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A preliminary neuroimaging investigation of the effects of mindfulness training on attention reorienting and amygdala reactivity to emotional faces in adolescent and adult females
Get PDFIntroduction: Adolescence is a time of increased emotional reactivity and improving cognitive control. Mindfulness meditation training may foster adolescents' cognitive control and emotional regulation skills; however little is known about the impact of mindfulness training in adolescents compared to adults. We examined the effect of mindfulness meditation versus a closely matched active control condition (relaxation training) on behavioral and neural measures of cognitive control and emotional reactivity in a small group of adolescents and adults.
Methods: Structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected before and after 8 weeks of training in 26 adolescent (12–14 years) and 17 adult (23–33 years) female participants in the United Kingdom while they completed an
n‐back task with emotional face distractors and an attentional control task. Participants of each group chose a class date/time and the classes were then randomly allocated to mindfulness or relaxation conditions.
Results: Compared to relaxation training, mindfulness training led to an increase in the speed of reorienting attention across age groups. In addition, there was preliminary evidence for reduced amygdala response to emotional face distractors in adolescents after mindfulness training.
Conclusions: An 8‐week mindfulness program showed similar facilitative effects in adolescent and adult females on the reorienting of attention, a skill that is repeatedly practiced during mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness also reduced left amygdala
reactivity to emotional face distractors in adolescents only. Mindfulness meditation practice can therefore have a facilitative effect on female adolescents' attentional control, and possibly attenuate their emotional reactivity
Motivations for attending the FA Women's Super League (WSL) games
Get PDFWomen’s football is an emerging market which is growing fast across the globe and especially in Europe. During the women’s EURO 2022 hosted in England, the tournament welcomed the biggest women’s EURO crowds, and the finals at Wembley recorded
the highest attendance and set a new record not only for a women’s international match in Europe, but also for a women’s or men’s EURO finals match. However, there is little understanding as to why people attend domestic leagues such as the Women’s
Super League (WSL). This report presents the findings from research that looked at the motivations for supports attending the WSL. Drawing on survey research from 306 supporters the analysis showed that six motivational factors explained a significant
proportion of variance in attendance of the WSL matches. These were: an interest in football; interest in the team; vicarious achievement; entertainment value; an interest in a player; and role model. Analysis also revealed that there is a difference in gender, age and attendance frequency when it comes to certain motivational factors
Public spaces, equality, diversity and inclusion: connecting disabled entrepreneurs to urban spaces
Get PDFIn the UK and in many other countries, the lack of support for disabled entrepreneurs is an economic, cultural, and societal issue. This is because while disabled entrepreneurs belong to and contribute to public spaces, there are often barriers to their full engagement in the local economy. Where interaction is well established, such entrepreneurs add to the cultural richness of places, to personal and societal well-being and economically by wealth creation. The goal of the study is to identify what can be done to overcome the marginalisation of disabled entrepreneurs, which leads to increased local equality of opportunity, thereby adding to the diversity of local economies and, thus, to a more inclusive society. However, as the evidence from this study of the geography of specialised networks which support disabled entrepreneurs in the UK shows, the entrepreneurial capacity of public spaces (inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems) for disabled entrepreneurs is better in some places and entirely absent in others. It is this local dimension that has been missing in other studies of disabled entrepreneurs. By focusing on the formal networks that have been established to support disabled entrepreneurs rather than the entrepreneurs themselves, the particular knowledge gap that this paper addresses is the importance of the networks in making those connections and bringing about systemic change in urban spaces. They do this in three ways. They provide access to resources that disabled entrepreneurs need to start and grow a business; in turn, they need to engage with other local public and private sector organisations in order to sustain their own activities, and by their role as advocates on behalf of their members through their leadership, they increase the visibility of disabled entrepreneurs within urban spaces. The contribution to academic literature is to explore the interconnection between the agency of particular organisations to improve inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems and overcome embedded exclusion within urban spaces. Examples from the UK and from the USA provide empirical insights into what can be done
Community-centric climate resilience investing is critical for COP28
No full textThe United Nations launched the Conference of the Parties (COP) in
1992 to tackle climate change. Thirty years later, climate change continues to accelerate, and companies and countries are missing targets or not setting them at all. Inaction is not an option - climate change driven natural disasters will only increase in frequency and severity as the earth’s temperature rises. To make people and the planet better off, global political and business leaders need to move from compliance and short-term thinking to long-term, strategic systems thinking. These stakeholders must focus on resilience and build a bridge between the needs of impacted communities, businesses’ investment strategies and
continuity plans. Key to tackling the complexity within the stakeholder groups is the need to forge the right public-private partnerships with empathy and compassion. We can do a lot without it, but we can never unlock the tremendous potential of proximate leaders that sit within the most marginalized, and therefore vulnerable to climate change, communities without the belief that members of these communities should participate in the cycle of innovation needed to address the existential crises driven by climate change. Governments and communities need businesses to go beyond compliance and business continuity and
to become real partners in tackling the climate crisis. Businesses need a community-centric climate resilience investment framework and better tools to meet global net-zero targets
The scene of love. An aesthetic reading of transference
No full textBook synopsis: Psychosocial studies is a relatively new area without an agreed genealogy or settled shape, while this contributes to its fertility and inclusiveness, it also signals a need for a Major Reference Work that will lay out the parameters of the field, giving readers access to thinking on its formative and constitutive elements, its controversies, achievements and characteristics, and its likely future lines of development. The Palgrave Handbook of Psychosocial Studies aims to offer such a ‘state of the art’ account by (a) reflecting back on texts that have influenced the development of psychosocial studies from a 2020s perspective; (b) exploring current major topics with evaluative reviews; and (c) identifying newly emerging areas of work.
