The ABCs of ATVs: Factors implicated in child deaths and injuries involving all terrain vehicles on New Zealand farms

The agricultural sector features prominently in the rates of ATV injuries and fatalities amongst children in New Zealand. This research project assesses the nature and scope of ATV accidents to children on New Zealand farms and provides recommendations that attempt to meet the needs of all relevant stakeholders. In particular, we believe that the most effective means of reducing the rates of ATV injuries and fatalities amongst children involves a strategy which recognises the unique circumstances which give rise to practical impediments to safer farm workplace practices. We identified three distinct groups of children in the literature, each facing a different major risk category. Very young children were most at risk as passengers. As age increased the highest risks applied to bystanders, while older children and teenagers were more likely to be injured as drivers. The high risks to younger children as passengers and bystanders were indicative of underlying problems associated with childcare options – or, more particularly, the lack of childcare options. Accidents involving older children were associated more closely with practices around child supervision and involved aspects of farming culture, rather than practical barriers to safer practices

Preventing child pedestrian injuries and deaths arising from vehicle-child accidents in domestic driveways: An action research project

This research was a three-fold investigation into the viability of previous recommendations for vehicle-related child driveway accident safety . Firstly, the groups most at risk of these types of accidents were determined in order that they could be specifically considered when reviewing the practicalities of previous recommendations . Secondly, the feasibility of previous recommendations was systematically examined through both an extensive literature review and key and expert informant interviews . Based on these, the likelihood of implementation of previous safety recommendations for the identified high risk groups was ascertained, providing a basis on which to abandon some previous recommendations, remove obstacles to others which would enhance practicability and generate further recommendations that would be tenable for the at-risk groups in particular. The key findings of this research were, foremost, that there is a noticeable lack of specific reference to vehicle-related child driveway accidents in any legislation or safety guidelines, as well as a shortage of official data that deal expressly with this type of accident. Further, it was found that the major obstacles to the implementation of previous recommendations - particularly the environmental ones - were cost, autonomy, and spatial constraints. While several recommendations were abandoned due to factors such as unproven or dubious effectiveness and/or prohibitive cost, it was found that the most viable recommendations were characterised by their relatively low cost for the families involved. These recommendations were typically environmental or educational in nature. Thus, the recommendations in this report include some moderate regulatory changes to facilitate greater uptake of environmental and behaviour-modifying recommendations as well as practical ideas that all need to be part of a cohesive campaign to address the issue of vehicle-related child driveway accidents in New Zealand

Fieldays exhibitor

Fieldays Exhibitor is the event newspapers that created by School of Media Arts Journalism students every year during the period of Fieldays exhibition for all the exhibitors. This year we have assist the team to create a online version of the newspaper which not only providing audiences instance access to latest news online, but they can view this information through their tablets and smartphones

The applicability of self-regulation theories in sport : goal adjustment capacities, stress appraisals, coping and well-being among athletes

Objectives: We examined a model, informed by self-regulation theories, which included goal adjustment capacities, appraisals of challenge and threat, coping, and well-being. Design: Prospective. Methods: Two hundred and twelve athletes from the United Kingdom (n = 147) or Australia (n = 65), who played team (n = 135) or individual sports (n = 77), and competed at international (n = 7), national (n = 11), county (n = 67), club (n = 84), or beginner (n = 43) levels participated in this study. Participants completed measures of goal adjustment capacities and stress appraisals two days before competing. Athletes also completed questions on coping and well-being within three hours of their competition ending. Results: The way an athlete responds to an unattainable goal is associated with his or her well-being in the period leading up to and including the competition. Goal reengagement positively predicted well-being, whereas goal disengagement negatively predicted well-being. Further, goal reengagement was positively associated with challenge appraisals, which in turn was linked to task-oriented coping, and task-oriented coping positively associated with well-being. Conclusion: When highly-valued goals become unattainable, consultants could encourage athletes to seek out alternative approaches to achieve the same goal or help them develop a completely new goal

Agent-based modeling of diversity, new information and minority groups in opinion formation

Understanding the decentralized formation of public opinion is increasingly important to communication research. Although many key determinants cannot be observed empirically, we argue they can be explored through theoretical modeling. Building on an existing agent-based model of opinion dynamics, our study introduces more complex, but theoretically interesting and realistic, agent behavior. We model distinct opinion tendencies which represent individuals’ diversity of belief, as well as external influences such as new information. Diversity increases the extremity of opinion in simulated consensus, radicalization and polarization. Simulation of new information demonstrates the ability of a minority group to shift majority opinion significantly in the long term, even with transient changes in behavior. Opposing minority groups do not counteract each other when their actions are delayed and may in fact amplify the original effect. We argue that modeling can help researchers and other stakeholders understand how these outcomes could arise in the real world, and thereby explore potential mitigations or exploitations

More than activities: using a ‘sense of place’ to enrich student experience in adventure sport

There has been increasing interest in recent years in the significance of a sense of place in the literature of outdoor adventure education. In the UK relationships between outdoor education and the environment still appear largely focused on the science of the natural environment and the activity in question. In this paper we present empirical evidence from an action research project to demonstrate how a combination of formal and informal pedagogy in a higher education context can lead to a socio-cultural and historical understanding of place and enrich the learning experience of students when teaching the classical outdoor adventurous activity of sailing. The sport of dinghy sailing is a module within a Bachelor’s undergraduate degree in outdoor education and was taught from a small fishing town in Devon, England. We adopted an integrated and experiential critical pedagogy of place that allowed theory and practice, thought and action to be a holistic experience and this approach provided opportunities for informal as well as formal learning. This action research project used methods including: photo-elicitation, focus group interviews and evidence from the analysis of written student assignments. Our findings show that students discover a significance of the meaningful relationship between the socio-cultural history of where that activity takes place and the activity itself and that as a result their engagement in the learning and research process was enriched

Pleasant emotions widen thought-action repertoires, develop long-term resources, and improve reaction time performance: A multi-study examination of the Broaden-and-Build theory among athletes

The authors investigated relationships between emotions, coping, and resilience across two studies. In Study 1a, 319 athletes completed dispositional questionnaires relating to the aforementioned constructs. In Study 1b, 126 athletes from Study 1a repeated the same questionnaires 6months later. In Study 2, 21 athletes were randomly allocated to an emotional (e.g., pleasant or unpleasant emotions) or control group and undertook a laboratory-based reaction-time task across three time points. Questionnaires and salivary cortisol samples were collected before and after each performance with imagery-based emotional manipulations engendered during the second testing session. Partial longitudinal evidence of the broaden-and-build effects of pleasant emotions was found. Pleasant emotions may undo lingering cognitive resource losses incurred from previous unpleasant emotional experiences. In Study 2, pleasant and unpleasant emotions had an immediate and sustained psychophysiological and performance impact. Taken together, this research supports the application of broaden-and-build theory in framing emotional interventions for athletes

Stress appraisals influence athletic performance and psychophysiological response during 16.1 km cycling time trials

Objectives: We examined how stress appraisals were associated with emotions, coping behaviours, as well as subjective and objective measures of performance.Design: Prospective field- and laboratory-based studies.Methods: In Study 1, 192 athletes completed process-oriented psychometrics pertaining to the aforementioned constructs throughout a sporting competition. Study 2 utilised an experimental design to assess the causal influence of stress appraisals on performance, cortisol, and psychological variables. Thirty gender-matched athletes were randomly assigned to either a stress appraisal (e.g., challenge, threat, benefit, or harm/loss) or the control group. Participants completed three 16.1km cycling time trials (TT) on a cycle ergometer, with their appropriate stress appraisal engendered via falsified performance feedback throughout the final TT. Salivary cortisol samples and psychometrics (e.g., appraisals, emotions, and coping) were collected before and after each TT.Results: The results of Study 1 revealed a sequential link between challenge stress appraisals and perceived goal attainment via pleasant emotions and task-oriented coping behaviours. Threat stress appraisals inversely related to goal attainment via unpleasant emotions and both distraction- and disengagement-oriented coping. In Study 2, no significant psychophysiological or performance differences were found across genders. The temporal orientation of stress appraisals influenced objective cycling TT performance. Benefit and harm/loss stress appraisals significantly facilitated or inhibited performance, respectively. Cortisol spikes were observed in the stress appraisal group’s threat, challenge, and benefit, with a decline detected within the harm/loss group. Whilst the process of winning is physiologically stressful, the fear of defeat may be more stressful than losing itself. Conclusion: Stress appraisals influence subjective and objective performance, as well as neuroendocrine and psychological responses to stress. Stress Appraisals Influence Athletic Performance and Psych

Three divergent lineages within an Australian marsupial ( Petrogale penicillata) suggest multiple major refugia for mesic taxa in southeast Australia

Mesic southeastern Australia represents the continent's ancestral biome and is highly biodiverse, yet its phylogeographic history remains poorly understood. Here, we examine mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region and microsatellite diversity in the brush-tailed rock-wallaby (Petrogale penicillata; n=279 from 31 sites), to assess historic evolutionary and biogeographic processes in southeastern Australia. Our results (mtDNA, microsatellites) confirmed three geographically discrete and genetically divergent lineages within brush-tailed rock-wallabies, whose divergence appears to date to the mid-Pleistocene. These three lineages had been hypothesized previously but data were limited. While the Northern and Central lineages were separated by a known biogeographic barrier (Hunter Valley), the boundary between the Central and Southern lineages was not. We propose that during particularly cool glacial cycles, the high peaks of the Great Dividing Range and the narrow adjacent coastal plain resulted in a more significant north-south barrier for mesic taxa in southeastern Australia than has been previously appreciated. Similarly, located phylogeographic breaks in codistributed species highlight the importance of these regions in shaping the distribution of biodiversity in southeastern Australia and suggest the existence of three major refuge areas during the Pleistocene. Substructuring within the northern lineage also suggests the occurrence of multiple local refugia during some glacial cycles. Within the three major lineages, most brush-tailed rock-wallaby populations were locally highly structured, indicating limited dispersal by both sexes. The three identified lineages represent evolutionarily significant units and should be managed to maximize the retention of genetic diversity within this threatened species