The geometric curvature of the spine during the sirshasana,the yoga’s headstand

This study analysed the behaviour of the geometric curvature of the spine during sirshasana. The position of dorsal retroreflective markers was computed via stereophotogrammetric analysis in six males and five females (29.4 ± 8.8 years, 63.0 ± 11.4 kg, 1.66 ± 0.08 m [average ± standard deviation]). The spinal points were projected onto the sagittal and frontal planes of the trunk, a polynomial was fitted to the data and the two-dimensional geometric curvature was quantified. The inferior lumbar lordosis decreased compared to the orthostatic position and gait, which may favour the posterior protrusion of the lumbar spinal nucleus pulposus in people with posterior herniation. The lateral deviation at the middle of the thoracic spine increases during sirshasana, which may reflect increased difficulties for postural control and spinal loads. It could be useful for promoting positive spinal structural and functional chronic adaptations for healthy participants, if the yoga programme is carefully planned and the spinal alignment is carefully monitored during a headstand. However, it may aggravate some spinal diseases, especially scoliosis.     

Playing outdoor and practising sport: A study of physical activity levels in Portuguese children

In outdoor activities, it seems reasonable that the longer children spend in spontaneous physical activity (PA), the higher the probability of being active. Indeed, the time spent outdoor has been identified as a variable consistently associated with the children’s PA. Outdoor playing, such as the organized sports practice, appears associated with healthier lifestyle standards. All the recommendations mention the importance of increasing daily PA practice in children and teenagers, but few studies highlight the relationship between outdoor play and the recommended PA levels. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between the frequency of outdoor play, the frequency of the organized sports practice, and the compliance of the recommendations for PA practice in children in the inner city area of Porto. The sample of this study is composed of 422 individuals (mean age of 11.6 years). Two hundred and twenty-five of them were girls and 197 were boys from the sixth grade (elementary schools located in the inner city area of Porto). PA was objectively evaluated using accelerometers. Participants reported frequency of participation in different PA contexts, such as sports practice and outdoor play. The results show a predictor effect of participating in sports three or more times per week on compliance of PA guidelines.

In conclusion, organized sports practice seems more effective than outdoor play to reach the recommended levels of PA in children.     

Horizontal ground reaction forces to stationary running performed in the water and on dry land at different physiological intensities

The aim of the present study was to compare the peak anterior–posterior (Fy) and medio–lateral (Fx) ground reaction forces (GRFs) of women performing stationary running at different intensities in aquatic and dry land environments. Fourteen young women performed the stationary running exercise at three cadences (first ventilatory threshold, second ventilatory threshold and maximum effort, as determined during exercise in water) in aquatic and dry land environments. Two-way repeated measures ANOVA was used to analyse the data (α?=?.05). As a result, significantly lower peak Fy anterior, Fy posterior, Fx medial and Fx lateral values were observed for the aquatic environment, except for the Fy posterior at the first ventilatory threshold. Significant differences were observed between cadences in the peak Fy anterior, Fy posterior, Fx medial and Fx lateral values, with higher values for the cadence corresponding to maximum effort compared to the first ventilatory threshold, except for the Fy posterior and Fx medial in the aquatic environment. The results indicate that the horizontal GRFs are reduced in the aquatic environment and depend on the intensity of stationary running exercise performance.     

COLLABORATION FOR A CURRICULUM OF CARING: THE ZEITGEIST IS RIGHT

Recent catastrophic school shootings have drawn worldwide attention to issues of gun control and mental health. In the wake of these tragedies, more and more schools have begun to adopt school‐wide social and emotional learning (SEL) programs. However, we have few examples of what it looks like to integrate SEL skills into content curricula. What's more, teachers and support professionals are ill‐equipped to engage in the collaborative work necessary to effectively integrate the teaching of SEL into academic content. The collaboration described herein highlights an interdisciplinary collaboration among university faculty and graduate students from school psychology and English education to collaboratively design and evaluate standards‐based secondary English curricula that foreground SEL and themes of care.     

Anaphoric reference strategies used in written language productions of deaf teenagers

There are few researchers who analyze written productions by deaf individuals; there are also few researchers who discuss the knowledge these people have about written text comprehension and production. For the present study, the investigators analyzed 16 written productions by four deaf individuals based on the anaphoric reference concept as recently proposed in textual linguistics (see, e.g., I. V. Koch & L. A. Marcuschi, 2002). It is important to show that referential progression is one of the textual aspects capable of giving stability and continuity to written productions; referential progression is also relevant to discursive coherence. The results of the writing analysis in the present study show that deaf individuals can learn to use expressive resources that are available in the Portuguese language and can use reference strategies, as long as these individuals can interact with a partner who knows Portuguese.     

The emergence of the marketing professional in schools

Abstract

The marketisation of schools has emerged as a defining feature of the education landscape. While the role of principals and lead teachers in carrying out marketing work was investigated in the late 1990s, there has been scant evidence of how the people and practices of marketing in schools have evolved into the twenty-first century. Expanding on existing literature on educational marketing practices in schools, and through in-depth interviews with a unique sample of school marketers, this study explores the emergence of the school marketing professional. The interviews reveal the diverse backgrounds and experiences of these individuals, the transfer of their business skills into schools and the tensions in professional boundaries with educators who traditionally performed school marketing activities. Ultimately, the study furthers insights into the co-existence of educational and managerial agendas in the schools market.     

Mothers' causal attributions concerning the reading achievement of their children with and without familial risk for dyslexia

The present study analyzed data from the Jyv?skyl? Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia to investigate the factors to which mothers of children with and without familial risk for dyslexia attribute the causes of their first-grade children's reading achievement. Mothers' causal attributions were assessed three times during their children's first school year. Children's verbal intelligence was assessed at 5 years and their word and nonword reading skills at 6.5 years. The results showed that the higher the word reading skills the children had, the more their mothers attributed their success to ability than to effort. However, if children had familial risk for dyslexia, their mothers' attribution of success to ability decreased during the first grade as compared with the ability attributions of mothers whose children were in the control group.     

Absence of blocking,overshadowing, and latent inhibition in social enhancement of food preferences

A rat’s preference for food of a given flavor can be substantially enhanced by allowing it to interact with a conspecificdemonstrator that has recently eaten food of that flavor. The heuristic value of treating such socially induced enhancement of flavor preference as an instance of Pavlovian conditioning was examined in three experiments. Conceiving of the smell of the food as a conditional stimulus and other cues emanating from the demonstrator rat as an unconditional stimulus, we determined whether each of three common Pavlovian phenomena-blocking, overshadowing, and latent inhibition-would occur. Using experimental parameters that readily produce socially induced enhancement of flavor preference, none of the three Pavlovian phenomena were found.