Digital Commons Network^™

Editorial: Introduction To The Special Issue “Humour, Laughter, Playfulness, Creativity And Entertainment And Their Relationships To Well-Being And Health”, Sonja Heintz

School of Psychology

No abstract provided.

On The Trajectory Of Discrimination: A Meta-Analysis And Forecasting Survey Capturing 44 Years Of Field Experiments On Gender And Hiring Decisions, Michael Schaerer, Christilene Du Plessis, My Hoang Bao Nguyen, Robbie C.M.Van Aert, Leo Tiokhin, Daniel Lakens, Elena Giulia Clemente, Thomas Pfeiffer, Anna Dreber, Magnus Johannesson, Cory J. Clark, Gender Audits Forecasting Collaboration, Eric Luis Uhlmann, Ajay T. Abraham, Magdalena Adamus, Cinla Akinci, Federica Alberti, Abdelaziz M. Alsharawy, Shilaan Alzahawi, Frederik Anseel, Felix Arndt, Binnur Balkan, Ernest Baskin, Carrie E. Bearden, Eric G. Benotsch, Stefan Bernritter, Sheila R. Black, Wiebke Bleidorn, Andrew P. Boysen

School of Psychology

A preregistered meta-analysis, including 244 effect sizes from 85 field audits and 361,645 individual job applications, tested for gender bias in hiring practices in female-stereotypical and gender-balanced as well as male-stereotypical jobs from 1976 to 2020. A “red team” of independent experts was recruited to increase the rigor and robustness of our meta-analytic approach. A forecasting survey further examined whether laypeople (n = 499 nationally representative adults) and scientists (n = 312) could predict the results. Forecasters correctly anticipated reductions in discrimination against female candidates over time. However, both scientists and laypeople overestimated the continuation of bias against female candidates. …

Measuring The Effectiveness Of Using Rangers To Deliver A Behavior Change Campaign On Sustainable Palm Oil In A Uk Zoo, Katie Major, Daniel Smith

School of Psychology

A fundamental objective of modern zoos is promoting pro-environmental behaviors. This study experimentally assessed the contribution of zoo rangers (staff employed to engage visitors) in delivering a behavior change campaign promoting sustainable palm oil use. The campaign was delivered in a dedicated area in a walk-through animal exhibit, with rangers either “present” or “absent” in the campaign space. Questionnaires assessing awareness, knowledge, and purchasing intentions were completed by 1032 visitors. Two analyses were conducted: (1) comparing the impact of ranger presence versus absence (to assess the overall impact of having rangers present regardless of whether they talked to visitors) and …

Abnormal Thalamic Functional Connectivity Correlates With Cardiorespiratory Fitness And Physical Activity In Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, Francesco Romanò, Robert W. Motl, Paola Valsasina, Maria Pia Amato, Giampaolo Brichetto, Nicolò Bruschi, Jeremy Chataway, Nancy D. Chiaravalloti, Gary Cutter, Ulrik Dalgas, John Deluca, Rachel Farrell, Peter Feys, Jennifer Freeman, Matilde Inglese, Cecilia Meza, Amber Salter, Brian M. Sandroff, Anthony Feinstein, Maria A. Rocca, Massimo Filippi

School of Health Professions

BackgroundAltered thalamic volumes and resting state (RS) functional connectivity (FC) might be associated with physical activity (PA) and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) in people with progressive multiple sclerosis (PMS).ObjectivesTo assess thalamic structural and functional alterations and investigate their correlations with PA/CRF levels in people with PMS.MethodsSeven-day accelerometry and cardiopulmonary exercise testing were used to assess PA/CRF levels in 91 persons with PMS. They underwent 3.0 T structural and RS fMRI acquisition with 37 age/sex-matched healthy controls (HC). Between-group comparisons of MRI measures and their correlations with PA/CRF variables were assessed.ResultsPMS people had lower volumes compared to HC (all p < 0.001). At corrected threshold, PMS showed decreased intra- and inter-thalamic RS FC, and increased RS FC between the thalamus and the hippocampus, bilaterally. At uncorrected threshold, decreased thalamic RS FC with caudate nucleus, cerebellum and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), as well as increased thalamic RS FC with occipital regions, were also detected. Lower CRF, measured as peak oxygen consumption (VO2peak), correlated with lower white matter volume (r = 0.31, p = 0.03). Moreover, lower levels of light PA correlated with increased thalamic RS FC with the right hippocampus (r = − 0.3, p = 0.05).DiscussionPeople with PMS showed widespread brain atrophy, as well as pronounced intra-thalamic and thalamo-hippocampal RS FC abnormalities. White matter atrophy correlated with CRF, while increased thalamo-hippocampal RS FC was associated to worse PA levels. Thalamic RS FC might be used to monitor physical impairment and efficacy of rehabilitative and disease-modifying treatments in future studies.

