Indestructibility of Vopenka's Principle

We show that Vopenka's Principle and Vopenka cardinals are indestructible under reverse Easton forcing iterations of increasingly directed-closed partial orders, without the need for any preparatory forcing. As a consequence, we are able to prove the relative consistency of these large cardinal axioms with a variety of statements known to be independent of ZFC, such as the generalised continuum hypothesis, the existence of a definable well-order of the universe, and the existence of morasses at many cardinals.Comment: 15 pages, submitted to Israel Journal of Mathematic

Accessible opera : overcoming linguistic and sensorial barriers

The desire to make media available for all has been rapidly accepted and implemented by most European countries. Opera, as one of the many audiovisual representations, also falls under the category of production which needs to be made accessible and this article aims to analyse how opera has gone through a complete transformation to become a cultural event for all, overcoming not only linguistic but also sensorial barriers. The first part of the article analyses the various forms of translation associated with opera and the main challenges they entail. The second presents different systems used to make opera accessible to the sensorially challenged, highlighting their main difficulties. Examples from research carried out at the Barcelona's Liceu opera house are presented to illustrate various modalities, especially audio description. All in all, it is our aim to show how translated-related processes have made it possible to open opera to a wider audience despite some initial reluctance

Motivational orientation and risk taking in elite winter climbers: A qualitative study

Objectives: High risk sports participants have typically been viewed as a homogenous group despite variability in performance characteristics and the level of risk undertaken. Prolonged engagement high risk sports such as winter climbing are relatively underserved within current literature. Elite winter climbers attempt climbs that are outside the scope of the current ‘known’ i.e. unclimbed routes. The majority of the current understanding of motivation in high risk sports is based on quantitative research and the methodologies and instruments used. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of elite winter climbers and gain a richer understanding of their motivational orientation and risk taking behaviour. Design: Qualitative – inductive. Method: Four elite male winter climbers (aged 42-49 years old) took part in semi-structured interviews and explore their motivational orientation and risk taking behaviour. A thematic analysis was used. Results: Two super-ordinate themes of enactive mastery and engendered disinhibition emerged from the data. Enactive mastery was interpreted as a composite of two higher order themes; task mastery and self-mastery. Engendered disinhibition was interpreted as a composite of two higher order themes; social cognitive appraisal and self-perception. Conclusion: Enactive mastery and engendered disinhibition emerged as key behavioural and psychological determinants that influenced individuals to attempt more difficult and riskier forms of winter climbing. Goal achievement was their primary motive which was set within a confidence frame encapsulated within these super-ordinate themes

Towards environments that have a sense of humor

Humans have humorous conversations and interactions. Nowadays our real life existence is integrated with our life in social media, videogames, mixed reality and physical environments that sense our activities and that can adapt appearance and properties due to our activities. There are other inhabitants in these environments, not only human, but also virtual agents and social robots with which we interact and who decide about their participation in activities. In this paper we look at designing humor and humor opportunities in such environments, providing them with a sense of humor, and able to recognize opportunities to generate humorous interactions or events on the fly. Opportunities, made possible by introducing incongruities, can be exploited by the environment itself, or they can be communicated to its inhabitants

A Decolonial Critique of the Racialized “Localwashing” of Extraction in Central Africa

Responding to calls for increased attention to actions and reactions “from above” within the extractive industry, we offer a decolonial critique of the ways in which corporate entities and multinational institutions propagate racialized rhetoric of “local” suffering, “local” consultation, and “local” fault for failure in extractive zones. Such rhetoric functions to legitimize extractive intervention within a set of practices that we call localwashing. Drawing from a decade of research on and along the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline, we show how multi-scalar actors converged to assert knowledge of, responsibility for, and collaborations with “local” people within a racialized politics of scale. These corporate representations of the racialized “local” are coded through long-standing colonial tropes. We identify three interrelated and overlapping flexian elite rhetoric(s) and practices of racialized localwashing: (a) anguishing, (b) arrogating, and (c) admonishing. These elite representations of a racialized “local” reveal diversionary efforts “from above” to manage public opinion, displace blame for project failures, and domesticate dissent in a context of persistent scrutiny and criticism from international and regional advocates and activists

Introducing a basic psychological performance demand model for sport and organisations

This study presents the development of a basic psychological performance demand model (PDM) for sport and organisations, adopting a process view of performance underpinned by reversal theory (Apter [2001] An introduction to reversal theory. In M. J. Apter (Ed.), Motivational styles in everyday life: A guide to reversal theory (pp. 3-36⁠). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association). Six elite coaches with extensive coaching experience at European, Commonwealth, Olympic and Paralympic Games were interviewed. Their interview statements were analysed using a combination of deductive and inductive analysis procedures for qualitative data. In conjunction with the interviewer, coaches developed PDMs for their specific sports. Analysis of interview data and coaches’ specific PDMs identified four main cross-sport themes or fundamental psychological capabilities required for meeting performance demands. These were: Mastery motivation, Decision making, Execution, and Teamship. The PDM offers a starting framework for a new basic performance model that is novel and pragmatic with potential applicability across sports and organisations. The model is useful in its existing form, but needs further testing, extended practical application and reflection by coaches, athletes, and sport psychologists. It has potential for use in other coaching contexts beyond sport, such as business, leadership development, education, and health

Nigerian scam e-mails and the charms of capital

So-called '419' or 'advance-fee' e-mail frauds have proved remarkably successful. Global losses to these scams are believed to run to billions of dollars. Although it can be assumed that the promise of personal gain which these e-mails hold out is part of what motivates victims, there is more than greed at issue here. How is it that the seemingly incredible offers given in these unsolicited messages can find an audience willing to treat them as credible? The essay offers a speculative thesis in answer to this question. Firstly, it is argued, these scams are adept at exploiting common presuppositions in British and American culture regarding Africa and the relationships that are assumed to exist between their nations and those in the global south. Secondly, part of the appeal of these e-mails lies in the fact that they appear to reveal the processes by which wealth is created and distributed in the global economy. They thus speak to their readers’ attempts to map or conceptualise the otherwise inscrutable processes of that economy. In the conclusion the essay looks at the contradictions in the official state response to this phenomena