Conscious Communication, or Corporate Social Responsibility Communication, which is the communication about corporate engagement and activities, has received growing attention. This study analyzes...

The present two-study paper examined the role of communication strategies that athletes use to develop their coach-athlete relationship. Study 1 examined the mediating role of motivation, support and conflict management strategies between the quality of the coach-athlete relationship and athletes’ perceptions of sport satisfaction. Study 2 examined the longitudinal and mediational associations of communication strategies and relationship quality across two time points, over a six-week period. Within both studies, data were collected through multi section questionnaires assessing the studies’ variables. For (...) study 1, structural equation modelling highlighted significant indirect effects for motivation and support strategies between the quality of the coach-athlete relationship and athletes’ experiences of sport satisfaction. For study 2, significant indirect effects were found for the athletes’ perceptions of the quality of the coach-athlete relationship at time 2 between athletes’ use of communication strategies at time point 1 and time point 2. Together these findings provide support for the practical utility of communications strategies in enhancing the quality of the coach-athlete relationship and athlete’s experiences of sport satisfaction. In addition, the findings provide evidence to highlight the potential cyclical relationship between communication and relationship quality across time. (shrink)

This article is concerned with developing a philosophical approach to a number of significant changes to academic publishing, and specifically the global journal knowledge system wrought by a range of new digital technologies that herald the third age of the journal as an electronic, interactive and mixed-media form of scientific communication. The paper emerges from an Editors' Collective, a small New Zealand-based organisation comprised of editors and reviewers of academic journals mostly in the fields of education and philosophy. The paper (...) is the result of a collective writing process. (shrink)

Due to the societal dissemination of digital technology, people are increasingly experiencing environmental topics through digital media channels such as social networks. Several researchers therefore have proposed these channels as a possibility to strengthen sustainable development based on their cost-efficient nature. But while prior studies have investigated isolated factors for understanding environmental social media behavior, there is still scarce understanding of the relevant underlying motivational factors and possible connections with more traditional environmental behaviors. Therefore, the present study applied the established (...) socio-psychological model of goal-directed behavior (MGB) and compared the desires for liking as a fundamental form of digital social media behavior with the desires for two traditional environmental behaviors (money donation and volunteering) in a cross-sectional research design. Within the biodiversity conservation case of the Andean bear (Tremarctos ornatus) in Ecuador, we compared the antecedents for the desires for the corresponding environmental behaviors (RQ1) as well as their connections between each other (RQ2). Within a sample of 407 Ecuadorian students (Mage = 20.94 years, SD = 2.25, 61.2 % female), we found the marginal effect of perceived behavioral control on the desires for liking on social media as the main difference concerning the antecedents of the behaviors because money donation and volunteering largely depended on personal resources such as time or money. Furthermore, gender emerged as the second main difference between the behaviors due to it only being predictive for the liking motivation. Enjoyment was the only variable that coherently predicted all three behaviors. Finally, desires for liking on social media predicted both other behaviors in robust regression analyses, but were only predictive for volunteering in corresponding path models. The results illustrate how cost-efficient digital environmental behaviors such as liking may be suitable for sparking low-level environmental action, which may entail more pronounced forms of environmental activism, at least when they involve feasible personal costs. Overall, the findings are in line with prior research regarding the less demanding nature of liking, but further elaborate on the importance of gender for digital environmental behavior and correlates between digital and classical environmental behaviors. (shrink)

