Effect of Secondary Schools on Academic Choices and on Success in Higher Education

Follow-up data from a group of final-grade students of the 65 schools that participated in the Flemish Longitudinal Research in Secondary Education project (Van Damme, De Fraine, Van Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2002) were collected to study the long-term effects of the secondary school on the educational choice when leaving secondary education and on subsequent outcomes in higher education. Multilevel logistic regression models showed significant long-term effects of secondary schools on both outcome variables. Indications are found that the effects are mediated by the achievement level of the students at the end of secondary education. An important additional finding was that grade repetition has negative long-term consequences after leaving secondary education, which raises questions about a justified policy regarding students that are at risk of academic failure.     

The quiz program: A network television staple

The quiz program has received considerable comment in recent weeks, so this article by Patrick E. Welch is particularly appropriate at this time. The article is based upon a chapter in Mr. Welch's PhD. dissertation, “The Development of Audience Participation Programs on Radio and Television Networks Through the Season of 1956–57.”;     

Measurement of contact forces on a kayak ergometer with a sliding footrest–seat complex

Kinematic analysis is done by measurement of the position of bodies, followed by differentiation to get the accelerations of the centres of mass, and it is widely used in sport research. Another common approach is to measure the forces directly. Our intention here is to perform both a kinematic and a kinetic analysis of the same athlete-equipment system, in this case an athlete on a sliding kayak ergometer, with the aim of exploring the errors that may occur with each measurement type. The kayak ergometer with a sliding trolley, instrumented by seven uniaxial force sensors and two goniometers, was placed in a filming area. The instrumentation was validated in the direction of the anteroposterior axis using Newton’s second law. Ten athletes paddled at 92 strokes per minute, following a stationary phase. The comparison between the net force and the time-derivative of the linear momentum indicated a friction level of about 20 N between the trolley and the frame. Other errors came mainly from the inertial parameters of the trunk. A first analysis of contact forces shows a large inter-subject variability, in particular for the forces applied to the footrest and the seat.     

Biochemical studies of soy bean milk and chicken protein

Soy bean milk, prepared in the Korean manner, had approximately the same protein content as cow milk. The other nutrient compounds were present in soy bean milk to a lesser extent than in cow milk.Soy bean milk curdled spontaneously at a lower acidity than cow milk. However, the same period of time was required for spontaneous curdling.In the feeding experiments, the ration containing soy bean milk produced gain in weight less rapidly than the ration containing cow milk, and with less efficiency, i.e., with the consumption of more ration per unit of gain in weight.In feeding experiments, chicken protein was found to be a less efficient protein than casein.