We Can\u27t Help if We Don\u27t Know : School Psychologists\u27 Awareness of and Support to Children with Parents Serving in the Military

Estimates suggest that up to two million children have had a parent deployed at least once over the past decade. Despite the length of the war, and multiple deployments, little is known about how school psychologists support military children before during and after deployment. This study investigated how school psychologists who are members of the New York Association of School Psychologists support children who have or have had a parent deployed in support of the Overseas Contingency Operation. Results suggest that they have limited awareness when children have a parent deployed yet 43% reported having provided counseling to, consultation and or referral for at least one child with a deployed parent. The most common reasons for working with these children were anxiety, academic concerns, and disruptive behaviors. School psychologists with an immediate family member who was serving or had served in the military participated in more workshops, used more methods to identify student needs, and identified more diverse reasons for working with children. They rely on other professionals and the professional associations to inform their work. These findings must be interpreted with caution in part due to the low response rate (12.7%). It is recommended that University programs and school psychology associations actively increase the awareness of the potential role of school psychologists in supporting military children. As mental health professionals they are in a position to offer support groups and counseling to facilitate effective problem solving, self-regulation and coping skills all of which promote resilience and ease the transitions related to military deployment

Exploring Destination Image Themes on Twitter, Before, During, and After Terror Attacks in Paris: An Application of Agenda Setting Theory

Paris, France is one of the most popular tourism destinations in the contemporary tourism industry. In November 2015, Paris experienced the deadliest terror attacks in its history. Newspapers and broadcast media spread the information through news, while masses have utilized social media to get instant information. The main purpose of this study is to explore how the destination image of the capital of France, Paris, is affected by the terror crisis. The study has explored user-generated social media data before, during, and after the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris to understand factors of the destination image. Correspondingly, by accessing online communication data, the study has explored agenda setters of the destination. Additionally, this research has gone one step further by utilizing destination image themes found in online communication, to look at the effects of time on sentiments towards a destination. Exploring perceptions of destination image through social media communication is a novel approach in tourism research. This research may enable tourism players to better understand destinations\u27 tourism products. As well, this perspective may help destination marketers in the future to overcome shifts in brand image during a terror crisis by understanding the relationship between sentiments towards destination image themes with respect to time. In sum, this study has stimulated better planning for sustainable brand image in tourism practices as an exemplary model for any destination. The study has been conducted using unstructured social media data and sequential mixed methods research design. First step was qualitative analysis using NVivo software, to understand the destination image themes. Second step was quantitative analysis of variables using SPSS software

Intergroup images mediate the relationships between government abuse, sociopolitical orientations, and political action

What factors impact how people mobilize against state human rights abuses? Drawing on Image Theory, we examine how perceptions of an out-group, government abuse, and sociopolitical orientations impact political action. Using an online survey-embedded experiment with a sample of 2,932 U.S. adults, we manipulated two factors: (1) the level of government abuse and (2) the risk of punishment for taking action against the state, while also including social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) as covariates. Participants indicated their propensity to engage in and justify both protest and violence. Participants rated the out-group as oppressive and evil. State abuse of human rights was associated with more oppressive and evil out-group images. Oppressive out-group images increased protest engagement and justification, whereas evil out-group images increased violence engagement and justification. Abuse increased all forms of action and justifications for them. Oppressive and evil images mediated many of the relationships between abuse, SDO, and RWA on one hand and political action on the other

Biblical Servant Leadership and the Senior Executive Service (SES) Role in the Federal Government: Quantitative Correlational Study

Considering the traits of biblical servant leadership, this leadership style may be ideal for the entrusted federal government positions of the Senior Executive Service (SES). The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), SES, was created by Congress to provide a government mobile cadre of managers for the federal government. These federal government employees are the backbone of the executive leadership in the federal government. The SES is mandated to respect and adhere to the fundamental principles of ethical service (behaves in an honest, fair, and ethical manner). The SES are federal government employees and are the link between a federal agency’s career employees and the politically appointed agency head. For those in the SES position, their leadership must ensure that their federal government agency is productive and efficient throughout administrations. The SES position is held to a very high ethical service standard. Since those in the SES positions lead the moral-ethical service standard for the federal government, should their leadership traits not be of a high ethical standard? Maybe biblical servant leadership? This study, which was a quantitative correlation, provides a research approach to exploring the foundational elements of biblical servant leadership and secular servant leadership and the SES role. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to discover the extent to which foundational elements of biblical and secular servant leadership models were identifiable in the essential leadership behaviors of the SES. The correlation design was used to determine to what extent a correlation exists between biblical servant leadership and the leadership behaviors of the SES role. The instrumentation used to measure the study variables included the Servant Leadership Scale, the Hall-Tonna Inventory of Values, and the Awareness Survey Questionnaire

