Testing Measurement Invariance of Hedonic and Eudaimonic Entertainment Experiences Across Media Formats

The aim of this study is to investigate the measurement invariance of media users’ entertainment experiences as conceptualized by two-process models of entertainment (i.e., enjoyment and appreciation) across different media formats. With this purpose, the present research relates to the recent rise of entertainment research, embracing more and more media types and formats with which entertainment experiences may occur. At the same time, it addresses a methodological issue that has rarely been addressed in communication research. Focusing on one of the most often used measurement instruments in entertainment research, on three different media formats (political talk shows, comedies, and dramas), the study finds evidence for configural, metric, and scalar invariance for the scale. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

American influencies in Brazilian physical education: clues in the specialised periodical press (1932–1950)

This study investigates the American presence and influences in the physical education press to understand the way in which that presence influenced and contributed to the production of a sports culture in the first half of the twentieth century. As historical sources, the study uses periodicals in the field that were published in the period 1932–1950. As a theoretical frame of reference, it uses the repertoire of the New Cultural History in terms of strategy, tactics and devices. It is written in a narrative way, following Ginzburg's style, presenting data and contextualizing them with the historic scene. Clues enabled us to infer that the American presence, which was catalysed by the Brazilian Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), sought to shape a sports culture from physical education and society. This effort reflected the yearning of Brazilian intellectuals for modernisation and an attempt at cultural colonisation by the government of the USA.     

Development of creativity: The influence of varying levels of implementation of the DISCOVER curriculum model, a non-traditional pedagogical approach

Development of creativity is influenced by multiple factors, including the environment, developmental changes, and measurement tools. In this study, we investigated the relationship between creativity development and implementation of the Discovering Intellectual Strengths and Capabilities while Observing Varied Ethnic Responses (DISCOVER) curriculum model. Using the Test of Creative Thinking–Drawing Production (TCT-DP), 1986 culturally diverse, low-income students, K through 6, in four elementary schools in the U.S. were assessed for three consecutive years. The creativity of all children increased from grades K to 6, but children in classrooms of low implementers demonstrated a dip and some “pauses.” Differences in scores of children in middle/high and low implementers' classrooms were significant. The implication is that creativity development is supported through active learning, student choice, access to varied materials, exploration, self-evaluation, problem finding, and problem solving. Additional analyses need to be conducted to uncover cultural and linguistic influences in these four schools.     

Acoustic driven flow and lattice Boltzmann simulations to study cell adhesion in biofunctionalized ��-fluidic channels with complex geometry

Accurately mimicking the complexity of microvascular systems calls for a technology which can accommodate particularly small sample volumes while retaining a large degree of freedom in channel geometry and keeping the price considerably low to allow for high throughput experiments. Here, we demonstrate that the use of surface acoustic wave driven microfluidics systems successfully allows the study of the interrelation between melanoma cell adhesion, the matrix protein collagen type I, the blood clotting factor von Willebrand factor (vWF), and microfluidic channel geometry. The versatility of the tool presented enables us to examine cell adhesion under flow in straight and bifurcated microfluidic channels in the presence of different protein coatings. We show that the addition of vWF tremendously increases (up to tenfold) the adhesion of melanoma cells even under fairly low shear flow conditions. This effect is altered in the presence of bifurcated channels demonstrating the importance of an elaborate hydrodynamic analysis to differentiate between physical and biological effects. Therefore, computer simulations have been performed along with the experiments to reveal the entire flow profile in the channel. We conclude that a combination of theory and experiment will lead to a consistent explanation of cell adhesion, and will optimize the potential of microfluidic experiments to further unravel the relation between blood clotting factors, cell adhesion molecules, cancer cell spreading, and the hydrodynamic conditions in our microcirculatory system.     

Emergence of a Unique German‐Israeli Academic Exchange Programme: Attributes and Dilemmas

This article describes a unique student exchange programme that has been operating for more than five years and which links students in the Department of Non-formal Education at Beit Berl College in Israel and students in the Department of Social Work at Fachhochschule Wiesbaden in Germany. The uniqueness of this programme lies not only in the co-operation between countries but mainly in the form of a professional study programme involving two educational institutions having different approaches and with different methods for the training of social workers that are embedded in different socio-cultural atmospheres and historical traditions. On top of these complexities, there was the need to cope with the question of how to rebuild relations between two societies loaded with the historical heritage of the Holocaust. The focus of this article is on the emergence and the development of the programme and on some of the dilemmas with which it was faced.