LEDs as a tool to enhance faded colours of museums artefacts

A procedure to enhance the faded colours of museums artefacts is presented. The method is based on adjusting the spectral profile of the light while maintaining a given white colour of the illumination. The procedure is tested using colour LED clusters and a series of damaged samples and their good condition counterparts. The intensity of the three components of four feasible LED clusters is computed in order to produce white illumination metameric to a white LED light source taken as a reference. Colorimetric calculations are performed to model the colour changes undergone by target colour samples using illumination based on colour LED association with respect to the white LED reference. The model is based on CIELAB specification and allows to optimize the choice of three-colour LED associations that modify the hue and the saturation of a few target colour areas of illuminated samples while other areas are left moderately desaturated. Modelling and experimental visual validation were practically obtained by adjusting the intensity of five calibrated colour LEDs, blue, cyan, green, amber and red, accommodated in a light booth. A visual validation was conducted asking 20 observers to rate the colourfulness appearance of aged inkjet prints under every LED cluster with respect to the colourfulness of their original counterparts under the reference white LED source. The visual assessments agreed with the colorimetric predictions. Finally, a demonstration is shown of the feasibility of the method by simulating the rejuvenated appearance of a natural history specimen of which the museum possesses two differently aged items.     

Creativity at work: the production of work for sale by brand ambassadors

Creative work has emerged at the core of the new economy and is primarily studied in the art and the media, music and advertising business. This article presents data from an ethnographic research with professional rock climbers. It argues that the production of work for sale by these climbers is a form of creative work. The thread of the argument is twofold. First, their work is inextricably intertwined and paced with highly creative activities. Second, it is anchored in a complex system of communication aiming for the production and dissemination of experiences through media production.     

Longitudinal emotional process among adolescent soccer player in intensive training centre

ABSTRACT

Grounded in Lazarus’s (1999) cognitive motivational relational theory of emotions, this study aimed to explore longitudinal relationships between appraisals, everyday emotions related to the competitive environment and emotional regulation strategies during a competitive season. Forty adolescent soccer players (Mage = 15.8) involved in an intensive training centre from a professional club voluntarily participated to the study. A series of hierarchical linear modelling analyses were conducted upon the 9 measurement times to: (a) examine the relationships between appraisals (threat, challenge, loss), pleasant (happiness, excitement) and unpleasant (anxiety, dejection, anger) emotions, and emotional regulation strategies (adaptive and less adaptive); and (b) ascertain whether the relationships between appraisals and emotions were mediated by emotion regulation strategies. The results of the random coefficient regression models showed: (a) positive relationships between challenge appraisal, adaptive emotion regulation, and pleasant emotions as well as between threat and loss appraisals, less adaptive emotion regulation and unpleasant emotions; and (b) mediating effects of emotional regulation strategies in the appraisals – emotions relationships. As a whole, this study furthered knowledge base about the competitive environment in showing that appraisals, emotion regulation and emotions are intertwined psychological constructs in a dynamic relationship allowing athletes to continuously adjust to their constantly changing everyday demands.     

The effect of time‐on‐task on student grades and grade expectations

The effects of students’ attitudes on time devoted to a course (i.e. time‐on‐task), and the subsequent effects of this time‐on‐task on their performance in the course and their overall grade point average (GPA) were studied. Over a three‐year period, engineering students (N = 231) were surveyed in weeks one, three, seven (after midterms) and 10 (before finals) of a 10‐week quarter in six sophomore and junior engineering classes (eight different sections). Results of this study show that most students are optimistic about their future performance in a new course, regardless of their previous overall GPA. All students appear to devote a relatively high and equal amount of time‐on‐task during the first week of the term. The students who earned grades between ‘B+’ and ‘A’ appear to optimise this time by the third week. Students who earned a final grade of ‘B’ study similar to ‘A’ students before midterms but significantly increase their efforts after midterms while the ‘C’ students decrease their time devoted to the course. This study finds that ‘A’ students know they will earn an ‘A’ as long as they do the work. In contrast, ‘C’ students are resigned to the fact that they will earn a ‘C’ and, thus, devote far less time to a course. The ‘B’ students want better grades and will devote the most effort towards achieving these grades.     

