Carl Schmidt -- a chemical tourist in Victorian Britain

Carl Schmidt is one of the founders of modern biochemistry. He wrote numerous scientific publications, and left future generations several important documents that included two extensive hand-written travel reports from 1857 and 1864. In these, Schmidt paints a lively and impressive picture of industry in Victorian Britain from a personal perspective, showing this key period of European economic history in a unique light. Thus, it is rewarding to follow Schmidt on his travels through Britain, which he regarded as the workshop of the world and a shining but unattainable example for the industrial development of his home country.     

Subaltern Thinking in Religious Education? Postcolonial Readings of (German) Schoolbooks

ABSTRACT

This paper deals with the disclosure of subaltern thinking in current German-language textbooks for religious education. For the hermeneutical framing of this analysis, the approach of a postcolonial reading is particularly profitable. Obvious hierarchical relationships from clearly up and down can consequently be made visible and their presumed self-evidence unmasked. Even hidden hegemonic forms of expression can be uncovered in this way. With regard to current theology and religious education racism and misogyny, environmental degradation and sexual exploitation are attitudes that have already and almost as amatter of course been taken up critically. They are pedagogically reflected and attempted to overcome by using counter-models such as cultural diversity, equal rights, sustainability and sexual self-determination.In exciting contrast to this there are still nowadays textbooks used with remnants of exactly such formats of colonial thoughts. We argue that decolonising schoolbooks can be a useful part of decolonising the religious education curriculum. The schoolbook analysis carried out for this purpose is structured by four leading categories: Anthropological assumptions (1), religious classifications and interpretations (2), conceptions of culture and its hybridity (3) and finally the relationship to creation and environment (4). Textbooks from primary, secondary and vocational schools were examined.     

Measures of long-term trends in mathematics: linking large-scale assessments over 50 years

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability - International comparative assessments of student achievement are constructed to assess country-level differences and change over time. A...     

Reasoning and working memory as predictors of school grades

The present paper contributes to individual difference research in the field of working memory (WM) and reasoning and their contribution to the prediction of real-life criteria. Therefore, a broad WM test battery, a well-established measure of reasoning, and school grades were applied. It is argued that abilities as assessed with the WM component coordination are relevant for good performances at school, especially for science courses. The verbal task of the WM component storage in the context of processing was assumed to be relevant for the prediction of performance in language courses. As expected, reasoning turned out to be the best predictor of school grades. However, it was also confirmed that variance shared by coordination and reasoning can explain school performance, especially as concerns science courses. The verbal storage in the context of processing task significantly accounted for variance in language courses above and beyond reasoning. Thus, the present study provided further insights into the differential validity of different WM components.     

Short-term slackline training improves task-specific but not general balance in female handball players

Slackline training has been shown to improve balance and neuromuscular performance. However, recent studies suggested that balance is task-specific, implying that transferability of balance skills is limited and might depend on the similarity of the tasks. This study therefore investigated if short-term slackline training could improve performance in balance tasks that are either more or less similar to the trained slackline task. Furthermore, we assessed potential transfer effects to other neuromuscular performance tests.

25 female handball players (23.7?±?3.9 years) participated in our study and were matched to either a slackline training (SLT; n?=?14) or a control group (CON; n?=?11). The intervention comprised 12 sessions with overall 120 minutes of slackline training using single and double slacklines. Slackline standing time and measures of dynamic and static balance were assessed before and after the intervention, as well as power and sprint-related performance parameters.

Two-way repeated-measures ANOVA found a significant group?×?time interaction for slackline standing time, indicating larger training effects for SLT. For the remaining dynamic and static balance tests, no significant interactions were found. With regard to neuromuscular performance, there was a significant group?×?time interaction only in change of direction.

In essence, the study showed that slackline training induced task-specific balance improvements without affecting general balance. This adds further evidence to the task-specificity principle of balance, although the specificity of the sample as well as the briefness of the intervention should be taken into account when generalizing our findings. Nonetheless, this study contains practical implications for team sports interventions and future balance training studies, highlighting the importance of selecting appropriate balance exercises to yield rapid and the desired training outcomes.     

Searching for Macro-Meso-Micro-Level Links in Studies of North-South Research Collaborations

Minerva - Scientific collaboration between Northern and Southern researchers and development programs for research capacity-building have received new attention of practitioners and scholars during...     