Conservation can occur anywhere regardless of scale, political jurisdiction, or landownership. We present a framework to help managers at protected areas practice conservation at the scale of relationships. We focus on relationships between stakeholders and protected areas and between managers and other stakeholders. We provide a synthesis of key natural resources literature and present a case example to support our premise and recommendations. The purpose is 4-fold: 1) discuss challenges and threats to conservation and protected areas; 2) outline a relationship-scale (...) approach to address conservation threats; 3) describe the tools and techniques that can be used to implement this approach; and 4) present a case example from rural Alaska, USA, to illustrate relationship-scale conservation. Our case example illustrates how aspects of this approach to conservation were applied to address a wildlife population decline. Tools needed to implement relationship-scale conservation include 1) collecting and documenting narratives of place; 2) measuring and monitoring trust and commitment; and 3) identifying and mitigating threats. We recommend that planners and managers, working with their research partners, redefine and refocus their goals and objectives to include these practices. Doing so will enable them to gain substantial applied knowledge about their stakeholders and foster and maintain place relationships as desired outcomes of conservation. The ultimate outcome is a better prognosis for long-term global survival of protected areas and biodiversity. Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. (shrink)

As we experience and manipulate time—be it as boredom or impatience—it becomes an object: something materialized and social, something that affects perception, or something that may motivate reconsideration and change. The editors and contributors to this important new book, _Ethnographies of Youth and Temporality, _have provided a diverse collection of ethnographic studies and theoretical explorations of youth experiencing time in a variety of contemporary socio-cultural settings. The essays in this volume focus on time as an external and often troubling factor (...) in young people’s lives, and shows how emotional unrest and violence but also creativity and hope are responses to troubling times. The chapters discuss notions of time and its and its “objectification” in diverse locales including the Georgian Republic, Brazil, Denmark and Uganda. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, the essays in _Ethnographies of Youth and Temporality_ use youth as a prism to understand time and its subjective experience. In the series _Global Youth_, edited by Craig Jeffrey and Jane Dyson. (shrink)

BackgroundThe need for an ethical debate about the use of coercion in intensive care units (ICU) may not be as obvious as in other areas of medicine, such as psychiatry. Coercive measures are often necessary to treat critically ill patients in the ICU. It is nevertheless important to keep these measures to a minimum in order to respect the dignity of patients and the cohesion of the clinical team. A deeper understanding of what patients and their relatives perceive during their (...) ICU stay will shed different light on intensive care management. Patients' experiences of loss of control, dependency and abandonment may lead to a new approach towards a broader approach to the concept of coercion in intensive care. The aim of our research is to explore the experiences of patients and relatives in the ICU and to determine when it might be possible to reduce feelings and memories of coercion.MethodsWe conducted and analysed 29 semi-structured interviews with patients and relatives who had been in the ICU a few months previously. Following a coding and categorisation process in MAXQDA™, a rigorous qualitative methodology was used to identify themes relevant to our research.ResultsFive main themes emerged: memory issues; interviewees’ experiences of restricting measures and coercive treatment; patients’ negative perception of situational and relational dependency with the risk of informal coercion; patients’ perceptions of good care in a context of perceived dependency; progression from perception of coercion and dependency to respect for the person. All patients were grateful to have survived. However, coercion in the form of restraint, restriction of movement, and coercive treatment in the ICU was also acknowledged by patients and relatives. These included elements of informal coercion beyond restraints, such as a perceived negative sense of dependence, surrender, and asymmetrical interaction between the patient and health providers.ConclusionsTo capture the full range of patients' experiences of coercion, it is necessary to expand the concept of coercion to include less obvious forms of informal coercion that may occur in dependency situations. This will help identify solutions to avoid or reduce negative recollections that may persist long after discharge and negatively affect the patients' quality of life. (shrink)

Human–robot interactions are often affected by error situations that are caused by either the robot or the human. Therefore, robots would profit from the ability to recognize when error situations occur. We investigated the verbal and non-verbal social signals that humans show when error situations occur in human–robot interaction experiments. For that, we analyzed 201 videos of five human–robot interaction user studies with varying tasks from four independent projects. The analysis shows that there are two types of error situations: social (...) norm violations and technical failures. Social norm violations are situations in which the robot does not adhere to the underlying social script of the interaction. Technical failures are caused by technical shortcomings of the robot. The results of the video analysis show that the study participants use many head movements and very few gestures, but they often smile, when in an error situation with the robot. The results suggest that participants do not see the robot as a social interaction partner with comparable communication skills. Our findings have implications for builders and evaluators of human–robot interaction systems. The builders need to consider including modules for recognition and classification of head movements to the robot input channels. The evaluators need to make sure that the presence of an experimenter does not skew the results of their user studies. (shrink)

