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A longitudinal study on the professional identity formation of health promotion practitioners : evidence from undergraduate students in Switzerland
No full textIntroduction: Professional identity (PI) is crucial for workforce capacity building, as it leads to the adoption of the professional role and commitment. And yet, there is little literature on the PI of health promotion practitioners as part of the public health workforce. Education plays a significant role in PI formation. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate PI formation in undergraduate health promotion students. To conceptualize PI, we draw on social psychological theories and consider potential determinants across cognitive, social, motivational, and behavioral dimensions.
Methods: To gain insights into the PI formation of health promotion students, an observational longitudinal study was conducted using an online survey at three times of measurement. Undergraduate physiotherapy students served as the comparison group. The outcome variable of PI was calculated as a composite score with three subscales. In addition to sociodemographic data, potential determinants in cognitive, social, motivational, and behavioral dimensions were measured. Mixed effect models were used to analyze these determinants of PI formation.
Results: The study included 276 participants. On average, PI in health promotion students was moderate and declined over the course of the undergraduate program. In contrast, PI in physiotherapy students was high from the beginning and remained stable throughout their studies. Factors such as gender, self-esteem, insecurity about the study program, the perceived social status of the profession, and planned behavior during and after the program were found to influence health promotion students’ PI formation.
Discussion: Undergraduate health promotion students lack a strong PI, especially compared to physiotherapy students. Given the importance of a strong PI, the following interventions are suggested to strengthen health promotion students’ PI: (1) incorporating PI formation as a learning objective within curricula, and (2) enhancing the visibility and clarity of health promotion’s professional profile within undergraduate studies and in society. By recognizing the factors that shape PI and implementing targeted interventions, stakeholders can empower the next generation of health promotion practitioners to navigate their professional journeys with confidence and purpose, thereby strengthening workforce capacity building in health promotion.publishe
Do Political Leaders Understand Public Opinion Better than Backbenchers?
No full textHow elected representatives think about public opinion affects the degree to which policies are congruent with the public’s policy preferences. This is especially true for politicians occupying leadership positions, their perceptions matter even more. Extant work concluded that politicians in general do not exhibit a high perceptual accuracy, but direct evidence of the relative accuracy of leaders’ perceptions of public opinion is missing. Drawing on surveys among politicians and citizens in four countries, this study examines the accuracy of the public opinion perceptions of leaders and backbenchers. Irrespective of how leadership is defined and operationalized – executive or party leadership, formal or informal leadership, current or past leadership – we find low perceptual accuracy levels among leading politicians. Compared to backbenchers, and although politicians themselves consider leaders to have a special nose for public opinion, leading politicians do not possess a special public opinion rating skill.publishe
The ecological and social drivers of cooperation : Experimental field studies in a group-living bird
No full textpublishe
On the Sidelines? : The Relationship Between Perceptions of Inequality and Political Participation
No full textThis policy paper explores the relationship between perceptions of political efficacy and economic inequality. The latest findings from the Konstanz Inequality Barometer show that many people feel they have little influence on political decision-making and perceive political institutions as being unresponsive to their needs. As a result, they feel politically sidelined. The
study identifies clear statistical correlations between perceptions of political efficacy and economic inequality. The paper concludes with concrete policy recommendations for (re)strengthening political participation.publishe
Molecular Structure – Biodegradation Relationships of Long-Chain Polyesters
No full textLong-chain aliphatic polyesters are known to have properties akin to industrially relevant materials like HDPE or LDPE. Their ester bonds enable chain cleavage at mild conditions to facilitate, e.g., recycling, whereas their hydrocarbon chains dominate the material properties and result in a hydrophobic material. Polyesters derived from linear monomers exhibit a high crystallinity and melting point.
So far, linear, long-chain aliphatic polyesters are mostly known to be exceptionally stable under aqueous conditions and their (bio-)degradation is a little studied subject. Nonetheless, there is a growing interest in the development of biodegradable polyethylene-like materials, particularly considering the widespread use of PE in applications such as mulch films , which often remain in the environment post-use. Even if polymers are not intentionally introduced into the environment, mismanagement of waste often leads to release of plastics into, e.g., marine ecosystems. A low density of ester bonds as predetermined breaking points in these polymers could facilitate hydrolytic degradation and thus provide a universal backstop to plastic accumulation in the environment.
In the first part of this work, an in-depth examination and quantification of the parameters influencing the degradation or deconstruction of long-chain aliphatic polyesters is carried out (chapter 3). Therefore, a sensitive method for detecting even small degradation rates, specially tailored for long-chain polyesters, needs to be established beyond methods used so far like SEC or mass loss measurements. In a first step, the conditions required to degrade the well-established PE-like polyester PE 18,18 is explored, which has been known for its exceptional stability. Subsequently, the influence of a change in the microstructure of long-chain polyesters on their degradability is investigated. Especially the differences in degradability of long-long and short-long polyesters are determined and the influence of their exact monomer composition. In a last step, the crystallinity of PE-like polyesters is tailored by copolymerization of a linear long-chain diacid and diol with a branched, long-chain monomer derived from dimer fatty acids. The influence of the reduced crystallinity on the degradability is studied. All investigated polyesters should retain a PE-like crystal structure and hydrophobic character dominated by aliphatic chains to ensure comparability between the materials and enable the isolation of individual parameters’ contribution. Base and solutions of naturally occurring enzymes are used as hydrolysis media. These experiments should provide guidelines for the design of circular materials with regard to their (enzymatic) recycling as well as their hydrolytic stability or non-persistency.
