Stirling Online Research Repository (RIOXX)
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Embodied practice in a disembodied time: How the COVID‐19 pandemic shaped direct work with children and young people
Get PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions imposed in the UK had a significant impact on social work practice with children and young people. As has been widely reported, practitioners were deprived of multisensory information in their assessments and of opportunities to connect with children. In this article, we consider data from Scotland, created through interviews with practitioners during May 2021, a time of tentative optimism between periods of widespread lockdown. The Scottish policy context offers particular tensions and contrasts through which to understand how practice was impacted by physical distancing measures. Just prior to the beginning of pandemic restrictions, in February 2020, the report of Scotland's Independent Care Review, The Promise, was published and emphasized the importance of love, nurture, and care for children. The Promise encouraged professionals to ‘bring their whole selves to work’ and to relate to families in ways that are natural, and not constrained by ideas of professionalism. The following month, the country was in a national lockdown with strict restrictions on the contact workers could have with families. Drawing on data from practitioners working in this context, we aim to explore how social workers reconceptualized direct work with children during this period
Distance mis-estimations can be reduced with specific shadow locations
Get PDFShadows in physical space are copious, yet the impact of specific shadow placement and their abundance is yet to be determined in virtual environments. This experiment aimed to identify whether a target’s shadow was used as a distance indicator in the presence of binocular distance cues. Six lighting conditions were created and presented in virtual reality for participants to perform a perceptual matching task. The task was repeated in a cluttered and sparse environment, where the number of cast shadows (and their placement) varied. Performance in this task was measured by the directional bias of distance estimates and variability of responses. No significant difference was found between the sparse and cluttered environments, however due to the large amount of variance, one explanation is that some participants utilised the clutter objects as anchors to aid them, while others found them distracting. Under-setting of distances was found in all conditions and environments, as predicted. Having an ambient light source produced the most variable and inaccurate estimates of distance, whereas lighting positioned above the target reduced the mis-estimation of distances perceived
Left-Tail Risk and UK Stock Return Predictability: Underreaction, Overreaction, and Arbitrage Difficulties
Get PDFRecent studies challenge the standard model risk-return trade-off by showing inverse predictive power of firm-specific left-tail risk for future returns (i.e., left-tail momentum). In this work, we investigate the pricing of left-tail risk in UK stocks. Both the portfolio construction approach and Fama-MacBeth regressions reveal the underperformance of stocks with high left-tail risk. We examine alternative channels behind this pricing anomaly, namely, investor underreaction behaviour, continuous overreaction behaviour, and limits to arbitrage. Our findings suggest that the observed underperformance associated with high left-tail risk is largely a manifestation of investor underreaction to bad performance. However, the results also show that the predictable underperformance of high left-tail risk stocks is manifest in past winners. The empirical investigation reveals that, in addition to underreaction, limits to arbitrage interacts with investor high attention levels to explain part of the anomaly. The empirical findings provided here suggest several important implications for practitioners in the equity market
Tobacco, e-cigarette and alcohol content in popular UK soap operas: a content analysis to explore changes in social norms and scene location
Get PDFBackground: Exposure to tobacco and alcohol on-screen promotes use and despite regulations and policies to limit impact, these behaviours remain common. We report a longitudinal analysis of tobacco, e-cigarette and alcohol content in three popular UK television soap operas, to examine changing social norms between 2002 and 2022. Methods: We used one-minute interval coding to measure content in programmes in two one-week periods in three years (2002, 2012 and 2022). Change in the probability of actual and implied use of tobacco, e-cigarette and alcohol over time was examined using logistic regression. Results: We coded 2505 intervals from 78 episodes. Tobacco content occurred in 22% of episodes and significantly decreased from 2002 to 2022 (OR 0.15 95% CI 0.06–0.40). Tobacco use changed over time with decreasing use indoors and increasing use outdoors. No e-cigarette use was identified. Alcohol content was found in 88% of episodes and while it also significantly decreased over time (OR 0.78 95% CI 0.61–0.99) it featured in 20% of broadcast minutes in 2022. Alcohol use in homes increased over time. Conclusion: While tobacco imagery is increasingly rare in these three UK soap operas, alcohol content has remained common. Tightening the UK Ofcom regulations would help to reduce young people’s exposure to these harmful behaviours and their potential influence on social norms now and in the future
Looking beyond the neonatal: what does administrative data tell us about the preschool health and developmental outcomes of children exposed to opioids in utero?
