Stressing out? An exploration of stress in students in years 7 through 13.

Recent research by those working with young people has noted rising levels of stress and anxiety in children and adolescents. This study aimed to investigate the levels and sources of stress reported by students at an urban, multi-ethnic secondary school in New Zealand. Six hundred and ninety-seven students completed the Adolescent Stress Questionnaire (ASQ; Byrne, Davenport, and Mazanov, 2007). Students in this study were as stressed or more stressed than those in comparable studies in other countries, with girls significantly more stressed than boys. Analysis of subscale scores revealed the main sources of stress to be "school performance," "school/leisure conflict," and "future uncertainty." With regard to ethnicity, Asian students' scores were significantly lower than those of any other ethnic grouping. Results have implications for policy and practice in a variety of contexts, but especially in the school setting where reducing stressors and increasing support to stressed students is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of New Zealand Journal of Counselling is the property of New Zealand Association of Counsellors and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.

Best Friends, Worst Enemies: The Same-Sex Friendships of Year 10 Girls.

Bullying is a major concern for school counsellors, and has been shown to have an adverse effect on young people's mental health. There is a significant group of girls in mid-adolescence who are at risk of developing mental health problems. Among the signs of distress that arise for adolescents, girls' friendship issues are often presented to school counsellors. Overseas research shows that girls' same-sex friendships are influenced by various factors, including behaviour similar to bullying. This type of bullying is invisible because it occurs within the friendship group. A pilot study of New Zealand Year 10 girls' perceptions of their same-sex friendships found evidence of behaviours associated with bullying. Same-sex friendships are marked by support, but also by uncertainty and conflict, with sanctions against help-seeking from adults. A larger study to investigate this area would assist with identifying more precisely the features of bullying behaviour. Implications for counsellors are discussed, in light of the need to provide the best possible support for a group that is at risk in terms of their well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of New Zealand Journal of Counselling is the property of New Zealand Association of Counsellors and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.

The word-level prosody of Samoan

This paper documents and analyses stress and vowel length in Samoan words. The domain of footing, the Prosodic Word, appears to be a root and cohering suffixes; prefixes and most disyllabic suffixes form a separate domain. Vowel sequences that disrupt the normal stress pattern require constraints matching sonority prominence to metrical prominence, sensitive to degree of mismatch and to the number of vowels involved. Two suffixes unexpectedly have an idiosyncratic footing constraint, observable only in a limited set of words. We also discuss trochaic shortening and its asymmetrical productivity, and the marginal contrastiveness of some features in loans. While Samoan does not appear to be typologically unusual, it does offer arguments (i) in favour of alignment constraints on Prosodic Words rather than only on feet directly, and (ii) against simple cyclicity. Some of the strongest evidence comes from stress patterns of the rich inventory of phonotactically licit vowel sequences

A Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes: a revised conceptualization

The Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes (TCTSA) provides a psychophysiological framework for how athletes anticipate motivated performance situations. The purpose of this review is to discuss how research has addressed the 15 predictions made by the TCTSA, to evaluate the mechanisms underpinning the TCTSA in light of the research that has emerged in the last ten years, and to inform a revised TCTSA (TCTSA-R). There was support for many of the 15 predictions in the TCTSA, with two main areas for reflection identified; to understand the physiology of challenge and to re-evaluate the concept of resource appraisals. This re-evaluation informs the TCTSA-R which elucidates the physiological changes, predispositions, and cognitive appraisals that mark challenge and threat states. First, the relative strength of the sympathetic nervous system response is outlined as a determinant of challenge and threat patterns of reactivity and we suggest that oxytocin and neuropeptide Y are also key indicators of an adaptive approach to motivated performance situations and can facilitate a challenge state. Second, although predispositions were acknowledged within the TCTSA, how these may influence challenge and threat states was not specified. In the TCTSA-R it is proposed that one’s propensity to appraise stressors as a challenge that most strongly dictates acute cognitive appraisals. Third, in the TCTSA-R a more parsimonious integration of Lazarusian ideas of cognitive appraisal and challenge and threat is proposed. Given that an athlete can make both challenge and threat primary appraisals and can have both high or low resources compared to perceived demands, a 2x2 bifurcation theory of challenge and threat is proposed. This reflects polychotomy of four parts; high challenge, low challenge, low threat, and high threat. For example, in low threat, an athlete can evince a threat state but still perform well so long as they perceive high resources. Consequently, we propose suggestions for research concerning measurement tools and a reconsideration of resources to include social support. Finally, applied recommendations are made based on adjusting demands and enhancing resources.N/

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Gendering the careers of young professionals: some early findings from a longitudinal study. in Organizing/theorizing: developments in organization theory and practice

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales