An investigation of a novel three-dimensional activity monitor to predict free-living energy expenditure

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the capability of the 3dNX? accelerometer to predict energy expenditure in two separate, free-living cohorts. Twenty-three adolescents and 14 young adults took a single dose of doubly labelled water and wore a 3dNX? activity monitor during waking hours for a 10-day period while carrying out their normal routines. Multiple linear regression with backward elimination was used to establish the strength of the associations between various indices of energy expenditure, physical activity counts, and anthropometric variables. 3dNX? output accounted for 27% and 35% of the variance in the total energy expenditure of the adolescent and young adult cohort, respectively. The explained variance increased to 78%, with a standard error of estimate of 7%, when 3dNX? output was combined with body composition variables. The 3dNX? accelerometer can be used to predict free-living daily energy expenditure with a standard error of estimate of 1.65 MJ in adolescents and 1.52 MJ in young adults. The inclusion of anthropometric variables reduces the error to approximately 1 MJ. Although it remains to cross-validate these models in other populations, early indications suggest that the 3dNX? provides a useful method of predicting energy expenditure in free-living individuals.     

Evaluating Academic Challenge Beyond the NSSE

The authors investigated student and faculty perceptions of academic challenge at their institution, based on early administrations of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). This analysis revealed that the NSSE did not fully capture many meanings of academic challenge held by these faculty and students. This study led to a proposal for the development of an internal assessment approach using a modification of the NSSE and other scale items on academic challenge and student engagement. The authors discuss several implications of this study for academic scholarship and for institutional policy concerning the assessment of academic challenge.All authors except Jim Purcell are at Georgia College and State University. Stephen L. Payne received his Ph.D. in Management from Arizona State University. He is an Associate Professor of Management and has broad research interests in areas related to ethics and education. Karynne L. M. Kleine is an Associate Professor of Middle Grades Education and has an Ed.D. from the University of Maine in science studies. Her interests are intellectual development for teacher preparation and the history and philosophy of science education. Jim Purcell received his Ed.D. from the University of Alabama, is currently the Executive Director of State System Research for the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, and concentrates on issues of student retention and graduation. Ginger Rudesal Carter is an Associate Professor of Mass Communication with a Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi. Her interests include research on oral history, the media, and issues relating to the student press.     

Survey on prerefferal practices: responses from State deparetments of education

A six-item survey was sent to state directors of special education (or their equivalent) in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Items were developed to assess the type and level of prereferral intervention usage reported by state level special education administrators. Despite a lack of empirical support and a relatively inconclusive success rate, many state level administrators reported that they require or recommended the use of prereferral intervention strategies.     

Supervision learning as conceptual threshold crossing: when supervision gets ‘medieval’

This article presumes that supervision is a category of teaching, and that we all learn how to teach better. So it enquires into what novice supervisors need to learn. An anonymised digital questionnaire sought data from supervisors [n226] on their experiences of supervision to find out what was difficult, and supervisor interviews across campus [n7] sought to discover whether there were discipline differences among challenges. Findings suggest that supervision is often troublesome, and that lessons learned during supervision are irreversible, taking the learner to a deeper level of understanding, all aspects of threshold concept crossing. However, there was more that led me from threshold concept to conceptual threshold crossing theory: the darker themes of the data suggest that truly troublesome learning is more like that which occurs in early English literature, where threshold crossing is a common motif. Many early English stories show heroes in liminal, threshold spaces, often the forest, where their skills and methods are inadequate for ordeals. The result is their acquisition of what educational jargon might call leadership attributes and emotional intelligence. The title draws on Tarantino's [1994. Pulp fiction [Motion picture]. United States: Miramax Films] ‘getting medieval’ to mean threatening, unpleasant, off the edge of the known. Medieval English stories specialise in challenge: they focus on the doing, being and feeling of hard learning. When ongoing challenge from the unexpected troubles supervisors, it also enables, or forces, the acquisition of new attitudes, skills and attributes. I expand conceptual threshold crossing theory by adding the heuristic model of the medieval threshold crossing motif to interpret troublesome learning. Findings raise further research questions: how might novices avoid danger in the dark forest as they traverse their supervisory path and how can institutions support those who find themselves there.     