Get PDFBackground The world is facing an opioid epidemic. Children of women who use opioids in pregnancy are difficult to follow-up over long periods using traditional research methods due to the complexity of their lives. Resultingly, we have little robust evidence on their longer-term outcomes. Objective This study aimed to explore the impact of illicit and prescription opioid exposure in pregnancy on preschool health and developmental outcomes. Approach Data identified 6,408 children (born 2009-2019 in Scotland) exposed to opioids through illicit use and/or medication assisted treatment (MAT), alongside a matched control group (n.19,089). Regression models will examine associations between opioid exposure and key outcomes up to age 5, including the Ages and Stages Questionnaire, accidents and injuries, and chronic health conditions such as asthma, controlling for other risk factors (e.g. alcohol use in pregnancy, gestation). Results Early results indicated differences in neonatal outcomes, with poorer outcomes for the illicit opioid/MAT cohort in terms of being born early, having lower birthweight, length and head circumference, and being more likely to be removed from their mother prior hospital discharge. Modelling of preschool outcomes is underway and will be finished in June 2024. Conclusions Having proven that we can identify these children in administrative data, this paper will present cutting-edge data on the impact of exposure to illicit and prescription opioids on preschool outcomes. This will provide robust evidence on these impacts, and highlight where additional support might be required for these children from birth to starting school
Analysing experienced and inexperienced cyclists’ attentional focus and self-regulatory strategies during varying intensities of fixed perceived effort cycling: A mixed method study
Get PDFUsing a think aloud approach during fixed perceived effort exercise is a unique method to explore the decisionmaking processes that guide the self-regulation of perceived effort during endurance-based activity. In a two-part study, authors investigated the attentional focus and self-regulatory strategies associated with: Part A - perceived effort corresponding to (RPEGET) and above gas exchange threshold (RPE+15%GET); Part B - between experienced and inexperienced cyclists during fixed perceived effort cycling tasks. Eighteen (15 male, 3 female) healthy, active individuals completed three visits (visit 1 – ramped incremental test and familiarisation, visit 2 and 3–30-min fixed perceived effort cycling). During which, power output, heart rate, lactate, think aloud, and perceptual markers were taken. Random-intercepts linear mixed-effects models assessed the condition, time, and condition × time interactions on all dependent variables. Power output, heart rate, lactate and instances of internal sensory monitoring (t195 = 2.57, p = .011, β = 0.95 [0.23, 1.68]) and self-regulation (t195 = 4.14, p = .001, β = 1.69 [0.89, 2.49]) were significantly higher in the RPE+15%GET versus RPEGET trial. No significant differences between inexperienced and experienced cyclists for internal sensory monitoring (t196 = − 1.78, p = .095, β = − 1.73 [− 3.64, 0.18]) or self-regulatory thoughts (t196 = − 0.39, p = .699, β = − 1.06 [− 6.32, 4.21]) were noted but there were significant condition × time interactions for internal monitoring (t196 = 2.02, p = .045, β = 0.44 [0.01, 0.87]) and self-regulation (t196 = 3.45, p = .001, β = 0.85 [0.37, 1.33]). Seemingly, experienced athletes associatively attended to internal psychophysiological state and subsequently self-regulate their psychophysiological state at earlier stages of exercise than inexperienced athletes. This is the first study to exhibit the differences in attentional focus and self-regulatory strategies that are activated based on perceived effort intensity and experience level in cyclists
Nostalgia and negotiation: The electronic word-of-mouth and social well-being of older consumers
Get PDFAs older people turn to the internet for consumption and social connection, it is imperative to understand how online consumption behaviors, such as generating and absorbing electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), influence feelings of belonging. This study therefore explores how organic conversations around brands, products, and services influence older consumers' social well-being. A 6-month netnography was conducted in a social media platform geared toward older consumers where eWOM activity was created relating to books, household items, technology, furniture, financial services, clothing, and leisure activities. The findings reveal four types of eWOM-nostalgic, seeking reassurance/advice, providing reassurance/advice, and negotiation, which create experiences of social well-being. This research contributes to the marketing literature by (1) exploring the implications of eWOM on consumer well-being (2) investigating how the social value of eWOM interacts with social well-being, and (3) developing pioneering knowledge of older consumers generating and absorbing eWOM
