Breadth and Depth of Knowledge in Expert versus Novice Athletes

Questions about knowledge in expert sport are not only of applied significance: they also take us to the heart of foundational and heavily-disputed issues in the cognitive sciences. To a first (rough and far from uncontroversial) approximation, we can think of expert ‘knowledge’ as whatever it is that grounds or is applied in (more or less) effective decision-making, especially when in a competitive situation a performer follows one course of action out of a range of possibilities. In these research areas, studies of motor expertise have for many years actively contributed to broader debates in philosophy and psychology (Abernethy, Burgess-Limerick, & Parks, 1994; Williams, Davids, & Williams, 1999). When we navigate the world flexibly and more or less successfully, how much is this due to a capacity to represent it? In considering alternative options, or planning future actions, we seem to transcend our present environment in some way: what is the balance or relation here between highly-tuned bodily dispositions and background knowledge of the world and its patterns? What changes in these regards as we gain experience and adapt to more complex and challenging environments? Is know-how fundamentally different in kind from ordinary factual knowledge of the world, or knowledge-that? And if expertise in a domain does involve or depend on a knowledge base that is somehow more organized or deeper than that of novices, how is this knowledge selectively and appropriately deployed, often under severe time constraints

Methods for Measuring Breadth and Depth of Knowledge

In elite sport, the advantages demonstrated by expert performers over novices are sometimes due in part to their superior physical fitness or to their greater technical precision in executing specialist motor skills. However at the very highest levels, all competitors typically share extraordinary physical capacities and have supremely well-honed techniques. Among the extra factors which can differentiate between the best performers, psychological skills are paramount. These range from the capacities to cope under pressure and to bounce back from setbacks, to the knowledge of themselves, opponents, and the domain, which experts access and apply in performance. In the companion chapter on breadth and depth of knowledge in expert sport (see Chapter 11), we discussed the forms or kinds of knowledge deployed by elite athletes, and described some lines of research which seek to tap and study such expert knowledge (McPherson & MacMahon, 2008; McRobert, Ward, Eccles & Williams, 2011). In this chapter we focus more directly on questions about methods for measuring or more accurately assessing expert knowledge, in particular addressing a wider range of methods to help us understand what experts know. Suggesting that sport researchers can productively adopt and adapt existing qualitative methodologies for integration with more standard quantitative methods, we introduce and survey a number of areas of qualitative research in psychology

Illegal activity in the UK halal (sheep) supply chain: towards greater understanding

Food Supply chain theory and practice assumes that the processes involved are legal and value adding. In this paper, using examples from the UK halal (sheep) meat supply chain, we outline a value extracting value chain through a mixed methods qualitative approach consisting of face-to-face-interviews and a documentary research strategy underpinned by Narrative Inquiry. Building on previous theoretical work on Illegal Rural Enterprise, we present a narrative of an individual rogue-farmer, and explore his involvement in the illegal halal (‘smokies’) trade over a fifteen-year period. The paper provides a compelling story that will enable investigators to better understand illegal enterprise from a supply chain perspective and more adequately address the concerns stated in the UK Fraud Act 2006. The paper will be useful to food standards agencies in that furthers our understanding of entrepreneurial practice and morality in the food industry. The results demonstrate that illegal rural enterprise is a multi-faceted concept that requires an understanding of business practices and processes alongside a multi-agency approach to enterprise orientated crime. Our approach suggests that supply chains can be ‘flipped’ in order to understand illegal processes in addition to conventional legal processes

Depressed RNA synthesis in the brains and livers of thyroidectomized, normal and hormone injected rats

Depression of rat brain and liver RNA synthesis was seen at 22 and 90 days subsequent to neonatal radiothyroidectomy. Cerebral RNA synthesis (per unit DNA) was depressed by 16% (P P in vitro assay systems which circumvented complications (often seen in vivo approaches) such as pool size changes, cell membrane transport alterations and mediation of blood-brain barrier related effects.Chronic daily administration in vivo of -thyroxine (10 [mu]g/100 g body weight) restored the depressed cerebral synthesis of RNA to normal levels while daily administration of bovine growth hormone (100 [mu]g per rat) did not.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34101/1/0000383.pd

Results of the Electron Drift Instrument on Cluster

The electron drift instrument (EDI) on Cluster pioneered a new method of measuring electric fields, using a beam of electrons to sample the drift velocity over a km-scale gyro orbit. The technique is especially well suited to measuring weak, sub-mV/m, convection fields due to its sensitivity (to both components in the plane perpendicular to B) and because it is unaffected by the anomalous local electric fields that are generated by spacecraft-plasma interactions. Because EDI requires exquisite beam pointing with active tracking of the firing directions, measurements are less regular, or even impossible, in rapidly varying electric and magnetic fields; however, in the many regimes where tracking is successful the resulting measurements are reliably accurate. We review the EDI technique and instrumentation, and present six areas of investigation using Cluster data: (1) Detailed comparisons of EDI data with the electric field and waves double probe measurements show excellent agreement in many cases but identify large discrepancies where strong ion outflow in the polar regions creates local spacecraft wake effects. (2) The wake effect is exploited to infer quantitative ion outflow rates. Detailed convection patterns in the (3) polar cap, (4) lobe, and (5) inner magnetosphere are derived under various driver conditions using statistical analyses of long term measurements during the Cluster mission. (6) EDI's large geometric-factor detector is used for extremely high time resolution measurements of electrons at a specified energy and pitch angle