Local online revolution

From a small town outside of Boston and around the globe the media is changing. In the latest guest-blog by POLIS Summer School students, Michael Dwyer from the USA reflects upon how the news media is changing at the grass-roots

Investigating different approaches and analyses of psychological variables to enhance sport and exercise

This thesis addresses the acquisition of knowledge through a logical step by step process during the PhD course, highlighting five research activities with a main focus on sport and exercise psychology. The ultimate goal for research looked at exploring wearable devices and associated digital technology to deliver interventions aimed to increase exercise while measuring psychological variables such as stress. A foundation was initially set with a systematic review and meta-analysis on correlations between physical activity and key variables such as self-efficacy, self-regulation, and anxiety measured using validated questionnaires. A continued interest in exploring psychometric tools and their validation in sport drove the analysis of a motivation scales and related parameters in a cohort of Italian rugby players. With the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, community-based sports activities stopped, and the way in which exercise was performed and measured rapidly changed, as I highlighted in the report “Physical activity: Benefits and challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic”. In this unexpected scenario, government agencies as well as private entities and academic institutions applied digital technology to deliver health and wellbeing messages. The use of novel tools was beneficial while facing increased sedentarism occurring during restrictions and lock-down periods. The study performed, involving office workers and electronically delivering exercise interventions in the form of active breaks, showed improvement in wellbeing and stress reduction. Finally, the last study presented can be viewed as a marker in time, as people return to normality, exercising and performing their normal routine but with a new emphasis in keeping track of their own health and wellbeing through wearable technology, following the change in measuring physical and psychological variables consolidated during the pandemic. The results met the intended goal to successfully provide a message-based, digitally delivered intervention aimed at increasing exercise and reducing stress among university students, using wearables to measure the outcome. Moreover, the comparison of wearable-associated stress (based on physiological stimuli) with self-reported stress using a validated questionnaire (e.g., Perceived Stress Scale-10) showed a promising connection. I intend to continue in this direction to further explore benefits and limitations of digital technology in sport and exercise psychology

Modules in Monoidal Model Categories

This paper studies the existence of and compatibility between derived change of ring, balanced product, and function module derived functors on module categories in monoidal model categories

The same old songs in Reagan-era teen film

This article examines the recontextualization of 1950s rock in the form of “Oldies” in teen films of the 1970s and 1980s. Specifically, the article highlights the peculiar phenomenon of scenes featuring teenagers lip-synching to oldies songs in films like Risky Business (1983), Pretty in Pink (1986), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), and Adventures in Babysitting (1987).In these scenes, like in the cover versions of rhythm and blues records popularized by white artists in the fifties, white teens embody black cultural forms, “covering” over the racial and sexual politics that characterized rock and roll's emergence. The transformation of rock 'n' roll from “race music” to the safe alternative for white bourgeois males in the face of new wave, punk, disco and hip hop, reflected in the establishment of oldies radio formats and revival tours, was aided and abetted by oldies soundtracks to Hollywood fil

A Case Study in Supply Chain Ethics: Medical Supplies Are Us

A hypothetical scenario is presented for consideration as a case study on both delivery logistics cost controls and ethical issues. Set in a regional medical supply company in the fictitious country, Costaguana, the actor needs to first unpack a supply chain issue as related to setting up a system to create cost savings to fund a non-government/non-profit organization. The delivery logistics with an established supplier for the company is explained in detail along with intra- and inter-company logistics’ relationships. Then an ethical issue is presented as related to the newfound savings from shipping for the organization. The case is presented on a less complex level, however, complexity can be added to the initial supply chain management issue to be used for upper level supply chain, international business, and/or entrepreneurial courses, as discussed in the final section

Territorial Entanglements: Ambiguities of Giving Back in Northwestern Laos

This research note is part of the thematic section, Limits to Giving Back, in the special issue titled “Giving Back in Field Research,” published as Volume 10, Issue 2 in the Journal of Research Practice

Assessing the effect of group model building on stakeholder teams developing urban growth strategies

Government in growing cities has a difficult time responding to problems that come with growth. The combination of the complexity of the problem, fragmentation in jurisdictions and responsibilities, and regional consequences produce diverse views of exactly what the problem is, what causes it, and how it is best addressed. The organizational structure of municipal government is not conducive to collaboration. Accordingly, governments have turned increasingly to stakeholder groups to develop growth management strategies. However, these stakeholder groups are not particularly successful. They struggle to achieve consensus even when facilitated and their recommendations often go unimplemented. The question I investigate in this research is: what can be done to help stakeholder groups working on urban growth problems be more successful?;I evaluate the hypothesis: facilitating a stakeholder team working on urban growth problem using a system dynamics group model building approach will result in a greater degree success than is achieved by a traditional facilitation approach by comparing the degrees of collaboration and consensus achieved by two real-world stakeholder groups with similar tasks, contexts, and constructs. Both groups were \u27professionally\u27 facilitated, one using a system dynamics group model building approach and the other a traditional non-modeling approach; The results show the model building group achieved significantly higher degrees of collaboration and consensus than the traditionally facilitated group. I investigated the processes and found the traditionally facilitated group did not discuss causes, and mixed problem discussion of the problem and solutions. The model building group discussed problem definition, causes sequentially, and balanced amount of attention given to each. The group also used a simulation model to test alternative solutions for their effect. These results suggest the difference in success can be attributed to superiority of the group model building process to integrate the diverse views that derive from complex problems and contexts; The results support the hypothesis, and suggest that stakeholder teams dealing with complex and messy problems and problem-solving environments can increase the degree of collaboration and consensus achieved where the facilitation approach is selected in consideration of the task and context characteristics