2,476 research outputs found
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
Interactive narratives—such as story-driven, choice-based video games—provide a space for playing with tropes and genre. Players are invited to collaborate in the creation of these stories, and can thus exercise their agency to interact with and subvert, harmful tropes and genre conventions. Here I specifically explore the use—and potential subversion—of problematic conventions regarding character death, such as the conflation of queerness and tragedy commonly known as ‘Bury Your Gays’ as explored in Life is Strange (DontNod 2015), and Carol J. Clover’s concept of ‘The Final Girl’ in the horror genre as explored in Until Dawn (Supermassive 2015)
Determining the Impact of Increased Physical Activity on Improving Sleep Quality in Young Adults
Determining the Impact of Increased Physical Activity on Improving Sleep Quality in Young Adults
Disturbed sleep, defined as any alteration to normal sleep patterns, has been linked to poor cardiovascular health and an increase in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. These negative sleep patterns are highly prevalent with 35% to 41% of individuals in the United States reported some form of disturbed sleep. Although high amounts of physical activity (PA) are often associated with high sleep quality, little is known about PA’s effectiveness to improve different aspects of sleep (e.g. duration vs quality) and the mechanisms to which it can improve sleep quality.
Purpose: The study sought to determine the ability of increased PA to improve sleep efficiency in healthy young adults.
Methods: Nineteen young adults (25±4 yrs) were recruited for this study. Subjects wore an accelerometer (Actigraph GT3x-BT) for a total of three weeks to record daily physical activity (step count; low, moderate, and vigorous physical activity) and sleep variables (efficiency, wake after sleep onset, number of nightly awakenings, time per awakening, and total sleep time). Subjects maintained normal physical activity levels for the first week (BL), then increased their step count by an average of 5,000 steps/day across the next two weeks (W1 and W2). Heart rate variability (HRV) and venous blood draws were collected weekly to assess sympathetic activity and inflammation, respectively.
Results: The physical activity intervention resulted in significant increases (p \u3c 0.001) in step-count for both W1 (13163 ± 3184) and W2 (12168 ± 3619) when compared to BL (8648 ± 2615 steps/day). No significant differences from BL were observed when examining sleep efficiency (BL: 83.8 ± 6.4; W1: 85.5 ± 4.0; W2: 84.2 ± 6.1 %), sympathetic-vagal balance, and inflammatory marker concentrations in W1 and W2. A significant correlation was revealed when assessing the change in sleep efficiency from BL to W1 (r = 0.81, p \u3c 0.001) and BL to W2 (r = 0.52, p = 0.02) when compared to initial sleep efficiency values.
Conclusion: This study revealed that although young healthy individuals appear to lack improvements in sleep efficiency with an increase in physical activity, those who reported the lowest sleep quality had the greatest improvements in sleep efficiency following an increase in physical activity. Therefore, the findings of the study suggest that although increasing physical activity can improve sleep quality, a potential “ceiling effect” may occur, as when sleep quality is adequate, augmenting physical activity no longer has a substantial effect.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/gradposters/1058/thumbnail.jp
Access-based consumption, behaviour change and future mobility: insights from visions of car sharing in Greater London
The way in which people choose to travel has changed throughout history and adaptations have taken place in order to provide the most convenient, efficient and cost-effective method(s) of transport possible. This research explores two trends—technological and socio-economic change—by discussing the effects of their application in the renewed drive to promote car clubs in Greater London through the introduction of new technologies and innovative ways in which a car can be used and hired, thus helping to generate new insights for car sharing. A mixed methods approach was used, combining secondary data analysis obtained from a car club member survey of 5898 people with in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Our findings show that there is an opportunity to utilise car clubs as a tool for facilitating a step change away from private vehicle ownership in the city. In addition, the results suggest that car club operators are seeking to deliver a mode of transport that is able to compete with private car ownership. In terms of policy implications, such findings would suggest that compromise is necessary, and an operator/authority partnership would offer the most effective way of delivering car clubs in a manner that benefits all Londoners
I Thought I\u27d Die
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/4614/thumbnail.jp
Workforce Development in the South West Voluntary and Community Sectors:Skill Shortages Study
The Voluntary Sector National Training Organisation, now the National
Workforce Development Hub, describes the Voluntary and Community
Sector as diverse and covering a variety of different organisations.
Organisations range from traditional charities, to companies that trade to
support their social aims, through to informal community organisations.
The sector also includes federations, or networks of local groups working
under national umbrellas. Voluntary and community sector organisations
provide a wide range of services and activities and many of the
organisations are involved in the delivery of learning, whether through
accredited training or informal learning.
The Government has increasingly recognised the importance of Voluntary
and community sector organisations and the key role that they play
nationally, regionally and locally. Initiatives to support the sector,
underpinned by funding, have been undertaken and the Government has
been active in encouraging and commissioning research and strategic
planning in the sector, in particular emphasising the importance of
developing the skills, capacities and potential of the workforce.
Sector organisations generally display a strong commitment to training
and workforce development. However, in spite of this commitment and
the presence of a high proportion of well‐qualified workers, skills gaps,
that is skills lacking in the current workforce, and skills shortages caused
by recruitment difficulties, are present in the sector. There are also skills
gaps and shortages in the volunteer workforce
Randomized strategies and prospect theory in a dynamic context
When prospect theory (PT) is applied in a dynamic context, the probability weighting com- ponent brings new challenges. We study PT agents facing optimal timing decisions and consider the impact of allowing them to follow randomized strategies. In a continuous-time model of gam- bling and optimal stopping, Ebert and Strack (2015) show that a naive PT investor with access only to pure strategies never stops. We show that allowing randomization can signi cantly alter the predictions of their model, and can result in voluntary cessation of gambling
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