SOME EVIDENCE ON THE DECLINING EFFECT OF FARM CONSOLIDATION ON FARM REAL ESTATE PRICES

Land Economics/Use,

Developing high-quality meteorological data for East and West Africa from merged sources

Assessments of agricultural productivity and food security require process-based crop models to provide predictions of yields and diagnose past variations in the context of anthropogenic and climate factors. These models need detailed meteorological data as input, including precipitation, temperature, humidity, solar radiation and windspeed. This project aimed to apply existing methods to merge in situ, remotely sensed and modeled data sources in East and West Africa to produce high-quality daily meteorological data over at least 30 years. Specific objectives included: evaluation of the error structure of the dataset, its temporal and spatial characteristics and consistency and its suitability for forcing crop models, and to provide a framework for merging new data, in particular from the local stations of regional African partners, ensuring consistency across time and space and among variables, as well as the best use of information. The work successfully created a 10 kilometre, daily meteorological dataset for East and West Africa for the period 1979–2008, based on the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP–NCAR) reanalysis (NNR), merged with observational datasets, including the monthly gridded precipitation and temperature product of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU), the NASA Langley Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) product, and station data from the Global Summary of the Day (GSOD) database

Exploring Buddhism as a ‘Tool’ to Support Well-Being: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Western Adopters’ Experiences

Buddhism is an ancient religion and philosophy of living that is practised worldwide. More recent interest in mindfulness as a practice and intervention in the West has highlighted Buddhist-derived concepts as useful in supporting health and well-being. As a result, the desire to understand Buddhism in its more complete form has strengthened. Although research into mindfulness and compassion is growing, there is a new interest in second-generation mindfulness, i.e. interventions that draw upon a more holistic use of Buddhist practices. To date, little research has explored this in Western contexts. For the current study, Nichiren Buddhists from the United Kingdom who had been practising for at least three years were recruited. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore their experience of this practice and how it informed their approach to daily life and, in particular, their health and well-being. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was employed as a method to understand the participants’ experiences. Three themes were generated using an inductive approach: (1) finding meaning—“All experiences have got so much value now”— which reflected the participants’ determination to seek purpose and value in all aspects of their life; (2) Buddhism as a needed ‘tool’—“I use it all the time”—which revealed their practice as an important method to help them manage their lives; and (3) agency—“I’m in control of my destiny”—which highlighted the participants’ engagement (supported by their Buddhist practice) in taking responsibility for their actions and responses. Findings indicate the need for future studies to further explore Buddhism as a mechanism for enhancing and sustaining well-being

High-Speed Running Density in Collegiate Women’s Soccer

High-speed running density (HSRd) is a relatively new concept developed to discern between HSR volume and intensity. HSRd is the ratio of high-speed efforts to distance covered. PURPOSE: This study aimed to assess the differences in HSRd between training and games, and among positions in collegiate women’s soccer. A second aim was to correlate HSRd with other training metrics. METHODS: Data was collected during the in-season through global positioning units (GPS) worn by athletes (n = 20) for 42 training sessions and 15 games. A speed of 5 m×s-1 was used as the threshold for defining HSR. RESULTS: HSRd did not differ between training sessions and games (H(1) = 0.875, p = .349) or by position during training sessions (H(3) = 7.503, p = .057). However, HSRd differed by position during games (H(3) = 116.560, p \u3c .001, d = .165-484). Midfielders had higher HSRd than goalies and defenders. HSRd had low correlations (p \u3c .001) with HSR efforts (r = .128), top speed (r = .061), and HSRd intensity (r = .043, p = .003). A low inverse correlation (p \u3c .001) was found between HSRd and sprint distance (r = -.135). CONCLUSION: There is a difference in HSRd between positions during games, but not training sessions. Midfielders had higher HSRd than goalies and defenders during games. The increase in HSRd for midfielders may be a result of games being less predictable than training sessions, or the expectations of competitive play. The coaching staff and athletes may have tendencies which force midfielders to display higher HSRd during games. Observing HSRd over the course of multiple seasons with various teams, coaching staffs, and athletes will increase the reliability of the data produced. This information would help coaching staffs plan load management strategies for their athletes, potentially decreasing risk of injury

