Evaluating the Efficacy of a Short Aging Simulation Workshop for an Interdisciplinary Group of Health-care Employees at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center

Several interventions aimed at increasing positive attitudes towards older adults among health-care professionals have been introduced. These interventions tend to focus on a small subset of clinical employees, ignoring other clinical and nonclinical hospital staff. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a short aging simulation workshop toward increasing positive attitudes towards older adults among a multidisciplinary group of workshop participants using a pre/post quasiexperimental design. Four hundred seventy six new employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs completed the Kogan's Attitudes Toward Old People Scale (KOP) immediately before and after participating in a short aging simulation workshop. Significant pre- to-posttest increases in KOP scores were identified for nurses, physicians, psychologists, other clinical employees, and nonclinical employees, but not among medical support assistants, nurse assistants, and social workers. There existed no significant differences between each group's pretest scores; however, staff of higher educational achievement had significantly higher posttest scores as compared to persons of lower educational status. This short aging simulation workshop was successful in increasing positive attitudes towards older adults among staff who had higher educational achievement.     

Getting in,getting on,going further: Exploring the role of employers in the degree apprentice to graduate transition

Transitions from education into work, or as part of career change and development, are increasingly central to policy debate and academic inquiry. However, the role that employers play in shaping transition is often overlooked. In this paper, we examine this issue through the experiences of a graduating cohort of ‘degree apprentices’. We present original analysis of new empirical data from what we believe to be the first substantive qualitative longitudinal research conducted with those experiencing this new vocational pathway in the English Apprenticeships system. Through analysis of repeat semi-structured interviews with 22 degree apprenticeship graduates (44 interviews in total), we provide early empirical insights into experiences of this new pathway and add to existing theoretical conceptualisations of transition within the educational literature and the employer's role within it. We show that the degree apprentice to graduate transition can be broken down into three key stages: ‘getting in’, ‘getting on’ and ‘going further’, and that employers—at both strategic and relational levels—shape experiences at each stage.     

The Politics of Teaching Shakespeare

The media debate about Shakespeare sparked off by Prince Charles's speech earlier this year has already been referred to in several articles in this edition. Although all the media comment agreed that it is of paramount importance that students study Shakespeare, there was hardly any consideration of what such study might involve, beyond the development of a reverential "acquaintanceship". In this article, Sean McEvoy discusses this blank reverence and proposes a more theoretically-informed, politically-aware pedagogy.     

Unpacking the effects of adverse regulatory events: Evidence from pharmaceutical relabeling

We provide causal evidence that regulation induced product shocks significantly impact aggregate demand and firm performance in pharmaceutical markets. Event study results suggest an average loss between $569 million and $882 million. Affected products lose, on average, $186 million over their remaining effective patent life. This leaves a loss of between $383 million and $696 million attributable to declines in future innovation. Our findings complement research that shows drugs receiving expedited review are more likely to suffer from regulation induced product shocks. Thus, it appears we may be trading off quicker access to drugs today for less innovation tomorrow. Results remain robust to variation across types of relabeling, market sizes, and levels of competition.     

Subject-specific computer simulation model for determining elbow loading in one-handed tennis backhand groundstrokes

A subject-specific angle-driven computer model of a tennis player, combined with a forward dynamics, equipment-specific computer model of tennis ball-racket impacts, was developed to determine the effect of ball-racket impacts on loading at the elbow for one-handed backhand groundstrokes. Matching subject-specific computer simulations of a typical topspin/slice one-handed backhand groundstroke performed by an elite tennis player were done with root mean square differences between performance and matching simulations of < 0.5 degrees over a 50 ms period starting from ball impact. Simulation results suggest that for similar ball-racket impact conditions, the difference in elbow loading for a topspin and slice one-handed backhand groundstroke is relatively small. In this study, the relatively small differences in elbow loading may be due to comparable angle-time histories at the wrist and elbow joints with the major kinematic differences occurring at the shoulder. Using a subject-specific angle-driven computer model combined with a forward dynamics, equipment-specific computer model of tennis ball-racket impacts allows peak internal loading, net impulse, and shock due to ball-racket impact to be calculated which would not otherwise be possible without impractical invasive techniques. This study provides a basis for further investigation of the factors that may increase elbow loading during tennis strokes.     

