The Complexity of Measuring the Impact of Books

The purpose of this study was to discover whether there are scholarly evaluation metrics that can be applied to a wide range of books’ types and contents. We analyzed over 70,000 books and collected various metrics per each title including traditional and altmetrics measures. The analysis in this paper depicts the top books showing the highest rates of citations, reviews, readership, downloads, twitter and more. Our results show that books display different impact in each of the measurements and vary by types and content. There isn’t one measure that captures the impact of books across the board. We conclude that books should be evaluated by types and contents while using different measures per each.     

Variations in fathers’ discourse on fatherhood and in family alliances during infancy

The aim of this pilot study is to analyse the discourse of fathers of toddlers concerning fatherhood and the link between some particularities in the discourse and family alliance. The sample consists of 13 Swiss first time fathers (5 fathers of girls and 8 of boys). In order to evaluate the paternal discourse, the fathers were given a semistructured interview, which was later analysed using the research package Alceste. The family alliance, i.e., the degree of coordination among the partners when executing a task together, was assessed through the Lausanne Trilogue Play (Fivaz-Depeursinge & Corboz-Warnery, 1999). The main results indicated an interesting link between classes of paternal discourse grouped around the following themes “affective relationship”, “daily routine” and “educational goals”, and the family alliance (defined in two major categories; functional and problematic alliances). Finally, clinical perspectives on links between paternal representations and family functioning at an interactive level are discussed.     

Tableur et calcul algebrique

Résumé Cet article est un compte rendu de recherche concernant l'apprentissage à l'utilisation d'un tableur (Multiplan^TM) avec des élèves de 15 ans dans un collège français. Cette recherche a un caractère exploratoire dans un domaine actuellement peu étudié.Si l'utilisation d'un tableur, impose la manipulation d'expressions littérales, pour la mise en uvre des calculs, on note qu'il n'y a pas simple transfert des connaissances algébriques dans l'environnement du tableur. Les problèmes d'apprentissage sont de deux types: ceux issus de la priorité donnée par ce logiciel au calcul et ceux issus de l'existence de deux niveaux de syntaxe en inter-action, le niveau logiciel et le niveau algébrique.

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This article gives an account of research on the learning of the use of a spreadsheet (Multiplan) by pupils 15 years old.It gives evidence that despite that fact that use of a spreadsheet requires the manipulation of formulas, there is not a mere transfer of the pupil's algebraic knowledge into the spreadsheet context. Two main learning problems have been identified, the first due to the priority given by the software to computations, and the second related to an interaction between two levels of syntax: the spreadsheet specific and the algebraic syntax.

     

Statistics Online Computational Resource for Education

The Statistics Online Computational Resource (www.SOCR.ucla.edu) provides one of the largest collections of free Internet-based resources for probability and statistics education. SOCR develops, validates and disseminates two core types of materials - instructional resources and computational libraries.     

Decreasing Internal Focus of Attention Improves Postural Control During Quiet Standing in Young Healthy Adults

This experiment was designed to investigate whether and how decreasing the amount of attentional focus invested in postural control could affect bipedal postural control. Twelve participants were asked to stand upright as immobile as possible on a force platform in one control condition and one cognitive condition. In the latter condition, they performed a short-term digit-span memory task. Decreased center-of-gravity displacements and decreased center-of-foot-pressure displacements minus center-of-gravity displacements were observed in the cognitive condition relative to the control condition. These results suggest that shifting the attentional focus away from postural control by executing a concurrent attention-demanding task could increase postural performance and postural efficiency.     

Quantifying the nature of anticipation in professional tennis

Abstract

We quantify the nature and frequency of anticipation behaviours in professional tennis using video coding of incidents where the time delay between the opponent's stroke and the reaction of the player were recorded. We argue that anticipation is based on uncertain information and should lead in some situations to erroneous decisions. We identified the transition between reaction (with 100% accuracy in the selection of where the ball is played on the court) and anticipation (with less than 100% accuracy) as being 140–160 ms after ball contact. Anticipation behaviours occurred on between 6.14% and 13.42% of the coded situations. These anticipation behaviours appeared almost exclusively in ‘unfavourable’ situations, where the opponent had a significant tactical advantage, with the type of playing surface having only a limited effect. Moreover, the decrease in accuracy with shorter response times is not monotonic, with an increase in response accuracy being observed for times shorter than 120 ms before ball contact. We propose that very early anticipation behaviours occur when players use significant context-specific information before the opponent's stroke. When such information is not available, players produce anticipation behaviours that are closer to the moment of ball–racket contact using information that is more likely to be based on the opponent's preparation of the stroke. This study opens new directions for research focusing on the testing and training of anticipation in fast ball sports.     

Investigation of the hydro-mechanical behaviour of fouled ballast

In this study, a fouled ballast taken from the site of Sénissiat, France, was investigated. For the hydraulic behaviour, a large-scale cell was developed allowing drainage and evaporation tests to be carried out with monitoring of both suction and volumetric water content at various positions of the sample. It was observed that the hydraulic conductivity of fouled ballast is decreasing with suction increase, as for common unsaturated soils. The effect of fines content was found to be negligible. For the mechanical behaviour, both monotonic and cyclic triaxial tests were carried out using a large-scale triaxial cell. Various water contents were considered. The results were interpreted in terms of shear strength and permanent axial strain. It appeared that the water content is an important factor to be accounted for since any increase of water content or degree of saturation significantly decreases the shear strength and increases the permanent strain. Constitutive modelling has been attempted based on the experimental results. The model in its current state is capable of describing the effects of stress level, cycle number and water content.