‘We are trying to make them good citizens’: The utilisation of SEAL to develop ‘appropriate’ social,emotional and behavioural skills amongst pupils attending disadvantaged primary schools

This paper focuses on primary school staff members’ interpretations of the UK social and emotional learning initiative: SEAL. The data, collected through group and individual interviews with a range of staff members working in schools located in deprived areas, illustrate how the scheme has been used to encourage various behaviours. This utilisation of SEAL was influenced by staff members’ perceptions of the pupils’ parents, and particularly their in/ability to develop ‘appropriate’ social, emotional and behavioural skills. Staff members identified a range of objectionable behaviours, exhibited by the pupils, which were perceived to have been encouraged in the home. In response, schools operationalised SEAL to endorse alternative behaviours deemed ‘appropriate’. Implications of the findings, in terms of marginalising the values and ‘othering’ the practices of specific sections of society, are discussed, and recommendations are made for a more democratic approach to schooling which prioritises a mutual exchange of knowledge between school and home.     

Revisiting the research–teaching nexus in a managerial context: exploring the complexity of multi-layered factors

Drawing on in-depth interviews and classroom observations with 14 academics from the field of applied sciences, this case study provides empirical evidences on the research–teaching nexus in the context of Chinese research universities by examining the multi-layered factors at the individual, institutional and organisational levels. The study sketches out several substantive social structures, including performative incentives, research culture and institutional emphases, that have significantly shaped the research–teaching nexus in a managerial context. Teaching beliefs that are rooted in traditional Chinese culture, however, have been identified as an essential factor to strengthen the research–teaching nexus. This study concludes that a more supportive environment based on the cultural beliefs of teaching can be created to alleviate the growing tensions between research and teaching.     

In ‘Numberland’: play-based pedagogy in response to imaginative numeracy

The overarching interest of this study concerns how to outline learning opportunities and support in early childhood education (ECE) without losing its play-based character. More specifically, the study reports an empirical investigation into the evolving activity of a 6.5-year-old child and an adult conversing about the child’s drawing of ‘Numberland’. What the child’s drawing and his discussion about it with the adult tell us about his emergent mathematics skills is analysed. How the child shifts between speaking and enacting as if and as is, and how the adult supports his mathematics understanding through entering into the play-frame are analysed. How imaginary, play-based activities like this can provide the means for ECE and what this implies for the teacher are discussed.     

Social media data and post-disaster recovery

This study introduces a multi-step methodology for analyzing social media data during the post-disaster recovery phase of Hurricane Sandy. Its outputs include identification of the people who experienced the disaster, estimates of their physical location, assessments of the topics they discussed post-disaster, analysis of the tract-level relationships between the topics people discussed and tract-level internal attributes, and a comparison of these outputs to those of people who did not experience the disaster. Faith-based, community, assets, and financial topics emerged as major topics of discussion within the context of the disaster experience. The differences between predictors of these topics compared to those of people who did not experience the disaster were investigated in depth, revealing considerable differences among vulnerable populations. The use of this methodology as a new Machine Learning Algorithm to analyze large volumes of social media data is advocated in the conclusion.     

Adaptive Functioning in Williams Syndrome: A Systematic Review

Literature on the level of adaptive functioning and relative strengths and weaknesses in functioning of individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) was reviewed. The electronic databases PsycINFO, PubMed, Expanded Academic, Web of Science, Scopus and ProQuest were searched electronically for relevant articles and dissertations using the search terms ‘Williams syndrome’ or ‘Williams-Beuren syndrome’ combined with ‘adaptive function*’, ‘adaptive behavio*’, ‘independ*’ and ‘autonomy’. Selection criteria included English language articles, theses and book chapters, participants with a diagnosis of Williams syndrome and inclusion of a standardised assessment of adaptive functioning. Twenty-two published articles and two PhD. dissertations (one subsequently published as a poster presentation) met the selection criteria for inclusion in the review. Fifteen investigated adaptive functioning in children and adolescents aged up to 19 years of age, five investigated adaptive functioning in adults and four included participants across a wider age range and included both children and adults. Along with identifying methodological issues, the review addressed the following areas: overall level of adaptive functioning in WS, domain strengths and weaknesses, evidence of heterogeneity, relationship to intellectual ability, changes with chronological age, relationship with maladaptive behaviour, gender differences and the potential influence of environmental factors which may be related to adaptive functioning in WS.     

