Facilitating self-determination in adolescents with intellectual disabilities: a curriculum

Taking an active part and responsibilities in one's own life is not always easy, particularly at adolescence, which is a very important period in which people progressively find their identity and life project. This article describes the social validation analyses of a Belgian self-determination curriculum that was adapted from a French-Canadian curriculum. It was done with the participation of adolescents with intellectual disabilities, teachers, and experts from the field. Overall, results indicate a satisfying to very satisfying appreciation of the social utility of the training manual. The findings also highlighted that the curriculum actually supports the conceptual framework of self-determination.     

No sustained effect of aerobic or resistance training on insulin sensitivity in nonobese, healthy older women

It is unclear whether long-term aerobic (AT) or resistance (RT) training can improve insulin sensitivity (IS) beyond the residual effect of the last training bout in older women (54-78 years). Therefore, a group of nonobese, healthy older women underwent 6 months of AT (n = 8) or RT (n = 10), and the authors measured IS 4 days after the last training bouts using the hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp technique. Women trained 3 days/week. AT consisted of 25- to 60-min sessions of walking/jogging at 60-95% of maximal heart rate. RT consisted of three sets of nine exercises repeated 10 times at 80% of 1 repetition maximum. AT decreased fat mass, whereas both AT and RT increased fat-free mass. Neither training program, however, improved absolute or relative rates of glucose disposal. The authors therefore concluded that nonobese, healthy older women should perform AT or RT on a daily basis in order to improve IS and maintain the improvement.     

Multiracial Identities and Employee Absenteeism: Testing Contact and Depletion Hypotheses

Employee absenteeism costs the U.S. economy billions of dollars each year. Recent research finds that workplace characteristics are important predictors, yet variation remains by racial identity. Less is known about the reasons multiracial workers miss work. With data from the 2014 General Social Survey, we test a contact hypothesis and a depletion hypothesis. The findings support the depletion hypothesis. Multiracial workers are likely feeling cognitively taxed from comparatively more interracial interaction in the workplace, resulting in their higher rate of employee absenteeism. Given that the number of multiracial individuals living and working in the United States is expected to grow substantially over the next decade, understanding the factors that explain their work behavior may be beneficial to all social groups.     

Soil organic carbon stock in different urban land uses: high stock evidence in urban parks

Urban Ecosystems - Urban areas are major producers of atmospheric CO2 emissions, but at the same time they can offset some of the associated C losses by retaining stable organic carbon in their...     

Crawling Predicts Infants’ Understanding of Agents’ Navigation of Obstacles

We investigated whether crawling versus noncrawling infants interpret an agent's movements around an obstacle as goal‐directed. Infants (6–9 months) were habituated to a self‐propelled circle jumping over an obstacle to reach a goal. When the obstacle was removed, infants who crawled (n = 13) showed longer looking time to the familiar but now nonrational jumping path versus a novel but rational straight‐line path. Noncrawlers (n = 17) did not discriminate. Looking preference was independent of age and speed of habituation. These findings support the claim that infants’ processing of agency emerges early and applies to all agents, but stress the role of experience in the development of action interpretation.     

Measuring and Analysing Community Action for Health: An Indicator-Based Typology and Its Application to the Case of Barcelona

Social welfare systems face major challenges, particularly in a context of social transformation, austerity and growing inequalities. This process is highly visible in the health sector. In this context, many voices ask for public sector reforms and community action for health as a relevant practice. However, analyses and evaluations of this kind of practices are still limited, particularly beyond the cases of single community health actions or interventions. We still need to identify key indicators for measuring and characterising what community action for health consists of, as well as to what degree this kind of intervention has been developed across a city. Based on a research about 49 neighborhoods in Barcelona, this paper creates an index to measure and characterize community action for health, using different indicators: citizen engagement programs in community health, organizational transformation of the health and social protection systems, stable participatory structures with specific teams, and urban health policies. We apply the index to the case of Barcelona and build a map of community action for health in the city using 4 categories: strong community health development (one neighbourhood), middle (9 neighborhoods), emergent (25 neighborhoods) and without specific community health promotion (14 neighbourhoods). We find that community action for health is extensive within the city of Barcelona, have great potential as a response to the need for change in the relationship between the public (health) sector and the citizenry, but is still implemented unequally across the urban territory in terms of types and methods.