Nonaligned Modernism: Socialist Postcolonial Aesthetics In Yugoslavia, 1945–1985. By Bojana Videkanić. Montreal: Mcgill-Queen's University Press, 2019. 304 Pages. Notes. Illustrations. Figures. £99.00, Hard Bound; £33.00, Paper; $31.35, Ebook., N Bobic

School of Art, Design and Architecture

Book review

Visualizing The Untranslateable, M Punt

School of Art, Design and Architecture

No abstract provided.

Resuspension Of Microplastics And Microrubbers In A Semi-Arid Urban Environment (Shiraz, Iran), Nafiseh Khodabakhshloo, Sajjad Abbasi, Andrew Turner

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Although airborne urban particles are a concern for air quality and human health, little information exists on the levels and characteristics of microplastics (MPs) and microrubbers (MRs) in this setting. In the present study, MPs and MRs are quantified and characterised in road dusts and accumulations captured passively (and up to elevations of 177 cm above road level) in the steps of utility poles at 18 locations throughout the city of Shiraz, southwest Iran. Dust accumulation rates were greatest at road level (median = 45 g m−2 month−1) and declined with elevation (median = 2.0 g m−2 month−1 at 177 …

Glass Microbeads In Coastal Sediments As A Proxy For Traffic-Related Particulate Contamination, Andrew Turner, James Keene

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

Climate Action And Sdg Synergies: Strengthening The Evidence Base For Synergistic Action, Souran Chatterjee

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

Three-Layer Model With Absorption For Conservative Estimation Of The Maximum Acoustic Transmission Coefficient Through The Human Skull For Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation, David Attali, Thomas Tiennot, Mark Schafer, Elsa Fouragnan, Jérôme Sallet, Charles F. Caskey, Robert Chen, Ghazaleh Darmani, Ellen J. Bubrick, Christopher Butler, Charlotte J. Stagg, Miriam Klein-Flügge, Lennart Verhagen, Seung Schik Yoo, Kim Butts Pauly, Jean Francois Aubry

School of Psychology

Transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) has been shown to be a safe and effective technique for non-invasive superficial and deep brain stimulation. Safe and efficient translation to humans requires estimating the acoustic attenuation of the human skull. Nevertheless, there are no international guidelines for estimating the impact of the skull bone. A tissue independent, arbitrary derating was developed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to take into account tissue absorption (0.3 dB/cm-MHz) for diagnostic ultrasound. However, for the case of transcranial ultrasound imaging, the FDA model does not take into account the insertion loss induced by the skull bone, nor …

Investigating The Role Of Action-Contingent Expectancy Biases In Dysphoria-Linked Activity Engagement Behavioural Choice, Julie L. Ji, Colin Macleod

School of Psychology

Reduced tendency to engage in potentially rewarding activities is a hallmark of depression. The present study investigated the role of future expectancy biases in depression-linked behavioural choice, in participants varying in self-reported depression symptoms (dysphoria). A novel laboratory paradigm was developed to test the hypotheses that the degree to which higher dysphoria is associated with reduced tendency to engage in a potentially rewarding activity is dependent on the presence of negative biases in the expected outcomes of activity engagement. Specifically, two types of expectancy biases were distinguished: a) the expected likelihood of a negative rather than positive outcome, and b) …

