Evaluation of a lower-body compression garment

The aims of this study were to determine how custom-fit compression shorts affect athletic performance and to examine the mechanical properties of the shorts. Ten male and 10 female track athletes on a university's nationally competitive track team, specializing in sprint or jump events, participated in the study. Testing utilized the compression shorts with loose-fitting gym shorts as the control garment. Several significant effects were revealed for the custom-fit compressive garment. Although 60 m sprint time was not affected, hip flexion angle was reduced. Skin temperature increased more and at a faster rate during a warm-up protocol. Muscle oscillation was decreased during vertical jump landing. Countermovement vertical jump height increased when the participants were wearing the custom-fit compression garment. In materials testing, the elasticity of the compressive garment provides increased flexion and extension torque at the end range of extension and flexion, respectively, and may assist the hamstrings in controlling the leg at the end of the swing phase in sprinting. The compressive garment significantly reduced impact force by 27% compared with American football pants alone. Through various mechanisms, these findings may translate into an effect on athletic performance and a reduction in injuries.     

Proximity and Terrorism News in Social Media: A Construal-Level Theoretical Approach to Networked Framing of Terrorism in Twitter

This study investigates networked framing of terrorism news in Twitter by distinguishing three proximity effects (geographic, social, and temporal proximity) on audience and media institutional frames (i.e., episodic/thematic and space frames), based on construal-level theory. An analysis of tweets during the Boston Marathon bombing and the Brussels Airport attack finds that institutional and audience frames show similarity but do not always converge on Twitter. Similarities in the audience and institutional frames are attributed to a universal human tendency for social categorization, inherent in the minds of not only ordinary citizens but also journalists. Proximity effects, however, were more salient on audience frames than on institutional frames.     

Personality structure of brands on social networking sites and its effects on brand affect and trust: evidence of brand anthropomorphization

The current study explored the personality dimensions of brands on Social Networking Sites (SNSs) using a South Korean sample. Through a series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, six dimensions (i.e. Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Warmth, and Contentiousness) were yielded for brands with SNS presence. The data also produced six dimensions (i.e. Openness, Sincerity, Extraversion, Competence, Agreeableness, and Ruggedness) for brands without SNS presence. The results show that brands with which consumers interact on SNSs have more human-like personalities than brands absent from SNSs, and the personality dimensions affected brand affect and trust to varying degrees.     

Effects of discussion representation: comparisons between social and cognitive diagrams

An online discussion facilitates students’ higher order thinking in online classes, especially when adopted with the instructor’s guidance. The current experimental study examined the effects of two different discussion representation tools (social and cognitive diagrams) on students’ discussion behaviors. The social diagram emphasized interactivity of participants by illustrating who posted messages and who replied. The cognitive diagram described how discussion topic evolved by summarizing main topics discussed. Thirteen graduate students enrolled in an online graduate course participated in the study. While analyzing five instructional cases, students were asked to discuss each case in a group that the instructor assigned randomly. For each case, one group was provided with the social diagram whereas the other with the cognitive diagram. Major findings revealed both tools facilitated online discussion activities as the instructor intended: the social diagram turned out to promote socially desirable responses while the cognitive diagram produced more cognitively desirable responses. Further studies on how the two types of discussion diagrams can be integrated in online discussions will be needed.     

Does high-quality professional development make a difference? Evidence from TIMSS

Abstract

While professional development has been emphasised in many countries, few comparative studies have examined the degree of teachers’ participation in professional development and its effect on teachers. Using the TIMSS 2007 data, this study analyses to what extent teachers participated in professional development in 50 TIMSS countries and examines the relationship among high-quality teachers’ professional development, teachers’ beliefs, attitudes and job satisfaction. The study found that the extent to which teachers have participated in professional developmental activities was surprisingly low. In particular, teachers in 47 countries have rarely participated in active learning. The study also found that high-quality teacher professional development was significantly associated with greater job satisfaction, higher expectations for student performance and more positive attitudes in teachers concerning their implementing the school’s curriculum. Policy implications for professional development are discussed.     

Roles of Abductive Reasoning and Prior Belief in Children’s Generation of Hypotheses about Pendulum Motion

The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that student’s abductive reasoning skills play an important role in the generation of hypotheses on pendulum motion tasks. To test the hypothesis, a hypothesis-generating test on pendulum motion, and a prior-belief test about pendulum motion were developed and administered to a sample of 5th grade children. A significant number of subjects who have prior belief about the length to alter pendulum motion failed to apply their prior belief to generate a hypothesis on a swing task. These results suggest that students’ failure in hypothesis generation was related to abductive reasoning ability, rather than simple lack of prior belief. This study, then, supports the notion that abductive reasoning ability beyond prior belief plays an important role in the process of hypothesis generation. This study suggests that science education should provide teaching about abductive reasoning as well as scientific declarative knowledge for developing children’s hypothesis-generation skills.     

Graphs in the COVID-19 news: a mathematics audit of newspapers in Korea

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Visual displays in the news media become critical during escalating events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, as they facilitate the communication of complex...     

The incidence of cross-licensing: A theory and new evidence on the firm and contract level determinants

This paper examines the firm and contract level determinants of the incidence of cross-licensing among manufacturing firms. It develops a simple stochastic theory explaining such incidence, which implies that cross-licensing, compared with unilateral licensing, is more prevalent between large and symmetric firms under a reasonable set of assumptions. We find strong empirical support to these implications, based on a new dataset of more than 1100 licensing contracts by Japanese manufacturing firms. We also find that the incidence of cross-licensing is higher when the contract covers only patent than when it covers only know-how, consistent with the theory. The licensing probability between two firms depends primarily on the size of a potential licensor, which, according to the theory, is consistent with the fact that a licensor is larger than a licensee on the average.     

An Evaluation of Oral Presentation Competency in Interior Design Education

As digital modelling programmes become increasingly prevalent in interior design education, there is concern that graduates are entering the workforce relying too much on strong graphic presentation skills while lacking the basic ability to speak about design. This study explores the gap between practitioners’ perceptions of importance regarding oral presentation competency and students’ perceptions of their oral presentation performances. Additionally, the study explores correlations between in‐class activities and students’ perceptions of their oral presentation competency. Mixed‐methods of investigation include a Delphi study with a panel of interior design practitioners and a survey questionnaire of both practitioners (n = 102) and currently active interior design students (n = 91) in the USA. An Importance‐Performance framework is employed for comparison. Results identify performance criteria for evaluating oral presentation competency and indicate variances between students’ perceptions of their performance and industry perceptions of importance. Furthermore, students’ in‐class activities including studio critiques and written peer assessments show significant correlation with student oral presentation performance indicating activities already frequently incorporated into a design curriculum may have a greater impact on improving performance than specific oral presentation instruction alone.