Empires of Graft and Enclaves of Pleasure: Sovereignty and Secession as Causa Sui among Serious Fraudsters.

Those convicted of acquisitive criminality are often understood to be driven by greed, or to embody dominant neoliberal value systems of self-interest. From such perspectives, acts of economic predation are understood to be the result of exclusion from dominant value systems, or, to be driven by a new form of ‘inverted’ morality. However, data gathered through conversations with those convicted of serious fraud, indicates that acts of serious and sustained economic predation were neither the outcome of moral deficit, nor of a reoriented, neoliberal form of morality. Rather, fraudsters were aware of the implications of their behaviours but viewed them rather dispassionately. Such behaviours were considered as undesirable, but necessary as a means of surviving within the world in its current form. Surviving, within this context, meant the avoidance of symbolic annihilation, or the failure to exist. Following the Enlightenment and the collapse of religious belief systems, the pursuit of immortality projects has become restricted to the realm of earthly existence and, within the context of consumer and neoliberal cultures, has become overwhelmingly focused upon engagement with financial rewards and consumer symbolism. Thus, fraudsters were deeply concerned with their identities as successful businessmen - self-made men who had constructed empires of graft through their ability to navigate the risky world of business with acts of monumental effort and Odyssian trickery. They were also deeply immersed in the need to craft highly considered consumer identities which reflected their role as successful businessmen. Their preoccupation with the need to achieve physical and symbolic separation from the herd through their economic and consumer achievements represented the way in which their causa sui was determined by notions of sovereignty and secession and, in turn, how criminality plays a pivotal role in the avoidance of annihilation

Self-Made Men: Economic and Consumer Sovereignty in the Accounts of Serious Fraudsters

Within the context of neoliberal economics and consumer capitalism, late-modern individuals are placed under extreme pressure and their economic and symbolic survival is constantly under threat. Within this context, people are forced to compete in increasingly brutal circumstances in order to avoid annihilation within the fields of economic and consumptive performance. Engagement within these fields, however, is not solely based on coercion but is simultaneously underpinned by seductive ideals such as sovereignty. Conversations with those convicted for their involvement in serious fraud indicate the centrality of the notion of sovereignty to their subjective experience and, in turn, their motivation for fraud. The notion of economic sovereignty was key to their understandings of economic enterprise whereby they carved out spaces of extreme personal freedom in which they were free to engage in acts of serious and sustained economic predation. Similarly, understandings of consumer sovereignty were characterised by a degree of excess whereby the individual who self-governs consumptive choices was replaced by the individual who is characterised by the absolute right to pursue pleasure in an unrestrained way. As a consequence, many of their personal barriers against criminality were eroded. Thus whilst acts of economic predation are necessitated by the deep-seated cultures of anxiety and insecurity produced with contemporary capitalism, they are also facilitated by the cultural profusion of notions of sovereignty within this context

The assessment of stressors and resilience in secondary school physical education

PE lessons are a unique context to address the declining levels of physical activity in the UK, offering the opportunity for students to achieve age appropriate physical activity recommendations. Therefore, it is imperative that researchers and practitioners understand variables that underpin students motivational processes in PE lessons. Psychological resilience refers to the idea that some individuals are able to positively adapt to the stressors they encounter. Conceptual theorisers of resilience propose that the concept comprises three constructs: stressors, positive adaptation, and protective factors. The purpose of the thesis is to focus on the first construct of stressors: which may be major life events, or the minor and cumulative demands of everyday life. Specifically, the current thesis aims to develop a measure of stressors in the context of PE lessons within the wider framework of resilience. The thesis is split into five chapters. The first chapter overviews the importance of facilitating motivation and engagement in PE lessons, and introduces the concept of resilience to stressors. Chapter two is split into three parts and comprises three reviews: the first provides an overview of the definitions, concepts, and theoretical models of academic resilience; the second is a systematic review of the approaches to measuring academic resilience and; the third presents a narrative review of daily stressors experienced by adolescents. Chapter three presents the first two studies of this programme of research. Study one is a qualitative exploration of the common stressors experienced by secondary school students during their PE lessons. Underpinned by the concept of resilience, study two explores the protective factors students utilise to facilitate their positive adaptation to these everyday stressors. Drawing on the reviews presented in chapter two, and the qualitative exploration of stressors in PE, chapter four presents a series of studies describing the development of the PE Experiences Questionnaire (PEEQ). Specifically, study three explores the content validity of a pool of items designed to reflect common stressors in PE lessons. Study four examines the factorial structure of the PEEQ using exploratory factor analysis, and study five tests the factorial structure of the PEEQ using confirmatory factor analysis. Study six tests the factorial structure on an independent sample, examines whether it is invariant across gender, and tests the relationship between the PEEQ and related educational constructs. Overall, the current programme of research has advanced the field of educational psychology by providing greater understanding of the potential stressors experienced during PE lessons, and the dynamic processes by which students respond