It will appeal to students, scholars and practitioner-researchers in the fields of pychosocial studies, psychoanalysis, sociology, critical psychology, cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, and postcolonial studies
Case study research on innovation systems: paradox, dialectical analysis and resolution
Get PDFThis paper deals with a largely unnoticed methodological paradox concerning the scientific status of case study research on innovation systems (ISs). While case study research constitutes the methodological catalyst to the genesis and establishment of the
ISs approach as one of the most widely used theoretical and policy-relevant perspectives on innovation in the social sciences, many ISs scholars believe that this type of research can not infer causality and generality. To heighten our understanding of, as well as resolve, such an enduring methodological tension, this paper utilises the dialectical method, particularly the analytical triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. It shows that the paradox is attributable to the absence of a compelling antithesis to the deductive thesis, wherein (and grounded in the hypothetico-deductive model of science) case study research on ISs is incapable of drawing causal, generalisable knowledge. In line with a growing number of critical realist studies on innovation, the paper employs the realist mode of scientific explanation known as retroduction as a means by which to articulate the retroductive antithesis, whereby case study research on ISs is necessary to learn about the general aspects of causality, and especially causal mechanisms. The dialectical tension between the two antagonistic theses culminates into an original methodological perspective– the detroductive synthesis, wherein the ability of case study research on ISs to study causality and generality depends mainly upon the model of science that, either explicitly or implicitly, informs the analysis. Overall, the present paper not only resolves the case study paradox but also enables innovation researchers to reimagine and conduct case study research in a stand-alone, paradox-free, causal explanatory and generalisable way. Thought-provoking implications for the peer-review process and innovation policy evaluation are also discussed
Structural basis of substrate progression through the bacterial chaperonin cycle
Get PDFThe bacterial chaperonin GroEL-GroES promotes protein folding through ATP-regulated cycles of substrate protein binding, encapsulation, and release. Here, we have used cryoEM to determine structures of GroEL, GroEL-ADP·BeF3, and GroEL-ADP·AlF3-GroES all complexed with the model substrate Rubisco. Our structures provide a series of snapshots that show how the conformation and interactions of non-native Rubisco change as it proceeds through the GroEL-GroES reaction cycle. We observe specific charged and hydrophobic GroEL residues forming strong initial contacts with non-native Rubisco. Binding of ATP or ADP·BeF3 to GroEL-Rubisco results in the formation of an intermediate GroEL complex displaying striking asymmetry in the ATP/ADP·BeF3-bound ring. In this ring, four GroEL subunits bind Rubisco and the other three are in the GroES-accepting conformation, suggesting how GroEL can recruit GroES without releasing bound substrate. Our cryoEM structures of stalled GroEL-ADP·AlF3-Rubisco-GroES complexes show Rubisco folding intermediates interacting with GroEL-GroES via different sets of residues
Introduction: Historicising the perpetrators of sexual violence: global perspectives from the modern world
No full textThis special issue seeks to re-situate perpetrators at the heart of discussions of sexually coercive behaviour. Acts of sexual aggression are intrinsically connected to historically contingent gender dynamics, as well as by social structures which foster the circumstances for sexual assault. In a wide range of geopolitical contexts, the perpetrators of sexual violence have been protected by ineffective and intrusive police, prosecution and court systems which ultimately place the burden of proof on victims, and by patriarchal social structures in which aggressors are more likely to occupy positions of power which can be exploited with impunity. Our contributors come from varied disciplinary backgrounds, including anthropology, sociology, media studies and history to explore perceptions and characteristics of sexual perpetrators in a range of geographical and cultural contexts. Throughout their work, the term ‘perpetrator’ emerges as both the individual agent of crime as well as the institutions, social structures, and discourses which facilitate and accommodate sexual violence. By recognising the historical contingency of sexual perpetrators, we eschew essentialising worldviews which present sexual harm as natural and immutable
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