Attitudes and perceptions of middle school students toward competitive activities in physical education

The attitudes and perceptions of middle school students toward competitive activities in physical education were examined. Ten boys and 14 girls volunteered (11-high-skilled, 11 moderate-skilled, and 2 low skilled students) in 6th and 7th grade from a total of 6 schools, all offering competitive activities. Data collection was conducted over several months and included focus groups consisting of students of mixed skill levels, observations of competitive class activities, and informal interviews with teachers. The three major themes that emerged were, having fun in competitive activities, not all students were attaining motor skills necessary to participate in activities due to a lack of time to engage in appropriate practice, and the structure of competitive activities affects student experience

Exploring Open Design for the application of Citizen Science; a toolkit methodology

The manufacture of mass produced quality assured products has previously remained within professional practice. Digital manufacture presents opportunities for producing products in low volumes, catering to bespoke requirements. This phenomenon can benefit parties where the manufacture of goods has previously been financially unobtainable, i.e. non-government and charitable organisations. Open hardware (accessible electronic components) can complement digital manufacture, enabling bespoke products to become intelligent, with the ability to sense, monitor, record and produce data. This paper tests an Open Design / Citizen Science toolkit drawing from practice based research and supporting ethnographic activities. The study documents design workshops with The Sussex Wildlife Trust and Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, conservation and wildlife experts. The papers research contribution is a design toolkit, identifying insightful opportunities for Open Design through Citizen Science. The study showcases new prospects for organisations to engage with the public. The prospects form ‘reciprocal relationships’ via members of the public fabricating monitoring devices and gathering data. Users’ individual accrued data can meet wider community needs and address local or national conservation challenges. The emphasis of this study has focused on accessible wildlife monitoring, beyond the valuable but limited versatility of the smartphone, extending Citizen Sciences reach

Social Responses to Nature; Citizen Empowerment through Design

Traditionally, design content creation has remained within professional practice and manufacturing industries. Open Design (OD) utilizes accessible fabrication, enabling lay users to create and reappropriate content. Citizen Science encompasses activities where communities gather contextual environmental data for scientific or community purposes. The paradigm combination provides opportunities for communities, grass-roots projects and social initiatives with opportunities to create ‘products’ addressing personal and global issues. Social design (SD) combines OD/ Citizen Science practices, empowering responses by fostering ‘innovations that are both good for society and enhance society’s capacity to act’. This article highlights a SD case study that applied OD/Citizen Science to beekeeping. The ‘Bee Lab’ project empowered participants to construct data-gathering devices, embodying Manzini’s SD approach. The case study aided motivated participants to address local/global issues, facing Apis mellifera (the honey bee). The project yielded insights into motivation, community leveraging, public engagement for social good and more. Insights have been distilled into repeatable stages for analogous activities. The results offer applications for communities, design agents or organizations wishing to address the burgeoning challenges facing social responses to nature

Open design: non‐professional user‐designers creating products for citizen science, a case study of beekeepers.

Affiliated technologies have opened up opportunities for people, no matter what their design competency or expertise, to engage in the design of the products they use. The notion of “Open Design” or the open sharing of information relating to the design and manufacture of products, services or objects, can be seen as part of a much more encompassing phenomenon whereby users are the innovators and fabricators of their own products. Digital fabrication can enable the remote fabrication of objects tailoring artefacts to specific users or environmental needs. Open fabrication makes manufacturing processes accessible and can respond to niche needs with bespoke production. Citizen science uses non‐professionals to conduct research in their own environment or location, extending the impact of research. This process of “amateur scientist” and community monitoring has positive and negative aspects that design can help to address. The workshop conducted as part of this research involved 15 amateur bee‐ keepers and led to a probe study involving 150 participants in the UK, testing a new approach to co‐collaboration yielding positive outcomes. The bee population is currently under threat from environmental change, pollution, disease and they are users with a specific interest, bespoke needs and a knowledge base outside of their profession. The decline in bees is a scientific issue as they are seen as a barometer for the health of the environment. Through analysis of observations and insights gained through active design‐led workshops, this paper examines the potential barriers, opportunities, benefits and pitfalls of user‐designers engaging with citizen science using open design and open fabrication tools. Workshop results included: methods, motivations, designer and manufacturer opportunities and insights into repeatable processes forming the start of a citizen science toolkit. The objective was to ascertain the possible pitfalls of a group of user‐designers creating their own citizen science tools enabled by technologists and designers

Parents' and clinicians' views of an interactive booklet about respiratory tract infections in children: a qualitative process evaluation of the EQUIP randomised controlled trial

Background: ‘When should I worry?’ is an interactive booklet for parents of children presenting with respiratory tract infections (RTIs) in primary care and associated training for clinicians. A randomised controlled trial (the EQUIP study) demonstrated that this intervention reduced antibiotic prescribing and future consulting intentions. The aims of this qualitative process evaluation were to understand how acceptable the intervention was to clinicians and parents, how it was implemented, the mechanisms for any observed effects, and contextual factors that could have influenced its effects.<p></p> Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 parents and 13 clinicians who participated in the trial. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using a framework approach, which involved five stages; familiarisation, development of a thematic framework, indexing, charting, and interpretation.<p></p> Results: Most parents and clinicians reported that the ‘When should I worry’ interactive booklet (and online training for clinicians) was easy to use and valuable. Information on recognising signs of serious illness and the usual duration of illness were most valued. The interactive use of the booklet during consultations was considered to be important, but this did not always happen. Clinicians reported lack of time, lack of familiarity with using the booklet, and difficulty in modifying their treatment plan/style of consultation as barriers to use. Increased knowledge and confidence amongst clinicians and patients were seen as key components that contributed to the reductions in antibiotic prescribing and intention to consult seen in the trial. This was particularly pertinent in a context where decisions about the safe and appropriate management of childhood RTIs were viewed as complex and parents reported frequently receiving inconsistent messages. Conclusions: The ‘When should I worry’ booklet, which is effective in reducing antibiotic prescribing, has high acceptability for clinicians and parents, helps address gaps in knowledge, increases confidence, and provides a consistent message. However, it is not always implemented as intended. Plans for wider implementation of the intervention in health care settings would need to address clinician-related barriers to implementation

