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Peter Warlock: An Old Song [Preface]
No full textPreface for new edition of An Old Song for small orchestra (1917, first published 1923: Chester Music London) by Peter Warlock (1894-1930). The work's gestation and contexts are explored, including the influence of Delius, Bartok and early music, and the derivation of the Scottish folk song on which it was based. Structural analysis, poietic and hermeneutic elements are also provided, plus details surrounding the premiere broadcast (BBC 2LO, 17 September 1925)
One Kilburn: Imagining the Future of Kilburn [Exhibition and workshop]
No full textThe exhibition took place at the Kiln Theatre as part of the One Kilburn: Imagining the Future of Kilburn event. Its main purpose was to display the projects created by students, which centred around the future of Kilburn High Road and the abandoned Community Center at 107 Kingsgate Road and prompt community engagement and discussion.
A community engagement workshop was conducted, fousing of four key questions aimed at exploring significant issues in the area: "What makes Kilburn special?", "What is the vision of Kilburn?", "What can we do now?", and "What can we do in the future?". The workshop gathered valuable feedback from participants, which the students then utilized to inform the development of their projects and that will inform future events for Kilburn La
Reading for pleasure matters: priorities and pedagogies in the post-pandemic landscape
No full textReading for pleasure has long been recognised as an important indicator of pupil academic success with implications for teacher educators in designing Initial Teacher Education course content. This study, situated within a relativist ontology and interpretivist epistemology, explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on reading in primary schools, and considered the potential impact on pupils’ future academic achievement, wellbeing and life chances, given that the teaching and learning of reading have been significantly affected by the pandemic, the associated disruption to school opening in the UK and the subsequent changes to priorities and pedagogies in the post-pandemic landscape.
A mixed-methods approach, falling within the realms of ethnography and phenomenology, was used to collect data from primary teachers and school leaders in several north London boroughs. using online questionnaires and interviews. Content analysis of data from questionnaire responses and interviews suggests that, despite some respondents indicating limited impact on some aspects of reading at some stages of the pandemic, those who did report changes generally felt that the time spent on all aspects of reading decreased during periods of lockdown and increased during periods of reopening, for most pupils. Post-pandemic, teachers and leaders were most concerned about access to texts and attainment, particularly for disadvantaged pupils, with widening gaps in reading fluency and comprehension competing with gaps in other areas of the curriculum for priority in the school timetable. An increased focus on the teaching of the skills of reading in participants’ schools, through rigorous teaching of phonics and comprehension strategies, has led, in some cases, to a somewhat decreased focus on activities associated with reading for pleasure, such as the class story, library visits and time for independent reading and talking about books. This session will suggest strategies for teacher educators working with teachers on the issue of reading for pleasure and its impacts on pupils’ future academic success, wellbeing and life chances
Tracking the reliability of force plate-derived countermovement jump metrics over time in female basketball athletes: a comparison of principal component analysis vs. conventional methods
Get PDFBACKGROUND: Establishing the reliability of countermovement jump (CMJ) metrics over multiple weeks can be important in understanding and tracking changes in jump performance over time. However, a limited number of key performance indicators are generally retained for ease of interpretation. Fortunately, CMJ metrics are often highly correlated, which offers the potential to summarize key jump aspects using principal component analysis
33 (PCA). PURPOSE: The objective of this study was to assess and compare the week-to-week (i.e., week 1 vs. week 2, week 2 vs. week 3, etc.) vs. preseason (i.e., nth-week vs. average of the 7-weeks) reliability of CMJ metrics, relative to principal components (PCs). METHODS: Thirteen varsity female basketball athletes completed 17 weeks of CMJ testing (i.e., off-season (4 weeks), pre-season (7 weeks), and in-season (6 weeks)). The PCA was developed from all data collected, but only results of the pre-season PC scores were examined for reliability purposes. RESULTS: It was
38 found that both methods displayed comparable reliability, such that 11/18 CMJ metrics and 3/6 PCs displayed excellent weekly reliability (ICC≥0.9), while 17/18 of the CMJ metrics and 5/6 of the PCS displayed excellent reliability when assessed longitudinally. PCs 1-4 explained 83% of the variance in the data relating to force measures, braking metrics, jump power measures, and between-limb differences, respectively. CONCLUSION: These findings support the use of PCA in routine longitudinal athletic monitoring, as this technique retains valuable performance information and summarizes distinct aspects of the jump, providing a more holistic assessment of performance and indication of injury susceptibility
The two emergencies of migrant-related policies in Italy during the first wave of COVID-19: the spread of the virus and the workforce shortages
Get PDFItaly was the first European country touched by COVID-19 and one of the most severely affected, with a death toll that overtook China's by mid-March 2020. As a result, lockdown measures aiming to mitigate-and eventually interrupt-the spread of COVID-19 proliferated during the first wave of the pandemic. The vast majority of these concerned the resident population, regardless of their status or country of origin, and mainly involved the closure of public offices and proscrip-tion of private activities with the aim of reducing mobility and social and physical contacts. Only a few concerned the foreign population and arriving irregular migrants. This article analyses migrant-related policy measures taken by the Ital-ian government during the first wave of the pandemic that aimed to prevent infection and reduce the impact of COVID-19 among the population. These measures addressed two emergencies: the spread of COVID-19 that hit the resident population hard, regardless of origin or nationality, and the workforce shortages in some key economic sectors with a high number of irregular migrant workers. The former aimed at containing the spread of the virus (sections 4 and 5) and targeted foreigners already residing in Italy as well as irregular migrants arriving along the Mediterra-nean route; the latter aimed at addressing workforce shortages (section 6) as a result of borders that were closed to external seasonal migration. This article is a contribution to the debate on changes to migration and migrant policy, and how these impacted on migration and foreign populations during the pandemic
The machine psychology of cooperation: can GPT models operationalise prompts for altruism, cooperation, competitiveness and selfishness in economic games?