Approaches to measuring academic resilience: A systematic review

Recent years have seen increased government funding into resilience-building programmes in schools. However, practitioners are unable to assess the efficacy of interventions due to the lack of an available measure of academic resilience. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the methods investigators have employed to measure academic resilience. A computerised literature search was conducted to identify journal articles where academic resilience was either; a) inferred through assessment of risk and positive adaptation or b) assessed using a measurement scale comprising protective factors. Results demonstrated significant variability in the factors utilised to represent risk and positive adaptation, and an inconsistent use of measurement scales. Different approaches to measuring academic resilience across studies leads to inconsistencies when estimating prevalence of the concept and the impact of resilience-based interventions. A discussion of the psychometric rigor of approaches to assessment is provided, with specific recommendations for future development of a measurement of academic resilience

Resilience in physical education: A qualitative exploration of protective factors

Resilience refers to findings that some individuals have good outcomes despite exposure to stressors, and protective factors are defined as influences that alter a person’s response to such stressors. Academic resilience research identifies factors that promote positive educational outcomes; however no research to date investigates student resilience in the unique context of Physical Education (PE). The current study sought to explore protective factors that alter secondary school students’ responses to the common stressors associated with PE participation. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with six teachers and 54 students, and transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis. In line with the conceptualisation of protective factors, higher order themes of individual assets and environmental factors were identified. Individual assets included personality, cognitive factors (e.g. value of PE activities) and behavioural factors (e.g. attending extra-curricular activities). Environmental factors included teacher and peer support, and the relative importance of PE promoted by the school and parents

Exploring common stressors in physical education: A qualitative study

Daily stressors, or hassles, refer to the everyday environmental demands that constitute a threat or challenge, or exceed an individual’s biological or psychological capacities. Increasing evidence suggests that daily stressors have a significant impact on adolescents’ educational outcomes, for example, performance, wellbeing and negative attitudes toward school; however, there is limited research examining the concept of common stressors in physical education (PE) lessons. As early adolescence is a developmental period associated with decreased engagement in PE, it is important to identify the environmental stressors that may be associated with increased disengagement. The study included 54 secondary school students and six PE teachers from five schools in the English Midlands. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted and a thematic analysis was applied to the interview transcripts. Three higher order themes were identified from the data: the social environment; the physical and organisational environment; and the performance environment. Common stressors within the social environment included: interpersonal transactions between peers; differences in effort levels during PE; and working outside one’s peer group. Stressors within the physical and organisational environment consisted of environmental situations within the changing facilities and the availability of activities. Finally, performance environment stressors included: situations involving the difficult acquisition of physical skills; and situations where physical appearance and physical competencies were exposed. The study extends previous findings by identifying potentially threatening and frustrating environmental demands that have not been identified in the previous literature. The current study is the first to explore the typical stressors that are experienced by students in PE

Gender differences in response to an opportunistic brief intervention for obesity in primary care: Data from the BWeL trial

