A Preliminary Investigation into the Use of Humor in Sport Psychology Practice

‘Creative efforts’, such as the use of humor,have been found to be beneficial to the nurse-patient, teacher-student , and psychologist-patient alliance. Potentially humoruse might benefit the working alliance in applied sport psychology, yet to datethere is limited research. Sportpsychology consultants (n = 55) completedan online survey that explored humor use within their practice. Statisticalanalyses revealed most participants used humor for adaptive purposes such as tofacilitate the working alliance, reinforce knowledge, and create healthylearning environments. Therefore, possible client change is likely to befacilitated by practitioners’ personal qualities and skills such as humor useand humor style. Recommendations are made for sport psychology practitioners inrelation to humor use and further research.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Democratic Strength and Terrorism: An Economic Approach

There has been much literature about the economic effects of terrorism in democratic countries, but this literature often considers democracy to be a binary variable. This paper sought to explore how the effects might differ depending on the strength of a democracy. In the end, I found that the numbers of attacks and the effects of those attacks do not follow a linear path. The results for autocracies and anocracies require further analysis, but democracies have revealed interesting results. It seems that democracies as a whole have more terrorist attacks, but, within this group, the more democratic a country is the fewer attacks are carried out

Back In Power? Brazil\u27s Military Under Bolsonaro

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the 2018 election of Jair Bolsonaro represented the biggest shock to civil-military relations in Brazil in the last 40 years. Bolsonaro, a former Army captain who campaigned on a platform of dictatorship nostalgia amid the country’s worst-ever economic crisis, vowed to bring the generals back to the center of Brazilian politics. Indeed, the military today is exercising power not seen since Brazil concluded its decade-long “gradual transition” from dictatorship to democracy during the late 1970s and 1980s. Retired (and sometimes active-duty) senior military officers are now occupying several critical positions in the administration, including in policy areas outside the realm of defense and security – from Vice President Hamilton Mourão to ministries charged with energy, infrastructure and relations with Congress.https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/jgi_research/1004/thumbnail.jp

Optical Spectral Properties of Swift BAT Hard X-ray Selected Active Galactic Nuclei Sources

The Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) survey of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) is providing an unprecedented view of local AGNs ( = 0.03) and their host galaxy properties. In this paper, we present an analysis of the optical spectra of a sample of 64 AGNs from the 9-month survey, detected solely based on their 14-195 keV flux. Our analysis includes both archived spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and our own observations from the 2.1-m Kitt Peak National Observatory telescope. Among our results, we include line ratio classifications utilizing standard emission line diagnostic plots, [O III] 5007 A luminosities, and H-beta derived black hole masses. As in our X-ray study, we find the type 2 sources to be less luminous (in [O III] 5007 A and 14-195 keV luminosities) with lower accretion rates than the type 1 sources. We find that the optically classified LINERs, H II/composite galaxies, and ambiguous sources have the lowest luminosities, while both broad line and narrow line Seyferts have similar luminosities. From a comparison of the hard X-ray (14-195 keV) and [O III] luminosities, we find that both the observed and extinction-corrected [O III] luminosities are weakly correlated with X-ray luminosity. In a study of the host galaxy properties from both continuum fits and measurements of the stellar absorption indices, we find that the hosts of the narrow line sources have properties consistent with late type galaxies.Comment: 84 pages, 20 figures, 17 tables, accepted in Ap

Validation of an Operationalized Model of Iso-Ahola’s Theory of Tourism Motivation: A Case in Point-to-Point Suborbital Space Travel

The purpose of the study was to validate Snepenger, King, Marshall, and Uysal’s (2006) model of Iso-Ahola’s (1982) theory of tourism motivation for use in point-to-point suborbital space tourism research. No previous research was discovered, which assessed point-to-point suborbital space flight within the theoretical foundation of the theory of tourism motivation. Snepenger et al.’s (2006) model was assessed as published, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) failed to produce data fitting the four dimensions. The researchers modified the item descriptions based on research. Using a second sample, the modified model was assessed. EFA produced four factors with adequate convergent and discriminant validity. Confirmatory factor analysis produced good model fit with adequate construct validity. The study validated the operationalized model of the theory of tourism motivation in United States participants providing a valid and reliable scale for use in future suborbital space travel research