ObjectiveBreast cancer may profoundly affect a couple’s sex life. The present study examines whether patient-, partner- and relationship-related characteristics are associated with sexual activity of couples following breast cancer diagnosis in the treatment phase and over time.MethodsWomen with breast cancer and their male cohabiting partners participated in a longitudinal study in Denmark. Logistic regression was used to examine associations of patient-, partner- and relationship-related characteristics at baseline with couples’ sexual activity at baseline, 5 and 12 months later. The longitudinal analyses (...) were stratified for couples’ sexual activity status at baseline.ResultsA total of 722, 533 and 471 couples were included in the analyses at baseline, 5- and 12-months follow-up, respectively. Older age, depressive symptoms and lower vitality of patients were associated with lower odds of couples’ sexual activity at baseline; chemotherapy treatment and older age of patients were associated with lower odds at 5-months follow-up in couples who were not sexually active at baseline. Higher ratings of emotional closeness, affectionate behavior and satisfaction with dyadic coping were associated with higher odds for sexual activity at baseline and over time in couples who were sexually active at baseline.ConclusionSexual counseling during cancer treatment and rehabilitation should include a couple perspective. Relationship-related variables may be a protective factor for remaining sexually active after breast cancer diagnosis. Interventions could focus on strengthening these factors. Health professionals also need to consider the patients’ breast cancer treatment, vitality, and emotional distress in counselling on sexuality. (shrink)

Scholarship flourishes in inclusive environments where open deliberations and generative feedback expand both individual and collective thinking. Many researchers, however, have limited access to such settings, and most conventional academic conferences fall short of promises to provide them. We have written this Field Report to share our methods for cultivating a vibrant intellectual community within the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN). This is paired with insights from 21 network members on aspects that have allowed STSFAN to (...) thrive, even amid a global pandemic. Our hope is that these insights will encourage others to cultivate their own intellectual communities, where they too can receive the support they need to deepen their scholarship and strengthen their intellectual relationships. (shrink)

Sounding Fragilities enacts a polyphony of writing on contemporary composition, music and performing arts in relation to music theatre. Co-edited by a theatre and performance scholar and by a composer and artistic researcher, this anthology considers its field of investigation through the lens of positionalities. Irene Lehmann and Pia Palme invite readers into intimate encounters with an artist's practice, feminist and queer perspectives, and personal explorations into aspects of musicology, theatre studies, technology and ecology. By presenting female* composers who write (...) with/through/about their own practice, Sounding Fragilities is a remarkable contribution to an interdisciplinary debate around the agency of artistic research. With this synthesis, the editors evaluate how moving beyond the binary of art and science reveals the rich yet fragile territories of artistic knowledge-production and literacy in music theatre. Sounding Fragilities: An Anthology brings together essays, discussions and interventions on contemporary music, dance and music theatre to offer a polyphony of new approaches to listening, watching, composing and performing. Artistic and academic researchers present reflections and insights into the fragilities of artistic materials, collaborations and the communities that build around live performances. Challenging the idea of isolated composers, choreographers, audience members and academic researchers, they stress instead the interconnectedness of these positions as indispensable elements of thriving performance and research. This feature of all live performance is envisaged by several of the book's contributors as linked to political, democratic thought and ecological or feminist thinking. (shrink)

Cofactor squelching is the term used to describe competition between transcription factors (TFs) for a limited amount of cofactors in a cell with the functional consequence that TFs in a given cell interfere with the activity of each other. Since cofactor squelching was proposed based primarily on reporter assays some 30 years ago, it has remained controversial, and the idea that it could be a physiologically relevant mechanism for transcriptional repression has not received much support. However, recent genome‐wide studies have (...) demonstrated that signal‐dependent TFs are very often absent from the enhancers that are acutely repressed by those signals, which is consistent with an indirect mechanism of repression such as squelching. Here we review these recent studies in the light of the classical studies of cofactor squelching, and we discuss how TF cooperativity in so‐called hotspots and super‐enhancers may sensitize these to cofactor squelching. (shrink)

