Cape Breton University

Commonly used since at least the middle of the 20th century, action research can bridge the gap between science and practice, but within the field of strength and conditioning (S&C), it is a novel research approach. The education and development of S&C practitioners is essential to their understanding of evidence-informed practice and the application of knowledge to improve athletic performance, fitness, and other outcomes, including athlete-centered outcomes, such as well-being. Using a novel, multi-method action research approach, the purpose of this study was to understand S&C stakeholders’ perceived value of learning psychosocial S&C coaching knowledge. In collaboration with the United Kingdom S&C Association (UKSCA), we designed, delivered, and assessed a workshop that included modules on psychological, pedagogical, philosophical, and sociocultural S&C psychosocial coaching competencies. A total of 11 UKSCA participants, including 6 S&C coaches (5 men, 1 woman) and 5 stakeholders (3 men, 2 women), between 38-57 years of age, attended one of the two workshops. Multiple learner-centered activities were completed in the workshop, and then, participants completed data collection methods, including reflection grids and semi-structured interviews. Researchers performed a thematic analysis on the interviews, reflection grids, and field notes that resulted in two overarching themes: participants’ learning and instructional approaches used in the workshop. Participants perceived value from the content and instructional approach used in the workshop, while expressing challenges and recommendations for improvement. This original action research study advances the knowledge about S&C through a novel methodological approach and the education of S&C stakeholders’ psychosocial competencies.

We are co-writing this piece as a phenomenological movement, with Don reflecting on ideas that sprung out of Carolina’s When I Dance My Walk: A Phenomenological Analysis of Habitual Movement in Dance Practices (When I Dance My Walk) published in Phenomenology & Practice in 2017, and with Carolina responding about how these ideas have become new trajectories in her newer work. We offer these thoughts, as a written artefact of a spontaneous discussion, that the two of us had about thinking in movement together. We break an experiential trail to share a moving description of how we practice phenomenology as our own dance, a collective expression of the developmental coolness of being. Carolina Bergonzoni’s paper moved a lot of people to talk, relearn things about dance studies, and to incorporate practices from dance into phenomenological method, while simultaneously engaging with dance as itself a somatic phenomenology. We invite you to help continue that movement by engaging this discussion with your own sense of embodiment, dance and collaborative descriptions of creative practices.

Birch tar is well-documented for its use as an adhesive in the Middle Palaeolithic of Europe, but other uses remain poorly explored. Drawing from recent arguments suggesting multimodal uses of products such as ochre and birch tar, this study tests the antibiotic properties of birch tar produced experimentally with methods reconstructed from Middle Palaeolithic birch tar finds from Europe. Made from the bark of Betula pendula and Betula pubescens, widely documented for the European Late Pleistocene, we produced birch tar samples using an underground pit method, a condensation method, and a modern tin can method. The birch tar samples were tested for antibiotic properties using the modified Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion antibiotic assay. The resulting inhibition zones, ranging from no effect to 10.5 ± 0.7 mm with a mean of 7.5 ± 0.17 mm, indicate a moderate effect against the Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium widely known for its role in wound infections. We further establish that the efficacy of antibiotic properties is not related to the production method, with all methods showing a degree of variation. This supports a coevolutionary relationship between medicinal and technological use and production of birch tar during the Pleistocene. The antibiotic properties documented in this study are consistent with the use of birch tar as a wound dressing and skin ointment in Mi’kmaq communities in Eastern Canada, and the use of birch tar in Saami communities of Lapland. Arguing from an underexplored angle between experimental archaeology and ethnopharmacology, we suggest that similar to the ethnographic examples, a use of birch tar beyond exclusively technological contexts must be considered for the Middle Palaeolithic.

Objective : The purpose of this study was to examine relations of formal volunteering (FV) rates to neuroticism, socioeconomic grade (SEG), trust of neighbors, and racial/ethnic diversity (RED) in 316 local authority districts (LADs) in England to determine the replicability of earlier research on the US states. Method : A national indicator dataset provided the percentage of adults who engaged in FV in each LAD during 2008. LAD neuroticism scores were based on internet responses of 386,375 UK residents to the Big Five Inventory. SEG was based on four occupation grades from the 2011 UK census. RED was based on 2011 UK census data and the premise that maximum diversity occurs when each racial/ethnic group has equal proportions. Based on 2009 to 2015 data, the neighbor trust variable indicates the percent of persons in each LAD who believe they can trust their neighbors. The present research employed correlation and multiple regression strategies. It also evaluated the impacts of spatial autocorrelation. Results : LAD FV rates correlated negatively with neuroticism and RED, and positively with SEG and trust. The most important finding is that the significant negative relation between RED and FV was rendered nonsignificant or was greatly reduced when trust was controlled in sequential multiple regressions. Adjusting for spatial autocorrelation or not, the results were substantively the same. Conclusions : These results essentially replicate those of two earlier analyses using US states. Findings strongly suggest that trust is a mediator between RED and FV. Speculative interpretations focus on relations between homophily, RED, and trust.

