Using an R shiny to enhance the learning experience of confidence intervals

Many students find understanding confidence intervals difficult, especially because of the amalgamation of concepts such as confidence levels, standard error, point estimates and sample sizes. An R Shiny application was created to assist the learning process of confidence intervals using graphics and data from the US National Basketball Association.     

Voluntarily exiled? Korean state’s cultural politics of young adults’ social belonging and Korean students’ exile to a US community college

This study examines the complicated interlink between the Korean state’s neoliberal identity politics and working- and lower middle-class Korean students’ study abroad as a form of voluntarily exile. Drawing on a critical discourse analysis and a 14-month ethnographic study, this study discusses how these students’ decisions to study abroad are inextricably intertwined with the authoritarian Korean state’s neoliberal political-economic strategies of pushing out seemingly less-profitable citizens (namely, students and graduates of low-ranking 4-year institutions). This study also examines students’ strategies for simultaneously resisting and conforming to this neoliberal ethos. For working-class and lower middle-class Korean community college students, study abroad means a deviation from the normal educational and life trajectories in Korea while, at the same time, their education in the USA opens a pathway for reentering the Korean neoliberal system as more profitable citizens. Their being recognized as members of a profitable workforce indicates their achievement of neoliberal normalcy.     

The making of homophilic networks in international research collaborations: A global perspective from Chilean and Korean engineering

As globalization has expedited mobility of faculty across nations, faculty hiring is taking place at an international level. Institutions and governments often perceive hiring faculty who were trained in different countries as a strategy for reaching the status of world-class universities. The major assumption behind this hiring strategy is that faculty who are educated in prestigious universities in foreign countries will bring cutting edge knowledge and networks that will lead to future research collaborations. Yet, a dearth of research empirically investigated the assumption that institutions that train future foreign faculty and those that hire faculty with foreign degrees will have greater presence in the international networks of research collaboration. Filling this hole, this study examines this assumption from an international perspective, using the case of industrial engineering departments at selective research universities in Chile and Korea. Based on the unique data that document faculty hiring (degree attainment institutions) and research collaboration (co-authorship), and institutional prestige (global ranking positions), we analyzed the relationship between faculty hiring network and research collaboration network, as well as their association with institutional prestige. The results provide strong evidence of the positive relationships between doctoral training and future research collaboration, and the strong presence of institutions with global prestige. These relationships result in homophilic networks that suggest a concern about a reduced diversity in theoretical perspective and research methods within the disciplinary field.     

Competitive balance trends in elite table tennis: the Olympic Games and World Championships 1988-2016

ABSTRACT

Competitive balance is important because it enhances outcome uncertainty and therefore it promotes spectator interest, and encourages government investment in a sport. This article analyses the distribution of gold medals, medals, medal points and top eight points amongst nations in table tennis from 1988 to 2016 at the Olympic Games and the World Championships respectively. A normalised version of the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index and a coefficient of variation are calculated for each nation’s share of these performance indicators. The key findings are that China dominates both events, with successful female players being more dominant than their male counterparts. The competitive balance for gold medals has declined, whilst there is a trend towards improved competitive balance for top eight points for women, suggesting that more teams are featuring in the top eight (but not necessarily the top three) placings. This research has implications for the development of table tennis competitions. Compared to other racket sports, the issue of competitive imbalance in table tennis is particularly thorny, which threatens the long-term development of this sport. Accordingly, some measures are recommended for the International Olympic Committee and the International Table Tennis Federation to propel a more balanced development of international table tennis.     

Promoting physical activity using a wearable activity tracker in college students: A cluster randomized controlled trial

This study examined the effects of utilizing a wearable activity tracker in a credit-based physical activity instructional program (PAIP) for promoting physical activity (PA) in college students. Fourteen PAIP courses in a large public university were randomly assigned into intervention (k = 7; n = 101) and control (k = 7; n = 86) groups. All courses focused on a core curriculum that covers basic exercise and behavioral science contents through lectures and activity sessions. A Misfit Flash activity tracker was provided to students in the intervention group. Objective PA assessments occurred at baseline, mid-, and end-of-semester during a 15-week academic semester. The control group showed a significant reduction in moderate- and vigorous-intensity PA (MVPA) minutes from baseline to the end-of-semester (P <.05), whereas the intervention group showed no changes in MVPA minutes over time. However, the intervention group also showed increased sedentary time and decreased time spent in light-intensity PA during the intervention period. Taken together, the present study found null effects of utilizing the wearable activity tracker in promoting PA in college students suggesting that intervention of primary using the wearable activity tracker as a behavior change strategy may not be effective to increase in PA in this setting.     

A mechanism of mutually beneficial relationships between employees and consumers: A dyadic analysis of employee–consumer interaction

Although sport management researchers concur with one another regarding the significance of interaction between employees and consumers in shaping the consumers’ attitudes and behaviors, the vast majority of previous studies are largely isolated such that they take assessment exclusively from one side of the dyad—either employees or consumers. The authors seek to advance the current body of knowledge by utilizing a dyadic method that includes judgments provided by employees as well as one of each employee’s consumers in a high-contact sport service context (i.e., multi-purpose fitness centers). As such, the authors investigate how employee citizenship behavior and deviance behavior influence consumer citizenship behavior and participative behavior through consumers’ perceived service quality and satisfaction with employees. The results indicated that employee citizenship behavior positively and deviance behavior negatively shaped consumers’ perceptions of service quality, whereas the negative moderating effect of employee deviance behavior between employee citizenship behavior and service quality was not supported. Satisfaction with employees significantly mediated the relationship between service quality and consumer citizenship behavior but not between service quality and consumer participative behavior. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications derived from this study are discussed.     

Roller skiing biomechanical information analysis using GPS,IMU, and atmospheric pressure sensors: a case study

The purpose of this research was to propose a method to acquire the three-dimensional movement of a roller skiing athlete utilizing a global positioning system (GPS), an atmospheric pressure sensor (APS), and an inertial measurement unit (IMU) to distinguish between diagonal skiing and double poling techniques. In this study, we developed a lightweight wearable sensor that was composed of a GPS, APS, and IMU. For the data collection, two national level athletes roller skied a 1700 m long course where the maximum difference in elevation was 5.3 m. The planar positions of the athletes were based on the longitudinal and latitudinal data provided by the GPS, and the altitude was calculated by the International barometric formula and Laplace transform from the APS. The longitudinal and latitudinal data acquired through GPS had errors within 2 m range at each point. The altitude of Laplace transform from the APS showed errors of less than 1 m at each point. The range of motion of pelvis from the IMU was 34.0?±?3.8° for diagonal skiing, which is wider than the 21.2?±?6.9° for double poling.     

General framework for management of technology evolution

Rapid changes in the business environment and the risks of new technologies are critical in the current technology-driven industries. In the perspective of Management of Technology (MOT), analysis of current technology trends is one of the most important factors for business success. This paper introduces the alternative framework for the evolution of Technology Roadmapping (TRM) methodology. Even though this alternative framework is aligned with the existing methodology of technology evolution, its development was based on a totally different approach than that of the general framework of technology evolution, thus providing an alternative practical tool for analyzing the current technology trends. In addition, the strategic decision points can be provided by the same approach in various business areas.     

Sixth-Grade Physical Education: An Acculturation of Bullying and Fear

Purpose: Although bullying is recognized as a serious problem among adolescents, more information is needed regarding bullying within the context of physical education. Grounded in a social-ecological framework, the purpose of this investigation was to discover the perceptions students and teachers have about bullying in physical education and about peer and adult support. Method: Data collection included formal and informal interviews with 24 students and 4 teachers and 20 observations of 6th-grade physical education classes in 1 Midwestern school. Data were analyzed using a constant-comparative process. Results: The results indicate that adults acculturate students to support a bullying climate by providing mixed information regarding social interactions, ignoring nonphysical instances of bullying, and promoting inappropriate curricular selections. Participants also report that perceived differences such as appearance, body size, physical ability, and personal attire ignite most episodes of harassment in physical education. Further, students perceive that fear prevents many from (a) reporting instances of bullying to those in authority, (b) assisting bullied friends, and (c) feeling safe in certain physical education locations. Finally, students and teachers report that bullying impacts students' desire to participate in physical education. Conclusions: Overall, evidence from this investigation suggests that an efficacious support system does not exist for addressing the magnitude of the bullying problem. Although this study provided an initial step toward understanding the social-ecological factors affecting peer harassment in physical education, additional research is warranted.