Conservatism Negatively Predicts Creativity: A Study Across 28 Countries
Get PDFPrevious studies have found a negative relationship between creativity and conservatism. However, as these studies were mostly conducted on samples of homogeneous nationality, the generalizability of the effect across different cultures is unknown. We addressed this gap by conducting a study in 28 countries. Based on the notion that attitudes can be shaped by both environmental and ecological factors, we hypothesized that parasite stress can also affect creativity and thus, its potential effects should be controlled for. The results of multilevel analyses showed that, as expected, conservatism was a significant predictor of lower creativity, adjusting for economic status, age, sex, education level, subjective susceptibility to disease, and country-level parasite stress. In addition, most of the variability in creativity was due to individual rather than country-level variance. Our study provides evidence for a weak but significant negative link between conservatism and creativity at the individual level (β = −0.08, p < .001) and no such effect when country-level conservatism was considered. We present our hypotheses considering previous findings on the behavioral immune system in humans
Interacting impacts of hydrological changes and air temperature warming on lake temperatures highlight the potential for adaptive management
Get PDFGlobally, climate warming is increasing air temperatures and changing river flows, but few studies have explicitly considered the consequences for lake temperatures of these dual effects, or the potential to manage lake inflows to mitigate climate warming impacts. Using a one-dimensional model, we tested the sensitivity of lake temperatures to the separate and interacting effects of changes in air temperature and inflow on a small, short-residence time (annual average ≈ 20 days), temperate lake. Reducing inflow by 70% increased summer lake surface temperatures 1.0–1.2 °C and water column stability by 11–19%, equivalent to the effect of 1.2 °C air temperature warming. Conversely, similar increases in inflow could result in lake summer cooling, sufficient to mitigate 0.75 °C air temperature rise, increasing to more than 1.1 °C if inflow temperature does not rise. We discuss how altering lake inflow volume and temperature could be added to the suite of adaptation measures for lakes
A New Algorithm Using Support Vector Machines to Detect and Monitor Bloom-Forming Pseudo-nitzschia from OLCI Data
Get PDFPseudo-nitzschia spp. blooms are a recurrent problem in many coastal areas globally, imposing some significant threats to the health of humans, ecosystems and the economy. Monitoring programmes have been established, where feasible, to mitigate the impacts caused by Pseudo-nitzschia spp. and other harmful algae blooms. The detection of such blooms from satellite data could really provide timely information on emerging risks but the development of taxa-specific algorithms from available multispectral data is still challenged by coupled optical properties with other taxa and water constituents, availability of ground data and generalisation capabilities of algorithms. Here, we developed a new set of algorithms (PNOI) for the detection and monitoring of Pseudo-nitzschia spp. blooms over the Galician coast (NW Iberian Peninsula) from Sentinel-3 OLCI reflectances using a support vector machine (SVM). Our algorithm was trained and tested with reflectance data from 260 OLCI images and 4607 Pseudo-nitzschia spp. match up data points, of which 2171 were of high quality. The performance of the no bloom/bloom model in the independent test set was robust, showing values of 0.80, 0.72 and 0.79 for the area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity and specificity, respectively. Similar results were obtained by our below detection limit/presence model. We also present different model thresholds based on optimisation of true skill statistic (TSS) and F1-score. PNOI outperforms linear models, while its relationship with in situ chlorophyll-a concentrations is weak, demonstrating a poor correlation with the phytoplankton abundance. We showcase the importance of the PNOI algorithm and OLCI sensor for monitoring the bloom evolution between the weekly ground sampling and during periods of ground data absence, such as due to COVID-19
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