Bottle With A Message: The Role Of Story Writing As An Engagement Tool To Explore Children's Perceptions Of Marine Plastic Litter, Estelle Praet, Jostein Baeza-Álvarez, Veer D De, Geraldine Holtmann-Ahumada, Jen S. Jones, Sarah Langford, Jessica Michel Dearte, John Schofield, Martin Thiel, Kayleigh J. Wyles

School of Psychology

As human behaviors play a crucial role in addressing the global threat of plastic pollution, it is vital to understand perceptions about marine plastic litter (MPL) and to develop interventions encouraging pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs). This study evaluates story writing as a window to explore perceptions and as an engagement activity to boost PEBs. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, schoolchildren from the East Pacific coast participated in this activity, each creating a story and answering a pre-post survey. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of 81 stories and 79 surveys show awareness of sources and impacts. Participants identified land and local pollution as significant …

Does Variability In Recognition Memory Scale With Mean Memory Strength Or Encoding Variability In The Uvsd Model?, Rory W. Spanton, Christopher J. Berry

School of Psychology

The unequal variance signal detection (UVSD) model of recognition memory assumes that the variance of old item memory strength (σo) is typically greater than that of new items. It has been suggested that this old item variance effect can be explained by the encoding variability hypothesis. However, Spanton and Berry (2020) failed to find evidence for this account, suggesting that σo may simply scale with mean memory strength ( d) in the UVSD model. Experiments 1 and 2 examined the effects of encoding variability and strength scaling on old item variance by creating conditions in which mean memory strength and …

Marine Environmental Effects On A Graphene Reinforced Epoxy Adhered Single Lap Joint Between Metals And Cfrp, Rudi Fry-Taylor, Maozhou Meng, Xinyu Wang

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

This study investigates the marine environmental effects on the bonding strength of graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) reinforced adhesive for a metal/composite single lap joint. Samples were immersed for periods of 1, 2 and 3 weeks in a 50 °C, 3.5% NaCl solution, with the purpose of the heat being the creation of an environment in which simulated an increased ageing period in the joint structure. In a dry condition, the use of GNPs produced a slight increase in lap shear strength of 17% and 14% in the carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) composite laminate to aluminium and stainless-steel joints respectively. Post …

Chloride Penetration In Concrete With Trilinear Binding Isotherm, D Li, P Li, L-Y Li

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Chloride binding in concrete is an important factor and it can significantly affect the penetration speed of chlorides in concrete and thus the service life of concrete structures. In this paper a new chloride binding isotherm is proposed to be included in the diffusion model of chlorides in concrete. Instead of the use of the traditional Freundlich or Langmuir isotherm, the present chloride binding model uses a trilinear function to describe the chloride binding in concrete. The trilinear binding isotherm not only reflects the nonlinear binding feature of chlorides in concrete when it is exposed to a chloride environment, but …

The Impact Of Myosteatosis On Outcomes Following Surgery For Gastrointestinal Malignancy: A Meta-Analysis, A Maccormick, A Streeter, M Puckett, Somaiah Aroori

Peninsula Medical School

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this review was to evaluate the impact of preoperative myosteatosis on long-term outcomes following surgery for gastrointestinal malignancy.

METHODS: We conducted a systematic search of the electronic information sources, including PubMed MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), CINAHL and AMED. Studies were included if they reported the impact of preoperatively defined myosteatosis, or a similar term, on long-term survival outcomes following surgery for gastrointestinal malignancy. A subgroup analysis was performed for those studies reporting outcomes for colorectal cancer patients only.

