COMPARING THE EFFECTS OF MINDFULNESS MEDITATION AND RELAXATION IN A BRIEF LABORATORY INDUCTION

Mindfulness is the practice of being nonjudgmentally aware of the present moment. Researchers often study the effects of mindfulness using brief laboratory-based mindfulness inductions in which participants are guided through mindfulness exercises, after which outcome measures are examined. However, most studies have not assessed whether participants achieved a mindful state during the induction, or whether the effects of mindfulness inductions differ from the effects of similar procedures such as relaxation. The present study compared a mindfulness exercise to a relaxation exercise and a control condition. After the induction, participants completed measures of the extent to which they attained a mindful state. Trait-levels of mindfulness, rumination, and openness were measured prior to the induction to test for moderating effects. Results revealed that the mindfulness induction led to higher state mindfulness scores than the control induction, but did not lead to higher scores as compared to the relaxation induction. No significant trait moderators were found. Findings suggest that brief mindfulness interventions may not be sufficient to induce a truly mindful state in a non-meditating sample. Findings also bring into question the results of studies that do not include a manipulation check post- induction, as well as the utility of self-report measures of state mindfulness in nonmeditating student samples

THE MODERATING ROLE OF MINDFULNESS SKILLS IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BORDERLINE PERSONALITY FEATURES AND ASSOCIATED PROBLEMATIC BEHAVIORS

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) experience intense affect and emotional dyscontrol that may lead them to engage in maladaptive coping strategies and behaviors such as substance use, alcohol use, risky sexual behavior, aggression, and emotional eating. Theory posits that mindfulness, a mental state in which one is attentive, aware, and accepting of the present moment, may lead to increased tolerance of emotional distress. The present study sought to investigate the role of dispositional mindfulness as a moderating factor in the relationship between BPD features and related problematic behaviors using structural equation modeling and regression analyses in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses, respectively. Undergraduate students completed questionnaires assessing borderline personality symptoms, trait mindfulness, and incidence of substance use, alcohol use, risky sexual behavior, aggression, and emotional eating over the past 30 days at two time points, three months apart. Results suggested that mindfulness does not moderate the relationship between BPD features and problematic behaviors in either the cross-sectional and longitudinal samples. There was also no evidence to suggest that any one facet of mindfulness moderated the relationship above the other facets in both samples. Findings highlight the need to continue to investigate the driving force behind the incidence of problematic behaviors in individuals with BPD

Financial Constraints and Foreign Market Entries or Exits: Firm-Level Evidence from France

This paper studies the effect of credit constraints on the expansion and survival of firms in foreign markets. It develops a model in which, lower access to external finance, or reduced internal liquidity, hampers the firm ability to finance the recurrent costs to serve foreign markets and decreases firm survival in foreign markets. Additionally, financial constraints act as a barrier to firm export expansion by decreasing the firm ability to finance the entry costs into new export markets; thus, they push firm to avoid losing destinations. We use a unique longitudinal dataset on French firms that contains information on export destinations of individual firms and allows us to construct various firm-level measures of financial constraints to test these predictions. We obtain two main results. First, credit constraints have a negative effect on the number of newly served destinations. Second, higher probability of exit from the export market is also associated with credit constraints; that is consistent with constraints limiting the financing of recurrent export costs.Firm heterogeneity, financial constraints, trade.

Maintaining coherence in Quantum Computers

The effect of the inevitable coupling to external degrees of freedom of a quantum computer are examined. It is found that for quantum calculations (in which the maintenance of coherence over a large number of states is important), not only must the coupling be small but the time taken in the quantum calculation must be less than the thermal time scale, $\hbar/k_B T$. For longer times the condition on the strength of the coupling to the external world becomes much more stringent.Comment: 13 page

Evaluating the COVID-19 impacts on sustainable procurement : experiences from the Australian built environment sector

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought global economies to a standstill and created challenges for a variety of sectors, including housing, building and infrastructure. Many business and government organisations have experienced some form of supply chain disruption—either through suppliers going offline, a sudden spike in demand or both. While embedding sustain-ability in procurement is a powerful tool for bringing about positive change in an organisation’s supply chains, this global pandemic has had a myriad of impacts on these procurement processes. Through focus group discussions with industrial practitioners and government decision makers from the Australian built environment sector, this study presents their lived experiences related to COVID-19 impacts on sustainable procurement. The emergent themes are: (1) the effects of COVID-19 on sustainable procurement, (2) the rapid development of reactive procurement responses and (3) levers for post-COVID-19 sustainable procurement. In order to learn from the challenges related to COVID-19, both government and industry need to re-assess their supply chain risks and determine the supply chain design that will deliver the most resiliency in the event of another large-scale disruption. There are several key levers, including developing reliable, trans-parent and local supply chains, leveraging innovative tools and digital engineering approaches, creating a coalition between government and industry and assessing risks at multiple levels. This study is the first of its kind to evaluate the COVID-19 impacts on sustainable procurement in the Australian building and construction industries. Government and industry practitioners can immediately apply these actionable recommendations to overcome the impacts of the pandemic and other disruptions on sustainable procurement activities

Preparation and Carbonization of Glucose and Pyromellitic Dianhydride Crosslinked Polymers

In this work, four types of nanosponges were prepared from pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA) and D-glucose (GLU) with different molar ratios (1.5:1, 2:1, 2.5:1 and 3:1). The obtained PMDA/GLU nanosponges were then pyrolyzed at 800 °C for 30 min under N2 gas flow. The prepared polymeric nanosponges were investigated by FTIR spectroscopy, elemental and thermogravimetric analyses to unravel the role played by the different molar ratio of the precursors in the formation of the polymer. The pyrolyzed nanosponges were investigated by means of porosity measurements, X-ray diffraction analysis, Raman spectroscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Notably, no significant correlation of the amounts of used precursors with the porous texture and structure was evidenced. The results corroborate that PMDA and GLU can be easily combined to prepare nanosponges and that the carbon materials produced by their pyrolysis can be associated with glassy carbons with a microporous texture and relatively high surface area. Such hard carbons can be easily obtained and shrewdly used to segregate relatively small molecules and organic contaminants; in this study methylene blue adsorption was investigated