A biblioteca escolar como comunidade colaborativa : um contributo para o desenvolvimento profissional docente

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Educação do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Supervisão e Avaliação Escolar.

Pédagogie Sportive et Conditions D'Apprentissage

In the last few years, studies in sport pedagogy have supplied data on the learning conditions provided to young athletes during training sessions and games. From the results of these studies, we learned that, in general, the coach spends most of his/her time observing and organizing rather than teaching. Results also show that the motor engaged time of a participant represents only one third of the training session. Based on the data available, training programs for coaches is one way to improve the learning conditions of youth sports.

Réadaptation et performance visuelle chez la personne hémianopsique : une étude de cas portant sur les saccades oculaires et le blindsight

But: La perte unilatérale du cortex visuel postérieur engendre une cécité corticale controlatérale à la lésion, qu’on appelle hémianopsie homonyme (HH). Celle-ci est notamment accompagnée de problèmes d’exploration visuelle dans l’hémichamp aveugle dus à des stratégies oculaires déficitaires, qui ont été la cible des thérapies de compensation. Or, cette perte de vision peut s’accompagner d’une perception visuelle inconsciente, appelée blindsight. Notre hypothèse propose que le blindsight soit médié par la voie rétino-colliculaire extrastriée, recrutant le colliculus supérieur (CS), une structure multisensorielle. Notre programme a pour objectif d’évaluer l’impact d’un entraînement multisensoriel (audiovisuel) sur la performance visuelle inconsciente des personnes hémianopsiques et les stratégies oculaires. Nous essayons, ainsi, de démontrer l’implication du CS dans le phénomène de blindsight et la pertinence de la technique de compensation multisensorielle comme thérapie de réadaptation. Méthode: Notre participante, ML, atteinte d’une HH droite a effectué un entraînement d’intégration audiovisuel pour une période de 10 jours. Nous avons évalué la performance visuelle en localisation et en détection ainsi que les stratégies oculaires selon trois comparaisons principales : (1) entre l’hémichamp normal et l’hémichamp aveugle; (2) entre la condition visuelle et les conditions audiovisuelles; (3) entre les sessions de pré-entraînement, post-entraînement et 3 mois post-entraînement. Résultats: Nous avons démontré que (1) les caractéristiques des saccades et des fixations sont déficitaires dans l’hémichamp aveugle; (2) les stratégies saccadiques diffèrent selon les excentricités et les conditions de stimulations; (3) une adaptation saccadique à long terme est possible dans l’hémichamp aveugle si l’on considère le bon cadre de référence; (4) l’amélioration des mouvements oculaires est liée au blindsight. Conclusion(s): L’entraînement multisensoriel conduit à une amélioration de la performance visuelle pour des cibles non perçues, tant en localisation qu’en détection, ce qui est possiblement induit par le développement de la performance oculomotrice.

Implementing balanced and restorative justice : victim, offender, community : a guide for law enforcement officers /

This publication is one in a series of guides designed to assist in the statewide promotion of balanced and restorative justice. BARJ is a philosophy of justice that can guide the work of individuals who deal with juvenile offenders, their victims, and the communities in which they live.

Implementing balanced and restorative justice : victim, offender, community : a guide for juvenile detention /

This publication is one in a series of guides designed to assist in the statewide promotion of balanced and restorative justice. BARJ is a philosophy of justice that can guide the work of individuals who deal with juvenile offenders, their victims, and the communities in which they live.

Tennis, incidence of URTI and salivary IgA

Tennis played at an elite level requires intensive training characterized by repeated bouts of brief intermittent high intensity exercise over relatively long periods of time (1 - 3 h or more). Competition can place additional stress on players. The purpose of this study was to investigate the temporal association between specific components of tennis training and competition, the incidence of upper respiratory tract infections (URT1), and salivary IgA, in a cohort of seventeen elite female tennis players. Timed, whole unstimulated saliva samples were collected before and after selected 1-h training sessions at 2 weekly intervals, over 12 weeks. Salivary IgA concentration was measured by ELISA and IgA secretion rate calculated (mug IgA x ml(-1) x ml saliva x min(-1)). Players reported URTI symptoms and recorded training and competition in daily logs. Data analysis showed that higher incidence of URTI was significantly associated with increased training duration and load, and competition level, on a weekly basis. Salivary IgA secretion rate (S-IgA) dropped significantly after 1 hour of tennis play. Over the 12-week period, pre-exercise salivary IgA concentration and secretion rate were directly associated with the amount of training undertaken during the previous day and week (p < 0.05). However, the decline in S-IgA after 1 h of intense tennis play was also positively related to the duration and load of training undertaken during the previous day and week (p < 0.05). Although exercise-induced suppression of salivary IgA may be a risk factor, it could not accurately predict the occurrence of URTI in this cohort of athletes.