We analyzed the association between the analog and the digital home learning environment in toddlers’ and preschoolers’ homes, and whether both aspects are associated with children’s social and academic competencies. Here, we used data of the national representative sample of Growing up in Germany II, which includes 4,914 children aged 0–5 years. The HLE was assessed via parental survey that included items on the analog HLE and items on the digital HLE. Children’s socio-emotional, practical life skills, and academic competencies were (...) assessed via standardized parental ratings. Our results indicate that there are two dimensions of the HLE, an analog and a digital, that are slightly positively associated, especially in the toddler age group. For toddlers, only analog HLE activities were associated with better socio-emotional outcomes and practical life skills. However, interaction effects indicate that toddlers with less frequent analog HLE activities showed better socio-emotional skills in households with more frequent digital activities. For preschoolers, digital HLE activities were associated with weaker socio-emotional skills but higher academic skills, although the analog HLE shows higher effect sizes for the academic outcomes. Our study points out that analog and digital HLE activities seem to be partly associated, but not interchangeable. Further, they seem to be important variables that can explain individual differences in young children’s socio-emotional, practical life, and academic competencies. However, digital media usage at home may also have negative effects on children’s social–emotional competencies. This association needs to be investigated further. (shrink)

The tenascins are a growing family of extracellular matrix proteins of typical multidomain structure. The prototype to be discovered was tenascin‐C. It shows a highly regulated expression pattern during embryonic development and is often transiently associated with morphogenetic tissue interactions during organogenesis. In the adult organism reexpression of tenascin‐C occurs in tumors and many other pathological conditions. Tenascin‐C expression can be regulated by many different growth factors and hormones. Furthermore, mechanical strain exerted by fibroblasts seems to induce the expression of (...) tenascin‐C. This could represent a mechanism of translating mechanical forces into protein patterns, a step of potential relevance in the organization of embryogenesis. Tenascin‐C as well as tenascin‐R are believed to counteract the cell adhesion and spreading activity of fibronectin, thereby facilitating cell movement. (shrink)

Orientation towards application, transdisciplinarity and social distribution are prominent ideas when policy prescribes how to conduct research on complex, real-world issues. Issues dealt with in a...

Number processing abilities are important for academic and personal development. The course of initial specialization of ventral occipito-temporal cortex sensitivity to visual number processing is crucial for the acquisition of numeric and arithmetic skills. We examined the visual N1, the electrophysiological correlate of vOTC activation across five time points in kindergarten, middle and end of first grade, second grade, and fifth grade. A combination of cross-sectional and longitudinal EEG data of a total of 62 children at varying familial risk for (...) dyslexia were available to form groups of 23, 22, 27, 27, and 42 participants for each of the five time points. The children performed a target detection task which included visual presentation of single digits, false fonts, and letters to derive measures for coarse and fine digit sensitive processing across development. The N1 amplitude analyses indicated coarse and fine sensitivity characterized by a stronger N1 to digits than false fonts across all five time points, and stronger N1 to digits than letters at all but the second time point. In addition, lower arithmetic skills were associated with stronger coarse N1 digit sensitivity over the left hemisphere in second grade, possibly reflecting allocation of more attentional resources or stronger reliance on the verbal system in children with poorer arithmetic skills. To summarize, our results show persistent visual N1 sensitivity to digits that is already present early on in pre-school and remains stable until fifth grade. This pattern of digit sensitivity development clearly differs from the relatively sharp rise and fall of the visual N1 sensitivity to words or letters between kindergarten and middle of elementary school and suggests unique developmental trajectories for visual processing of written characters that are relevant to numeracy and literacy. (shrink)