Learning to redesign teacher education: a conceptual framework to support program change

University-based teacher education faces intensifying pressure to prove its effectiveness. This has prompted renewed interest in program redesign. In this article, we argue that enacting meaningful redesign requires university-based teacher educators to learn new ways of thinking and acting not only with teacher candidates but also with their university and K-12 colleagues. Drawing on Engeström’s expansive learning theory and our own efforts to redesign our teacher education program along a practice-based teacher education model, we delineate a conceptual framework and illustrate how it supports the organizational learning necessary to enact change in university-based teacher education. The expansive learning redesign framework specifies conceptual tools and social practices to guide, enact, and sustain university-based teacher education redesign. It acknowledges the multi-organizational nature of university-based teacher education and provides tools for engaging K-12 educators in the redesign of teacher education.     

Performance measurement in university–industry innovation networks: implementation practices and challenges of industrial organisations

From the perspective of industrial small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), this study explores the implementation of performance measurement practices and challenges in university–industry innovation networks. In this research, two single-case studies were conducted to explore the implementation practices and challenges of performance measurement in university–industry collaborations. Thirty Finnish SMEs in the first innovation network and 10 Finnish SMEs in the second innovation network participated in university–industry collaboration that were established to facilitate their involvement in a long-term innovation process. The results of the study revealed that industrial SMEs are interested in the performance measurement of societal-level outputs by university–industry innovation networks, even though they face challenges in understanding the aims and goals of the funding programmes. Furthermore, the results showed that the industrial SMEs understood the intellectual nature of the university–industry innovation networks, but their performance measurement activities were business related. Also the lack of understanding of the context and the process of the performance measurement in university–industry collaborations seemed to shift industrial organisations’ focus to the content stage of the performance measurement and to the use of traditional performance measures and tools to estimate the advantages gained.     

Activity and recovery cycles and skill involvements of successful and unsuccessful elite rugby league teams: A longitudinal analysis of evolutionary changes in National Rugby League match-play

We investigated changes in activity and recovery cycles and skill involvements: (1) during National Rugby league (NRL) match-play from 2004 to 2014 and (2) among successful and unsuccessful teams over the same period. Teams were divided into 4 tiers according to final ladder position: (A) 1st–4th, (B) 5th–8th, (C) 9th–12th and (D) 13th–16th. Total, mean and maximum ball-in-play time decreased, while recovery time increased from 2004 to 2014. Offensive and defensive skill involvements changed differentially over time with moderate to large reductions in the number of play-the-balls, offloads and missed tackles, and moderate to large increases in the number of passes, tackles made and ineffective tackles. The gap between Tier A and Tier D decreased for mean activity time and the proportion of short (<45 s) ball-in-play periods. Conversely, the gap between Tier A and Tier D increased for skill involvements, with Tier A completing more play-the-balls, and Tier D performing a greater number of offloads, and total, missed and ineffective tackles. Our results demonstrate the decreasing ball-in-play demands of NRL competition over 11 seasons. However, our data also highlight the narrowing gap in ball-in-play demands, and increasing gap in skill involvements between the top tier and bottom tier teams.     

Sodium bicarbonate ingestion increases glycolytic contribution and improves performance during simulated taekwondo combat

Purpose: To investigate the effect of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO₃) on performance and estimated energy system contribution during simulated taekwondo combat. Methods: Nine taekwondo athletes completed two experimental sessions separated by at least 48?h. Athletes consumed 300?mg/kg body mass of NaHCO₃ or placebo (CaCO₃) 90?min before the combat simulation (three rounds of 2 min separated by 1 min passive recovery), in a double-blind, randomized, repeated-measures crossover design. All simulated combat was filmed to quantify the time spent fighting in each round. Lactate concentration [La^?] and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were measured before and after each round, whereas heart rate (HR) and the estimated contribution of the oxidative (W_OXI), ATP (adenosine triphosphate)-phosphocreatine (PCr) (W_PCR), and glycolytic (W_{[ La^? ]}) systems were calculated during the combat simulation. Results: [La^?] increased significantly after NaHCO₃ ingestion, when compared with the placebo condition (+14%, P?=?0.04, d?=?3.70). NaHCO₃ ingestion resulted in greater estimated glycolytic energy contribution in the first round when compared with the placebo condition (+31%, P?=?0.01, d?=?3.48). Total attack time was significantly greater after NaHCO₃ when compared with placebo (+13%, P?=?0.05, d?=?1.15). W_OXI, W_PCR, VO₂, HR and RPE were not different between conditions (P?>?0.05). Conclusion: NaHCO₃ ingestion was able to increase the contribution of glycolytic metabolism and, therefore, improve performance during simulated taekwondo combat.     

Stabilizing two-dimensional stochastic systems through sliding mode control

This paper presents a stabilizing control for two-dimensional stochastic differential equations. The stability concept in this study is the stability in probability. To ensure such a stability, the control is designed based on the sliding mode technique, and applied to account stochastic systems. This finding has a practical implication—the proposed control can be used to stabilize a real-time automotive electronic throttle valve. The proposed approach is verified by data collected from experiments.