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Strategic self-talk assists basketball free throw performance under conditions of physical exertion.
Get PDFThe purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a strategic self-talk intervention on basketball free throw performance under conditions of physical exertion. Forty-one male basketball players (Mage = 23.19 years) participated in the study. Following a baseline assessment, a 3-week intervention was implemented. During this period participants of the two groups practiced the same number of free throws in their training sessions; participants of the experimental group practiced using self-talk and developed personal free throw self-talk plans. In the final assessment, the participants repeated the free throw test following a typical shuttle run task causing increased physical exertion. The results showed that in the final assessment the self-talk group performed significantly better than the control group. Overall, the findings indicate that self-talk can be an effective strategy for basketball players when performing free throw under conditions of physical exertion, which is a typical situation in basketball games. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2022 Galanis, Hatzigeorgiadis, Charachousi, Latinjak, Comoutos and Theodorakis.
An exploration of third-year student midwives’ experiences of high-risk module assessment in preparation for practice and real-world emergencies
Get PDFFive third-year student midwives were interviewed to assess the impact the assessment of obstetric emergencies had on their perceived confidence to manage them correctly in practice. Using purposive sampling and semi-structured interviews, a qualitative descriptive research was conducted. Four themes were identified: OSCE as a form of assessment, Impact of module and assessment, acquisition of knowledge and ways of improving assessment Participants highlighted that assessments act more as an incentive to study and learn and seemed to bear little relevance on their long-term impact on practice confidence. All interviewed students appear to believe that most of their knowledge was acquired through simulation-based learning, lectures, study revision, and clinical encounters of emergencies. Additionally, the assessment undertaken was felt by them not to be comprehensive enough and needed the incorporation of a variety of stations to assess the students' knowledge fully. Recommendations on improvement to assessments to maximise students' confidence and knowledge acquisition have been made
Nursing students’ attitudes on caring for people living with HIV/AIDS in the UK: A cross sectional study
No full textBACKGROUND
Caring for people living with HIV (PLWH) and AIDS is a complex and constantly evolving issue. Despite nursing students have relatively sufficient knowledge on HIV infection they may show negative attitudes in caring for patients affected by HIV (Haroun et al, 2016; Ali, 2020). This may be due to misconceptions about how HIV is transmitted (Sweeney and Vanable, 2016) with consequent fear of contagion (Stavropoulou et al, 2011), and to the effects of negative cultural/religious beliefs associated to those patients (Pickles, King and de Lacey, 2017; Ali, 2020).
Nurse educators have the professional duty to improve students teaching and learning experience by equipping them with the necessary knowledge and clinical skills and by fostering self-awareness on the issues described above. AIM
The aim of this research study was to investigate British nursing students’ attitudes on caring for people with HIV/AIDS, by focusing on the following areas:
• Feelings and emotions about caring for people who live with HIV
• Professional resistance and choices in relation to people living with HIVMETHOD
A cross sectional study was conducted in two British Universities by recruiting undergraduate adult nursing students. Ethical approval was obtained by the Faculty’s Research Ethics Committees of each academic institutions. A convenient sample of 162 students was recruited on a voluntary basis. Participants were asked to answer the AIDS Attitude Scale (AAS) (Bliwise et al, 1991), AAS consists of three components: the contagion, the professional resistance and the negative emotions subscales.FINDINGS
The multiple comparison has highlighted differences between the 1st and 3rd year students in the overall AAS score in all scales. The 1st year students were significantly more negative than 3rd year ones in their total AAS score as they scored higher in all subscales. However, the data did not show any difference between the 1st and 2nd year students and between the 2nd and 3rd year ones. Students aged 20 to 21 scored higher on the negative emotions subscale than others.CONCLUSION
Students’ attitudes toward PLWH were in general positive, and improved after the 1st year of study. Although they reported to be relatively biased towards people affected by HIV/AIDS in out of hospital situations as they stated they would avoid a restaurant where a chef is affected by that condition.
Nursing students will be future healthcare professionals and they should act as positive role models by providing non-judgmental, high quality care to PLWH.
