Intentional Civility

The meaning of civility is culturally dependent—as are the rules associated with the term. If museums and their staff want to welcome all peoples, then the rules of civil behavior have to change to reflect that intention. Yet museums have mostly lived with the traditional, class‐dependent notion of etiquette. The area that the concept of civility should be concerned with covers our interactions in spheres generally considered separable: public behavior; staff behavior; content behavior; community relations. Museums would do well to examine those behavioral elements that have been assumed to be self‐evident: like not talking in the library (whereas there are now talking‐based rooms). Normative behavior is always changing, but interestingly, as it changes, it generally remains mostly in the service of peaceful outcomes. I am suggesting that direct interrogation of our unexamined rules about interactions with each other in every context—and adjusting them to reflect a changed society—might be more significant than previously assumed.     

Estimates of the number of people in England who attain or exceed vigorous intensity exercise by walking at 3 mph

Walking is a safe, accessible and low cost activity, amenable to change and known to have great potential to increase physical activity levels in sedentary individuals. The objective of this study is to estimate the proportion of the 2009 adult population of England who would attain or exceed vigorous intensity activity (>70% maximum heart rate [HR(max)]) by walking at 3 mph. We conducted predictive impact modelling using participants' (n = 1741, aged 25-64 years) cardiovascular fitness data from treadmill walking tests. We combined this data with English population estimates adjusted for age and sex to estimate the numbers of individuals that would exceed 70% HR(max) (an intensity considered sufficient for fitness gains) when walking at 3 mph (4.8 km · h(-1)). We estimate 1.5 million men (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.9-2.2 million) (from 13.4 million corresponding to 11.6% (95% CI 7.0-16.2%)) and 3.9 million women (95% CI 3.0-4.8 million) (from 13.6 million corresponding to 28.6% (95% CI 22.0-35.1%)) in England aged 25-64 years would benefit from regularly walking at 3 mph. In total, a projected 5.4 million individuals (95% CI 3.9-6.9 million) aged 25-64 (from 26.97 million corresponding to 20.1% (95% CI 14.6-25.7%)) could benefit from walking at 3 mph. Our estimates suggest a considerable number of individuals in the English population could receive fitness and health benefits by walking regularly at 3 mph. Physical activity messages that promote walking at this speed may therefore have the potential to significantly impact national fitness levels and health in England.     

Identifying the information management process and knowledge creation in technology-based companies: a Brazilian comparative case study

Knowledge Management Research & Practice - Information and knowledge have been cited over the last two decades as competitive advantage tools. Recently, the use of them has been discussed to...     

Familiarity and relatedness: Effects on social learning about foods by Norway rats and Mongolian gerbils

In recent experiments in which the social influences on feeding in Mongolian gerbils were investigated, observer gerbils acquired food preferences from conspecific demonstrators only if the demonstrators and observers were either related or familiar. Even then, the effects of demonstrator gerbils on observers’ food choices lasted less than 24 h. In similar experiments with Norway rats, the familiarity/relatedness of demonstrators and observers had little effect on social learning, and the demonstrators’ influence on observers’ food choices lasted many days. We examined the causes of these differences and found that, after observer gerbils interacted with either unfamiliar or familiar conspecific demonstrators that had been fed using procedures typically used to feed demonstrator rats, they showed long-lasting social learning about foods, whereas observer rats interacting with conspecific demonstrators that had been fed as demonstrator gerbils normally are fed showed effects of familiarity/relatedness to demonstrators on their social learning about foods. Procedural differences, rather than species differences, seem to be responsible for reported inconsistencies in social learning about foods by rats and gerbils.