Get PDFWe investigated the capability of the GPT-3.5 large language model (LLM) to operationalize natural language descriptions of cooperative, competitive, altruistic, and self-interested behavior in two social dilemmas: the repeated Prisoners Dilemma and the one-shot Dictator Game. Using a within-subject experimental design, we used a prompt to describe the task environment using a similar protocol to that used in experimental psychology studies with human subjects. We tested our research question by manipulating the part of our prompt which was used to create a simulated persona with different cooperative and competitive stances. We then assessed the resulting simulacras' level of cooperation in each social dilemma, taking into account the effect of different partner conditions for the repeated game. Our results provide evidence that LLMs can, to some extent, translate natural language descriptions of different cooperative stances into corresponding descriptions of appropriate task behaviour, particularly in the one-shot game. There is some evidence of behaviour resembling conditional reciprocity for the cooperative simulacra in the repeated game, and for the later version of the model there is evidence of altruistic behaviour. Our study has potential implications for using LLM chatbots in task environments that involve cooperation, e.g. using chatbots as mediators and facilitators in public-goods negotiations
Chatbot commerce - how contextual factors affect Chatbot effectiveness
Get PDFThe emergence of Chatbots has attracted many firms to sell their merchandise via chats and bots. Although Chatbots have received tremendous interest, little is understood about how different usage contexts affect Chatbots’ effectiveness in mobile commerce. Due to differences in their nature, not all shopping contexts are suitable for Chatbots. To address this research gap, this study examines how contextual factors (i.e., intrinsic task complexity that embraces shopping task attributes and group shopping environment, and extrinsic task complexity that entails information intensity) affect user perceptions and adoption intentions of Chatbots as recommendation agents in mobile commerce. Applying the lenses of Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) and Common Ground Theory (CGT), we perform an experiment and apply quantitative analytical approaches. The results show that Chatbots are more suitable in the context of one-attribute, information-light, and group-buying tasks, whereas traditional Apps are suitable for multi-attribute, information-intensive, and single-buying scenarios. These findings make important theoretical contributions to the IT adoption literature as well as to CLT and CGT theory by contextualizing the evolving state of Chatbot commerce and providing guidelines for designing better Chatbot user experiences, thereby enhancing user perceptions and adoption intentions
Teaching emotional intelligence for enhancing resilience in journalism
Get PDFThe article outlines an evidence-informed approach for enhancing resilience, one of the key personal resources in labor, and explores the viability of this training for increasing journalists’ ability to manage everyday work-related stressors. The suggested pedagogy is in the form of a microintervention, informed by literature on psychological capital and primary research based on interviews with British journalists. The test of concept is based on 13 workshops carried out with journalism trainees and professionals. The postworkshop survey (n = 80) suggests that the proposed pedagogy has the potential to contribute to development of participants’ resilience as well as their wider psychological capital
The influence of selected managerial quality and board composition variables on the performance of German cooperative banks – an analysis of age, gender, education and experience as well as board size and composition
Get PDFCan the age, education, experience and gender of executive board members, as well as the board size and composition, have an influence on the long-term sustainability of German cooperative banks? Due to declining profit margins, German cooperative banks are facing increasing threats to their future existence. However, the disappearance of cooperative banks from the German banking landscape would have serious consequences, as they fulfil important functions in the German financial and economic system. In particular, their dense branch network enables a large part of the population to participate in payment transactions and they are a key employer in many regions. At the same time, German cooperative banks played an important role in supporting the European banking system during the financial crisis in 2007/2008. The success of these cooperative banks is influenced by those leading them. Due to their strategic and operational tasks, these leaders play a decisive role, as these banks tend to be small in terms of their balance sheet and in international comparison.
This thesis aims to find out how the age, education, experience and gender of the executive board members as well as board size and composition influence the performance and thus the sustainability of German cooperative banks. The findings should make an important contribution to the long-term survival of cooperative banks in Germany.
To establish the influence of these factors, empirical data was collected on manager qualities (age, education, gender and experience), board composition, board size, and the Gross Profit Margin over a 5 and a 10-year period. The data was statistically evaluated with the help of regression analyses.
The results reveal correlations between the age of the executive board members, board size and Gross Profit Margin over periods of 5 and 10 years. As the age of a bank’s executive board increases, the bank’s medium- and long-term performance decreases. Furthermore, a bank’s medium- and long-term performance is worsened by employing more than the two executive board members that are required by law. The descriptive interpretations indicate that banks whose executive board members have no education other than a higher education degree perform worse than other banks over the medium and long term, although no correlations could be established on the basis of the statistical evaluations. Similarly, executive board members who have held more than one previous board position also have a negative impact on the bank’s performance. No correlations were found between the bank’s performance and the gender of the executive board members or the executive board being led by two or more CEOs with equal rights (dual leadership).
The correlations found in this research will serve as a basis for further in-depth investigations. The thesis fills gaps in the literature and contributes to Signalling Theory, Screening Theory, Principal Agent Theory, Upper Echelon Theory and several managerial competencies theories. At the same time, the results provide a basis for formulating practical decision-making criteria for supervisory boards to consider when selecting new executive board members