Students’ Research-Informed Socio-scientific Activism: Re/Visions for a Sustainable Future

In many educational contexts throughout the world, increasing focus has been placed on socio-scientific issues; that is, disagreements about potential personal, social and/or environmental problems associated with fields of science and technology. Some suggest (as do we) that many of these potential problems, such as those associated with climate change, are so serious that education needs to be oriented towards encouraging and enabling students to become citizen activists, ready and willing to take personal and social actions to reduce risks associated with the issues. Towards this outcome, teachers we studied encouraged and enabled students to direct open-ended primary (e.g., correlational studies), as well as secondary (e.g., internet searches), research as sources of motivation and direction for their activist projects. In this paper, we concluded, based on constant comparative analyses of qualitative data, that school students’ tendencies towards socio-political activism appeared to depend on myriad, possibly interacting, factors. We focused, though, on curriculum policy statements, school culture, teacher characteristics and student-generated research findings. Our conclusions may be useful to those promoting education for sustainability, generally, and, more specifically, to those encouraging activism on such issues informed by student-led research.     

The Constables and the ‘Garage Girl’

In the summer of 1928, the arrest on a disorder charge of a young woman in north London who gave her name as Helene Adele led to a press sensation after she claimed that the officers had falsely accused her in order to discredit her claim that one of them had sexually assaulted her. The constables were ultimately prosecuted, convicted and discharged from the Metropolitan Police. This article considers the Adele case in the context of intense concerns about the possible abuse of police powers—particularly in cases involving women—in the late 1920s. Adele was catapulted onto the front pages of Britain's sensationalist press: her serialised memoir appeared in a newspaper and was reprinted in a women's magazine. However, her case was more than just a tabloid spectacle. Contributing to historians' reconsideration of the sensationalist inter-war press, this article shows how the coverage of the case fit into the press's interest in young working-class women's lifestyles and sexuality, highlighting how ‘human interest’ journalism could be intermixed with social critique.     

Does (No) Discovery Lead to (ILL) Delivery? Comparing Transaction Logs to ILL Requests to Determine the Persistence of Library Patrons

This study looks at known-item searches within a university catalog that come up with a “no results” response to see whether patrons will then place an ILL request for that material and how persistent a user might be in order to obtain something that they want. Catalog search transaction logs were compared against interlibrary loan (ILL) requests placed during the same time frame. Overall, the rate of persistence, or the frequency with which ILL requests were placed when no results were found in the catalog is very low.     

The Visual Aspects of Outreach and Marketing to Art +Design Students

Special Libraries, Special Challenges is a column dedicated to exploring the unique public services challenges that arise in libraries that specialize in a particular subject, such as law, medicine, business, and so forth. In each column, the author will discuss public service dilemmas and solutions that arise specifically in given subject libraries while drawing links to how such issues affect librarianship in general. Special or subject-matter librarians interested in authoring a piece for this column are invited to contact Melissa K. Aho at aho@umn.edu.

Sarah Carter is Instruction and Research Services Librarian at Verman Kimbrough Memorial Library at Ringling College of Art +Design (www.ringling.edu). She holds dual master's degrees in Art History and Library Science from Indiana University. She can be reached at scarter2@ringling.edu or Verman Kimbrough Memorial Library, Ringling College of Art and Design, 2700 N Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34234.     

U.S. Federal Indian Policy: An Essay and Annotated Bibliography

Federal Indian policy in the United States historically reflects both the hard-headed pragmatism of the nation and its quixotic romanticism. Researchers can identify roughly drawn policy epochs and policy motivations, but there were no clean slates as policy shifted. The legal history of a tribe reflects the accumulated—and often contradictory—impact of changing federal policy. Complexity was added to the government's approach by the application of single-minded policies to the exceedingly diverse native groups within the nation's borders. An understanding of evolving federal policy offers useful insights and a basis for creative legal theories.