Institutional shaping of research priorities: A case study on avian influenza     

Matthew L. Wallace  Ismael Ràfols 《Research Policy》2018,47(10):1975-1989

Since outbreaks in 2003, avian influenza has received a considerable amount of funding and become a controversial science policy issue in various respects. Like in many other global and multidisciplinary societal problems fraught with high levels of uncertainty, a variety of perspectives have emerged over how to “tackle” avian influenza and public voices have expressed concern over how research funds are being allocated. In this article, we document if and how research agendas are being informed by public policy debates. We use qualitative and quantitative approaches to examine the relations between expectations of outcomes of public science and the existing research landscape. Interviews with a cross-section of stakeholders reveal a wide range of perspectives and values associated with the nature and objectives of existing research avenues. We find that the landscape of public avian influenza research is not directly driven by expectations of societal outcomes. Instead, it is shaped by three institutional drivers: pharmaceutical industry priorities, publishing and public research funding pressures, and the mandates of science-based policy or public health organizations. These insights suggest that, in research prioritization, funding agencies should embrace a broad perspective of research governance that explicitly considers underlying institutional drivers. Deliberative approaches in public priority setting might help to make agendas more plural and diverse and thus more responsive to the contested and uncertain nature of avian influenza research.  相似文献   

Motor variability in sports: A non-linear analysis of race walking     

Ezio Preatoni  Manuela Ferrario  Giulia Donà  Joseph Hamill  Renato Rodano 《Journal of sports sciences》2013,31(12):1327-1336

Abstract

This aim of this study was to analyse the nature of movement variability and to assess whether entropy measures may represent a valuable synthetic index of neuromuscular organization. The regularity of kinematic/kinetic time series during race walking, the changes in the structure of intra-individual variability over the test session, and the influence of athletic skill in (inter)national rank athletes were investigated. Motion analysis techniques were used. Sample entropy (SampEn) was adopted to examine fluctuations in lower limb angles and ground reaction forces. The regularity of both original and surrogate time series was assessed and compared, by estimating SampEn, to verify the presence of non-linear features in movement variability. SampEn was statistically lower in the original data than in surrogates. In contrast, the regularity of time series did not change significantly throughout the subsequent intra-individual repetitions. Hip and ankle joint angles and vertical ground reaction force manifested increased entropy for skilled athletes. Results suggest that race walking variability was not only the product of random noise but also contained information about the inherent propriety of the neuro-musculo-skeletal system. Furthermore, they provide some indications about neuromuscular control of the lower limb joints during race walking gait, and about the differences between more and less skilled individuals.  相似文献   

The new government programs for Italian primary schools     

Luciana Bazzini 《Educational Studies in Mathematics》1988,19(3):389-393

  相似文献   

“Because if we don’t talk about it,how are we going to prevent it?”: Lucidity,a narrative-based digital game about sexual violence     

Melissa Gilliam  Patrick Jagoda  Erin Jaworski  Luciana E. Hebert  Phoebe Lyman  M. Claire Wilson 《Sex education》2016,16(4):391-404

This paper describes the development and evaluation of an interactive, narrative-based, multimedia game to promote learning and communication about sexual violence and health topics. High school-aged participants created the game concept in a three-week workshop, after which assets were assembled and refined by a university-based game design lab. The outcome, Lucidity, was a multimedia game with a nonlinear narrative that led to two different outcomes based on player decisions. The narrative followed the life of one character, an African American woman named Zaria who remembers and grapples with a sexual assault from her past. The player discovers parts of the story by reading comics, watching videos, navigating interactive websites and playing short videogames. The final evaluation consisted of gameplay, a post-game focus group and follow-up interviews. Twenty-four young people participated in three focus group discussions (n = 9, n = 5, n = 10); 23 participated in the follow-up interviews. Salient themes identified in the focus group discussions included: overall approval of the game, the acquisition of new knowledge and minimal past exposure to conversations or education about sexual violence. At follow-up, almost all (n = 22) had initiated a conversation about sexual violence with a parent, peer and/or teacher. Lucidity succeeded in engaging young people and facilitating communication with adults and peers regarding sexual violence and other sexual health topics. Ultimately, a game-based intervention such as this represents a feasible approach for introducing issues of sexual violence, with potential for future implementation in educational settings.  相似文献   

Spanish Secondary-School Science Teachers’ Beliefs About Science-Technology-Society (STS) Issues     

Ángel Vázquez-Alonso  Antonio García-Carmona  María Antonia Manassero-Mas  Antoni Bennàssar-Roig 《Science & Education》2013,22(5):1191-1218

This study analyzes the beliefs about science-technology-society, and other Nature of Science (NOS) themes, of a large sample (613) of Spanish pre- and in-service secondary education teachers through their responses to 30 items of the Questionnaire of Opinions on Science, Technology and Society. The data were processed by means of a multiple response model to generate the belief indices used as the bases for subsequent quantitative and qualitative analyses. Other studies have reported a negative profile of teachers’ understanding in this area, but the diagnosis emerging from the present work is more complex. There was a mix of appropriate beliefs coexisting with others that are inappropriate on the topics analyzed. The overall assessment, however, is negative since clearly teachers need to have a better understanding of these questions. There were scant differences between the pre- and in-service teachers, and hence no decisive evidence that the practice of teaching contributes to improving the in-service teachers’ understanding. These results suggest there is an urgent need to bring the initial and continuing education of science teachers up to date to improve their understanding of these topics of science curricula, and thus improve the teaching of science.  相似文献   