This comprehensive collection offers a unique look at nursing practice, theory, research and nursing history from various critical theoretical perspectives. It aims to initiate an international discussion among scholars from diverse countries, particularly Germany and Anglo-American countries, coming from distinctive schools of thought, e.g. German Critical theory and Post-structural approaches, and influenced by their respective histories of sciences. This book analyzes and criticizes nursing theory, nursing research and practice along several dimensions: Nursing Ethics, Subjectivity, Body and Flesh (Leib), Technology, Power, (...) History, and Education. (shrink)

Biodiversity is the key indicator of a healthy planet and healthy society. Losses of biodiversity have now become widespread and current rates are potentially catastrophic for species and habitat integrity. Biodiversity, Sustainability and Human Communities advocates both the preservation of the best remaining habitats and the enhancement of new biodiverse habitats to ensure that they cope with human impact, climate change and alien species invasion. The authors argue that these aims can be achieved by a mix of strict protection, inclusive (...) involvement of people inside and adjacent to reserves, and by combining livelihoods and social well-being in all future biodiversity management. Case studies from regions around the world, including Europe, the United States, Latin America and Africa are examined and discussed, and the contributors include political scientists, economists and ecologists. (shrink)

Patients’ experience of symptoms does not follow the body–mind divide that characterizes the classification of disease in the health care system. Therefore, understanding patients in their entirety rather than in parts demands a different theoretical approach. Attempts have been made to formulate such approaches but many of these, such as the biopsychosocial model, are still basically dualistic or methodologically reductionist. In primary care, patients often present with diffuse symptoms, making primary care the ideal environment for understanding patients’ undifferentiated symptoms and (...) disease patterns which could readily fit both bodily and mental categories. In this article we discuss theoretical models that have attempted to overcome this challenge: The psychosomatic approach could be called holistic in the sense of taking an anti-dualistic stance. Primary care theorists have formulated integrative views but these have not gained a foothold in primary care medicine. McWhinney introduced a new metaphor, ‘the body–mind’, and Rudebeck advocated cultivating ‘bodily empathy’. These views have much in common with both phenomenological thinking and mentalization, a psychological concept for understanding others. In the process of understanding patients there is a need for the physician to enter an intersubjectivity that aims at understanding the patient’s experiences and sensations without initially jumping to diagnostic conclusions or into a division into mental and physical phenomena. Mentalization theory could form the basis of an approach to a more comprehensive understanding of patients. The success of such an approach is, however, dependent upon structural and organizational conditions that do not counteract it. (shrink)

This book offers a new account of what it is to act for a normative reason. The first part of the book examines the problems of causal accounts of acting for reasons and suggests to solve them by a dispositional approach. The author argues for a dispositional account which unites epistemic, volitional, and executional dispositions in a complex normative competence. This ‘Normative Competence Account’ allows for more and less reflective ways of acting for normative reasons. The second part of the (...) book clarifies the relation between the normative reason that an agent acts for and his or her motivating reasons. It refutes the widely held ‘identity view’ that acting for a normative reason requires the normative reason to be identical with a motivating reason. The author describes how normative reasons are related to motivating reasons by a relation of correspondence, and proposes a new understanding of how normative reasons explain those actions that are performed for them. Determined by Reasons engages with current debates from a wide range of different philosophical areas, including action theory, metaethics, moral psychology, epistemology, and ontology, to develop a new account of acting for normative reasons. (shrink)

Are epistemic reasons normative in the same sense as, for instance, moral reasons? In this paper I examine and defend the claim that epistemic reasons are normative only relative to an epistemic standard. Unlike moral reasons they are not substantially normative, because they fail to make an independent contribution to obligations or permissions simpliciter. After presenting what I take to be the main argument for this view, I illustrate that the argument has often been defended by examples which controversially presuppose (...) strong epistemic obligations or pragmatic reasons for belief. Opponents of the argument often deny the existence of obligations and reasons of these kinds. I therefore examine whether the argument can withstand that line of critique by employing new examples. (shrink)