Targeted Enforcement against Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products

Illicit trade in tobacco is a substantial and growing problem in the U.S., causing loss of tax revenue, damage to public health, and threats to public safety. Decisions about enforcement against ITTP involve tradeoffs among competing objectives. Good policy design can improve the terms of those tradeoffs but cannot eliminate them. We examine questions about the allocation of enforcement resources against ITTP, and its distribution across activities, individuals, and organizations: in particular, whether and how to differentially target ITTP that involves violence or support for terrorism. We consider the problem of developing effective strategies for enforcement, applying both lessons from experience with markets for illicit drugs and theoretical insights about enforcement targeting and dynamic concentration. We show that targeted enforcement and focused deterrence are more efficient than unfocused enforcement, and that – when other policy changes increase the potential rewards to illicit activity – enforcement resources applied earlier (before illicit markets have grown) will have greater impact than enforcement resources applied later (and therefore to larger markets). We discuss additional considerations, ranging from real-world complications left out of the simple models to examination of how insights from behavioral law and economics may modify conclusions based on a theory of deterrence designed for homo economicus

A Pilot Study of High-Stakes Decision-Making for Crisis Leadership

High-stakes decision-making represents a critical component of crisis leadership. This study examined the decision-making processes practiced by global, national, and local crisis leaders to identify common decision-making process traits and propose a useful model to guide crisis leaders high-stakes decision-making. This research suggested the hypothesis is correct and inexperienced crisis leaders may benefit from a potential new decision-making model better aligned with the experiences of a panel of national and global crisis decision-making experts. Crises have distinct factors: they are time sensitive, pose significant risks, and require consequential decisions. A sample group of fifteen national and international expert crisis leaders from national security, law enforcement, and government sectors was selected for participation in this study. Seven popular decision-making models were deconstructed into individual process traits and turned in a survey. The experts were asked to identify process traits from the survey that they felt best reflected their approach to decision-making. The results were analyzed and a new model assembled based on their expertise. These findings identified a pattern of practice across the spectrum of crisis leaders and demonstrate the usefulness of a new decision-making model that captures the decision-making process traits of expert crisis leaders. This research suggests the hypothesis is correct and will provide inexperienced crisis leaders a potential new decision-making model drawn from the experiences of a panel of global crisis decision-making experts

Salford postgraduate annual research conference (SPARC) 2012 proceedings

These proceedings bring together a selection of papers from the 2012 Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference (SPARC). They reflect the breadth and diversity of research interests showcased at the conference, at which over 130 researchers from Salford, the North West and other UK universities presented their work. 21 papers are collated here from the humanities, arts, social sciences, health, engineering, environment and life sciences, built environment and business

The (Hidden) Financial Flows of Terrorist and Transnational Crime Organizations: A Literature Review and Some Preliminary Empirical Results

The financial means of international terror and transnational organized crime organizations are analyzed. First, some short remarks about the organization of international terror organizations are made. Second and in a much more detailed way a literature review is provided about the financing of terrorist and transnational organized crime organizations, their sources and the various methods they use. Third, an attempt is made to estimate the financial means of terror organizations with the help of a latent estimation approach (MIMIC procedure). The figures show that Al Qaeda and other terror organizations have sufficient financial means. Fourth, some remarks are made about the negative effects of terror on the economy in highly developed countries and some strategies are presented to combat (the financing) of terrorism.Financial flows of terrorist organizations, financial flows of transnational organized crime, Hawala banking, money laundering, transnational organized crime, terrorist organizations, kinds of terrorist financing

Justification of Mass Surveillance: A Quantitative Study

Online mass surveillance by governmental organizations is omnipresent. Even though this results in a loss of privacy and further negative outcomes for individuals, a majority is justifying mass surveillance. Understanding, why this is the case is among others important for individuals, who want to decrease justification of mass surveillance. Therefore, this study aims to uncover the factors that drive this justification. Drawing on system justification theory we consider mass surveillance to be a political arrangement. Five factors were identified that potentially drive individuals’ justification of mass surveillance which are among others, perceived privacy control or perceived security. A quantitative study was carried out and the results support most of our hypotheses. With our results, we contribute to the privacy-related area in the domain of IS, by indicating that individuals consider mass surveillance not necessarily to be bad and by giving advice on how to alter the level of justification