Standard deviation : standardization and quality control in the mash-up era

Standards touch many aspects of our lives, from purchasing to consuming, to maintaining product consistencies (e.g. ISO 9001). Standardization aids replicating: compliance, quality and durability to diffuse geographic areas, driving innovation by providing constraints (BSI). Historically, standardization was a cornerstone for commerce enabling traders to interact, trusting accurate measures, used in judging a product’s worth. Open Design utilizes Internet-accessible digital making platforms, for creating and disseminating ideas. The rise of Fabrication Laboratories and distributed digital manufacturing (e.g. domestic 3D printing) has increased accessibility of high-quality manufacture. Design agents as well as designers can create products; either for personal use from the bottom-up, or re-appropriate another maker’s solution. Reciprocity is key to the process. As such, in this paper we refer to design agents, rather than applying labels of “professional” or “user”. However, as design agents become enabled to produce complex artefacts, “objective validation” for shared blueprints quality, becomes imminent. For example, 3D printing is reviving DIY toy making, with materials that can degrade overtime, potentially presenting choking hazards. Due to this status quo, the authors are not presenting lawsuit opportunities, but preventative procedures whilst encouraging proliferation of design agent led Open Design. Regulatory requirements for sectors touched by “open phenomenon” are unprepared. How can maker communities, design agents and others lead the way in promoting ways of working that enable robust quality control in open environments? To answer this question, interviews with British Standards Institute (BSI) representatives were triangulated with design workshops. This participatory approach to knowledge creation was chosen due to its inherent compatibility with the theoretical underpinnings of Open Design. This paper presents models exploring “standards integration” for Open Design purposes, enabling design agents to create “compliant” outputs, to benefit all. We conclude that there are possible avenues for standardization, but that this must be tested in the field. #open design, #digital manufacture, #industry standard

Self Assembled Clusters of Spheres Related to Spherical Codes

We consider the thermodynamically driven self-assembly of spheres onto the surface of a central sphere. This assembly process forms self-limiting, or terminal, anisotropic clusters (N-clusters) with well defined structures. We use Brownian dynamics to model the assembly of N-clusters varying in size from two to twelve outer spheres, and free energy calculations to predict the expected cluster sizes and shapes as a function of temperature and inner particle diameter. We show that the arrangements of outer spheres at finite temperatures are related to spherical codes, an ideal mathematical sequence of points corresponding to densest possible sphere packings. We demonstrate that temperature and the ratio of the diameters of the inner and outer spheres dictate cluster morphology and dynamics. We find that some N-clusters exhibit collective particle rearrangements, and these collective modes are unique to a given cluster size N. We present a surprising result for the equilibrium structure of a 5-cluster, which prefers an asymmetric square pyramid arrangement over a more symmetric arrangement. Our results suggest a promising way to assemble anisotropic building blocks from constituent colloidal spheres.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figure

Making Instructions for Others: Exploring Mental Models Through a Simple Exercise

Investigating how people understand the systems around them—from technology to democracy to our own bodies—is a common research goal across many disciplines. One of the practical aims is uncovering differences between how people think systems work and how they actually work (particularly where differences can cause problems) and then addressing them, either by trying to change people’s understanding or by changing the way people inter- act with systems so that this better matches people’s understanding [1]. Being able to say that you under- stand a system is essentially saying that you have a model of the system [2]. In HCI and other people-centered design fields, attempting to characterize people’s mental models of technology in which their behavior plays a role can be a significant part of user research. Users’ mental models will perhaps only rarely accord exactly with designers’ conceptual models of a system [3], but this is not necessarily a problem in itself: “[A]ll models are wrong, but some are useful” [4]. Mental models should not be assumed to be static constructs covering the whole of a system; multiple models working at different levels of abstraction can be relevant in different circumstances, from complex work domains to simple everyday interactions [5]

Physical Activity, Screen Time, and Obesity: A Statistical Inquiry into Latina/o Youth

Background and Purpose: Overweight and obesity have been identified by the World Health Organization as a global epidemic and disproportionately affects minority populations in the United States. This study explored cross-sectional associations with TV viewing, physical activity, video game playing, gender, and Latina/o ethnicity with Body Mass Index (BMI). Methods: Data from the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) were utilized (N=15,503). Results: Time spent in physical activity, watching television, playing video games, male gender, and Latina/o ethnicity status were all significantly associated with increased risk of overweight and obesity, but age was not. There was also a significant interaction effect in which above-median levels of physical activity had a stronger relationship with lower overweight/obesity rates among non-Latinos compared to Latinos. Conclusion: Our findings support previous findings regarding well-known correlates of overweight and obesity. The significant interaction effects suggest that the relationships of these correlates are nuanced, and future interventions may be more effective if demographic-specific relationships between correlates and obesityrelated outcomes are considered