FINDINGS: Thirty-nine full-text articles were reviewed for inclusion, with 19 being retained after …

Topical Review: Optometry In Nepal—Clinical Practice, Research Advances, And Challenges, Safal Khanal, Nabin Paudel, Rabindra Adhikary, Mahesh Raj Joshi

School of Health Professions

SIGNIFICANCE This article reviews educational standard, clinical practice, research advances, and challenges associated with optometry in Nepal and provides critical considerations for contemporary and new optometry programs in countries with similar socioeconomic status and health care systems. Optometry education started in Nepal in 1998 with the primary objective of addressing the unmet needs of eye health and vision care in the country. Over the last two decades, this program has made significant contributions to facilitating and improving the delivery of quality eye care and establishing the nation's eye health system as an exemplary model in South Asia. Despite the positive …

Survey Of Parents Of Children With Intellectual Disabilities And/Or Autism Who Experience Chronic Constipation, James Rooney, Rebecca Hodge, Jade Smith, Kelly Vanstone, Richard Laugharne, Rohit Shankar

Peninsula Medical School

Background: Constipation is common in children with intellectual disabilities and/or autism, but poorly researched. This study looks to understand parental knowledge, attitudes and management practices towards constipation in children with intellectual disabilities and/or autism. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey developed with patient facing organisations was circulated to parents of children with intellectual disabilities and/or autism using an exponential and non-discriminatory snowballing method for recruitment. A smaller sample were purposively sampled for their in-depth experiences. Results: Of 68 responses, people were open to discussing constipation and knowledgeable about risk factors. In the qualitative interviews, of 15 parents, they wanted to be …

The Phonetic Specificity Of British English-Learning Infants’ Word Form Recognition In Their First Year Of Life, Paul Ratnage

School of Psychology Theses

Consonants and vowels have been proposed to have distinct functions in speech perception: a consonant bias for lexical processing and a vowel bias for syntactic/prosodic processing (Nespor et al., 2003). Research in adults has consistently demonstrated that consonants have a privileged role in various lexical-level experiments across most languages. However, cross-linguistic differences have been found in the developmental trajectory of the consonant bias. For example, whilst French-learning infants display a consonant advantage in lexical processing tasks by their first birthday (e.g., Poltrock & Nazzi, 2015), British English-learning infants show an equal sensitivity to consonants and vowels until the age of …

Federal Income Taxation Ii, Natasha Ware

Syllabus Repository

No abstract provided.

Can Contract Emancipate? Contract Theory And The Law Of Work, Hanoch Dagan, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

Contract and employment law have grown apart. Long ago, each side gave up on the other. In this Article, we re-unite them to the betterment of both. In brief, we demonstrate the emancipatory potential of contract for the law of work.

Today, the dominant contract theories assume a widget transaction between substantively equal parties. If this were an accurate description of what contract is, then contract law would be right to expel workers. Worker protections would indeed be better regulated by – and relegated to – employment and labor law. But contract law is not what contract theorists claim. Neither …

Specific Performance: On Freedom And Commitment In Contract Law, Hanoch Dagan, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

When should specific performance be available for breach of contract? This question — at the core of contract — divides common-law and civil-law jurisdictions and it has bedeviled generations of comparativists, along with legal economists, historians, and philosophers. Yet none of these disciplines has provided a persuasive answer. This Article provides a normatively attractive and conceptually coherent account, one grounded in respect for the autonomy of the promisor’s future self. Properly understood, autonomy explains why expectation damages should be the ordinary remedy for contract breach. This same normative commitment justifies the “uniqueness exception,” where specific performance is typically awarded, and …

Price Gouging In A Pandemic, Christopher Buccafusco, Daniel Hemel, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

The COVID-19 pandemic led to acute supply shortages across the country as well as concerns over price increases amid surging demand. In the process, it reawakened a debate about whether and how to regulate “price gouging” — a controversy that continues as inflation has accelerated even as the pandemic abates. Animating this debate is a longstanding conflict between laissez-faire economics, which champions price fluctuations as a means to allocate scarce goods, and perceived norms of consumer fairness, which are thought to cut strongly against sharp price hikes amid shortages.