Popular music, psychogeography, place identity and tourism: The case of Sheffield

Tourism and cultural agencies in some English provincial cities are promoting their popular music ‘heritage’ and, in some cases, contemporary musicians through the packaging of trails, sites, ‘iconic’ venues and festivals. This article focuses on Sheffield, a ‘post-industrial’ northern English city which is drawing on its associations with musicians past and present in seeking to attract tourists. This article is based on interviews with, among others, recording artists, promoters, producers and venue managers, along with reflective observational and documentary data. Theoretical remarks are made on the representations of popular musicians through cultural tourism strategies, programmes and products and also on the ways in which musicians convey a ‘psychogeographical’ sense of place in the ‘soundscape’ of the city

Sweating the small stuff: a meta-analysis of skin conductance on the Iowa gambling task

To systematically examine the role of anticipatory skin conductance responses (aSCRs) in predicting Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) performance. Secondly, to assess the quality of aSCR evidence for the Somatic Marker Hypothesis (SMH) during the IGT. Finally, to evaluate the reliability of current psychophysiological measurements on the IGT. Electronic databases, journals and reference lists were examined for inclusion. Data were extracted by two reviewers and validated by another reviewer, using a standardised extraction sheet along with a quality assessment. Two meta-analyses of aSCR measures were conducted to test the relationship between overall aSCR and IGT performance, and differences in aSCR between advantageous and disadvantageous decks. Twenty studies were included in this review. Quality assessment revealed that five studies did not measure anticipatory responses, and few stated they followed standard IGT and/or psychophysiological procedures. The first meta-analysis of 15 studies revealed a significant, small-to-medium relationship between aSCR and IGT performance (r= .22). The second meta-analysis of eight studies revealed a significant, small difference in aSCR between the advantageous and disadvantageous decks (r= .10); however, publication bias is likely to be an issue. Meta-analyses revealed aSCR evidence supporting the SMH. However, inconsistencies in the IGT and psychophysiological methods, along with publication bias, cast doubt on these effects. It is recommended that future tests of the SMH use a range of psychophysiological measures, a standardised IGT protocol, and discriminate between advantageous and disadvantageous decks.N/

Pupil dilation and cognitive reflection as predictors of performance on the Iowa Gambling Task

Risky decisions and implicit learning involve both cognitive and emotional factors. As the primary test-bed for the Somatic Marker Hypothesis (SMH), the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) was devised to examine these factors. Skin conductance evidence has shown anticipatory physiological responses to the deck contingencies which supports SMH. However, skin conductance is not without limitations and pupil dilation is an alternative physiological marker. In the present study, the predictive effects of anticipatory pupillary responses to positive and negative decks on IGT performance were examined in an extended version of the task. The extended Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) was used to examine the relationship between reflective thinking and IGT performance. Data demonstrated that reflective thinking correlated with performance from the second block onwards and that learning continued on the IGT into the additional sixth and seventh blocks, indicating that performance was not optimized until the final block. Regression analysis further showed that both anticipatory pupil dilation for disadvantageous and advantageous decks, and reflective thinking were strong predictors of overall IGT performance. Thus, while both emotional and reflective processes are implicated in IGT performance, analytic cognition plays a more salient role than traditionally acknowledged.N/

Off-Critical SLE(2) and SLE(4): a Field Theory Approach

Using their relationship with the free boson and the free symplectic fermion, we study the off-critical perturbation of SLE(4) and SLE(2) obtained by adding a mass term to the action. We compute the off-critical statistics of the source in the Loewner equation describing the two dimensional interfaces. In these two cases we show that ratios of massive by massless partition functions, expressible as ratios of regularised determinants of massive and massless Laplacians, are (local) martingales for the massless interfaces. The off-critical drifts in the stochastic source of the Loewner equation are proportional to the logarithmic derivative of these ratios. We also show that massive correlation functions are (local) martingales for the massive interfaces. In the case of massive SLE(4), we use this property to prove a factorisation of the free boson measure.Comment: 30 pages, 1 figures, Published versio