Young athletes: passion for sport

The following text corresponds with the lecture that the author presented as "invited lecturer" at the Second World Conference on Sport Sciences held in Barcelona on October, 1991. It is also part of the working papers collection from the Olympic Studies Centre.

El naturalismo cient��fico en la obra de John Tyndall: Fragments of science

El an��lisis de los ensayos de John Tyndall, Fragments of Science, permite identificar la teor��a at��mica, el principio de conservaci��n de la energ��a y el evolucionismo darwinista como los elementos constitutivos del andamiaje te��rico del naturalismo cient��fico. As��, en su ensayo ���On the Study of Physics��� se resumen sus brillantes facetas como educador y divulgador cient��fico, desarrolladas fundamentalmente en el seno de la Royal Institution. En la lectura ���On Force���, Tyndall da por finalizada la controversia Joule- Mayer sobre la primac��a del descubrimiento del principio de conservaci��n de la energ��a, a la vez que plantea algunas de las claves de la lucha por el liderazgo en el seno de la comunidad cient��fica. El discurso presidencial ante la British Association de 1874 en Belfast ejemplifica el coraje de Tyndall en su empe��o por demarcar los territorios de la ciencia y la religi��n, a la luz de los nuevos desaf��os cient��ficos. En el trasfondo subyacen los procesos de secularizaci��n de la sociedad y de profesionalizaci��n de una comunidad cient��fica heterog��nea. El compromiso c��vico que Tyndall demuestra en ���The Belfast Address��� es digno corolario de una vida y obra que permite situarlo como paradigma de lo que, en la terminolog��a de Turner, se ha dado en denominar cient��fico p��blico.

Girls like pink: explaining sex-typed occupational aspirations amongst young children

There is a high degree of sex-typing in young children's occupational aspirations and this has consequences for subsequent occupational segregation. Sociologists typically attribute early sex-differences in occupational preferences to gender socialization. Yet we still know surprisingly little about the mechanisms involved in the intergenerational transmission of sex-typical preferences and there is considerable theoretical controversy regarding the role of individual agency in the process of preference formation. This study analyzes the determinants of sex-typed occupational aspirations amongst British children aged between 11 and 15. We specify different mechanisms involved in the transmission of sex-typical preferences and propose an innovative definition of individual agency that is anchored in observable psychological traits linked to self-direction. This allows us to perform a simultaneous test of socialization and agency predictors of occupational sex-typing. We find that parental influences on occupational preferences operate mainly through three distinctive channels: 1) the effect that parental socio-economic resources have on the scope of children's occupational aspirations, 2) children's direct imitation of parental occupations, and 3) children's learning of sex-typed roles via the observation of parental behavior. We also find a strong net effect of children's own psychological predispositions -self-esteem in particular- on the incidence of sex-typical occupational preferences. Yet large differences in the occupational aspirations of girls and boys remain unexplained.

How to foster sharing of educational resources?

The future of OER is highly dependent on the future of education in general. A future that will be determined by major changes in society that demand more people with a higher education and life long learning. Each vision for the long term future needs to take the qualitative and quantitative demands into account. Backcasting from a vision we arrive at useful steps to take, some of which we managed to start up in the form of pilots as part of the European research project Share.TEC.

Examining the sustainability issues in UKOER projects : Developing a sustainable OER ecosystem in HE

The development of open educational resources (OERs) is becoming a strategic priority for governments and education institutions around the world, in response to funding cuts and rising costs in educational provision. In the United Kingdom, a government-sponsored Pilot Programme on Open Educational Recourses (JISC/HEA, 2009) was launched in 2009 with an initial budget of ��5.7m. This paper reviews the key sustainability issues identified by the projects including the different approaches and models that have been adopted in order to sustain the continuing development and release of OER once funding has ended. The analysis also considers the challenges relating to the development and implementation of policies and processes for sustainable OER practice within institutions and among academics. The paper concludes by drawing on the experiences from the wider United Kingdom and international OER communities to develop a sustainable OER ecosystem model that can facilitate discussions on future development of OER initiatives.

What do academic libraries have to do with Open Educational Resources? Theme : Long term sustainability of open education projects first steps to start up

This paper will discuss the possible roles of academic libraries in promoting, supporting, and sustaining institutional Open Educational Resource initiatives. It will note areas in which libraries or librarians have skills and knowledge that intersect with some of the needs of academic staff and students as they use and release OERs. It will also present the results of a brief survey of the views of some OER initiatives on the current and potential role of academic libraries.

Expectativas, actitudes y normas percibidas respecto al uso del preservativo por los j��venes de Mozambique = Expectations, attitudes and perceived norms regarding condom use in Mozambique young people

