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Health factors that influence sustainable behaviour in a single-player resource management game
Get PDFEncouraging sustainable use of limited natural, social, and economic resources requires understanding the variety of ways in which people think about how resources work and how they adjust their behaviour (or not) as available resources fluctuate. Previous investigations which have focused on understanding how individuals navigate erodible resources, have tended to use group-based, common pool games. However, such social games make it difficult to disentangle whether resource erosion is linked to difficulty navigating the dynamics of the resource or caused by social factors. Here, in two experiments, we recruited 781 participants to play a single-player resource management game in which individuals were invited to harvest monetary rewards from a fully depletable but stochastically replenishing resource over time. We find that the ability to sustain a resource over successive harvesting opportunities (in order to maximize the total harvested rewards) is reliably worse in individuals reporting elevated psychological distress, the often cooccurring hazardous alcohol use, and elevated rates of delay discounting. The associations between resource outcomes, harmful alcohol use, and psychological distress remained substantial even once we had controlled for elevated discounting rates (as a form of impulsivity and a strong risk factor for these health challenges). By contrast, individuals who reported higher levels of financial literacy and general well-being achieved better resource outcomes. Our observations demonstrate that the capacity to respond effectively to the dynamics of a resource are compromised in individuals at risk of psychological and alcohol-related disorders
Flow-induced Interfacial Deformation Structures (FIDS): Implications for the interpretation of palaeocurrents, flow dynamics and substrate rheology
Get PDF‘When it goes well, it works fantastically’: motivations to train and their impact on the practice of CBT
Get PDFCognitive behavioural therapy training courses recruit individuals from a wide range of professional backgrounds; however, little is known about the motivations of individuals to train in CBT, compared with other therapeutic modalities. Previous research has found that role transition generates multipleintrapersonal conflicts for trainees, therefore it is of interest to better understand the impact of motivational factors on the experience of learning and practising CBT. Forty-three qualified CBT practitioners completed an online questionnaire with the data analysed using a grounded theory approach.A core category of ‘Alignment with CBT’ was drawn from the data, characterised by two distinct groups of therapists – ‘CBT endorsers’ and ‘career enhancers’. A model was developed consisting of universal and group specific factors related to motivation. The findings add to the literature on the impact of therapistcharacteristics on CBT practice. Practical applications of the model for trainers and supervisors are discussed
Melt sensitivity of irreversible retreat of Pine Island Glacier
Get PDFIn recent decades, glaciers in the Amundsen SeaEmbayment in West Antarctica have made the largest con-tribution to mass loss from the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet.Glacier retreat and acceleration have led to concerns aboutthe stability of the region and the effects of future climatechange. Coastal thinning and near-synchronous increases inice flux across neighbouring glaciers suggest that ocean-driven melting is one of the main drivers of mass imbalance.However, the response of individual glaciers to changes inocean conditions varies according to their local geometry.One of the largest and fastest-flowing of these glaciers, PineIsland Glacier (PIG), underwent a retreat from a subglacialridge in the 1940s following a period of unusually warm con-ditions. Despite subsequent cooler periods, the glacier failedto recover back to the ridge and continued retreating to itspresent-day position. Here, we use the ice-flow model Úa toinvestigate the sensitivity of this retreat to changes in basalmelting. We show that a short period of increased basal meltwas sufficient to force the glacier from its stable position onthe ridge and undergo an irreversible retreat to the next to-pographic high. Once high melting begins upstream of theridge, only near-zero melt rates can stop the retreat, indicat-ing a possible hysteresis in the system. Our results suggestthat unstable and irreversible responses to warm anomaliesare possible and can lead to substantial changes in ice fluxover relatively short periods of only a few decade
Variation in coral rubble cryptofauna is scale-dependent and driven by small-scale habitat characteristics
Get PDFMotile cryptofauna living in dead coral rubble represent some of the greatest biodiversity and basal energetic resources on tropical coral reefs. Yet we know relatively little about how and why coral rubble cryptofauna communities change over space and time. As human impacts increase the degradation of living hard corals to dead coral rubble on many reefs worldwide, understanding the communities that will succeed in these degraded environments and the factors paramount to their success becomes increasingly central to coral reef ecology and conservation. Using a remote and uninhabited oceanic atoll in the Pacific Ocean, we quantified the natural spatial variability in motile cryptofauna diversity and community structure in coral rubble across scales (m to km) and tested whether variability at smaller scales could be explained by gradients in microhabitat. We show that coral rubble cryptofauna communities are most variable at intra-site scales (m) rather than inter-site scales (100s m) or between reef zones (km scales). We also show that a substantial amount of variation in cryptofauna density (55%) and phyla-level community structure (31%) is explained by small-scale habitat characteristics, specifically the substrate type below the rubble and the variability in macroalgal cover on individual rubble pieces. Our findings highlight the need to study small-scale processes that are relevant to motile cryptofauna and their community interactions if we are to elucidate the structuring forces of these diverse cryptic assemblages on coral reefs
The longitudinal associations between ambient air pollution exposure and dementia in the UK: results from the cognitive function and ageing study II and Wales
Get PDFBackgroundAir pollution has been recognised as a potential risk factor for dementia. Yet recent epidemiological research shows mixed evidence. The aim of this study is to investigate the longitudinal associations between ambient air pollution exposure and dementia in older people across five urban and rural areas in the UK.MethodsThis study was based on two population-based cohort studies of 11329 people aged ≥ 65 in the Cognitive Function and Ageing Study II (2008–2011) and Wales (2011–2013). An algorithmic diagnosis method was used to identify dementia cases. Annual concentrations of four air pollutants (NO2, O3, PM10, PM2.5) were modelled for the year 2012 and linked via the participants’ postcodes. Multistate modelling was used to examine the effects of exposure to air pollutants on incident dementia incorporating death and adjusting for sociodemographic factors and area deprivation. A random-effect meta-analysis was carried out to summarise results from the current and nine existing cohort studies.ResultsHigher exposure levels of NO2 (HR: 1.04; 95% CI: 0.94, 1.14), O3 (HR: 0.90; 95% CI: 0.70, 1.15), PM10 (HR: 1.17; 95% CI: 0.86, 1.58), PM2.5 (HR: 1.41; 95% CI: 0.71, 2.79) were not strongly associated with dementia in the two UK-based cohorts. Inconsistent directions and strengths of the associations were observed across the two cohorts, five areas, and nine existing studies.ConclusionsIn contrast to the literature, this study did not find clear associations between air pollution and dementia. Future research needs to investigate how methodological and contextual factors can affect evidence in this field and clarity the influence of air pollution exposure on cognitive health over the lifecourse
Business model and ESG pillars: The impacts on banking default risk
Get PDFThe recent banks’ failures have highlighted the importance of improving banking sector supervision, emphasizing the need to adopt a holistic approach to risk assessment based on an evaluation of a bank's business model (BBM) that combines financial (e.g., bank’s balance data) and non-financial information (e.g., bank’s ESG performance). In this study, we explore the joint effect of BBM and their environmental (ENV), social (SOC), and governance (GOV) pillars performance on banks’ riskiness profile. The study uses a sample of 639 EU banks from 2013 to 2022 and applied a random effects model. Our findings suggest wholesale and retail banks could mitigate default risk, enhancing their ENV pillar performance. Differently, investment banks are encouraged to improve their governance best practices and structure to take advantage in terms of riskiness reduction. These results remain consistent after a series ofrobustness tests, including the 2SLS model and the Arellano coefficient estimation. Our paper offers practical implications for banking supervisory authorities and practitioners, encouraging to adopt a diversified ESG investment strategy according to bank-specific business models