Clumsiness and Motor Competence in Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy

One of the main objectives of physical education and sport (PES) pedagogy in schools is to develop motor competence in children. While many schoolchildren practice sports, there is a group of children that does not receive the educational opportunities to be competent. These children show low motor competence and poor motor coordination. International agencies have called this condition as developmental coordination disorders (DCD) and its definition in short is “poor motor performance in daily activities that is not consistent with the child’s age and intelligence, and is not due to medical condition.” Physical education and sport teachers are the first interventionist with these children. They have the first opportunity of providing primary care to these children. In this chapter, motor coordination problems in school, its prevalence, how these children learn, how physical education and sport teachers can detect them, and why physical education and sport pedagogy must be concerned with this problem, will be analyzed

Sensitivity of polyamine metabolism to glucose deprivation is increased in neuroblastoma cells with N-myc amplification

Ornithine-derived polyamines are essential for cell proliferation, and their levels are elevated in many human tumors. Neuroblastoma, the most frequent extra-cranial solid tumor in children, harbors amplification of n-myc oncogene (which enhances polyamine metabolism) in 25% of the cases. In the present communication, the relevance of n-myc amplification in several metabolic features of human neuroblastoma cell lines is studied. A previously unknown linkage between glycolysis impairment and polyamine reduction, related to n-myc amplification, is unveiled. Results show that glycolysis inhibition is able to trigger signaling events leading to the reduction of N-Myc protein levels and subsequent decrease of both ornithine decarboxylase expression and polyamine levels, accompanied by cell cycle blockade preceding cell death. Metabolism-targeted therapies are emerging as new approaches for cancer treatment. New anti-tumor strategies could take advantage of the direct relationship between glucose deprivation and PA metabolism impairment leading to cell death described in the present work, and its apparent dependence on n-myc amplification in the case of neuroblastoma. Combined therapies targeting glucose metabolism and polyamine synthesis could be effective in the treatment of n-myc amplified tumors.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. This work has been funded by Grants SAF2011-26518 (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain), Excellence Projects CTS-1507 and CVI-06585 (Junta de Andalucía, Spain) and BIO-267 (fondos PAIDI, Junta de Andalucía, Spain). MVRP was the recipient of a FPU long-term fellowship (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Spain) and a “III Plan Propio de Investigación” short-term fellowship (University of Málaga). CIBERER is an initiative of Instituto de Salud Carlos III. This communication has the support of a travel grant "Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech"

Physical Activity Practice, Sleeping Habits and Academic Achievement

There is a wide body of research that has identified the strong links between health behaviors and academic achievement. The media and official agencies strive to convey to schoolchildren and the public the need to show healthy lifestyles. However, it is striking that sleep habits have been considered in few occasions within healthy behaviors to be developed and promoted. Schools should encourage their students to be active because the effect of physical exercise will promote sleep and will positively affect the performance of academic tasks. Then, it is necessary to revitalize and establish the subject of Physical Education and Sport practice properly where the students can meet a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise per week. This approach will have a direct impact on the school children’s performance and health. Therefore, the key question is to decide whether educational centers must promote active lifestyles where sleep and exercise will be promoting or maintain schools where the body and body intelligence remain an irrelevant matter

Models teòrics explicatius de l'aprenentatge motor

En este artículo se repasan los principales modelos teóricos explicativos del aprendizaje motor. En un primer apartado se comentan las aportaciones propias de la psicología cognitiva y más concretamente del corriente del procesamiento de la información: la Teoría del bucle cerrado de Jack Adams y la Teoría del esquema de Richard Schmidt. Posteriormente, se exponen las críticas que han recibido estos modelos y, para hacerlo, se introducen las principales aportaciones que el científico ruso Nikolai Bernstein hizo al estudio del aprendizaje y el control motor. A partir de estas aportaciones, se introducen las formulaciones teóricas que, surgidas desde la perspectiva dinámica-ecológica, pretenden superar las limitaciones de los modelos cognitivos. Finalmente, se comparan las dos perspectivas y se sugieren algunas posibles vías de desarrollo futuro del campo que nos ocupa

Ac magnetic susceptibility of a molecular magnet submonolayer directly patterned onto a microSQUID sensor

We report the controlled integration, via Dip Pen Nanolithography, of monolayer dots of ferritin-based CoO nanoparticles (12 Bohr magnetons) into the most sensitive areas of a microSQUID sensor. The nearly optimum flux coupling between these nanomagnets and the microSQUID improves the achievable sensitivity by a factor 100, enabling us to measure the linear susceptibility of the molecular array down to very low temperatures (13 mK). This method opens the possibility of applying ac susceptibility experiments to characterize two-dimensional arrays of single molecule magnets within a wide range of temperatures and frequencies.Comment: 4 pages 3 figure

Shape Memory Hydrogels Based on Noncovalent Interactions

Shape memory polymers (SMPs) are polymeric materials that are capable of fixing temporary shape and recovering the permanent shape in response to external stimuli. In particular, supramolecular interactions and dynamic covalent bond have recently been introduced as temporary switches to construct supramolecular shape memory hydrogels (SSMHs), arising as promising materials since they can exhibit excellent cycled shape memory behavior at room temperature. On the other hand, hydrogels, conventionally, are flexible but sometimes extremely soft, and they can be easily damaged under external force, which could limit their long-time application. Therefore, self-healing hydrogels that can be rapidly auto-repaired when the damage occurs have been recently developed to solve this problem. These materials present more than one triggering stimulus that can be used to induce the shape memory and self-healing effect. These driven forces can be originated from hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic interactions, and reversible covalent bonds, among others. Beyond all these, hybrid organic-inorganic interactions represent an interesting possibility due to their versatility and favorable properties that allow the fabrication of multiresponsive hydrogels. In this chapter, shape memory hydrogels based on noncovalent interactions are described