A new multidisciplinary and detailed teaching and learning approach may help in redefining students’ beliefs and attitudes in this area and in limiting the negative impact of misconceptions on the quality of nursing care.
Further investigation in this area would help in shading light on the reasons why students are still biased in approaching HIV/AIDS patients. The use of a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews and/or focus group is recommended
Behavioral couples therapy for brain injury: single case experimental design
No full textObjectives: To explore the outcomes of Behavioral Couples Therapy (BCT) for couples with brain injury.
Background: Brain injury can result in communication, emotional and behavioral disturbances, leading to higher levels of depression, anxiety and relationship distress. Currently, no study has explored the outcomes of BCT in couples impacted by brain injury. Method: Four heterosexual couples living with brain injury were seen at a specialist outpatient service, and attended an average of 13 (range 8 - 25) BCT sessions. Participants with brain injury and their partners completed weekly measures of depression, anxiety, and couple satisfaction throughout baseline, assessment, intervention, and follow-up phases. Data were
visually analyzed, and effects examined using reliable change analysis, and between-phase comparison conducted using Tau-U.
Results: Tau-U analysis demonstrated that both the patient and partner groups experienced significant overall improvement in relationship satisfaction and anxiety. Partners also reported significant reduction in depression scores overall. Reliable change analysis indicated improvement for some individual patients and partners, with effects maintained at follow-up
in some cases.
Conclusions: The results offer promising results regarding the use of BCT for brain injury in increasing relationship satisfaction and reducing psychological distress. Further investigation is warranted
First large‐scale quantification study of DNA preservation in insects from natural history collections using genome‐wide sequencing
Get PDFInsect declines are a global issue with significant ecological and economic ramifications. Yet, we have a poor understanding of the genomic impact these losses can have. Genome-wide data from historical specimens have the potential to provide baselines of population genetic measures to study population change, with natural history collections representing large repositories of such specimens. However, an initial challenge in conducting historical DNA data analyses is to understand how molecular preservation varies between specimens.
Here, we highlight how Next-Generation Sequencing methods developed for studying archaeological samples can be applied to determine DNA preservation from only a single leg taken from entomological museum specimens, some of which are more than a century old. An analysis of genome-wide data from a set of 113 red-tailed bumblebee Bombus lapidarius specimens, from five British museum collections, was used to quantify DNA preservation over time. Additionally, to improve our analysis and further enable future research, we generated a novel assembly of the red-tailed bumblebee genome.
Our approach shows that museum entomological specimens are comprised of short DNA fragments with mean lengths below 100 base pairs (BP), suggesting a rapid and large-scale post-mortem reduction in DNA fragment size. After this initial decline, however, we find a relatively consistent rate of DNA decay in our dataset, and estimate a mean reduction in fragment length of 1.9 bp per decade. The proportion of quality filtered reads mapping to our assembled reference genome was around 50%, and decreased by 1.1% per decade.
