The acceptable level of risk-taking for traditional rock climbers

Taking risk with all the consequences inevitably belongs to climbing. Each climber confronts his or her skills with the route he or she has chosen for an ascent. If the route is well protected, the rate of risk the climber takes is lower. If the route is less protected, the level of risk that the climber is exposed to proportionally increases. The aim of the research is to determine the level of risk-taking in traditional climbing on sandstone. We focus on how the level of risk affects climber’s performance and what reserve a climber needs to be able to cope with the higher risk and reduce it? The problem is solved by methods of quantitative research and the sample comprises more than 300 respondents. The results of the research prove a significant difference of climbers’ performance in dependence on rate of risk. Climbers usually reach lower performance according to the grading scale when climbing traditional routes with a higher level of risk.

Optimization of test and maintenance of ageing components consisting of multiple items and addressing effectiveness

There are many models in the literature that have been proposed in the last decades aimed at assessing the reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) of safety equipment, many of them with a focus on their use to assess the risk level of a technological system or to search for appropriate design and/or surveillance and maintenance policies in order to assure that an optimum level of RAM of safety systems is kept during all the plant operational life. This paper proposes a new approach for RAM modelling that accounts for equipment ageing and maintenance and testing effectiveness of equipment consisting of multiple items in an integrated manner. This model is then used to perform the simultaneous optimization of testing and maintenance for ageing equipment consisting of multiple items. An example of application is provided, which considers a simplified High Pressure Injection System (HPIS) of a typical Power Water Reactor (PWR). Basically, this system consists of motor driven pumps (MDP) and motor operated valves (MOV), where both types of components consists of two items each. These components present different failure and cause modes and behaviours, and they also undertake complex test and maintenance activities depending on the item involved. The results of the example of application demonstrate that the optimization algorithm provide the best solutions when the optimization problem is formulated and solved considering full flexibility in the implementation of testing and maintenance activities taking part of such an integrated RAM model.

ISSP Position Stand: To Test or Not to Test? The Use of Physical Skill Tests in Early Phases of Sport Development

A Searching for talent and the assessing ability in young prospects from individual and team sports often include measurement, analysis, and evaluation of physical and motor skills. The use of these tests in early stages of talent development has been widely observed in both female and male prospects. The purpose of this paper is to review a series of studies conducted on talented and less-talented athletes/ players that were aimed at distinguishing between the two groups and at predicting the athletes’/players’ future achievements/success. Thirteen studies examining the use of physical and motor skill tests in young prospects are reviewed. Based on this review, four main observations are highlighted and a number of benefits and limitations associated with the use of such tests are discussed. It is recommended that (1) coaches reduce the number of batteries of physical and motor skill tests used in early phases of talent development and (2) coaches and sport scientists specializing in measurement and evaluation cooperate in order to improve the effectiveness of the application and interpretation of physical skill tests given to prospects at early stages of talent development.

An Interactive Model to Teach Motor Skills

There has been a tremendous increase in our knowledge of hum motor performance over the last few decades. Our theoretical understanding of how an individual learns to move is sophisticated and complex. It is difficult however to relate much of this information in practical terms to physical educators, coaches, and therapists concerned with the learning of motor skills (Shumway-Cook & Woolcott, 1995). Much of our knowledge stems from lab testing which often appears to bear little relation to real-life situations. This lack of ecological validity has slowed the flow of information from the theorists and researchers to the practitioners. This paper is concerned with taking some small aspects of motor learning theory, unifying them, and presenting them in a usable fashion. The intention is not to present a recipe for teaching motor skills, but to present a framework from which solutions can be found. If motor performance research has taught us anything, it is that every individual and situation presents unique challenges. By increasing our ability to conceptualize the learning situation we should be able to develop more flexible and adaptive responses to the challege of teaching motor skills. The model presented here allows a teacher, coach, or therapist to use readily available observations and known characteristics about a motor task and to conceptualize them in a manner which allows them to make appropriate teaching/learning decisions.

