Writing difficulties in Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment

The present study addresses the scope of the writing difficulties observed in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Patients with AD, patients with MCI and healthy controls performed a written picture-naming task and a direct copy transcoding task in which phonology-to-orthography (P–O) consistency was manipulated. Written latencies, inter-letter durations, mean word pen pressure and number of errors were measured. Results revealed that there was a significant difference between the control group and both groups of patients in written latencies and number of errors. However, in inter-letter interval or mean pen pressure there were significant differences only between the group with AD and the other groups. P–O consistency and the type of task produced similar effects in the three groups of participants, suggesting a general deficit affecting the ability to access/generate orthographic representations. The relevance of these results for understanding the spelling impairment in AD and MCI are discussed.

     

Knowledge creation for science and technology in academic laboratories: a pilot study

In the last decade, there has been increasing pressure on academic laboratories to produce practical results. The last 10 years also have seen a growing interest in knowledge management, a management discipline believed to enhance organizations’ innovative capability by the sharing and creation of knowledge. While most knowledge management cases refer to the business setting, we believe that the introduction of these practices can also enhance knowledge creation and knowledge sharing within and among research units. This paper focuses on a pilot study being conducted at a Japanese public graduate university – JAIST – under a Center of Excellence (COE) program that was established to bring the performance of research laboratories up to a world class level in productivity by applying the theories and tools of knowledge science. This study is a cooperative effort between the School of Knowledge Science, doing research on knowledge management and systems, and two research laboratories in the School of Materials Science, doing basic and applied research on materials science. The goal of this project is to enhance materials science students’ capabilities so that they become successful creators of new scientific knowledge. A group of seven graduate research students volunteered for the study. As one of the first steps, we introduced a formal and periodic written reporting system that motivates students to think strategically about their experiments, helps them to improve their communications skills, and enables students to self-evaluate their skills and supervisors to evaluate the students’ skills as well as monitor their progress and developments in a formalized way. Since the project is relatively new, these preliminary results are associated with a generalized awareness and participation of the students in the project. However, we are expecting to obtain more concrete results, that is, quantifiable improvements in scientific production, in the near future.     

The future of mathematics education since COVID-19: humans-with-media or humans-with-non-living-things

Educational Studies in Mathematics - The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the agenda of mathematics education. This change will be analyzed by looking at three trends in mathematics education: the use...     

The Relationship Between Running Economy and Biomechanical Variables in Distance Runners

In this study, we analyzed the relationship between running economy (RE) and biomechanical parameters in a group running at the same relative intensity and same absolute velocity. Sixteen homogeneous male long-distance runners performed a test to determine RE at 4.4 m.s^-1, corresponding to 11.1% below velocity at the ventilatory threshold. We found significant correlations between RE and biomechanical variables (vertical oscillation of the center of mass, stride frequency, stride length, balance time, relative stride length, range of elbow motion, internal knee, ankle angles at foot strike, and electromyographic activity of the semitendinosus and rectus femoris muscles). In conclusion, changes in running technique can influence RE and lead to improved running performance.     

Chemistry practical lessons: altering traditions for students’ emancipation

This paper is a response to Maria Andree’s paper. Andree tells in the paper how mistakes in practical lessons may be critical events to change students’ attitudes in regard science. While traditionally mistakes in practical lessons could obligate students to repeat the experiment in order to get the ‘right result’ in the paper we have a good example how we can use the incident to potentiate students’ participation. In my response I illustrate how transferable is what Andree speaks about but I put forward further reflections about the traditions that may act as impediment for students’ participation. I thus suggest that the critical paradigm should be a component in reflecting about science classroom practices in order to alter the traditions.     

青少年乒乓运动员的焦虑和运动成绩关系

多维焦虑理论认为认知和躯体焦虑对运动成绩会产生不同的影响.根据这个理论,运动员在赛前具有较高的认知焦虑水平或躯体焦虑水平出现极端值(过高或过低)或自信心较低时,他们将取得较差的运动成绩.先前的研究还认为焦虑与运动成绩间的关系还取决于所要完成动作的特点.不同的运动技能有各自最佳的焦虑水平.总的来说,焦虑水平较高有利于完成体力消耗较大的运动项目.而焦虑水平较低时,则有利于完成精确类项目.就乒乓球项目而言,它既需要体力又需要精确性,因此,本研究调查分析了乒乓球运动员赛前焦虑水平与运动成绩间的关系.研究对象3 6名青少年乒乓球运动员,男、女运动员各1 8名,平均年龄为12.28±0.74岁.研究方法采用运动竞赛状态焦虑量表(CSAI-2C).让运动员在参加地区赛第一场比赛的赛前30分填写问卷.研究结果认知状态焦虑水平不能用来预测运动员的成绩.获胜运动员和失利运动员赛前的躯体状态焦虑和自信心没有差异.这表明本研究没有支持多维焦虑理论的假设,或许是乒乓球运动的特点和运动员的个体差异比运动员的焦虑水平对运动成绩的影响更大.因此,如果运动员的个人特点与他们的技术风格相适应,不同焦虑水平的运动员都可能取得好成绩.     

The impact of secondary history teachers’ teaching conceptions on the classroom use of computers

During the past 15 years, various studies have described factors affecting the use of computers in the classroom. In analysing factors of influence, many studies have focused on technology-related variables such as computer experience or attitudes toward computers, and others have considered teachers’ beliefs as well; most of them have studied undefined categories of teachers and focused on explaining the frequency of technology in classrooms. The present study centres on secondary history teachers’ teaching conceptions as a precursor to the ways in which they use computing technology in the classroom. The research is a qualitative study examining the theoretical assumption that teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning guide their pedagogical action. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 Chilean history teachers, and their didactic sequences were filmed extensively. The research found patterns among educational uses of technology in relation to teaching conceptions (defining the latter based on three conceptual groups: direct instruction or individual or social construction of knowledge) in terms of the allotment of time and the manner of teacher technology use, and less sharply defined patterns were also noted in student technology use and teacher–student–technology interactions.     

The Prestige of Social Scientists in Spain and France: An Examination of Their h-Index Values Using Scopus and Google Scholar

We analyze the prestige of 1,500 scholars in economics, sociology, and management who have Spanish and French institutional affiliations operationalized by their h-index in Scopus and Google Scholar. We use a negative binomial count model to examine how some individual factors affect the h-index from both databases. The results show a non-monotonic relationship between the researchers’ career length and their h-index. There is a positive and statistically significant relationship between total research output and the h-index. The share of publications in English over total publications has also a positive and statistically significant effect on the h-index, except in a single case, while the share of publications in other foreign languages does not have such effect. Finally, we found that the effects of the number of citations received by documents in English (international impact) and by those in the vernacular language (local or regional impact) on the h-index vary according to the database, the country, and the discipline in question.