The Authoritarian Playbook: How reporters can contextualize and cover authoritarian threats as distinct from politics-as-usual

Newsrooms are reckoning with how journalists can adequately cover an increasingly anti-democratic political movement in the United States. In covering these events, they face a constant challenge of covering all angles of a story without drawing equivalencies between candidates or politicians who operate within the normal bounds of democratic politics and those who may seek to undermine elections and the rule of law. The media has an essential role to play that is unbiased, but not neutral in applying a consistent standard about threats to democracy.In light of the authoritarian threat, the ongoing process of media evolution and adaptation necessitates that the media may draw on a different toolkit today than it did in the eras of Walter Lippmann's "Public Opinion," the Pentagon Papers, or Watergate.This briefing is designed to help the fourth estate advance this "unbiased but not neutral" role in a healthy democracy by providing two contextualizing resources: a common playbook of tactics used by would-be autocrats in the U.S. and around the globe, and a framework for distinguishing between these authoritarian tactics and normal political jockeyin

Looking in the Mirror: Including the Reflected Best Self Exercise in Management Curricula to Increase Students’ Interview Self-Efficacy

Students often choose to pursue a business major during their post-secondary education to increase their chances of securing employment post-graduation. However, evidence suggests that many recent business degree graduates struggle with underemployment, highlighting the importance of examining how post-secondary institutions can better prepare students for the transition to work. In the current study, we investigated how including a personal strengths-driven intervention, the Reflected Best Self Exercise (RBSE), in management curricula may help better prepare students for securing employment by increasing students’ confidence in their ability to succeed in an employment interview (i.e., by enhancing interview self-efficacy). Using a pre-test/post-test quasi-experimental design with a control group (N=190 undergraduate students), we found that the RBSE increased students’ interview self-efficacy and that this effect was moderated by pre-test levels of general self-efficacy and career choice confidence. Moreover, we found that students with lower levels of general self-efficacy and career choice confidence experienced greater benefits from the RBSE. Our results contribute to the management education literature by demonstrating how strengths-based interventions with a reflection component can be leveraged to develop interview self-efficacy in business students

In small scratches forgotten: perspectives on graffiti from Dura-Europos

We need to rethink graffiti: they are not just words and images but places and things. Using the graffiti of Dura-Europos on the Syrian Euphrates, this paper will demonstrate some of the ways that the ‘unofficial’ urban texts of antiquity can, when studied in their spatial context as material objects, elucidate urban histories which rub against the grain of traditional studies. It will explore the ways such seemingly ephemeral marks can be active agents within the urban environment in public, religious, and private contexts. It argues for a new definition for graffiti related to context and immediacy. Graffiti, I contend, have the potential to give new perspectives on the ancient world: they are unmediated traces, stories of daily life, and through them it is possible to explore the ways the walls of the city could become active in people’s lives. At Dura, the small scratched messages of an otherwise historically voiceless people made on a plaster wall can be read almost two millennia later

Palmyra: city of churches and mosques

Review of INTAGLIATA, EMANUELE E. 2018. Palmyra after Zenobia, 273-750: An Archaeological and Historical Reappraisal. Oxford: Oxbow. 168pp, 72 illustrations. ISBN 9781785709425

The Effects of Teacher Efficacy, School Climate, and Stages of Concern on the Implementation of a Physical Science Program.

This study investigated the implementation of a physical science education innovation in a large, urban school system. The program began in the summer of 1993 with the selection of two teachers from each of seventeen elementary schools. Participants were selected by program staff from among a pool of applicants with an interest in science education. The goals of the program included retraining teachers to implement hands-on, inquiry-based physical science and performance-based assessments. Teachers were provided with instructional materials, including science kits, and on-going support and assistance from science and assessment specialists. Specifically, the study examined the relationship between the independent variables, teacher efficacy, school climate, and stages of concern and the dependent variable, implementation, using three statistical procedures. First, pre- and post-test scores were compared to determine if teachers\u27 concerns about the innovation differed over the course of the first year of implementation. Second, a correlation matrix was computed to examine the relationship between all variables included in the study. Finally, the independent variables were used as predictors of implementation variation in a multiple regression analysis. The results of the analyses indicate that teachers\u27 concerns about the innovation did shift in the predicted direction. Statistically significant relationships were found between the independent variables teacher efficacy and stages of concern, as well as efficacy and teacher ethnicity. The predictive value of the independent variables used in the regression analysis was not found to be statistically significant. It should be noted that the sample size available for study may have contributed to findings of statistical nonsignificance. The findings of the study indicate that planners of educational reform should consider that teachers charged with the task of implementing programs are likely to experience several distinct concerns, which should be addressed specifically and appropriately. If schools are to improve, future research will need to continue to examine the many factors that influence implementation at all levels, including district, school, and classroom levels

Interdisciplinary Stroke Rehabilitation Delivered by a Humanoid Robot: Simultaneous vs. Alternating Therapy Schedules

A great number of stroke survivors experience disabilities in multiple domains (e.g., aphasia, hemiparesis). However, no previous research has investigated how treatment in one domain (e.g., speech therapy) affects the progress in other areas (e.g., physical recovery). The current study is comparing two therapy schedules: simultaneous where a patient receives speech AND physical therapy services for four weeks; and alternating where a patient receives speech therapy for four weeks and then receives physical therapy for four weeks. This interdisciplinary intervention is delivered by a humanoid robot that can potentially enhance the intensity and accessibility of stroke rehabilitation

Remembering Roman Syria: valuing Tadmor-Palmyra from ‘Discovery’ to destruction

The 1753 publication of The Ruins of Palmyra by Robert Wood was key in the formation of archaeological understandings of the site. Examining the original notebooks and drawings of the expedition, which formed the basis for this publication (now held by the Combined Library of the Institute of Classical Studies and the Hellenic and Roman Societies in London), this article examines the relationship between those first documents, the publication, and some of its afterlives. We demonstrate how Wood’s treatment of Tadmor‐Palmyra and its inhabitants has shaped memories of the site, prioritizing certain narratives and occluding others, a process that continues today

Eye-Gaze Direction Modulates Race-Related Amygdala Activity

Although previous research has found greater activity in the human amygdala in response to Black male compared with White male targets, the basis of this effect remains unclear. For example, is it race alone that triggers amygdala activity, or do other stimulus cues, in conjunction with racial group membership, also play a critical role in this regard? To address this issue, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure amygdala activity in response to Black and White male targets displaying different eye-gaze directions (i.e. direct or averted gaze), as gaze cues have been shown to influence the socio-emotional aspects of person construal. The results revealed that eye-gaze direction significantly moderates race-related amygdala activity. Specifically, Black targets only generated greater amygdala activity than White targets when the faces bore direct gaze. This finding is noteworthy as it demonstrates the importance of compound stimulus cues in the appraisal of social targets

A caravan city at the edge of empire? The economy of Dura-Europos in the Syrian desert

Book synopsis: The Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies offers in three volumes the first comprehensive discussion of economic development in the empires of the Afro-Eurasian world region to elucidate the conditions under which large quantities of goods and people moved across continents and between empires. Volume 3: Frontier-Zone Processes and Transimperial Exchange analyzes frontier zones as particular landscapes of encounter, economic development, and transimperial network formation. The chapters offer problematizing approaches to frontier zone processes as part of and in between empires, with the goal of better understanding how and why goods and resources moved across the Afro-Eurasian region. Key frontiers in mountains and steppes, along coasts, rivers, and deserts are investigated in depth, demonstrating how local landscapes, politics, and pathways explain network practices and participation in long-distance trade. The chapters seek to retrieve local knowledge ignored in popular Silk Road models and to show the potential of frontier-zone research for understanding the Afro-Eurasian region as a connected space