Integrating mindfulness into leadership development

In this article, we illustrate how ideas and practices of mindfulness can be integrated into management education, drawing from our work on postgraduate programs run with working managers. Our purpose is particularly to show how mindfulness can be introduced into the curriculum in a way that is acceptable for participants and clients and brings benefit to participants. Following a brief review of literature on mindfulness in organizations, we share the curriculum innovation we designed and provide detail of its effectiveness derived from our follow-up evaluation

1967- a year of constraints on monetary management

Monetary policy - United States

TREE MITIGATION STRATEGIES TO REDUCE THE EFFECT OF URBAN HEAT ISLANDS IN CENTER TOWNSHIP, IN

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)The purpose of this study was to identify urban heat island locations within Center Township, Indiana and to develop a model to determine areas of high social vulnerability. In addition, an urban heat island mitigation strategy was developed for socially vulnerable and highest temperature locations. Land surface temperature was estimated using Landsat ETM+ satellite imagery. Social vulnerability was estimated using principal components analysis and spatial analysis methods such as kernel density functions. These methods incorporate various socioeconomic variables, land surface temperature, and tree canopy cover. Tree canopy cover was extracted using Quickbird imagery among other techniques. Areas with high social vulnerability, high temperature and low tree canopy cover were analyzed and plantable spaces were assessed. The findings of this study will be shared with Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, Inc. so that they can inform their tree planting campaigns that seek to reduce the effects of urban heat islands on socially vulnerable populations

Canine Support Program: Student perceptions and preferences at a regional university and implications for health, well-being, and student support enhancements

Issue Addressed: Canine Support Programs (CSPs) are a potential solution to growing university student support demands. While current studies focus on the impacts of CSPs, there is limited understanding of the views and expectations of tertiary students about CSPs. This study explored the perceptions and preferences of students in an Australian regional university about CSPs. Methods: A questionnaire with multiple choice and open-ended questions surveyed residential students' perspectives about CSP. Data were analysed using descriptive statistical tests and thematic analysis for open responses. Results: Majority (98%) of participants (sample n = 48) would support a CSP on campus. Frequent, small-group interactions of ≥15 min involving physical contact were preferred. Dog disposition, welfare-trained handlers, and veterinary certification were important aspects of program safety. Participants strongly agreed a CSP would improve mental health and well-being, relieve stress, reduce feelings of homesickness, provide support, comfort, and enable social interactions. Conclusion: There is strong support among the study population for CSP to be established on campus. This study supports earlier research that CSP has benefit potential for new, stressed, and/or students who love dogs. The preferences of students should inform program design to enhance utility and impact. This aligns with Health Promoting Universities and College's Okanagan Charter principle of ‘engaging student voices’. More institutional awareness and support for CSPs will be necessary for integration. So What?: This study reveals the need for tailored and creative student support beyond traditional offerings including those that focus on student well-being and social initiatives. CSPs can be utilised as an advocate, enabler, and medium for mental health promotion action and well-being support for tertiary students; thereby, contributing to the ‘Health Promoting University’ agenda in Australia. It also reinforces the need for a Health in All Policies approach to be incorporated into our tertiary education sector. Future actions should focus on improving institutional awareness, support, and sector implementation

The Indian Ocean tsunami: socio-economic impacts in Thailand

On the morning of 26 December 2004 large areas of coastal southern Thailand were transformed when a tsunami, generated by a powerful submarine earthquake in the Indian Ocean, swept ashore. Officially, there were 5395 confirmed deaths in Thailand with another 2932 people listed as missing. In February 2005 a team led by Dr Ben Horton of the University of Pennsylvania was awarded an SGER grant by the National Science Foundation to undertake exploratory research on the tsunami in Malaysia and Thailand. This report summarizes the preliminary conclusions of the social science element of the Thai fieldwork. The team undertook fieldwork in three main sites during July 2005: Koh Lanta, Koh Phi Phi and Khao Lak. We chose Koh Phi Phi as a small, tourist (backpacker)-oriented island economy with high levels of damage and casualties; Koh Lanta as a site with a significant population of fisherfolk with a long presence in the area; and Khao Lak as a mainland site with the highest number of casualties in Thailand and with a mixed tourism-fishing economy

