Evening electronic device use and sleep patterns in athletes

The present study aimed to investigate pre-sleep behaviours (including evening electronic device use) and sleep quantity in well-trained athletes. Seventy well-trained athletes (44 females, 26 males) aged 21 ± 4 y from a range of team and individual sports were asked to complete an online sleep diary for 7 days. The sleep diary included questions about pre-sleep behaviours (e.g. napping, caffeine intake), electronic device use in the 2 h prior to bedtime (e.g. type of device and duration of use) and sleep (e.g. time in bed, sleep onset latency). On average, athletes spent 8:20 ± 1:21 h in bed each night. Associations between age, time in bed and sleepiness suggested that younger athletes spent more time in bed (B = -0.05, p = 0.001) but felt sleepier (r = -0.32, p < 0.01) than older athletes. On average, athletes mostly used electronic devices for 0–30 min prior to sleep. The use of multiple devices in the evening was associated with more perceived difficulty in falling asleep (B = 0.22, p = 0.03), but no associations existed with other sleep variables. In summary, younger athletes may require later start times or improved sleep quality to resolve excessive sleepiness.     

Factorial Invariance of the Abbreviated Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale among Senior Women in the Nurses’ Health Study Cohort

The purpose of this study was to examine the factorial invariance of the Abbreviated Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS-A) across subgroups based on demographic, health-related, behavioral, and environmental characteristics among Nurses’ Health Study participants (N = 2,919; age M = 73.0, SD = 6.9 years) living in California, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. A series of multigroup confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to evaluate increasingly restrictive hypotheses of factorial invariance. Factorial invariance was supported across age, walking limitations, and neighborhood walking. Only partial scalar invariance was supported across state residence and neighborhood population density. This evidence provides support for using the NEWS-A with older women of different ages, who have different degrees of walking limitations, and who engage in different amounts of neighborhood walking. Partial scalar invariance suggests that researchers should be cautious when using the NEWS-A to compare older adults living in different states and neighborhoods with different levels of population density.     

The relationship between the Luria-Nebraska neuropsychological battery-children's revision and the Minnesota Percepto-Diagnostic Test with learning disabled students

The Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery-Children's Revision (LNNB-Children's Revision) and The Minnesota Percepto-Diagnostic Test (MPD) were administered to 40 learning disabled (LD) students. Correlations were run between the scales of the LNNB-Children's Revision and MPD scores across the sample. Coefficients ranged from .07 to .71 for the intercorrelations of the scales of the LNNB-Children's Revision. Low correlations (−.10 to −.27) were found between MPD T scores and the LNNB-Children's Revision Scales, but raw scores from the MPD had somewhat higher correlations with the LNNB (.18 to .65).     

The effectiveness of a 17-week lifestyle intervention on health behaviors among airline pilots during COVID-19

PurposeThe aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a 17-week, 3-component lifestyle intervention for enhancing health behaviors during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.MethodsA parallel-group (intervention and control) study was conducted amongst 79 airline pilots over a 17-week period during the COVID-19 pandemic. The intervention group (n = 38) received a personalized sleep, dietary, and physical activity (PA) program. The control group (n = 41) received no intervention. Outcome measures for sleep, fruit and vegetable intake, PA, and subjective health were measured though an online survey before and after the 17-week period. The changes in outcome measures were used to determine the efficacy of the intervention.ResultsSignificant main effects for time × group were found for International Physical Activity Questionnaire-walk (p = 0.02) and for all other outcome measures (p < 0.01). The intervention group significantly improved in sleep duration (p < 0.01; d = 1.35), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score (p < 0.01; d = 1.14), moderate-to-vigorous PA (p < 0.01; d = 1.44), fruit and vegetable intake (p < 0.01; d = 2.09), Short Form 12v2 physical score (p < 0.01; d = 1.52), and Short Form 12v2 mental score (p < 0.01; d = 2.09). The control group showed significant negative change for sleep duration, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score, and Short Form 12v2 mental score (p < 0.01).ConclusionResults provide preliminary evidence that a 3-component healthy sleep, eating, and PA intervention elicit improvements in health behaviors and perceived subjective health in pilots and may improve quality of life during an unprecedented global pandemic.     

Fostering College-Going Expectations of Immigrant Students Through the Sympathetic Touch of School Leadership

This article intends to support the efforts of administrators, teachers, and community activists to center race, equity, and anti-deficit perspectives within the practice of school leadership. By drawing upon methods of critical race studies, and Du Bois's 1935 Du Bois, W. E. B. (1935). Does the Negro need separate schools? Journal of Negro Education, 4(3), 328–335.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar] concept of the sympathetic touch, the author provides examples of anti-deficit approaches to sympathetic leadership in a large, diverse high school in California. Through reflections and recollections upon this case study, the author underscores ways for school leaders to formulate the conditions for college-going expectations for low-income immigrant students. This retrospective account includes concrete leadership examples, political strategies, and scenarios to illuminate the relevance and utilities of the sympathetic touch in educational leadership. In effect, the article calls for school leaders to harness anti-deficit and anti-oppressive mindsets in the work of inclusion, equity, and social justice.     

Something new: value and change in finance*

ABSTRACT

Ethnographic and social scientific accounts of the financiers that buy and sell companies for profit often homogenize the players in these social dramas, relying on blunt, totalizing definitions of culture or overly deterministic articulations of habitus. This article, drawing on a two-year study of private equity investors, offers an alternative analytic frame for making sense of how private equity people buy and sell companies. It explores the ways in which private equity people make arguments persuading one another and the larger public that an investment is worth making. Important to these arguments are not only substantive content, the evidence that investors marshal to support a thesis, but also reflective evaluation of what counts as good evidence, meta-commentary. It is in these split levels of analysis that we can appreciate the cultural diversity within finance, Wall Street, and investment banking. I will also suggest that understanding how investors are arguing substantively as well as meta-pragmatically begins to outline a useful theory of culture change within the world of investment banking.     

A new footwear technology to promote non-heelstrike landing and enhance running performance: Fact or fad?

This study sought to compare the kinetics and kinematics data in a group of habitual shod runners when running in traditional running shoes and newly designed minimalist shoes with lug platform. This novel footwear design claims to simulate barefoot running and reduce energy loss during impact. We compared footstrike angle (FSA), vertical average (VALR) and instantaneous (VILR) loading rates, energy loss and initial vertical stiffness between two shoe conditions. Runners demonstrated a decreased FSA while running in minimalist shoes with lug platform than traditional shoes (P = 0.003; Cohen’s d = 0.918). However, we did not observe a landing pattern transition. VALR and VILR between two footwear conditions showed no significant difference (P = 0.191–0.258; Cohen’s d = 0.304–0.460). Initial vertical stiffness (P = 0.032; Cohen’s d = 0.671) and energy loss (P = 0.044; Cohen’s d = 0.578) were greater when running in minimalist shoes with lug platform. The results show that minimalist shoes with lug platform reduce the FSA but may not lead to a landing pattern switch or lower vertical loading rates. Interestingly, the new shoe design leads to a greater energy loss than traditional running shoes, which could be explained by a higher initial vertical stiffness.