Physiological role of carnosine in contracting muscle

High-intensity exercise leads to reductions in muscle substrates (ATP, PCr, and glycogen) and a subsequent accumulation of metabolites (ADP, Pi, H+, and M2+) with a possible increase in free radical production. These factors independently and collectively have deleterious effects on muscle, with significant repercussions on high-intensity performance or training sessions. The effect of carnosine on overcoming muscle fatigue appears to be related to its ability to buffer the increased H+ concentration following high-intensity work. Carnosine, however, has other roles such as an antioxidant, a metal chelator, a Ca2+ and enzyme regulator, an inhibitor of protein glycosylation and protein-protein cross-linking. To date, only 1 study has investigated the effects of carnosine supplementation (not in pure form) on exercise performance in human subjects and found no improvement in repetitive high-intensity work. Much data has come from in vitro work on animal skeletal muscle fibers or other components of muscle contractile mechanisms. Thus further research needs to be carried out on humans to provide additional understanding on the effects of carnosine in vivo.

Delivery of child development services by videoconferencing: a review of four years' experience in Queensland

In 2001 the Child Development Unit (CDU) in Brisbane piloted a series of monthly multidisciplinary case discussions via videoconference in the area of child development. During 2001 two sessions were provided; during 2004 there were 40. The substantial growth in 2004 was due to the expansion of child development services to include special interest group meetings and multipoint case conference meetings. In 2004, a total of 49 h of videoconferencing was conducted. The average session length was 75 min. Education and training sessions were delivered to 32 hospitals and health centres in Queensland and northern New South Wales. The maximum number of sites involved during a single videoconference was 25. The average number of attendees for each videoconference was five per site, including allied health staff, nurses and paediatricians. The delivery of child development services via videoconference has been shown to be useful in Queensland, especially for allied health staff working in regional and remote areas. The growth of the programme indicates its acceptance as a mainstream child development service in Queensland.

A qualitative analysis of the congruency of Jungian psychological preferences identified by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the human resource development role of instructor/facilitator

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to describe and explain the congruency of psychological preferences identified by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the human resource development (HRD) role of instructor/facilitator. This investigation was conducted with 23 HRD professionals who worked in the Miami, Florida area as instructors/facilitators with adult learners in job-related contexts.^ The study was conducted using qualitative strategies of data collection and analysis. The research participants were selected through a purposive sampling strategy. Data collection strategies included: (a) administration and scoring of the MBTI, Form G, (b) open-ended and semi-structured interviews, (c) participant observations of the research subjects at their respective work sites and while conducting training sessions, (d) field notes, and (e) contact summary sheets to record field research encounters. Data analysis was conducted with the use of a computer program for qualitative analysis called FolioViews 3.1 for Windows. This included: (a) coding of transcribed interviews and field notes, (b) theme analysis, (c) memoing, and (d) cross-case analysis.^ The three major themes that emerged in relation to the congruency of psychological preferences and the role of instructor/facilitator were: (1) designing and preparing instruction/facilitation, (2) conducting training and managing group process, and (3) interpersonal relations and perspectives among instructors/facilitators.^ The first two themes were analyzed through the combination of the four Jungian personality functions. These combinations are: sensing-thinking (ST), sensing-feeling (SF), intuition-thinking (NT), and intuition-feeling (NF). The third theme was analyzed through the combination of the attitudes or energy focus and the judgment function. These combinations are: extraversion-thinking (ET), extraversion-feeling (EF), introversion-thinking (IT), and introversion-feeling (IF).^ A last area uncovered by this ethnographic study was the influence exerted by a training and development culture on the instructor/facilitator role. This professional culture is described and explained in terms of the shared values and expectations reported by the study respondents. ^

Contingency, contiguity, and development: The ontogeny of contingency learning in northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) chicks

The purpose of this study was to investigate the ontogeny of auditory learning via operant contingency in Northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus ) hatchlings and possible interaction between attention, orienting and learning during early development. Chicks received individual 5 min training sessions in which they received a playback of a bobwhite maternal call at a single delay following each vocalization they emitted. Playback was either from a single randomly chosen speaker or switched back and forth semi-randomly between two speakers during training. Chicks were tested 24 hrs later in a simultaneous choice test between the familiar and an unfamiliar maternal call. It was found that day-old chicks showed a significant time-specific decrement in auditory learning when trained with delays in the range of 470–910 ms between their vocalizations and call playback only when training involved two speakers. Two-day-old birds showed an even more sustained disruption of learning than day-old chicks, whereas three-day-old chicks showed a pattern of intermittent interference with their learning when trained at such delays. A similar but less severe decrement in auditory learning was found when chicks were provided with motor training in which playback was contingent upon chicks entering and exiting one of two colored squares placed on the floor of the arena. Chicks provided with playback of the call at randomly chosen delays each time they vocalized exhibited large fluctuations in their responsivity to the auditory stimulus as a function of delay—fluctuations which were correlated significantly with measures of chick learning, particularly at two-days-of-age. When playback was limited to a single location chicks no longer showed a time-specific disruption of their learning of the auditory stimulus. Sequential analyses revealed several patterns suggesting that an attentional process similar or analogous to attentional blink may have contributed both to the observed fluctuations in chick responsivity to the auditory stimulus as a function of delay and to the time-specific learning deficit shown by chicks provided with two-speaker training. The study highlights that learning can be substantially modulated by processes of orienting and attention and has a number of important implications for research within cognitive neuroscience, animal behavior and learning.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Discrete Trial Procedures for Teaching Receptive Discrimination to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Research has found that children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) show significant deficits in receptive language skills (Wiesmer, Lord, & Esler, 2010). One of the primary goals of applied behavior analytic intervention is to improve the communication skills of children with autism by teaching receptive discriminations. Both receptive discriminations and receptive language entail matching spoken words with corresponding objects, symbols (e.g., pictures or words), actions, people, and so on (Green, 2001). In order to develop receptive language skills, children with autism often undergo discrimination training within the context of discrete trial training. This training entails teaching the learner how to respond differentially to different stimuli (Green, 2001). It is through discrimination training that individuals with autism learn and develop language (Lovaas, 2003). The present study compares three procedures for teaching receptive discriminations: (1) simple/conditional (Procedure A), (2) conditional only (Procedure B), and (3) conditional discrimination of two target cards (Procedure C). Six children, ranging in age from 2-years-old to 5-years-old, with an autism diagnosis were taught how to receptively discriminate nine sets of stimuli. Results suggest that the extra training steps included in the simple/conditional and conditional only procedures may not be necessary to teach children with autism how to receptively discriminate. For all participants, Procedure C appeared to be the most efficient and effective procedure for teaching young children with autism receptive discriminations. Response maintenance and generalization probes conducted one-month following the end of training indicate that even though Procedure C resulted in less training sessions overall, no one procedure resulted in better maintenance and generalization than the others. In other words, more training sessions, as evident with the simple/conditional and conditional only procedures, did not facilitate participants’ ability to accurately respond or generalize one-month following training. The present study contributes to the literature on what is the most efficient and effective way to teach receptive discrimination during discrete trial training to children with ASD. These findings are critical as research shows that receptive language skills are predictive of better outcomes and adaptive behaviors in the future.

Efeitos do treino de marcha em esteira com adição de carga ao membro inferior não parético de indivíduos com acidente vascular cerebral: ensaio clínico controlado e randomizado

Introduction: Gait after stroke is characterized by a significant asymmetry between the lower limbs, with predominant use of the non-paretic lower limb (NPLL) over using the paretic lower limb. Accordingly, it has been suggested that adding load/weight to the NPLL as a form of restricting the movement of this limb may favor the use of the paretic limb, reducing interlimb asymmetry. However, few studies have been conducted up to this moment, which only investigated the immediate effects of this practice. Objectives: 1) Investigating whether there is an influence of adding load to the NPLL during treadmill training on cardiovascular parameters and on gait performance of individuals with stroke, compared to treadmill training without load addition; 2) Analyzing the effects of treadmill training with and without load added to the NPLL on kinematic parameters of each lower limb during gait; 3) Analyzing the effects of treadmill training with and without load added to the NPLL on measurements of functional mobility and postural balance of these patients. Materials and Methods: This is a randomized single blinded clinical trial involving 38 subjects, with a mean age of 56.5 years, at the subacute post-stroke phase (with mean time since stroke of 4.5 months). Participants were randomly assigned into an experimental group (EG) or control group (CG). EG (n= 19) was submitted to gait training on a treadmill with the addition of load to the NPLL by ankle weights equivalent to 5% of body weight. CG (n= 19) was only submitted to gait training on a treadmill. Behavioral strategies which included home exercises were also applied to both groups. The interventions occurred daily for two consecutive weeks (Day 1 to Day 9), being of 30 minutes duration each. Outcome measures: postural balance (Berg Functional Balance Scale – BBS), functional mobility (Timed Up and Go – TUG; kinematic variables of 180° turning) and kinematic gait variables were assessed at baseline (Day 0), after four training sessions (Day 4), after nine training sessions (Day 9), and 40 days after completion of training (Follow-up). Cardiovascular parameters (mean arterial pressure and heart rate) were evaluated at four moments within each training session. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare outcomes between EG and CG in the course of the study (Day 0, Day 4, Day 9 and Follow-up). Unpaired t-tests allowed for intergroup comparison at each training session. 5% significance was used for all tests. Results: 1) Cardiovascular parameters (systemic arterial pressure, heart rate and derivated variables) did not change after the interventions and there were no differences between groups within each training session. There was an improvement in gait performance, with increased speed and distance covered, with no statistically significant difference between groups. 2) After the interventions, patients had increased paretic and non-paretic step lengths, in addition to exhibiting greater hip and knee joint excursion on both lower limbs. The gains were observed in the EG and CG, with no statistical difference between the groups and (mostly) maintained at follow-up. 3) After the interventions, patients showed better postural balance (higher scores on BBS) and functional mobility (reduced time spent on the TUG test and better performance on the 180° turning). All gains were observed in the EG and CG, with no statistically significant difference between groups and were maintained at follow-up. Conclusions: The addition of load to the NPLL did not affect cardiovascular parameters in patients with subacute stroke, similar to treadmill training without load, thus seemingly a safe training to be applied to these patients. However, the use of the load did not bring any additional benefits to gait training. The gait training program (nine training sessions on a treadmill + strategies and exercises for paretic limb stimulation) was useful for improving gait performance and kinematics, functional mobility and postural balance, and its use is suggested to promote the optimization of these outcomes in the subacute phase after stroke.

