Primary to secondary school transfer and adjustment: the role of physical education

This study examined the relationships and differences amongst selected physical education and psychological characteristics of boys before and after secondary school transfer. The purpose of the study was to determine the significance of boys' attitudes to physical education, motor performance and physical education self-esteem (self-perceptions of performance in physical education) at the age of school transfer, and establish the role of physical education before and during adjustment to secondary school. Independent samples of Primary schoolboys (n = 50) and secondary schoolboys(n = 107) formed a cross-sectional study, whilst twenty-five primary school transferees formed a small-scale longitudinal study. Pupils' attitudes towards physical education, motor performance and physical education self-esteem (PESE) were assessed during the last term at primary school and on two occasions (December and June) during the first year at secondary school. In addition, global self-esteem and anxiety were measured at each stage, and a self-report school transfer questionnaire was administered at the end of the transfer year. From these sources, low self-esteem, high anxiety and negative attitudes to secondary school were used as indicators of poor school adjustment. Differences amongst the psychological variables across transfer revealed that the move to secondary school appeared to be a positive experience for most boys. However, those boys identified as poorly adjusted to secondary school were less sure of themselves, more anxious, and recorded lower global and physical education self-esteem. Correlational analysis and discriminant analysis of low, average, and high motor performers (actual and perceived) revealed that poor motor performance was not consistently associated with low global self-esteem, high anxiety, or poor school adjustment. In contrast, low physical education selfesteem was associated with negative psychological characteristics and all the indicators of poor secondary school adjustment. Findings also suggested that physical education self-esteem may serve (1) as a mediating variable between actual motor performance and global self-esteem, and (2) as a mediating variable between physical education experiences and school adjustment. On the basis of the results, a preliminary model of secondary school adjustment incorporating physical education is presented for discussion and empirical test. Also in light of the study's findings, the National Curriculum for England and Wales is analysed to consider the extent to which physical education experiences are likely to assist children's motor and psychological development before transfer and during secondary school adjustment

AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF A MULTI-PROCESSOR SCHEDULING SYSTEM

The scheduling of jobs through a multi-processor system is important from many aspects. It is often assumed that jobs are scheduled on the basis of some simple rule, such as First-Come First-Served, or Shortest Processing Time First. In earlier work we found some evidence to suggest that use of a more sophisticated strategy, based on the use of it Genetic Algorithm (GA) to 'look ahead', could enhance system performance. Here we investigate this idea more thoroughly

Nonspecialist, Preservice Primary-School Teachers: Predicting Intentions to Teach Physical Education

The purpose of this study was to establish the utility of the theory of planned behavior in predicting nonspecialist, preservice primary-school teachers' intentions to teach physical education for 2 hr per week. A questionnaire was developed according to the recommended procedures and was administered to 128 final-year teacher trainees in two primary-teacher training courses in England. A variety of predictors were identified including: beliefs of significant others, such as parents; a positive assessment of control over difficult barriers; and experiences of past (teaching) behavior. The most significant predictor in discriminating between intenders and nonintenders, however, was personal exercise behavior. Helping preservice primary-school teachers become more physically active themselves might positively influence their intentions to teach physical education 2 hr per week more than alleviating barriers to teaching physical education

04081 Abstracts Collection -- Theory of Evolutionary Algorithms

From 15.02.04 to 20.02.04, the Dagstuhl Seminar 04081 ``Theory of Evolutionary Algorithms\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available

Partitioning a call graph

Splitting a large software system into smaller and more manageable units has become an important problem for many organizations. The basic structure of a software system is given by a directed graph with vertices representing the programs of the system and arcs representing calls from one program to another. Generating a good partitioning into smaller modules becomes a minimization problem for the number of programs being called by external programs. First, we formulate an equivalent integer linear programming problem with 0–1 variables. theoretically, with this approach the problem can be solved to optimality, but this becomes very costly with increasing size of the software system. Second, we formulate the problem as a hypergraph partitioning problem. This is a heuristic method using a multilevel strategy, but it turns out to be very fast and to deliver solutions that are close to optimal

Using state machines for the visualisation of specifications via refinement

We talk in this paper about using state machines and refinement to characterise the visualisation of a computation. We use Z specifications to give examples of systems in the usual way, and then use Z schemas to also represent states and transitions in state machines, which we consider to be a particular kind of visualisation of a specified system. We have investigated the principle of substitutivity and the idea of downward simulation to check whether or not a refinement relation exists between the specification and the state machine. We are looking at this because we believe that the soundness of the visualisation can be captured by such a refinement relationship

Improving the physical and mental well-being of typically hard-to-reach men: an investigation of the impact of the Active Rovers project

Strong associations exist between physical activity (PA) levels and incidence morbidity and mortality. Evidence suggests that PA levels decline with age but incidence of sedentary behaviour is high. This paper examines the effectiveness of a PA intervention hosted by a professional football club. It explores the impact of the intervention upon mental well-being, health perceptions, and lifestyle knowledge in men often classed as hard-to-reach (HTR). Data were collected through a shortened version of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale, and a longitudinal self-report questionnaire. Pre- and post-intervention changes were determined by a Wilcoxon signed rank test (p  <  .05). Data indicated that the intervention was successful in improving aspects of mental well-being amongst the male client group. The qualitative findings revealed a less successful transfer from the intervention to more casual PA engagement. Professional football clubs appear to be appropriate environments to promote physical and mental well-being. However, behaviour change away from the football club was less obvious, suggesting further research in this area is required

Barrel swirl breakdown in spark-ignition engines: insights from particle image velocimetry measurements

Particle image velocimetry (PIV) has been used here to study the formation and breakdown of barrel swirl ('tumble') in a production geometry, four-stroke, four-valve, motored, spark-ignition, optically accessed internal combustion (IC) engine. The barrel swirl ratio (BSR) of the cylinder head could be enhanced by means of a port face inducer gasket so that the flow processes taking place at low and high swirl ratios could be investigated conveniently. Double-exposed images from planes both parallel and perpendicular to the cylinder axis were recorded at selected crank angles through the induction and compression strokes at a motored engine speed of 1000 r/min, with a wide open throttle, for both high and low BSR cases. The recorded images were interrogated by digital autocorrelation to give two-dimensional maps of instantaneous velocity. In both high and low BSR cases, a barrel or tumbling vortex motion is generated during induction, which is shown to persist throughout the majority of the compression stroke. The details of barrel swirl formation during induction and its subsequent modification during compression, however, differ strongly between the two cases. These differences can be explained qualitatively in terms of two main events; the first being competition during induction between vortices of unequal strength and the second being competition between the large-scale swirl motion and the local flow field generated by piston motion during compression. In the low barrel swirl case, significant dissipation occurs owing to these interactions and consequently the large-scale motion exhibits lower mean velocities and undergoes significant distortion. In the case of high BSR, the competition effects are minimized and a single ordered vertical vortex exhibiting high velocity magnitudes is observed to avoid piston induced distortion. It then moves into the apex of the pent roof combustion chamber where it survives as a single ordered vortex until at least 40° crank angle (CA) before top dead centre (TDC). Limitations and developments of the PIV technique are discussed