Pre-Retirement Age Migration to Remote Rural Areas

Recent literature suggests that the increasingly blurred relationship between paid employment and retirement facilitates a retirement transition period, a life course stage, which may involve a change of residence. The role of such pre-retirement age mobility in the repopulation of rural areas has, however, received relatively little academic scrutiny. This paper draws upon findings from a two-year study conducted in three UK case study areas. It examines the extent of pre-retirement age (aged 50–64) migration into remote rural communities and the impacts this type of movement has upon economic activity, social and community engagement and service provision. It is argued that while this under-researched cohort offers opportunities to support the social and economic sustainability of rural communities (at least in the short and medium term), there are notable challenges which are likely to emerge as it ages in situ. The findings are particularly relevant given national trends on population ageing.

Developing Social Work Education: Academic Perspectives

During the past decade, a new culture of pedagogic research has emerged in social work in the UK. A succession of child-care tragedies that have led to government and public criticism of social work have highlighted the need for improvements to professional standards and stimulated renewed interest in social work education. Research aimed at developing knowledge of ‘what works’ in the educational process have included studies of student experiences and the perspectives of other stakeholders including service users and practice teachers. However, there has been little systematic investigation of the role of academics in social work education and their perceptions of what needs to be done to improve the quality of provision. This paper aims to address this gap in research by examining the perceptions of academics about their work. The authors utilise an adaptation of the conceptual model developed by Fraser and Bosanquet (2006) as a theoretical framework for analysing the findings and exploring the complex interrelationship between academic perspectives and the variety of concepts, ideas and stakeholder expectations that shape pedagogical practice. The findings should provide important lessons of relevance to educators in the UK and in other countries seeking to develop social work education.

Pharmacy Students’ Views of Faculty Feedback on Academic Performance

Objective: To investigate students' views on and satisfaction with faculty feedback on their academic performance.

Methods: A 41-item survey instrument was developed based on a literature review relating to effective feedback. All pharmacy undergraduate students were invited via e-mail to complete the self-administered electronic questionnaire relating to their views on feedback, including faculty feedback received to date regarding their academic performance.

Results: A response rate of 61% (343/561) was obtained. Only 32.3% of students (107/331) agreed that they were satisfied with the feedback they received; dissatisfaction with examination feedback was particularly high. The provision of faculty feedback was perceived to be variable in terms of quality and quantity.

Conclusions: There are some inconsistencies relating to provision of feedback within the MPharm degree program at Queen's University Belfast. Further work is needed to close the gap between student expectations and the faculty's delivery of feedback on academic performance.

Timekeeping strategies operate independently from spatial and accuracy demands in beat-interception movements

The prevailing paradigm for researching sensorimotor synchronisation in humans involves finger tapping and temporal accuracy measures. However, many successful sensorimotor synchronisation actions require not only to be 'in time', but also to be in a predefined spatial position. Reaching this spatial position in many everyday actions often exceeds the average amplitude of a finger movement. The aim of this study is to address how people coordinate their movement to be in the right place at the right time when the scale of the movement varies. Does the scale of the movement and accuracy demands of the movement change the ability to accurately synchronise? To address these questions, a sensorimotor synchronisation task with three different inter-beat intervals, two different movement amplitudes and two different target widths was used. Our experiment demonstrated that people use different timing strategies-employing either a movement strategy (varying movement time) or a waiting strategy (keeping movement time constant) for large-scale movements. Those two strategies were found to be equally successful in terms of temporal accuracy and variability (spread of errors). With longer interval durations (2.5 and 3.5 s), variability of sensorimotor synchronisation performance increased (measured as the spread of errors). Analysing the data using the Vorberg and Wing (Handbook of perception and action. Academic Press, New York, pp 181-262, 1996) model shows a need to develop further existing timing models of sensorimotor synchronisation so that they could apply to large-scale movements, where different movement strategies naturally emerge.

Detecting Deception in Movement: The Case of the Side-Step in Rugby

Although coordinated patterns of body movement can be used to communicate action intention, they can also be used to deceive. Often known as deceptive movements, these unpredictable patterns of body movement can give a competitive advantage to an attacker when trying to outwit a defender. In this particular study, we immersed novice and expert rugby players in an interactive virtual rugby environment to understand how the dynamics of deceptive body movement influence a defending player’s decisions about how and when to act. When asked to judge final running direction, expert players who were found to tune into prospective tau-based information specified in the dynamics of ‘honest’ movement signals (Centre of Mass), performed significantly better than novices who tuned into the dynamics of ‘deceptive’ movement signals (upper trunk yaw and out-foot placement) (p<.001). These findings were further corroborated in a second experiment where players were able to move as if to intercept or ‘tackle’ the virtual attacker. An analysis of action responses showed that experts waited significantly longer before initiating movement (p<.001). By waiting longer and picking up more information that would inform about future running direction these experts made significantly fewer errors (p<.05). In this paper we not only present a mathematical model that describes how deception in body-based movement is detected, but we also show how perceptual expertise is manifested in action expertise. We conclude that being able to tune into the ‘honest’ information specifying true running action intention gives a strong competitive advantage.

Vision Modulates Corticospinal Suppression in a Functionally Specific Manner during Movement of the Opposite Limb

The effect of vision on the excitability of corticospinal projections to the flexor carpi radialis (FCR) and extensor carpi radialis (ECR) muscles of right human forearm was investigated before and during discrete movement of the opposite limb. An external force opposed the initial phase of the movement (wrist flexion) and assisted the reverse phase, so that recruitment of the wrist extensors was minimized. Three conditions were used as follows: viewing the inactive right limb (Vision), viewing the mirror image of the moving left limb (Mirror), and with vision of the right limb occluded (No Vision). Transcranial magnetic stimulation was delivered to the left motor cortex: before, at the onset of, or during the left limb movement to obtain motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in the muscles of the right forearm. At and following movement onset, MEPs obtained in the right FCR were smaller in the Vision condition than in the Mirror and No Vision conditions. A distinct pattern of variation was obtained for the ECR. In all conditions, MEPs in this muscle were elevated upon or following movement of the opposite limb. An additional analysis of ipsilateral silent periods indicated that interhemispheric inhibition plays a role in mediating these effects. Activity-dependent changes in corticospinal output to a resting limb during discrete actions of the opposite limb are thus directly contingent upon where one looks. Furthermore, the extent to which vision exerts an influence upon projections to specific muscles varies in accordance with the functional contribution of their homologs to the intended action.