ISSP position stand: Social missions through sport and exercise psychology

Sport psychology is expanding in how it might be utilised to benefit human activity and social life. Performance enhancement remains central to the field; however, there is growing interest in how sport psychology practices and sport contexts can be crafted to enable social missions. The classification of social missions through the context of sports might vary from one sport development agency or scholar to the next, and could relate to health and well-being, sport for peace, social development, disease prevention, and positive youth development. This position stand has been conceived to situate the International Society of Sport Psychology within sport for development for the betterment of people in communities, countries, and regions. This ISSP Position Stand is structured into a historical overview of sports as social missions, sport for cultural exchange and social justice, sport for health and well-being, sport for positive youth development, sport for peace, and postulations and recommendations. © 2015 International Society of Sport Psychology

Radio Pulsars

Almost 50 years after radio pulsars were discovered in 1967, our understanding of these objects remains incomplete. On the one hand, within a few years it became clear that neutron star rotation gives rise to the extremely stable sequence of radio pulses, that the kinetic energy of rotation provides the reservoir of energy, and that electromagnetic fields are the braking mechanism. On the other hand, no consensus regarding the mechanism of coherent radio emission or the conversion of electromagnetic energy to particle energy yet exists. In this review, we report on three aspects of pulsar structure that have seen recent progress: the self-consistent theory of the magnetosphere of an oblique magnetic rotator; the location, geometry, and optics of radio emission; and evolution of the angle between spin and magnetic axes. These allow us to take the next step in understanding the physical nature of the pulsar activity.Comment: Invited review for Space Science Review