Conveying quality and value in emerging industries: Star scientists and the role of signals in biotechnology

This paper addresses the role that scientific status plays in initial public offerings of technology focused firms. The paper builds on the literature of the sociology of science as well as the work of Spence (1974) and Podolny (1993) and argues that the presence of a Nobel laureate affiliated with a firm making an IPO provides a signal of firm quality to potential investors. Moreover, and building on the work of Podolny and Scott Morton (1999) and Stuart et al. (1999) we hypothesize that the importance of status diminishes as other measures of firm quality become available. We test our hypothesis for two periods of initial public offerings in biotechnology. We document that there is a clear difference in “maturity” of the firms across the two windows on a number of metrics. Consistent with our hypothesis that Nobel laureates play an important role as a non-financial signal of firm quality, we find that first-window firms with a Nobel laureate affiliate realize greater IPO proceeds in the amount of $24 million. In the second window the amount of money raised is not significantly different between Nobel and non-Nobel firms. This finding is consistent with the signaling literature that argues that the importance of a signal is inversely related to the availability of cogent information on firm quality. Consistent with this view, we also find a change between the two windows in the importance of other non-financial metrics used to convey value. Our research is one of the first to examine the dynamic nature of signals. Because we are unable to distinguish the extent to which the reduction in uncertainty at the firm level is correlated with the reduction of uncertainty at the industry level, the question remains as to the extent to which the diminished importance of signals in our second period is due to a change in market uncertainty versus a change in firm uncertainty.     

Attentional bias for exercise-related images

This research examined attentional bias toward exercise-related images using a visual probe task. It was hypothesized that more-active participants would display attentional bias toward the exercise-related images. The results showed that men displayed attentional bias for the exercise images. There was a significant interaction of activity level by gender, and simple slopes analysis showed that active women displayed attentional bias toward the exercise-related images and inactive women displayed attentional bias toward the control images. A similar analysis with explicit attention to the pictures as the outcome variable was not significant. These findings confirm that attention for exercise-related images can be captured automatically regardless of whether people report they are attending to them.     

Agreement in activity energy expenditure assessed by accelerometer and self-report in adolescents: variation by sex, age, and weight status

The agreement between self-reported and objective estimates of activity energy expenditure was evaluated in adolescents by age, sex, and weight status. Altogether, 403 participants (217 females, 186 males) aged 13-16 years completed a 3-day physical activity diary and wore a GT1M accelerometer on the same days. Partial correlations (controlling for body mass) were used to determine associations between estimated activity energy expenditure (kcal · min(-1)) from the diary and accelerometry. Differences in the magnitude of the correlations were examined using Fisher's r to z transformations. Bland-Altman procedures were used to determine concordance between the self-reported and objective estimates. Partial correlations between assessments of activity energy expenditure (kcal · min(-1)) did not differ significantly by age (13-14 years: r = 0.41; 15-16 years: r = 0.42) or weight status (normal weight: r = 0.42; overweight: r = 0.39). The magnitude of the association was significantly affected by sex (Δr = 0.11; P < 0.05). The agreement was significantly higher in males than in females. The relationship between activity energy expenditure assessed by the objective method and the 3-day diary was moderate (controlling for weight, correlations ranged between 0.33 and 0.44). However, the 3-day diary revealed less agreement in specific group analyses; it markedly underestimated activity energy expenditure in overweight/obese and older adolescents. The assessment of activity energy expenditure is complex and may require a combination of methods.     

Perceptions of change and certainty regarding the self-as-exerciser: a multistudy report

The purpose of these studies was to examine the relationship between perceptions of exercise-related changes (i.e., perceived mastery and physical change) and certainty with regard to the self-as-exerciser. It was hypothesized that seeing "change" would be associated with more favorable levels of exercise self-certainty and behavior relative to "no change." Online surveys were repeatedly administered across 4 months (Study 1) and 4 weeks (Study 2) to 196 university students (M(age) = 20.17), and 250 community dwellers (M(age) = 38.44), respectively. Data were analyzed via latent variable modeling procedures. Consistent with hypotheses, latent classes (i.e., subgroups) reflecting interindividual differences in levels and trajectories of perceived change were associated with distinct patterns of self-certainty and exercise behavior. The findings suggest that adults who experience mastery of skills and physiological changes also have greater self-certainty and exercise more regularly than those who do not see progress or feel as certain of their exercise identity.