Objetivos: Conocer la prevalencia del uso auto informado del preservativo en la ��ltima relaci��n sexual, as�� como algunas actitudes, creencias y percepciones sobre su uso para la prevenci��n de la transmisi��n del VIH por v��a heterosexual, en j��venes de las ciudades de Nampula, Bemba y Lichinga, en Mozambique. Dise��o: Estudio transversal de encuesta. Participantes: Seiscientos treinta y dos estudiantes de secundaria (56,8% varones), con edades comprendidas entre 15 y 24 a��os, seleccionados mediante un muestreo aleatorio estratificado proporcional. El porcentaje de participaci��n es del 79%. Mediciones principales: Mediante un cuestionario, se eval��an en una escala de 0 a 10 las actitudes hacia el uso del preservativo, expectativas de resultados y de autoeficacia y aceptaci��n percibida sobre su utilizaci��n. Asimismo se eval��a el uso auto informado del preservativo en la ��ltima relaci��n sexual. Resultados: S��lo un 47,4% (IC 0,95 = 42,0:52,8) de los j��venes sexualmente activos utiliz�� el preservativo en la ��ltima relaci��n sexual. En general las mujeres tienen una actitud m��s favorable respecto a su uso y creen m��s en su eficacia que los hombres, pero lo utilizan menos y se sienten poco capaces de pedir su uso al var��n, principalmente si se trata de su actual pareja. La autoeficacia percibida para utilizar o pedir el uso del preservativo aumenta en el caso de una pareja ocasional tanto en hombres como en mujeres. Conclusiones: Se requieren acciones institucionales y sociales que promocionen el uso del preservativo entre los j��venes de Mozambique. Los programas preventivos deber��an insistir en el cambio de actitudes y creencias, y enfatizar los beneficios que se derivan de su uso adecuado y sistem��tico desde la primera relaci��n coital

Unstable equilibrium: young adult women in family and career formation in Southern Europe

The paper examines the relationship between family formation (i.e., living with a partner and having children) and women���s occupational career in southern Europe (i.e., Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain). The relationship is explored by analysing the impact that different family structures and male [nvolvement in caring activities have on women���s early occupational trajectories (i.e., remaining in the same occupational status, experiencing downward or upward mobility, or withdrawing from paid work). This research shows that male involvement in caring activities does not really push women ahead in their career, but the absolute lack of male support seems to negatively affect women���s permanence in paid work. These results apply to all southern European countries except Portugal, where the absolute absence of the partners��� support in caring activities does not seem to alter women���s determination to remain in paid work. The methodology applied consists of the estimation of multinomial logit regression models and the analysis is based on eight waves (1994-2001) of the European Community Household Panel (ECHP).

Identity formation in social networks websites: facebook and the interaction between young individuals in the cases of Slovenia and Catalonia

This paper lays down some theoretical framework for further research to be made on the subject of how identity of young Slovenian and Catalan users is forming within the social networking website Facebook. The author pursues his interest based on observation of how communicationand thus interaction between users is changing and how this is reflected in everyday practices. In so doing he tries to identify the connections between the individual, society and technology, asthese are more and more interwoven, and we cannot think one without the other in thecontemporary globalised world.

On the Structural Difference between the Evolutionary Approach of Young and that of Kandori, Mailath, and Rob

We provide robust examples of symmetric two-player coordination games in normal form that reveal that equilibrium selection by the evolutionary model of Young (1993) is essentially different from equilibrium selection by the evolutionary model of Kandori, Mailath and Rob (1993).

Global Nash convergence of Foster and Young's regret testing

We construct an uncoupled randomized strategy of repeated play such that, if every player follows such a strategy, then the joint mixed strategy profiles converge, almost surely, to a Nash equilibrium of the one-shot game. The procedure requires very little in terms of players' information about the game. In fact, players' actions are based only on their own past payoffs and, in a variant of the strategy, players need not even know that their payoffs are determined through other players' actions. The procedure works for general finite games and is based on appropriate modifications of a simple stochastic learningrule introduced by Foster and Young.

Gender gaps in performance: Evidence from young lawyers

This paper documents and studies the gender gap in performance among associatelawyers in the United States. Unlike most high-skilled professions, the legal professionhas widely-used objective methods to measure and reward lawyers' productivity: thenumber of hours billed to clients and the amount of new-client revenue generated. Wefind clear evidence of a gender gap in annual performance with respect to bothmeasures. Male lawyers bill ten-percent more hours and bring in more than double thenew-client revenue. We show that the differential impact across genders in the presenceof young children and the differences in aspirations to become a law-firm partneraccount for a large part of the difference in performance. These performance gaps haveimportant consequences for gender gaps in earnings. While individual and firmcharacteristics explain up to 50 percent of earnings gap, the inclusion of performancemeasures explains most of the remainder.

On the structural difference between the evolutionary approach of Young and that of Kandori, Mailath and Rob

We provide robust examples of symmetric two-player coordination games in normal form that reveal that equilibrium selection bythe evolutionary model of Young (1993) is essentially different from equilibrium selection by the evolutionary model of Kandori, Mailath and Rob (1993).

Variacion del modulo de 'Young' con el tratamiento termico en aceros al carbono hipoeutectoides

En trabajos anteriores se ha constatado que varios aceros al carbono hipoeutectoides, en estado de temple, presentan valores del m��dulo de Young inferiores a los correspondientes en estado de revenido. En todos los casos la determinaci��n se ha realizado mediante ultrasonidos. En concreto, para el acero C22E (EN 10083), el m��dulo se incrementa ligeramente desde 209 GPa (material templado) hasta 211 GPa (revenido a 650 ��C), para el acero C45E el m��dulo aumenta desde 199 GPa hasta 211 GPa (revenido a 500 ��C) y para el acero C55E el m��dulo var��a desde 202 GPa hasta 209 GPa para el acero revenido a 650 ��C. El presente trabajo se centra en la caracterizaci��n estructural de los tres aceros mencionados a los distintos estados de tratamiento t��rmico, utilizando las t��cnicas de microscop��a ��ptica de reflexi��n y microscop��a electr��nica de barrido, y se propone una explicaci��n de la variaci��n del m��dulo a partir del comportamiento de las dislocaciones y su interacci��n con ��tomos de soluto y con otras dislocaciones.