• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.158-161
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• 2019

Objective: Attentional focus is one of the critical factors that has consistently been demonstrated to enhance motor performance and motor skill. Focusing attention on the inside of the body while engaging in a particular exercise is called internal focus (IF) and focus on the external environment is called external focus (EF). The purpose of this study was to identify effects of IF and EF of attention on postural balance in healthy school-aged children. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Twenty-four healthy school-aged children participated in this study. School-aged children was defined as children ages 8-12 years old. They performed the one-legged standing with EF (focusing on the marker at the level of participants' chest and 150 cm away), IF (focusing the supporting feet), and control (no instruction) respectively. The order of the focus condition was randomly selected. The center of pressure (COP) range, distance, and velocity was measured to compare the effects of applying different attentional focuses in the three conditions. Results: The results of our study show that differences in COP range, distance, and velocity among groups were not significant between the different attentional focuses, although all variables of EF were smaller than IF. It is postulated that the reason for this may be that school school-aged children between 8-12 years old go through a transitional phase from IF to EF in effective motor learning. Conclusions: These findings reveal that the type of attentional focus did not have any effect on postural balance in healthy school-aged children.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.253-262
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• 2013

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of floor type and heating system on performance, housing environment and health status of ducks reared in three types of duck house (OD : Open floor house-Direct heating system, OF : Open floor house-Floor heating system and LD : Loft type house-Direct heating system). In OF treatment, PVC pipes were installed for heating under concrete floor and covered with litter. In LD treatment, plastic mesh was installed 50 cm above the floor so that duck's droppings can pass through it. Each treatment had four replicates of 25 birds (Cherry Valley duck breed) per pen. There were no significant differences in weight gain and feed intake of ducks for 6 weeks among all treatments. However, feed conversion ratio in LD was significantly higher (p<0.05) than that in OF. No differences were found in carcass charac- teristics, with the exception of abdominal fat weight where OF were higher than the others. Concentrations of $CO_2$ and $NH_3$ gas in OD were higher than those of OF and LD at 3, 4 and 5 weeks. Moisture content in litter of OF was lower than that of OD. In contrast, the amount of dust in the air was higher in OF than in OD. The amount of fuel used for 6 weeks in LD was lower about 21% than that in OD. Some of unusual symptoms were observed in open floor house and loft type house, such as lying, spraddle legged, twisted ankle and legs, wounded sole, or etc. No components of leukocyte and erythrocyte of blood were significantly different among all treatments. The results of this experiment showed that OF and LD systems had no positive effects on performance of meat type commercial duck. However, there were some positive effects of certain house type for the improvement of environmental condition in duck house for hygienic production. In the future, more research on the effect of various facilities and systems for duck house is needed.