Commerce and the Hungarian Educational System     

Klàra Tompa 《Educational Media International》2013,50(4):181-184

Abstract

Klàra Tompa describes how teaching aids used to be provided in Hungary, and how that system is now changing, with commerce and the Ministry of Education working together with the aim of ensuring that provision of teaching aids is most effective for the teachers and the classes.  相似文献   

La eliminación de conductas autolesivas en niños retrasados profundos     

Xavier Cerdà 《Infancia y Aprendizaje》2013,36(24):103-110

RESUMEN

Se han empleado muchos procedimientos para la supresión de conductas autolesivas, pero en pocos casos se ha tenido en cuenta dotar al sujeto de un comportamiento más adaptativo. La hipótesis que se propone es que el castigo de las conductas autolesivas no provocará un aumento de los comportamientos adaptados si éstos no forman ya parte del repertorio conductual del niño. Para corroborar esta hipótesis se realiza un estudio en dos fases con niños deficientes profundos con conductas autolesivas utilizando castigo social. Los resultados muestran que la operación de castigo contingente es efectiva en la eliminación de conductas autolesivas, que este tipo de conductas son mantenidas por el medio ambiente y la necesidad de enseñar y reforzar positivamente conductas más adaptadas.  相似文献   

Enhancing the Attitudes and Self-Efficacy of Older Adults Toward Computers and the Internet: Results of a Pilot Study     

Luciana Laganà 《Educational gerontology》2013,39(9):831-843

This pilot study explored whether a manualized training program could enhance older adults' computer self-efficacy and attitudes toward computers and the Internet. A total of 32 community-dwelling adults 65 years of age or older were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group, with each group consisting of 8 women and 8 men. The experimental group received 6 weeks of training with two-hour one-on-one sessions once per week. The same training was administered to the control group upon completion of the posttest, 6 weeks after the baseline assessment, to match the procedures on all counts with the exception of training administration. The results of two ANOVAs indicated that participants within the experimental group improved significantly on both their computer self-efficacy (p < .001) and attitudinal scores (p < .001) at the posttraining assessment. No improvements were found in the control group.  相似文献   

DEPRESSION AMONG ETHNICALLY DIVERSE OLDER WOMEN: THE ROLE OF DEMOGRAPHIC AND COGNITIVE FACTORS     

Luciana Laganà  Giovanni Sosa 《Educational gerontology》2013,39(10):801-820

Research has identified a strong relationship between depression and demographic factors such as income and widowed status. Prior studies have also linked common cognitive “slips” to depressive symptomatology. However, very little research has investigated these relationships with respect to the older adult population, particularly within ethnic minorities. To address this gap in the literature, the present study examined the contribution of demographic and cognitive factors to depressive symptomatology among 228 noninstitutionalized women (60 years of age or older) from diverse ethnic backgrounds. The findings identified a significant relationship between depressive symptomatology and cognitive failure, low income, and Middle-Eastern or American-Indian descent.  相似文献   

Pilot Testing a New Short Screen for the Assessment of Older Women's PTSD Symptomatology     

Luciana Laganà  Sage Schuitevoerder 《Educational gerontology》2013,39(8):732-751

It is difficult for busy health care providers to perform routine screening for older women's posttraumatic stress symptomatology. This difficulty is due, at least partially, to a paucity of instruments specifically tested on such a population. To address this issue, in this preliminary study we tested an abbreviated screen from the set of 20 items comprising the Distressing Event Questionnaire (DEQ; Kubany, Leisen, Kaplan, & Kelly, 2000a Kubany , S. E. , Leisen , M. B. , Kaplan , A. S. , & Kelly , M. P. ( 2000a ). Validation of a brief measure of PTSD: The Distressing Event Questionnaire . Psychological Assessment , 12 ( 2 ), 197 – 209 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) on a convenience sample of 94 ethnically diverse older women (age 52–105). This new five-item derivation, named Brief Posttraumatic Stress Screening Scale (BPSSS), assesses posttraumatic stress based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994 American Psychiatric Association . ( 1994 ). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders , (4th ed.) . Washington , DC : American Psychiatric Press . [Google Scholar]). Its conciseness reduces the likelihood that older women would become fatigued during assessment, making it ideal for use in busy health care settings. In view of the hypothesized cohesiveness of the tool's five items, we expected the screen to be reliable. Because the BPSSS has only five items, a single factor was hypothesized to account for a large proportion of the variance in its items. We also expected that scores on the screen would correlate (to a certain extent) with those on measures of depression and perceived stress of a nontraumatic and nonmedical nature. A standardized alpha of .86 demonstrated high internal consistency of the BPSSS, and the exploratory factor analysis showed that one factor accounted for 58% of the five items' variance. Moreover, the correlations of BPSSS scores with scores on nontraumatic stress and depression were moderate yet significant (r = .37, p < .01 and r = .50, p < .01, respectively).  相似文献