These guidelines are applied in the following chapter 4 for the development of rubbers on polyester basis. While rubbers offer a unique combination of stability and flexibility, their hydrocarbon nature and chemical crosslinking impedes mechanical and chemical recycling and significantly retards biodegradation. Fully amorphous, unsaturated polyesters consisting of saturated and unsaturated monomers are prepared and their sulfur vulcanization to elastic rubbers is investigated. The ester bonds are utilized for solvolysis reactions to enable deconstruction of these rubbers and the chemical recycling of the saturated monomers. Further, the hydrolytic stability of these materials and their biodegradability is analyzed using 13C labelled monomers.
In the last part of this work (chapter 5), long-chain aliphatic polyanhydrides are introduced into a PE-like material to investigate its properties and probe for their potential to accelerate its’ hydrolytic degradation. Polyanhydrides are accessible via a simple one-pot polycondensation and are characterized by a labile anhydride bond already hydrolyzing with atmospheric moisture to the respective diacids. Acids released in a polyester matrix upon exposure to a trigger like water can even enable the hydrolysis of otherwise inert polyesters. Blends of polyesters and polyanhydrides as well as polyester-anhydride copolymers are characterized and their hydrolytic degradation is determined under environmentally relevant conditions.publishe
Examining co-offending and re-offending across crime categories using relational hyperevent models
No full textResearch on co-offending has become increasingly popular across the last two decades of criminological research. In this paper, we focus on three key variables and their relationship with co-offending. First, we examine age and sex homophily effects. Second, we examine the differential effects of prior solo offending and prior group offending on the future arrest rate (overall and separately for different crime categories). Third, we examine whether there are age and sex effects and age/sex homophily effects on arrest rates (overall and across crime categories) and on propensities to be arrested again in future. Results suggest that individuals who committed group crimes in the past are more versatile in future criminal activities. Market crimes appear to require the highest level of specialisation among the four types of crimes in the sense that those who committed market crimes in the past commit market crimes in future and tend not to commit subsequent novel types of crimes. Individuals who committed crimes other than market crimes in the past tend not to engage in market crimes in the future. When co-offending groups are more heterogeneous with respect to age or sex, the effect of past arrest on propensity for future arrest is stronger. We draw implications for policy and practice based on the results of the study.publishe
Foundations for a green economy : how institutions shape green skills
No full textPolicymakers, companies, trade unions, and civil society actors increasingly recognize the urgent need to facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy. This Perspective highlights the critical role of “green skills” in this transition. Our article identifies avenues for future research, grounded in the institutional foundations of skill formation processes. We emphasize the global nature of this challenge and the diverse institutional contexts in which green skills must be developed.publishe
Are ideological and partisan affinities determining voters’ support of arms deliveries? : Insights from a large-scale survey experiment in France and Germany
No full textThe 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine raised for many parties the question of how to position themselves in view of urgently requested arms deliveries. Since, the topic of arms trade, which has hitherto rarely been addressed, has become a heavily politicized and divisive issue and partly even polarized public opinion. A major prerequisite for parties’ position-taking is to anticipate how voters react to such arms transfers and, more specifically, whether their respective attitudes are structured along the predominant left-right axis. Based on a large-scale survey experiment with French and German voters (N = 6617) in the year before the Russian invasion, we are able to focus on the relationship between ideological predispositions, vote intentions, and issue attitudes in a non-politicized period. Using both vignette and conjoint experiments, we demonstrate that voters’ attitudes on military transfers can be subsumed remarkably well under the left-right scale. Differentiating the impact of normative and economic considerations, the former is stronger among the left, while the latter also affects the attitudes of rightist citizens. However, normative considerations are the most important concern along the whole political spectrum. The turn of the German Green Party in 2022 to assist countries that are being aggressively attacked (because of the Responsibility to Protect), was not reflected in our data.publishe
Competing ordinary and Hanle magnetoresistance in Pt and Ti thin films
No full textOne of the key elements in spintronics research is the spin Hall effect, allowing to generate spin currents from charge currents. A large spin Hall effect is observed in materials with strong spin-orbit coupling, e.g., Pt. Recent research suggests the existence of an orbital Hall effect, the orbital analog to the spin Hall effect, which also arises in weakly spin-orbit-coupled materials like Ti, Mn, or Cr. In Pt both effects are predicted to coexist. In any of these materials, a magnetic field perpendicular to the spin or orbital accumulation leads to additional Hanle dephasing and thereby the Hanle magnetoresistance (MR). To reveal the MR behavior of a material with both spin and orbital Hall effect, we first study the MR of Pt thin films over a wide range of thicknesses. Careful evaluation shows that the MR of our textured samples is dominated by the ordinary MR rather than by the Hanle effect. We analyze the intrinsic properties of Pt films deposited by different groups and show that next to the resistivity also the structural properties of the film influence which MR dominates. We further show that this correlation can be found in both spin Hall active materials like Pt and orbital Hall active materials, like Ti. For both materials, we find a large Hanle MR for the samples without apparent structural order, whereas the ordinary MR dominates in the crystalline samples. We then provide a set of rules to distinguish between the ordinary and the Hanle MR. We suggest that in all materials with a spin or orbital Hall effect the Hanle MR and the ordinary MR coexist and the purity, crystallinity, and electronic structure of the thin film determine the dominating effect.publishe
