A question of culture for overweight individuals

This qualitative study was designed using flexible research methods to explore the experiences and beliefs of overweight individuals in a cultural context. Two research questions were undertaken: the first being Do overweight individuals experience a subculture?, and the second exploring How do overweight individuals\u27 experiences of oppression relate to whether they have a subculture or not? As an analysis of the literature revealed, the overweight population\u27s oppression and stigmatization is often unrecognized within our greater society. With millions of Americans being classified as overweight this population is increasing in number, warranting further notice within social research. This exploratory study includes findings based on 12 semi-structured interviews with individuals who self identified as overweight. Each participant shared about his/her life experiences and beliefs based on their overweight identity. Questions regarding social relationships and encounters with oppression offered a more complex understanding of their dynamic experiences and were used in analysis to draw conclusions to the research questions. The findings showed the potential for an overweight subculture to exist, however the small sample size lacked in-group participation. These promising findings appear to be linked to internalized oppression, and have set the groundwork for future studies with a larger sample size

Leadership and perceiver cognition: examining the role of self-identity in implicit leadership theories

Bibliography: p. 63-7

Action Schools! BC: A Socioecological Approach to Modifying Chronic Disease Risk Factors in Elementary School Children

BACKGROUND: Childhood physical inactivity and obesity are serious public health threats. Socioecological approaches to addressing these threats have been proposed. The school is a critical environment for promoting children's health and provides the opportunity to explore the impact of a socioecological approach. CONTEXT: Thirty percent of children in British Columbia, Canada, are overweight or obese, and 50% of youths are not physically active enough to yield health benefits. METHODS: Action Schools! BC, a socioecological model, was developed to create 1) an elementary school environment where students are provided with more opportunities to make healthy choices and 2) a supportive community and provincial environment to facilitate change at the school and individual levels. CONSEQUENCES: The environment in British Columbia for school- and provincial-level action on health behaviors improved. Focus group and project tracking results indicated that the Action Schools! BC model enhanced the conceptual use of knowledge and was an influencing factor. Political will and public interest were also cited as influential factors. INTERPRETATION: The Action Schools! BC model required substantial and demanding changes in the approach of the researchers, policy makers, and support team toward health promotion. Despite challenges, Action Schools! BC provides a good example of how to enhance knowledge exchange and multilevel intersectoral action in chronic disease prevention

Authors of our own misfortune?: Crandall University Bookstore writes its future

In 2014 the eponymous campus bookstore is in a tenuous position – increasing textbook prices and new competitors who are leveraging technology to capture their traditional market (students) have served to deplete revenues and shake the very foundations of an established business model. Authors of Our Own Misfortune? traces the experience of the Crandall University Bookstore – an independent campus bookstore at a small university in Moncton, NB, Canada – as its manager seeks to plan for its future. Principal issues explored in the case surround how to respond to new entrants who are exploiting innovation to change industry fundamentals and product diversification in an environment characterized by dominant and powerful suppliers who are moving to become competitors

Length and biomass data for Atlantic and Pacific seaweeds from both hemispheres

As the length of an organism is a unidimensional measure but its biomass is distributed across three dimensions, length and biomass are allometrically related in plants and animals. Due to the high interspecific morphological variation in nature (e.g., long, thin, and narrow flatworms vs. short and globose snails), the biomass–length relationship differs among species. Interest in the principles governing biomass–length allometry has sparked research about the drivers of biological form (West et al., 1999; Niklas and Enquist, 2001; Makarieva et al., 2005; Kleyer et al., 2019). Biomass–length allometry can ultimately be of practical value, such as for the non-destructive estimation of stand biomass (Scrosati, 2006a; Yuen et al., 2016) and productivity (Martin et al., 2014), the determination of body condition (Brodeur et al., 2020), or the unintrusive estimation of body mass (Turnbull et al., 2014; Coulis and Joly, 2017; Sohlström et al., 2018), which is in turn allometrically related to various biological processes (Brown et al., 2004; Marquet et al., 2005).Fil: Scrosati, Ricardo Augusto. Saint Francis Xavier University; CanadáFil: MacDonald, Heather L.. Saint Francis Xavier University; CanadáFil: Córdova, César A.. Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos; PerúFil: Casas, Graciela Noemi. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico. Instituto de Biología de Organismos Marinos; Argentin