Phase Transitions in High Purity Zr Under Dynamic Compression

We present results from ramp compression experiments on high-purity Zr that show the $\alpha \rightarrow \omega$, $\omega \rightarrow \beta$, as well as reverse $\beta \rightarrow \omega$ phase transitions. Simulations with a multi-phase equation of state and phenomenological kinetic model match the experimental wave profiles well. While the dynamic $\alpha \rightarrow \omega$ transition occurs $\sim 9$ GPa above the equilibrium phase boundary, the $\omega \rightarrow \beta$ transition occurs within 0.9~GPa of equilibrium. We estimate that the dynamic compression path intersects the equilibrium $\omega - \beta$ line at $P= 29.2$ GPa, and $T = 490$ K. The thermodynamic path in the interior of the sample lies $\sim 100$ K above the isentrope at the point of the $\omega \rightarrow \beta$ transition. Approximately half of this dissipative temperature rise is due to plastic work, and half is due to the non-equilibrium $\alpha \rightarrow \omega$ transition. The inferred rate of the $\alpha \rightarrow \omega$ transition is several orders of magnitude higher than that measured in dynamic diamond anvil cell (DDAC) experiments in an overlapping pressure range. We discuss a model for the influence of shear stress on the nucleation rate. The small fractional volume change $\Delta V/V \approx 0.1$ at the $\alpha \rightarrow \omega$ transition amplifies the effect of shear stress, and we estimate that for this case shear stress is equivalent to a pressure increase in the range of several GPa. Correcting our transition rate to a hydrostatic rate brings it approximately into line with the DDAC results, suggesting that shear stress plays a significant role in the transformation rate

The inseparable connection between leadership, agency, power and collaboration in a primary educational setting

This paper critiques the empirically supported normative argument that distributed leadership allows for shared accountability and responsibility. Through the means of cognitive mapping and semi-structured interviews, we engaged in understanding how practices and structural conditions of distributed leadership within two English state primary school settings were established and accepted and where the inseparable connections between leadership, agency, power and collaboration positioned some members less well to participate and exercise influence than others. Our study utilises Foucault’s critical concepts of power as an interaction of social relations and his concept of ‘technologies of self’ whereby individuals undertake practices in order to shape themselves in particular ways to be accepted. Furthermore, drawing upon Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, habitus and field, findings indicate how within a distributed model of leadership individuals can be disconnected from the collective but enabled to feel good about this. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for distributed leadership and the necessity to problematise power more generally within a distributed model of leadership

Skull morphology diverges between urban and rural populations of red foxes mirroring patterns of domestication and macroevolution

Human activity is drastically altering the habitat use of natural populations. This has been documented as a driver of phenotypic divergence in a number of wild animal populations. Here, we show that urban and rural populations of red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) from London and surrounding boroughs are divergent in skull traits. These changes are primarily found to be involved with snout length, with urban individuals tending to have shorter and wider muzzles relative to rural individuals, smaller braincases and reduced sexual dimorphism. Changes were widespread and related to muscle attachment sites and thus are likely driven by differing biomechanical demands of feeding or cognition between habitats. Through extensive sampling of the genus Vulpes, we found no support for phylogenetic effects on skull morphology, but patterns of divergence found between urban and rural habitats in V. vulpes quantitatively aligned with macroevolutionary divergence between species. The patterns of skull divergence between urban and rural habitats matched the description of morphological changes that can occur during domestication. Specifically, urban populations of foxes show variation consistent with ‘domestication syndrome’. Therefore, we suggest that occurrences of phenotypic divergence in relation to human activity, while interesting themselves, also have the potential to inform us of the conditions and mechanisms that could initiate domestication. Finally, this also suggests that patterns of domestication may be developmentally biased towards larger patterns of interspecific divergence

Excited Hydroxyl Outflow in the High-Mass Star-Forming Region G34.26+0.15

G34.26+0.15 is a region of high-mass star formation that contains a broad range of young stellar objects in different stages of evolution, including a hot molecular core, hyper-compact HII regions and a prototypical cometary ultra-compact HII region. Previous high-sensitivity single dish observations by our group resulted in the detection of broad 6035 MHz OH absorption in this region; the line showed a significant blue-shifted asymmetry indicative of molecular gas expansion. We present high-sensitivity Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) observations of the 6035 MHz OH line conducted to image the absorption and investigate its origin with respect to the different star formation sites in the region. In addition, we report detection of 6030 MHz OH absorption with the VLA and further observations of 4.7 GHz and 6.0 GHz OH lines obtained with the Arecibo Telescope. The 6030 MHz OH line shows a very similar absorption profile as the 6035 MHz OH line. We found that the 6035 MHz OH line absorption region is spatially unresolved at $\sim 2$" scales, and it is coincident with one of the bright ionized cores of the cometary HII region that shows broad radio recombination line emission. We discuss a scenario where the OH absorption is tracing the remnants of a pole-on molecular outflow that is being ionized inside-out by the ultra-compact HII region.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa