors are used to complement GPS measures in an attempt to provide a means for maintaining vehicle odometry during GPS outage. Nonetheless, recent experiments have demonstrated that computer vision can also be used as a valuable source to provide what can be denoted as visual odometry. For this purpose, vehicle motion can be estimated using a non-linear, photogrametric approach based on RAndom SAmple Consensus (RANSAC). The results prove that the detection and selection of relevant feature points is a crucial factor in the global performance of the visual odometry algorithm. The key issues for further improvement are discussed in this letter.     

Practice and play in the development of German top-level professional football players

This study examined the developmental sporting activities of 52 German football first Bundesliga professionals (including 18 senior national team members) and 50 fourth to sixth league amateur players. They reported their volumes of organised football practice/training, including its “microstructure” (proportions of physical conditioning, skill exercises and playing forms), non-organised leisure football play and engagement in other sports through their career, respectively. Analyses revealed that the Bundesliga professionals performed moderate amounts of organised football practice/training throughout their career. They accumulated 4264 (mean value) hours over ~16 years before debuting in 1st Bundesliga; senior National Team debut was preceded by 4532 hours (mean) over ~17 years. Within the “microstructure” of organised practice/training, the proportion of playing forms developed from ~52% (childhood) to ~45% (adolescence) and ~40% (adulthood) and physical conditioning from ~13% to ~14% and ~23%. Outside organised involvement, these players engaged in extensive non-organised leisure football play making ~68%, ~54% and ~9% of all football involvement. Subsuming organised and non-organised football, ~86% (childhood), ~73% (adolescence) and ~43% (adulthood) of all activity was game play (exclusive matchplay). National Team differed from amateurs in more non-organised leisure football in childhood, more engagement in other sports in adolescence, later specialisation, and in more organised football only at age 22+ years. Relative to numerous other studies, these players performed less organised practice, particularly less physical conditioning, but greater proportions of playing activities. The findings are discussed relative to the significance of playing forms and variable involvements and are reflected against the deliberate practice and Developmental Model of Sport Participation (DMSP) frameworks.     

Three concepts or one? Students’ understanding of basic limit concepts

In many mathematics curricula, the notion of limit is introduced three times: the limit of a sequence, the limit of a function at a point and the limit of a function at infinity. Despite the use of very similar symbols, few connections between these notions are made explicitly and few papers in the large literature on student understanding of limit connect them. This paper examines the nature of connections made by students exposed to this fragmented curriculum. The study adopted a phenomenographic approach and used card sorting and comparison tasks to expose students to symbols representing these different types of limit. The findings suggest that, while some students treat limit cases as separate, some can draw connections, but often do so in ways which are at odds with the formal mathematics. In particular, while there are occasional, implicit uses of neighbourhood notions, no student in the study appeared to possess a unifying organisational framework for all three basic uses of limit.     

Educational development units in Spain: current status and emerging trends

Abstract

Recent studies show that the character, function and goals of educational development units (EDUs) in many countries are undergoing a shift, and they now tend to support universities and learning in a more comprehensive way. The status of Spanish EDUs, however, has not been studied in detail. The aim of this article is to describe the current status of 45 such units to explore the degree to which a similar shift can be observed. The data revealed clusters, from which four models were defined. The models illustrate the increasing diversity of functions and widening scope of practice within Spanish EDUs.