Weight loss programmes appeal mainly to women, prompting calls for gender-specific programmes. In the United Kingdom, general practitioners (GPs) refer nine times as many women as men to community weight loss programmes. GPs endorsement and offering programmes systematically could reduce this imbalance. In this trial, consecutively attending patients in primary care with obesity were invited and 1882 were enrolled and randomized to one of two opportunistic 30-second interventions to support weight loss given by GPs in consultations unrelated to weight. In the support arm, clinicians endorsed and offered referral to a weight loss programme and, in the advice arm, advised that weight loss would improve health. Generalized linear mixed effects models examined whether gender moderated the intervention. Men took effective weight loss action less often in both arms (support: 41.6% vs 60.7%; advice: 12.1% vs 18.3%; odds ratio (OR) = 0.38, 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.27, 0.52, P < .001) but there was no evidence that the relative effect differed by gender (interaction P = .32). In the support arm, men accepted referral and attended referral less often, 69.3% vs 82.4%; OR = 0.48, 95% CI, 0.35, 0.66, P < .001 and 30.4% vs 47.6%; OR = 0.48, 95% CI, 0.36, 0.63, P < .001, respectively. Nevertheless, the gender balance in attending weight loss programmes closed to 1.6:1. Men and women attended the same number of sessions (9.7 vs 9.1 sessions, P = .16) and there was no evidence weight loss differed by gender (6.05 kg men vs 4.37 kg women, P = .39). Clinician-delivered opportunistic 30-second interventions benefits men and women equally and reduce most of the gender imbalance in attending weight loss programmes

New Insights into the Structure, Geology and Hydrocarbon Prospectivity along the Central-Northern Corona Ridge, Faroe-Shetland Basin

Acknowledgements This paper forms part of the lead author’s Ph.D. research conducted as part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Oil and Gas at the University of Aberdeen. It is funded by the University of Aberdeen and sponsored by Total E&P UK Limited, whose support is gratefully acknowledged. PGS are thanked for the generous provision of the FSB MegaSurveyPlus seismic dataset to the Ph.D. project and also for permission to publish part of the dataset (Fig. 3). This paper contains information provided by the North Sea Transition Authority and/or other third parties. Seismic data used throughout this paper were purchased from the UK North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) National Data Repository (NDR) portal. Well data used throughout this paper are freely available and can be downloaded from the UK NSTA NDR portal. Core photographs were obtained from the BGS Offshore well database. Seismic interpretation was undertaken using Schlumberger Petrel software and well log interpretation was performed using Schlumberger Techlog software, of which academic licenses were kindly provided by Schlumberger and are gratefully acknowledged. Thanks to Conrado Climent, Ole-Petter Hansen, Michael Hertle, Anders Madsen, and Stuart Archer for invaluable discussions during the lead author’s time spent working with TotalEnergies in Copenhagen. Thanks also to Christopher Bugg and Matthew Rowlands at TotalEnergies in Aberdeen. Reviewers Tony Doré, Peter Dromgoole and Clayton Grove are thanked for their detailed constructive reviews which improved this manuscript. The views held within this paper do not necessarily represent the views of Schlumberger, TotalEnergies and Ørsted. Funding: The University of Aberdeen (grant number: RT10121-14), Natural Environment Research Council Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Oil and Gas (grant number: NE/M00578X/1) and Total E&P UK Limited. Principal award-recipient: Lucinda Kate Layfield.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Exploring common stressors in physical education

Daily stressors, or hassles, refer to the everyday environmental demands that constitute a threat or challenge, or exceed an individual’s biological or psychological capacities (Cohen et al., 1995). Increasing evidence suggests that daily stressors have a significant impact on adolescents’ educational outcomes, for example, performance, wellbeing and negative attitudes toward school, however there is limited research examining the concept of common stressors in PE lessons. As early-adolescence is a developmental period associated with decreased engagement in PE, it is important to identify the environmental stressors that may be associated with increased disengagement. The study comprised 54 secondary school students and six PE teachers from five schools in the English Midlands. Semi-structured focus groups were conducted and a thematic analysis was applied to interview transcripts. Three higher order themes were identified from the data: the social environment, the physical and organisational environment, and the performance environment. Common stressors within the social environment included, interpersonal transactions between peers, differences in effort levels during PE, and working outside one’s peer group. Stressors within the physical and organisational environment consisted of, environmental situations within the changing facilities and the availability of activities. Finally, performance environment stressors included, situations involving the difficult acquisition of physical skills, and situations where physical appearance and physical competencies were exposed. The study extends previous findings by identifying potentially threatening and frustrating, environmental demands that have not been identified in the previous literature. The current study is the first to explore the typical stressors that are experienced by students in PE