Opportunities and challenges in the area of employment, social affairs, skills and labour mobility. EPC Commentary, 30 September 2014

On 1 October 2014, Marianne Thyssen, Commissioner-designate for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, will face a European Parliament (EP) hearing. On this occasion, Thyssen will have to perform a delicate balancing act consisting of on the one hand, taking into consideration the significant budget constraints that a number of Member States are still facing and following the still prevailing political line of fiscal consolidation and sound public finances, and on the other hand, of demonstrating her strong commitment for Social Europe. In the context of the upcoming hearing, this commentary aims to outline the features, opportunities and challenges of the new portfolio related to employment and social affairs in view to providing an input into the political debate.

Xi's Real Test: Delivering on Reform and Maintaining Stability in 2014. Asia Policy Brief 2014/02, February 2014

Emerging signs of economic difficulties have greatly compounded the tasks facing new Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the year of horse. After his government rolled out a surprisingly ambitious blueprint for systemic economic reform in November last year, Xi, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), now finds his agenda complicated by the urgent need to stabilize the overleveraged financial sector while taking the first steps to implement enough of his promised reforms to gain credibility.

Some performance effects of age and low blood alcohol levels on a computerized neuropsychological test.

Federal Aviation Administration, Office of Aviation Medicine, Washington, D.C.

Development and field test of psychophysical tests for DWI arrest. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

The visual detection of driving while intoxicated; field test of visual cues and detection methods. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of Driver and Pedestrian Research, Washington, D.C.

Influence apart from Adoption: How Interaction between Programming and Scientific Practices Shapes Modes of Inquiry in Four Oceanography Teams

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Drivers' ratings of different components of their own driving skill: A greater illusion of superiority for skills that relate to accident involvement

Different components of driving skill relate to accident involvement in different ways. For instance, while hazard-perception skill has been found to predict accident involvement, vehicle-control skill has not. We found that drivers rated themselves superior to both their peers and the average driver on 18 components of driving skill (N = 181 respondents). These biases were greater for hazard-perception skills than for either vehicle-control skills or driving skill in general. Also, ratings of hazard-perception skill related to self-perceived safety after overall skill was controlled for. We suggest that although drivers appear to appreciate the role of hazard perception in safe driving, any safety benefit to be derived from this appreciation may be undermined by drivers' inflated opinions of their own hazard-perception skill. We also tested the relationship between illusory beliefs about driving skill and risk taking and looked at ways of manipulating drivers' illusory beliefs.

Impact of an intensive nursing education course on nurses' knowledge, confidence, attitudes, and perceived skills in the care of patients with cancer

Purpose/Objectives: To evaluate the impact of a cancer nursing education course on RNs. Design: Quasi-experimental, longitudinal, pretest/post-test design, with a follow-up assessment six weeks after the completion of the nursing education course. Setting: Urban, nongovernment, cancer control agency in Australia. Sample: 53 RNs, of whom 93% were female, with a mean age of 44.6 years and a mean of 16.8 years of experience in nursing; 86% of the nurses resided and worked in regional areas outside of the state capital. Methods: Scales included the Intervention With Psychosocial Needs: Perceived Importance and Skill Level Scale, Palliative Care Quiz for Nurses, Breast Cancer Knowledge, Preparedness for Cancer Nursing, and Satisfaction With Learning. Data were analyzed using multiple analysis of variance and paired t tests. Main Research Variables: Cancer nursing-related knowledge, preparedness for cancer nursing, and attitudes toward and perceived skills in the psychosocial care of patients with cancer and their families. Findings: Compared to nurses in the control group, nurses who attended the nursing education course improved in their cancer nursing-related knowledge, preparedness for cancer nursing, and attitudes toward and perceived skills in the psychosocial care of patients with cancer and their families. Improvements were evident at course completion and were maintained at the six-week follow-up assessment. Conclusions: The nursing education course was effective in improving nurses' scores on all outcome variables. Implications for Nursing: Continuing nursing education courses that use intensive mode timetabling, small group learning, and a mix of teaching methods, including didactic and interactive approaches and clinical placements, are effective and have the potential to improve nursing practice in oncology.

