Exploring physical activities in an employer-sponsored health program

This work brings a perspective from an employer-sponsored health and wellness program called Global Corporate Challenge (GCC) to the 'quantified self' research. We present preliminary findings from a study with 17 university employees who participated in the GCC. We aimed to explore how participants derived meaningfulness from their self-tracking experiences. Our findings echo the growing body of work that advocates for conceptualizing activity tracking beyond the rationalistic, data-oriented perspectives and supporting more social and lived experiences.

A ação do coordenador pedagógico e as suas contribuições a vivência compreensiva sob a perspectiva conscienciológica

This work is based on a reflection about my personal and professional background as a teacher and a pedagogical supervisor in two public schools in the municipality of Natal, RN, and how relevant this background is to the development of a proposal of continued formation within the scope of the school, in which a diversity of actionreflection strategies are present. In such contexts, I have identified several of my personality traits as being likely advantages or disadvantages that may contribute or not to the coming up of misunderstanding situations. The self-research experience and the identification of new dimensions of self-evaluation, self-observation and attention serve as a basis to think about the importance of experiencing the understanding within the ambit of the school. The reflections about my actions and those of the teachers bring up the hypothesis that the misunderstandings in the teaching-learning process and in the affective relations are the result of a fragmented, naive and egotistic way of thinking. Thus, they don t contribute to an experience of mutual understanding. That is why there must be an investment on new strategies of self-research and dialogue within the scope of pedagogical meetings that may come to help all educators with the analysis, identification and solving of their own problems as well as the other s. Under this perspective, the question that guides this study assumes the presupposition that the educator can invest in a qualified and meaningful pedagogical formation, either one s own and others , if one has a critical-reflexive overview about oneself and the school s pedagogical process. This research aims to explore, discuss and encourage new reflections about the act of researching in the pedagogical supervisor s role, questioning about the possibility of this action to generate contributions to the process of one s own and other s pedagogical formation within the scope of the school, in a conscientiological perspective, in which the manifestation of the thosenes of the educators are valorized. We approach Paulo Freire (1921-1997), as we see the dialogue as very important to the development of this research work, as well as an encouragement to the consciential dialogue. The empirical research took place from June 4, 2004 to November 11, 2004, with 8 pedagogical meetings and with the participation of 2 pedagogical supervisors and 8 teachers. The application of this new methodology within the scope of pedagogical meetings brought considerable contributions to the interpretation of the elements of the educators thosenes, classified according to the following: uncritical, naïve and critical thoughts; sentiments of assistential or non-assistential affectivity; and actions that may or not make the experience of mutual understanding possible. The action of the pedagogical supervisor and one s contributions to the understanding brought up reflections about new ways of investing in the process of continued formation within the scope of the school

ACE research vignette 020: Entrepreneurial becoming - a self-induced transformation

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from our team of international Entrepreneurship researchers. In this vignette, Dr Marcello Tonelli and Associate Professor Carol Dalglish consider the delivery of entrepreneurial education through experiential learning in a developing context.

Using participatory action research for heart self care amongst indigenous patients

This paper describes the initial phases of the Fluid Watchers Pacific Rim project: a participatory action research project that involves developing and trialling an iPad app to provide monitoring and self-care for Indigenous Australians with heart failure. The development phase involved working with health experts, an IT team and Indigenous heart-failure patients through three cycles of development and critical reflection. This was followed by a small pilot study to examine the app’s effectiveness. In this paper, the researchers explain why IT-supported health education can be successful in decreasing re-hospitalisation and improving self-management skills. They describe the steps they took to ensure community participation and ownership of the project and present the findings of their pilot study. This pilot project suggests that an iPad app may be a practical and successful way to provide health-care support for Indigenous Australian heart-failure patients.

Preliminary analysis of self-report questionnaire with young drivers in Oman. Fourth report of the novice driver safety research in Oman project for the Research Council of Oman

This report document the recent progress (current as of December 2014) of the research project investigating novice driver safety in Oman. Included in this report is a summary of progress with publications to date, as well as description of the preliminary results of the first phase of the quantitative survey with young drivers. With regards to the publications which have resulted from this research, two journal articles have been published in print, one is under review, and a fourth is in the late stages of development for submission...

Online promotion of research expertise self assessment

Helps institutions identify if their use of online channels in communicating information about the expertise of researchers within their organisation meets the needs of both business and wider communities, as well as the researchers themselves.

Promotion of research expertise online: the self-assessment tool

Helping HEIs identify whether the way they use online channels to communicate information about the expertise of researchers within their institution meets the needs of: – Business and community users – Researchers themselves.

Research progress of self-organized Ge quantum dots on Si substrate

A review is presented on recent research development of self-organized Ge/Si quantum dots (QDs). Emphasis is put on the morphological evolution of the Ge quantum dots grown on Si (001) substrate, the structure analysis of multilayer Ge QDs, the optical and electronic properties of these nanostructures, and the approaches to fabricating ordered Ge quantum dots.

Research progress of electronic properties of self-assembled semiconductor quantum dots

Self-assembled semiconductor quantum dot is a new type of artificially designed and grown function material which exhibits quantum size effect, quantum interference effect, surface effect, quantum tunneling-Coulumb-blockade effect and nonlinear optical effect. Due to its advantages of less crystal defects and relatively simpler fabrication technology, this material may be of important value in the research of future nanoelectronic device. In the order of vertical transport, lateral transport and charge storage, recent advances in the electronic properties of this material are brefly introduced, and the problems and perspectives are analyzed.

Loosely packed self-assembled monolayer of N-hexadecyl-3,6-di(p-mercaptophenylacetylene)carbazole on gold and its application in biomimetic membrane research

Dithiols of N-hexadecyl-3,6-di(p-mercaptophenylacetylene)carbazole (HDMC) have been synthesized and employed to form self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on gold. One characteristic of the HDMC molecule is its peculiar molecular structure consisting of a large and rigid headgroup and a small and flexible alkyl-chain tail. HDMC adsorbates can attach to gold substrates by a strong Au-S bond with weak van der Waals interactions between the alkyl-chain tails, leading to a loosely packed hydrophobic SAM. In this way we can couple hybrid bilayer membranes (HBMs) to gold surfaces with more likeness to a cell bilayer than the conventional HBMs based on densely packed long-chain alkanethiol SAMs. The insulating properties and stability of the HDMC monolayer as well as the HDMC/lipid bilayer on gold have been investigated by electrochemical techniques including cyclic voltammetry and impedance spectroscopy. To test whether the quality of the bilayer is sufficiently high for biomimetic research, we incorporated the pore-forming protein a-hemolysin) and the horseradish peroxidase into the bilayers, respectively.

Dangers of a fixed mindset: implications of self-theories research for computer science education

Murphy, L. and Thomas, L. 2008. Dangers of a fixed mindset: implications of self-theories research for computer science education. In Proceedings of the 13th Annual Conference on innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (Madrid, Spain, June 30 - July 02, 2008). ITiCSE '08. ACM, New York, NY, 271-275.