What drives scientists to start their own company?: An empirical investigation of Max Planck Society scientists

Studies on academic spin-off companies have shown that the researchers’ scientific potential, experience and established networks with other scientists or companies affect entrepreneurial activity. Most studies investigate official data such as patents and citations or qualitatively study a research group or spin-off formation. Only a few studies focus on the individual scientist. Our study fills this gap by analyzing survey interviews of 2604 scientists working for the Max Planck Society in Germany. Our empirical results indicate that the entrepreneurial activities of scientists heavily depend on patenting activity, entrepreneurial experience, and personal opinions about the benefits of commercializing research and close personal ties to industry.     

Exercise interventions for older adults: A systematic review of meta-analyses

Background:The evidence concerning which physical exercise characteristics are most effective for older adults is fragmented.We aimed to characterize the extent of this diversity and inconsistency and identify future directions for research by undertaking a systematic review of metaanalyses of exercise interventions in older adults.Methods:We searched the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews,PsycInfo,MEDLINE,Embase,CINAHL,AMED,SPORTDiscus,and Web of Science for articles that met the following criteria:(1)meta-analyses that synthesized measures of improvement(e.g.,effect sizes)on any outcome identified in studies of exercise interventions;(2)participants in the studies meta-analyzed were adults aged 65+or had a mean age of 70+;(3)meta-analyses that included studies of any type of exercise,including its duration,frequency,intensity,and mode of delivery;(4)interventions that included multiple components(e.g.,exercise and cognitive stimulation),with effect sizes that were computed separately for the exercise component;and(5)meta-analyses that were published in any year or language.The characteristics of the reviews,of the interventions,and of the parameters improved through exercise were reported through narrative synthesis.Identification of the interventions linked to the largest improvements was carried out by identifying the highest values for improvement recorded across the reviews.The study included 56 meta-analyses that were heterogeneous in relation to population,sample size,settings,outcomes,and intervention characteristics.Results:The largest effect sizes for improvement were found for resistance training,meditative movement interventions,and exercise-based active videogames.Conclusion:The review identified important gaps in research,including a lack of studies investigating the benefits of group interventions,the characteristics of professionals delivering the interventions associated with better outcomes,and the impact of motivational strategies and of significant others(e.g.,carers)on intervention delivery and outcomes.     

Congenitally deaf children's care trajectories in the context of universal neonatal hearing screening: a qualitative study of the parental experiences

The objective of this study is to examine the early care trajectories of congenitally deaf children from a parental perspective, starting with universal neonatal hearing screenings. The analysis using a three-dimensional care trajectory concept is aimed at developing a basic typology of postscreening care trajectories. Children with severe/profound hearing loss, registered in the Flanders' (Belgium) universal neonatal hearing screening program, born between 1999 and 2001. Thematic content analysis of qualitative data collected retrospectively from participant's parents. Two basic types of care trajectories emerged; based on differences in care-use in the phase of further diagnosis and related parental experiences. Subtypes resulted from events related to cochlear implantation. Five trajectory phases were identified: screening, further diagnosis, care and technology, cochlear implantation, and reduction of care and were characterized by specific parental experiences such as confusion, disbelief, disappointment, and uncertainty. Those experiences relate to care professionals' acts and communication and the child's functional evolution. Early care interventions could benefit from coordinated transition between phases, parent support throughout the care trajectory, and a broad approach to deafness in professionals' communication.     

On Sources of the Word Length Effect in Young Readers

We investigated how letter length, phoneme length, and consonant clusters contribute to the word length effect in 2nd- and 4th-grade children. They read words from three different conditions: In one condition, letter length increased but phoneme length did not due to multiletter graphemes (Haus-Bauch-Schach). In the remaining conditions, phoneme length increased in correspondence with letter length. One presented monosyllabic words with consonant clusters (Herbst); the other presented disyllabic words without consonant clusters (Kö.nig). Phoneme and letter length contributed to the length effect in naming latencies. Words with consonant clusters elicited the largest length effect. We interpreted this finding as reflecting difficulties of young readers with accessing the output phonology of the tightly coarticulated consonant clusters from the separate phonemes delivered from serial grapheme-to-phoneme conversions. Moreover, eye-movement data indicated that increased reading speed, accompanied with decreased word length effects, is due to more efficient grapheme-to-phoneme conversions rather than the emergence of whole-word recognition.