Documenting the Contextualization and Implementation of mhGAP-HIG in Post-earthquake Nepal

Background: The burden of mental health is increased in humanitarian settings, and needs to be addressed in emergency situations. The World Health Organization has recently released the mental health Global Action Programme Humanitarian Intervention Guide (mhGAP-HIG) in order to scale up mental health service delivery in humanitarian settings through task-shifting. This study aims to evaluate, contextualize and identify possible barriers and challenges to mhGAP-HIG manual content, training and implementation in post-earthquake Nepal.

Methods: This qualitative study was conducted in Kathmandu, Nepal. Key informant interviews were conducted with fourteen psychiatrists involved in a mhGAP-HIG Training of Trainers and Supervisors (ToTS) in order to assess the mhGAP-HIG, ToTS training, and the potential challenges and barriers to mhGAP-HIG implementation. Themes identified by informants were supplemented by process notes taken by the researcher during observed training sessions and meetings.

Results: Key themes emerging from key informant interviews include the need to take three factors into account in manual contextualization: culture, health systems and the humanitarian setting. This includes translation of the manual into the local language, adding or expanding upon conditions prevalent in Nepal, and more consideration to improving feasibility of manual use by non-specialists.

Conclusion: The mhGAP-HIG must be tailored to specific humanitarian settings for effective implementation. This study shows the importance of conducting a manual contextualization workshop prior to training in order to maximize the feasibility and success in training health care workers in mhGAP.

Pédagogie Sportive et Conditions D'Apprentissage

In the last few years, studies in sport pedagogy have supplied data on the learning conditions provided to young athletes during training sessions and games. From the results of these studies, we learned that, in general, the coach spends most of his/her time observing and organizing rather than teaching. Results also show that the motor engaged time of a participant represents only one third of the training session. Based on the data available, training programs for coaches is one way to improve the learning conditions of youth sports.

Destination Open Access: Getting Researchers On Board

This Open Access (OA) Poster - ‘Destination Open Access: Getting Researchers on Board’, was devised by the Queen’s University Belfast’s OA Team. It outlines the advocacy strategy undertaken to strengthen researchers’ uptake of OA at the University. Research funders, such as the Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE), are increasingly mandating that researchers make their work publically available via an institutional repository. It is therefore imperative that researchers and departments fully engage with open access to ensure future funding.

The team’s advocacy strategy centres around collaboration with the Heads of Schools, Subject Librarians, the Research and Enterprise Office and, most importantly, the researchers themselves. The team regularly organises training sessions and events, on understanding OA, funder compliance and using the institutional repository. We also run outreach activities, such as practical drop-in sessions, promotional give-aways, OA updates to library staff and direct communications to schools. Finally, the team maintain a strong online presence via LibGuides, LibAnswers, the Library Blog and Twitter. We utilise these platforms to highlight topical OA issues, to advertise events, to provide support materials and to interact with researchers.

Statistics indicate that researchers are increasingly engaging with the OA training, communications and outreach events. Since August 2014 over 1200 researchers have attended advocacy sessions. Additionally, the numbers of papers uploaded to the repository each year has steadily increased and there are now over 3, 000 full-text OA research outputs in the Queen’s Research Portal.

This reflects positively on the team’s established approach of working with researchers to develop an OA culture within the University. Whilst it is clear that an open access strategy is essential, support for the open access ethos must come from individual researchers and Schools in order for the University to reach its desired destination of maximum uptake of open access.