We demonstrate that historical insects have significant potential to act as sources of DNA to create valuable genetic baselines. The relatively consistent rate of DNA degradation, both across collections and through time, mean that population-level analyses—for example for conservation or evolutionary studies—are entirely feasible, as long as the degraded nature of DNA is accounted for
The haunting of a modernism conceived differently
Get PDFIn “The Haunting of a Modernism Conceived Differently,” Matthew Bowman reexamines some of Crimp’s groundbreaking essays published in October that established postmodernism as a crucial theoretical concept answerable to recent developments in art and its criticism. He discusses how categorial separations that are thought to be integral to modernism (e.g. medium specificity and teleology) are undercut in Crimp’s proposal of a “modernism conceived differently” that figuratively haunts his theorization of postmodernism. Bowman seeks to recover the relation of postmodernism to this alternative modernism in several examples of Crimp’s influential scholarship. He aims not to treat this other modernism as an intellectual aberration, a failure of argumentative consistency, but rather to spotlight its critical fecundity and its betokening of Crimp’s early interest in deconstruction
The effect of flywheel training on strength and physical capacities in sporting and healthy populations: an umbrella review
Get PDFThe aim of this umbrella review was to provide a detailed summary of how flywheel training enhances strength and physical capacities in healthy and athletic populations. The eleven reviews included were analyzed for methodological quality according to the Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Review 2 (AMSTAR 2) and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) criteria. Two were systematic reviews, six were systematic reviews with meta-analyses and three were narrative reviews. Although the included reviews support use of flywheel training with athletic and healthy populations, the umbrella review highlights disparity in methodological quality and over-reporting of studies (38 studies were included overall). Flywheel post-activation performance enhancement protocols can effectively enhance strength and physical capacities acutely with athletes and healthy populations. All relevant reviews support flywheel training as a valid alternative to traditional resistance training for enhancing muscular strength, power, and jump performance with untrained and trained populations alike. Similarly, reviews included report flywheel training enhances change of direction performance – although conclusions are based on a limited number of investigations. However, the reviews investigating the effect of flywheel training on sprint performance highlight some inconsistency in attained improvements with elite athletes (e.g., soccer players). To optimize training outcomes, it is recommended practitioners individualize (i.e., create inertia-power or inertia-velocity profiles) and periodize flywheel training using the latest guidelines. This umbrella review provides an analysis of the literature’s strengths and limitations, creating a clear scope for future investigations
Assessing the accuracy of distance- and interview-based measures of hunting pressure
Get PDFIn the Amazon Rainforest, the sustainability of hunting is difficult to model. Accurate sustainability models for hunting of mammal populations require a spatially explicit measure of hunting pressure. Because field-based measures of hunting pressure are time and labor-intensive, distance-based proxies for hunting pressure are frequently used. In this study, we tested accuracy of distance-based parameters in predicting measured hunting pressure obtained through interviews for a riverine community in the Peruvian Amazon. We examined the spatial accuracy of the interviews and investigated the minimum requirements for spatial assessment of hunting pressure based on interviews. Results illustrate that hunter-reported animal kill locations were accurate to within a mean of 1 km. Interview effort results showed that approximately 4 months of interviews capturing at least 50% of hunts are necessary to obtain a complete measure of hunting pressure across the landscape. Generalized linear models identified a novel spatially explicit approach that explained 59% of the deviance in measured hunting pressure. Our model was based on distances from locations that are easily obtained through remotely sensed imagery, participatory mapping, and terrain characteristics, highlighting that biologically relevant and spatially explicit estimates of hunting pressure can be obtained without lengthy field-based methods. Hunting pressure across a landscape can be accurately predicted from remote sensing, participatory mapping, and terrain characteristics
Cash-rich firms and carbon emissions
Get PDFWe investigate whether corporate cash holdings affect carbon dioxide emissions. Using a sample of 5,402 firm-years observations from 943 U.S. firms during 2007–2017, we find that carbon emissions are lower in firms with higher corporate cash holdings. The effect of cash holdings on carbon emissions is more pronounced in firms with low leverage and less financial constraints. Our channel analysis further unveils that renewable energy consumption and carbon abatement investment are higher in cash-rich firms, which transmit lower carbon emissions. Our findings are robust to different identification strategies and alternative measures of cash holdings and carbon emissions. Overall, our paper provides novel evidence on the role of corporate cash holdings in mitigating carbon emissions
"Defining and developing ‘enabling’ Open Education Policies in higher education"
Get PDFOpen education (OE) aims at increasing educational access, effectiveness and equity. The 2019 UNESCO Open Educational Resources (OER) Recommendation calls on governments and educational institutions to create enabling policies. Such policies should aim to foster open educational practices in a wide sense, including creation and use of OER. Key elements of OE policies are identified: capacity building; learning accreditation/credit transfer; access and inclusivity; diverse access to knowledge; platform governance; and fostering a culture of openness. OE policies, whether standalone or incorporated into a wider openness policy, should be designed to cohere with other policies addressing open content and practices. This brief seeks to promote the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders in institutional policymaking process via a co-creation approach. Co-creation of policy enables stakeholders’ voices to be heard, supports shared understanding and ownership of policy goals, while also ensuring policy is relevant and fit for local purposes, contexts and communities