This Article provides a new, empirically grounded perspective on the price …

Beyond The Labor Exemption: Labor's Antimonopoly Vision And The Fight For Greater Democracy, Kate Andrias

Faculty Scholarship

Although the labor movement and the antimonopoly movement both oppose concentrated economic power and bemoan rising inequality, their projects are frequently viewed as divergent, if not incompatible. According to the conventional account, the labor movement has historically lacked an affirmative antimonopoly agenda, instead focusing its demands on achieving a labor exemption to the antitrust laws. This chapter shows, however, that left-leaning industrial unions from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century repeatedly and insistently used the language of antimonopoly to argue that private concentrations of economic power posed a grave threat to workers and to democracy. But labor’s vision …

Rolling Back Transparency In China's Courts, Benjamin L. Liebman, Rachel E. Stern, Xiaohan Wu, Margaret Roberts

Faculty Scholarship

Despite a burgeoning conversation about the centrality of information management to governments, scholars are only just beginning to address the role of legal information in sustaining authoritarian rule. This Essay presents a case study showing how legal information can be manipulated: through the deletion of previously published cases from China’s online public database of court decisions. Using our own dataset of all 42 million cases made public in China between January 1, 2014, and September 2, 2018, we examine the recent deletion of criminal cases from the China Judgements Online website. We find that the deletion of cases likely results …

Our Avatars, Ourselves, Mala Chatterjee

Faculty Scholarship

On 2013 an episode of the British TV show Black Minvrimagined a harrowing possibility: that technology might allow us to recreate the dead. A young woman named Martha loses her partner in a sudden accident and copes with the loss-or perhaps refuses to cope with itwith the assistance of an unnerving artificial intelligence, trained on her partner's data footprint, that can speak, act, and appear exactly as he did. It's not long before Martha becomes obsessed with the emulation, gathering every remnant of her partner's life to incorporate into the model and spending hours on the phone conversing with his …

States Of Emergency: Covid-19 And Separation Of Powers In The States, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

No event in recent years has shone a brighter spotlight on state separation of powers than the COVID-19 pandemic. Over a more than two-year period, governors exercised unprecedented authority through suspending laws and regulations, limiting business activities and gatherings, restricting individual movement, and imposing public health requirements. Many state legislatures endorsed these measures or were content to let governors take the lead, but in some states the legislature pushed back, particularly — albeit not only—where the governor and legislative majorities were of different political parties. Some of these conflicts wound up in state supreme courts.

This Essay examines the states’ …

Law As Persuasion, Bert I. Huang

Faculty Scholarship

When does the law persuade us about what is right or wrong – and when does it not? On topics ranging from racial equality to abortion to same-sex marriage, historians have debated and puzzled over the law’s persuasive force on our collective moral intuitions. Meanwhile, other scholars have sought out individual-level insights into the psychology of law’s persuasion, under the microscope of controlled experiments.

This chapter presents evidence of the law’s influence on our moral intuitions in a survey experiment based on a classic dilemma known as the “trolley problem,” in which someone must make a choice about whether to …

Predictors Of Bullying Behaviors Among Adolescents In Saudi Arabia: The Role Of Self-Esteem, Emotional Intelligence And Moral Disengagement, Ayat Hamzah

Dissertations

Problem

Bullying issues are increasing among school-age children worldwide. Children and adolescents involved in bullying as victims, perpetrators, or both are likely to experience negative consequences on their emotional, social, and academic levels (Espelage & Holt, 2001). In spite of the increasing research on bullying in Saudi Arabia, there exists gaps in the literature, especially in the role of individual traits (self-esteem, emotional intelligence) and cognitive processes (moral disengagement) on bullying behavior. Additionally, using modeling analysis to understand the predictive factors affecting bullying involvement processes also filled in some of the gaps in the literature. The current study investigated the …

An Exploration Of Factors Contributing To Service Longevity At Asia-Pacific International University, Ritha Maidom

Dissertations

Problem

In educational institutions of higher learning, turnover is seen as a double-edged sword that brings both benefits and problems. While turnover allows the opportunity to bring in a new employee who may be able to benefit the institution more than the one being replaced, the process of finding a replacement tends to be costly in terms of time, energy, and financial resources. As a young institution, Asia-Pacific International University (AIU) found turnovers challenging in more than one way because of its lack of stability in areas such as finance and human power. It could benefit from a clearer understanding …