Long-Term Effects of the Periconception Period on Embryo Epigenetic Profile and Phenotype: The Role of Stress and How This Effect Is Mediated

Stress represents an unavoidable aspect of human life, and pathologies associated with dysregulation of stress mechanisms - particularly psychiatric disorders - represent a significant global health problem. While it has long been observed that levels of stress experienced in the periconception period may greatly affect the offspring's risk of psychiatric disorders, the mechanisms underlying these associations are not yet comprehensively understood. In order to address this question, this chapter will take a 'top-down' approach, by first defining stress and associated concepts, before exploring the mechanistic basis of the stress response in the form of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and how dysregulation of the HPA axis can impede our mental and physical health, primarily via imbalances in glucocorticoids (GCs) and their corresponding receptors (GRs) in the brain. The current extent of knowledge pertaining to the impact of stress on developmental programming and epigenetic inheritance is then extensively discussed, including the role of chromatin remodelling associated with specific HPA axis-related genes and the possible role of regulatory RNAs as messengers of environmental stress both in the intrauterine environment and across the germ line. Furthering our understanding of the role of stress on embryonic development is crucial if we are to increase our predictive power of disease risk and devise-effective treatments and intervention strategies

Stakeholder communication in 140 characters or less: a study of community sport foundations

Community sport foundations (CSFs), like other non-profit organizations, are increasingly employing social media such as Twitter to communicate their mission and activities to their diverse stakeholder groups. However, the way these CSFs utilize social media for communicating such practices remains unclear. Through a mixed-method approach of content analysis of tweets from 22 CSFs established by English professional football clubs and interviews with key individuals within these CSFs (n = 7), this study examines the extent to which CSFs’ core activities are being communicated through Twitter and identifies the strategies employed for doing so. Reflecting the target audiences CSFs are seeking to reach through Twitter and the challenges associated with communication about projects involving marginalized groups, tweets largely concern programs related to sports participation and education. The most frequently employed communication strategy is to inform, rather than interact or engage with stakeholders. However, CSFs with higher organizational capacity attempt to go beyond mere informing towards engaging with stakeholder groups that relate to their social agenda, highlighting the importance of trained and dedicated social media personnel in optimizing CSFs’ use of Twitter for communication

Employee Well-Being Under Corporate Psychopath Leaders

This chapter reports on twenty-one in-depth interviews in the UK and USA with corporateemployees who were currently working or had previously worked with a toxic leader in theform of a corporate psychopath. This is thus a chapter that is concerned with the impact onwell-being of working with a corporate psychopath. Corporate psychopathy was definedusing a measure of psychopathy involving proto-typical characteristics such as lying,cheating, egocentricity, emotional unresponsiveness and grandiosity. A contribution of thechapter is that it answers the call for research which links the destructive leadership literaturewith employee well-being. Research participants in both countries reported that their wellbeing was affected by psychopathic leadership, with reports of stress-related illnesses anddepression, including suicidal thoughts. The chapter concludes that corporate psychopaths, inboth the UK and USA, appear to have a similar protocol for achieving their objectives andachieve similar results. This protocol involves using loud, regular, public bullying combinedwith threats of violence to create a fearful, cowed and compliant workforce who can the moreeasily be manipulated and controlled by the abusive corporate psychopath. Researchparticipants in both the USA and UK suffered from severely reduced well-being because ofthis common experience