Hop-portunity lost? Spetz Brewery considers a pale future

Small enterprises often struggle with determining the profitability of its product offerings. In some circumstances this may be complicated by the feelings / intuits of the founder of the business. Hop-portunity Lost? is a case study that examines challenges faced by Moncton, NB based Spetz Brewery and sister operation Winexpert, and seeks to provide opportunity to evaluate a business from a managerial accounting perspective to determine whether the business is profitable (and should continue) or unprofitable (and should be shut down)

Improving undergraduate STEM education: The efficacy of discipline-based professional development

We sought to determine whether instructional practices used by undergraduate faculty in the geosciences have shifted from traditional teacher-centered lecture toward student-engaged teaching practices and to evaluate whether the national professional development program On the Cutting Edge (hereinafter Cutting Edge) has been a contributing factor in this change. We surveyed geoscience faculty across the United States in 2004, 2009, and 2012 and asked about teaching practices as well as levels of engagement in education research, scientific research, and professional development related to teaching. We tested these self-reported survey results with direct observations of teaching using the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol, and we conducted interviews to understand what aspects of Cutting Edge have supported change. Survey data show that teaching strategies involving active learning have become more common, that these practices are concentrated in faculty who invest in learning about teaching, and that faculty investment in learning about teaching has increased. Regression analysis shows that, after controlling for other key influences, faculty who have participated in Cutting Edge programs and who regularly use resources on the Cutting Edge website are statistically more likely to use active learning teaching strategies. Cutting Edge participants also report that learning about teaching, the availability of teaching resources, and interactions with peers have supported changes in their teaching practice. Our data suggest that even one-time participation in a workshop with peers can lead to improved teaching by supporting a combination of affective and cognitive learning outcomes

Synthesis: Discussion and Implications

This project was a formidable undertaking, necessary to position our community to achieve an important goal: to improve undergraduate teaching and learning about the Earth by focusing the power of Geoscience Education Research (GER) on a set of ambitious, high-priority, community-endorsed grand challenges. Working groups, through examination of the literature and with the aid of reviewers\u27 insights, identified two to five grand challenges for each of the ten research themes. The thematic grand challenges illuminate interconnected paths for future GER. Collective this creates a guiding framework to harness the power of GER to improve undergraduate teaching and learning about the Earth. While the individual theme chapters lay out the rationales for those large-scale grand challenge research questions and offer strategies for addressing them, here the purpose is to summarize and synthesize - to highlight thematic research priorities and synergies that may be avenues for research efficiencies and powerful outcomes

A third of systematic reviews changed or did not specify the primary outcome : A PROSPERO register study

OBJECTIVES: To examine outcome reporting bias of systematic reviews registered in PROSPERO. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: Retrospective cohort study. The primary outcomes from systematic review publications were compared with those reported in the corresponding PROSPERO records; discrepancies in the primary outcomes were assessed as upgrades, additions, omissions or downgrades. Relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated to determine the likelihood of having a change in primary outcome when the meta-analysis result was favourable and statistically significant. RESULTS: 96 systematic reviews were published. A discrepancy in the primary outcome occurred in 32% of the included reviews and 39% of the reviews did not explicitly specify a primary outcome(s); 6% of the primary outcomes were omitted. There was no significant increased risk of adding/upgrading (RR 2.14, 95% CI 0.53 to 8.63) or decreased risk of downgrading (RR 0.76, 0.27-2.17) an outcome when the meta-analysis result was favourable and statistically significant. As well, there was no significant increased risk of adding/upgrading (RR 0.89, 0.31-2.53) or decreased risk of downgrading (RR 0.56, 0.29-1.08) an outcome when the conclusion was positive. CONCLUSIONS: We recommend review authors carefully consider primary outcome selection and journals are encouraged to focus acceptance on registered systematic reviews