Human resource management systems and organizational performance:a test of a mediating model in the Greek manufacturing context

This paper investigates the relationship between systems of HRM policies and organizational performance. The research is based on a sample of 178 organizations operating in the Greek manufacturing sector. A mediation model is tested to examine the link between HRM and organizational performance. The results of this study support the hypothesis that the relationship between the HRM systems of resourcing-development and reward-relations, and organizational performance, is mediated through the HRM outcomes of skills and attitudes. The paper not only supports the theory that HRM systems have a positive impact on organizational performance but also explains the mechanisms through which HRM systems improve organizational performance.

Are poor mathematics skills associated with visual deficits in temporal processing?

Developmental learning disabilities such as dyslexia and dyscalculia have a high rate of co-occurrence in pediatric populations, suggesting that they share underlying cognitive and neurophysiological mechanisms. Dyslexia and other developmental disorders with a strong heritable component have been associated with reduced sensitivity to coherent motion stimuli, an index of visual temporal processing on a millisecond time-scale. Here we examined whether deficits in sensitivity to visual motion are evident in children who have poor mathematics skills relative to other children of the same age. We obtained psychophysical thresholds for visual coherent motion and a control task from two groups of children who differed in their performance on a test of mathematics achievement. Children with math skills in the lowest 10% in their cohort were less sensitive than age-matched controls to coherent motion, but they had statistically equivalent thresholds to controls on a coherent form control measure. Children with mathematics difficulties therefore tend to present a similar pattern of visual processing deficit to those that have been reported previously in other developmental disorders. We speculate that reduced sensitivity to temporally defined stimuli such as coherent motion represents a common processing deficit apparent across a range of commonly co-occurring developmental disorders.

Anatomical correlates of dynamic auditory processing:relationship to literacy during early adolescence

Adults show great variation in their auditory skills, such as being able to discriminate between foreign speech-sounds. Previous research has demonstrated that structural features of auditory cortex can predict auditory abilities; here we are interested in the maturation of 2-Hz frequency-modulation (FM) detection, a task thought to tap into mechanisms underlying language abilities. We hypothesized that an individual's FM threshold will correlate with gray-matter density in left Heschl's gyrus, and that this function-structure relationship will change through adolescence. To test this hypothesis, we collected anatomical magnetic resonance imaging data from participants who were tested and scanned at three time points: at 10, 11.5 and 13 years of age. Participants judged which of two tones contained FM; the modulation depth was adjusted using an adaptive staircase procedure and their threshold was calculated based on the geometric mean of the last eight reversals. Using voxel-based morphometry, we found that FM threshold was significantly correlated with gray-matter density in left Heschl's gyrus at the age of 10 years, but that this correlation weakened with age. While there were no differences between girls and boys at Times 1 and 2, at Time 3 there was a relationship between gray-matter density in left Heschl's gyrus in boys but not in girls. Taken together, our results confirm that the structure of the auditory cortex can predict temporal processing abilities, namely that gray-matter density in left Heschl's gyrus can predict 2-Hz FM detection threshold. This ability is dependent on the processing of sounds changing over time, a skill believed necessary for speech processing. We tested this assumption and found that FM threshold significantly correlated with spelling abilities at Time 1, but that this correlation was found only in boys. This correlation decreased at Time 2, and at Time 3 we found a significant correlation between reading and FM threshold, but again, only in boys. We examined the sex differences in both the imaging and behavioral data taking into account pubertal stages, and found that the correlation between FM threshold and spelling was strongest pre-pubertally, and the correlation between FM threshold and gray-matter density in left Heschl's gyrus was strongest mid-pubertally.