The role of engineering in fatigue reduction during human locomotion — a review

The purpose of this review is to discuss how an athlete’s fatigue can be limited by using recent innovations in sports engineering. The review focuses on human locomotion, i.e. mainly fatigue during endurance sports. First, through a general definition and illustrations of means of locomotion such as running, cycling, walking/hiking or speed skating, several aspects of fatigue reduction will be presented. With regards to the mechanical stress, it has been shown that (i) contrary to ‘invitro’ experiments and, in comparison with hard shoes, soft shoes do not appear to reduce impact forces during running and (ii) too much cushioning can have side effects in terms of energy cost and thus in terms of fatigue in running and mountain biking. On the contrary, the equipment weight-that also depends on the weight repartition may have dramatic effects in terms of fatigue. Any equipment allowing better mechanical efficiency (e.g. chainrings, klapskate) or work distribution (e.g. walking with poles) can potentially reduce an athlete’s fatigue under similar conditions without this equipment. However, among elite athletes, the use of technical innovation does not seem to affect fatigueper se but provides performance improvement with similar fatigue occurrence. It appears that fatigue-related improvements caused by technical innovations only occur among sportsmen exercising for leisure. In the second part of this review, recent textile innovations aimed at decreasing fatigue by the use of elastic compression stockings or at regulating temperature will be discussed. Finally, two methods designed to improve recovery after training or competition (elastic compression and electromyostimulation) will be discussed. Both these techniques are widely used by elite athletes despite relatively poor scientific evidence of their efficiency, with the exception of recovery after eccentric exercise.     

A knowledge based system for the flexible production and delivery of learning material

An Interactive Learning and Course development Environment (ILCE) is presented, which aims to enhance the flexibilization of a course in terms of tailoring it to the needs and requirements of individual students. The heart of ILCE forms a repository of units of learning material. The repository consists of a domain model, a semantic network of the content of a subject domain which is covered by the learning material. This model serves as an abstract representation of the units of learning material. The construction of a course is defined as the selection of a subset of the domain model. Attributes are used to express student characteristics and are linked to the domain model as variables. By adding if/then rules to the domain model, the consistency and the completeness of a selection is preserved. The building environment is used by a course team to fill a repository by designing, producing and revising units of learning material in accordance with the proposed knowledge representation scheme. The design approach a course team has to adopt focuses on building a course model next to the design of the learning material. This design approach is illustrated with examples taken from the ILCE prototype.     

Execution time,kinetics, and kinematics of the mae-geri kick: Comparison of national and international standard karate athletes

Abstract

Little is known of the performance characteristics of the shotokan karate mae-geri kick. The aim of this study was to compare the execution time, the lower limb kinetics and kinematics, and their respective repeatability in the mae-geri kick of karate athletes of two different standards. Seventeen adult black belt karate competitors (9 national and 8 international athletes) performed six kicks with their dominant lower limb on a striking surface, combining maximum force impact and velocity. Execution time of movement and lower limb kinematics were recorded with a high-speed camera. Maximum force at impact and the forces exerted on the ground were measured using three force plates. The duration of the kick was significantly shorter for international than for national standard athletes. However, no significant difference in the maximum impact force of the kick was observed between the two groups. In addition, significant kinematic differences were observed between the groups, with two angles of motion and one velocity peak occurring sooner in the kick movement for the international athletes, specifically for the knee joint. International athletes also performed the kick with a significantly higher repeatability for duration and kinematics, specifically during the pre-loading phase that precedes the attack phase. We conclude that theduration of the kick and repeatability of lower limb kinematics could be useful in selecting top-level karate athletes and monitoring their training status.     

Bottom-up estimation of industrial and public R&D investment by technology in support of policy-making: The case of selected low-carbon energy technologies

This paper discusses a bottom-up approach to estimate the level of R&D investment by technology in areas where data are scarce. It develops a four-step methodology for the estimation of corporate R&D investments at technology level. This approach can overcome gaps in existing data by combining publicly available information in a novel way, even though it introduces some uncertainty. This is illustrated for a set of low-carbon energy technologies that were identified as key for meeting Europe's long-term energy and climate objectives by the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan. The paper finds that the aggregated R&D investments dedicated to these technologies amounted to €3.3 billion in the EU in 2007, including public funding from European Union Member States and at EU-level, and industrial research activities from companies with headquarters registered in the EU. The results allow conclusions on the European energy research policy to be drawn, such as the dominance of industrial funds, and have provided significant input to the European policy making in this field. The paper ends with suggestions on how to further enhance the accuracy of the approach and how to widen its application to other sectors.