Metrics have long served as tools for governing at a distance. In the food industry, major manufacturers have embraced metrics as tools to govern the sustainability of the farms producing their commodity raw materials. This metrical turn has been influenced but also complicated by agricultural datafication, that is, the increasing quantities of data generated on and about farms. Despite the sheer abundance of data that companies might use to measure and drive improvement in on-farm sustainability, they have struggled to collect (...) data suitable for such purposes. Attention to the different kinds of distance and diversity across which metrics are supposed to govern suggests reasons why they may fail to do so, even when wielded by otherwise powerful corporations. (shrink)

Labelling schemes are practical arrangements aimed at making 'ethical' products widely available and visible. They are crucial to expanded development of ethical markets and hence to the addition of moral dimensions to the normally amoral behaviour linking consumers and retail and production businesses. The study reported here attempts to assess the contribution of UK ethical, social and environmental certification and labelling initiatives to 'sustainable' consumption and production. The research sought to assess the overall potential of initiatives to inject human values (...) into the supply-distribution chains, through a qualitative survey of 15 of the 26 main UK initiatives: in social justice, animal welfare and environmental sustainability from the agriculture, food processing, timber, aquaculture, textiles and personal care sectors. By analysing the basic characteristics and concepts of these labels and investigating the emergence of labelling initiatives, we assess whether labels help add an ethical dimension, or whether, in some respects, they also reduce such missions to the technical management of adding only another 'utility' to a product. The analysis assesses whether the gradual 'mainstreaming' of ethical initiatives such as 'Fairtrade' risks subsuming ethical goals within business participants' competitive and profit-oriented logics. However, the contrasting perspectives revealed between rival labelling initiatives show that the scope and functions of labelling projects go beyond the manifest ones of information communication between consumers and producer and actually introduce elements of socio-political regulation. These are essential for more sustainable and ethical business practices and are an integral part of any humanisation of business involvement. (shrink)

On the Value of Love -/- The main purpose of the article is to show by means of an analysis of the development of the different philosophical conceptions of love in the history of philosophy that there is a deep connection between the problems of love and those of values, even this connection is not always been explicitly thematized. Through a discussion of the connection between love and knowledge, love and autonomy, love and mysticism, and the role of romantic love, (...) the author puts the question if love endows the value of the beloved or if, on the contrary, love opens up the mind for values that would remain otherwise hidden for us. The analysis also displays the consequences of the different philosophical conceptions of love for the understanding of the gender problematic and some global problems concerning the meaningfulness of life, human creativity, and the multiple forms of love, including religious love and perception. (shrink)

The book examines the emerging approach of using qualitative methods, such as interviews and field observations, in the philosophy of science. Qualitative methods are gaining popularity among philosophers of science as more and more scholars are resorting to empirical work in their study of scientific practices. At the same time, the results produced through empirical work are quite different from those gained through the kind of introspective conceptual analysis more typical of philosophy. This volume explores the benefits and challenges of (...) an empirical philosophy of science and addresses questions such as: What do philosophers gain from empirical work? How can empirical research help to develop philosophical concepts? How do we integrate philosophical frameworks and empirical research? What constraints do we accept when choosing an empirical approach? What constraints does a pronounced theoretical focus impose on empirical work? Nine experts discuss their thoughts and empirical results in the chapters of this book with the aim of providing readers with an answer to these questions. (shrink)

Der wichtige Ertrag der Existenzphilosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts, die in den Schriften von Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers und Heinrich Barth entfaltet wird, besteht in der Konzeption des Selbst-Seins als Ziel existentiellen Werdens. Susanne Mobuss denkt in dieser Monographie Existenzphilosophie weiter: Damit sich dieses Denken auch weiterhin bewahren und auf aktuelle Probleme anwendbar ist, erweitert sie es um die Darstellung des Selbst in seiner Relation zum Anderen. Hier ruckt der Begriff des Seins in neuem Gewand in den Vordergrund: Nur gemeinsam (...) mit dem Anderen kann Existenz zu gelingendem Sein werden. (shrink)