Effects of cigarette smoking on cardiac autonomic function during dynamic exercise

The purpose of this study was to investigate the acute effect of cigarette smoking on cardiac autonomic function in young adult smokers during dynamic exercise. Fourteen healthy young smokers (21.4 ± 3.4 years) performed peak and submaximal exercise protocols under control and smoking conditions. Resting and submaximal beat-to-beat R-R series were recorded and spectrally decomposed using the fast Fourier transformation. Smoking resulted in a significant decrease in work time, VO(2peak) and peak O(2) pulse (P < 0.05). Heart rate increased at rest and during submaximal exercise after smoking (P < 0.05). The raw high frequency and low frequency power were significantly reduced by smoking, both at rest and during exercise (P < 0.05). The low to high frequency ratio was higher after smoking (P < 0.05). The normalised low frequency power was also significantly increased by smoking, but only at rest (P < 0.05). These data demonstrate that the tachycardic effect elicited by smoking is accompanied by acute changes in heart rate spectral components both at rest and during exercise. Therefore, the cardiac autonomic control is altered by smoking not only at rest, but also during exercise, resulting in reduced vagal modulation and increased sympathetic dominance.     

Parental Monitoring of Children’s Television Viewing in a Sample of Peruvian Caregivers

Parental monitoring of children’s television viewing is an important family practice that helps children understand the messages they find on advertisements and program content. Research points at different dimensions of monitoring, including parental co-viewing, rules about when and how much time children can watch television, and active parental mediation. The study describes different dimensions of parental monitoring in a sample of 303 caregivers of primary school children living in Lima. Main findings reveal that about a third of the sample engaged in parental monitoring never, rarely or sometimes, the education level of the caregiver was positively associated with limiting the time children can watch television, and that child’s age was negatively associated with the frequency of active mediation and limits on the content children may watch on TV. Further research is needed in order to understand the practice of parental monitoring across children’s age groups in the context of Peru.     

Modelos de lectura y dislexias

Resumen

En este artículo se hace una revisión de las dislexias a partir de los modelos de lectura. Para ello se comienza por describir el modelo de lectura que, según los datos empíricos, rige la ejecución de los lectores normales. A partir de la literatura publicada se puede comprobar que los diferentes tipos de trastornos lectores se pueden explicar a partir del modelo. Se termina comentando las importantes implicaciones de este enfoque en el tratamiento de las dislexias en particular y en los métodos de enseñanza de la lectura en general.     

The child’s emotional management in school competition: under-seven football / La gestión emocional del niño en la competición escolar: el fútbol prebenjamín

Abstract

Football is one of the most common extracurricular activities among schoolchildren. Illusions and expectations are poured into a competitive sport that complements their formal education at school. The controversy over competition in schoolchildren aged six and seven opens up a debate on the lessons that are constructed. This study explores the emotional management that children develop in order to participate in sports activities in relation to the lessons promoted by the school. This article presents an ethnographic study grounded upon participant observation, with 101 schoolchildren in the first and second years of primary school during one academic year in 207 sessions, and semi-structured interviews with 21 teachers. After analysing the narratives, the results reveal previous expectations and stresses, a level of activation adequate for the competitive demands of the environment, the development of the ability to be competent in a stressful situation, the emotional capitalization of knowing how to win and lose, the impact of social recognition on adaptative construction of self-esteem, and the management of episodes of stress.     

Sound representations in preschool students / Las representaciones del sonido en estudiantes de educación preescolar

Abstract

Studies of the representations that students construct, within the framework of embodied cognition, have shown that perception, action and cognition are linked and are the basis of these representations. From this framework of analysis, this study attempted to identified the representations of 23 preschool students (ages four and five) of sound production, perception and propagation. In-depth interviews were conducted using hypothetical situations and experimental tasks. Three representations were identified. The first one shows a conception of sound centred on objects. Representation 2 also focuses on objects and their relationship with the subject, but it begins to attribute characteristics to the sound itself, and in representation 3, sound has more intrinsic characteristics that expand its possibilities of interacting with the subject and other objects. We conclude that the construction of representations of sound starts from perceptual elements and is linked to actions, although its complexity also shows that they incorporate characteristics that go beyond this corporal correlate.     

Multi-Agent Architecture for Intelligent Tutoring Systems

This paper shows a multi-agent architecture based on reactive agents for an intelligent tutoring system (ITS). The global system behavior is modeled taking into account the mental models and the cognitive task analysis. We present the basic characteristics of the reactive system in terms of reactive robotics, where they started. Next we introduce some definitions and schemes in order to characterize the multi-agent architecture. Finally, we present an ITS example called Makatsiná Makatsiná means tutor in TOTONACA, a Mexican pre-Spanish language. which teaches the skills necessary to solve a truss analysis problem by the joint method. This domain is an integration skill.     

Measuring Inequality of Opportunity in Education by Combining Information on Coverage and Achievement in PISA

Measuring the distance between countries and the goal of equality of opportunity in education has been the focus of recent contributions in the economic literature, which have concentrated either on intergroup gaps in access to a given level of studies or on intergroup gaps in educational achievement. We argue that both aspects are important and interrelated and, as a consequence, should be measured simultaneously and combined in a composite index of equality of opportunity in education. Employing recent PISA data for a selected set of countries, rank reversals are observed with respect to orderings based upon a single dimension. The index can be generalized to include further dimensions, such as average scores or dissimilarity in access.     

Construction and validation of a psychometric scale to assess extension agents’ beliefs about extension and innovation

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This article aims at designing and validating a psychometric scale to assess extensionists’ and advisors’ beliefs about extension and innovation.     

Laser cleaning of terracotta decorations of the portal of Palos of the Cathedral of Seville

Laser cleaning has been used to restore the soiled terracotta statues and decorations of the tympanum of the portal of Palos of the Cathedral of Seville in Spain. A simultaneous laboratory study performed on a representative sample helped to identify the optimum laser conditions to remove the dark soiling layer produced by air pollution. It was found that irradiation at 1064 nm with a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser was more effective than the harmonic wavelengths of 532 or 266 nm. LIBS and Raman microscopy gave information on the composition of terracotta and identified the presence of a protective layer made of gypsum and calcite. As detected by Raman spectroscopy, laser irradiation caused the elimination of the carbon component of the soiling layer and the appearance of an anhydrite component in the laser irradiated gypsum layer applied over the terracotta substrate for protective purposes. Local heating of the surface caused by laser irradiation at 1064 nm, the laser wavelength used for restoration of the portal, might be responsible for a process of partial dehydration of gypsum into anhydrite.