Analysis of socio-economic aspects of local and national organic farming markets; final report for Defra

The purpose of this study was to take a fresh look at the nature of organic production, consumption and marketing in England and Wales in order to better assess its current and likely contribution to rural development and its ability to meet consumer expectations. Based on a mixed methodological approach the study consulted with 2,300 individuals to reveal a complex and multi-dimensional sector with a highly committed consumer base. The research aimed to describe and account for: (1)The socio-economic impacts of the organic farm supply chains on rural development; (2)The extent to which organic food delivers consumer expectations; and (3) The barriers affecting conversion to organic farming and expansion of existing organic farms. The research reported here is arguably one of the most integrated studies of organic consumption, production and marketing conducted to date. It throws new light on the nature of organic consumption, underlining both the on-going commitment of the majority of committed organic consumers and the gap in perceptions, degrees of ‘brand trust’ and price sensitivity between this group and the majority of consumers who rarely or never buy organic. While this degree of commitment suggests that recent declines in organic consumption may not be sustained and will soon hit a floor, this finding also points to difficulties, particularly in a time of recession, in enrolling new consumers into organic networks, particularly via the direct marketing channels that smaller producers are more likely to depend on. This group of producers, locally embedded and linked to consumers via short supply chains, fulfil the expectations of many organic consumers and exemplify the idea of alternative food producers. Managed by self selecting, entrepreneurial farmers, these organic producers make a valuable contribution towards employment and income generation within the local rural economy. As our broader analysis of food chains and multiplier effects across the regional and national rural economy shows, however, it is the large scale producers, concerned with the production of bulk commodities and integrated into long supply chains, that inevitably account for the main rural employment and income benefits of the organic sector, if measured in aggregate terms. While there is a good case to be made for the rural development benefits of organic farming, it is important to recognise these scale effects and their geographically uneven distribution in any policy assessment.Organic markets, Organic farming, Organic consumers, Rural Economy, Multiplier Analysis, Simple Value Chains, Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Marketing,

Gut inflammation provides a respiratory electron acceptor for Salmonella.

Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) causes acute gut inflammation by using its virulence factors to invade the intestinal epithelium and survive in mucosal macrophages. The inflammatory response enhances the transmission success of S. Typhimurium by promoting its outgrowth in the gut lumen through unknown mechanisms. Here we show that reactive oxygen species generated during inflammation react with endogenous, luminal sulphur compounds (thiosulphate) to form a new respiratory electron acceptor, tetrathionate. The genes conferring the ability to use tetrathionate as an electron acceptor produce a growth advantage for S. Typhimurium over the competing microbiota in the lumen of the inflamed gut. We conclude that S. Typhimurium virulence factors induce host-driven production of a new electron acceptor that allows the pathogen to use respiration to compete with fermenting gut microbes. Thus the ability to trigger intestinal inflammation is crucial for the biology of this diarrhoeal pathogen

Rheological Characterization of Liquid-to-Solid Transitions in Bulk Polyelectrolyte Complexes

Polyelectrolyte complexation has long been known to result in both liquid and solid complexes. However, the exact nature of the liquid-to-solid transition remains an open question. We have used rheology to explain this phenomenon for the model system of poly(4-styrenesulfonic acid, sodium salt) (PSS) and poly(diallyldimethyl ammonium chloride) (PDADMAC) in the presence of potassium bromide (KBr). The use of a time-salt superposition allows for a detailed analysis of changes in the linear viscoelastic response for both liquid complex coacervates and solid polyelectrolyte complexes as a function of salt concentration, and facilitates unambiguous determination of the mechanism for this phase transition. Decreasing salt concentration, and the commensurate decrease in the water content of PSS/PDADMAC/KBr complexes is shown to lead to the formation of a physical gel due to the development of a network with trapped electrostatic crosslinks that percolates the sample at a critical salt concentration