• The trade-in policy considers both the company’s products and those of competitor. • Optimal trade-in rebates are derived for different companies’ products. • Offering higher trade-in rebates depends on its pricing strategy and competitor’s. • Impacts of customer’s perceived value of old-version products on trade-in are explored. The trade-in program is a common marketing strategy adopted by companies to encourage customers to return their used products in exchange for a discount or rebate on the purchase of new items. A trade-in program can significantly boost sales by lowering customers’ purchasing costs while enabling the collection of returned products for recycling or remanufacturing. However, it also introduces additional operational and financial costs. Therefore, the company must carefully balance profit gains with associated costs to ensure that the trade-in program remains economically viable. This paper explores the company’s optimal non-exclusive trade-in program, under which both existing customers and competitors’ customers can trade their on-hand products for new ones. The innovation level of new generation products, the previous pricing strategy of the company and its competitor, the durability of the products, and the relative perceived value of the old generation products by customers are considered in the paper. The results show that the optimal trade-in strategy design depends on the previous pricing strategy, and setting high trade-in rebates is not always optimal to maximize profit. Moreover, whether the company should provide a higher trade-in rebate to its existing customers depends on the customers’ perceived value of the company’s past products compared to competitors’ offerings, along with both parties’ past pricing strategies, and the trade-in program does not always benefit the environment.

This paper continues Representation zeta function of a family of maximal class groups: non-exceptional primes [7]. Using the explicit methods from the prequel, we compute exceptional cases of p-local representation zeta functions for finitely generated nilpotent groups M n of maximal class. Specifically, we construct all irreducible representations of dimension p N for M p + 1 and dimension 2 N for M 4 . Combined with previous results, this completes the classification of irreducible representations for M 3 and M 4 and their global representation zeta functions.

This paper critically reviews the strategic position of environmental, social and Governance (ESG) in corporate strategy focusing on differences across industry sectors. Using simulated data and global investment data, this research de-constructs ESG into its constituents and assesses their differential impact on firm performance within-industry sectors. The studies show that environmental factors have a significant effect on the level of energy, manufacturing companies' cost reduction and productivity improvement and good governance structure reduces valuation uncertainty and strategic value enhancement in financial, technology industry. Measures for the social sustainability, especially in sectors with a high share of manual labour, increase the trustworthiness of stakeholders and effectiveness of employees. This paper takes the debate forward by framing ESG integration in governance and risk management views, leaving behind compliance‐based approaches towards an understanding of ESG as a strategic tool for value creation and long run sustainability. Importantly the research demonstrates that sector weightings in the ESG space are contributing to performance.

Together For Us (T4Us) is a newly developed and evidence-informed social identity intervention for youth sport. Drawing on theoretical underpinnings of social identity theory and previous shared leadership intervention research in sport, T4Us leverages athlete leaders to foster a shared sense of social identity within the team. The purpose of this study was to conduct an initial feasibility study (Study 1) and a proof-of-concept evaluation (Study 2) to determine whether T4Us enhanced social identity and assessed the intervention implementation. In Study 1, five competitive youth ice hockey teams (mean age = 13.0years) completed T4Us at midseason. Overall, athlete leaders (n = 19) and coaches (n = 4) expressed support for the acceptability and feasibility of the initial T4Us workshop in a youth sport setting, including the creation of a unique team "trademark" and the shared leadership mapping exercise. Participants also recommended possible improvements to T4Us (e.g., intervention timing and follow-up booster sessions to reinforce content). In Study 2, a total of 14 competitive youth soccer teams (mean age = 14.7years) completed the revised T4Us at midseason. Descriptive results highlight that athletes' perceptions of social identity were higher at post-intervention in comparison with pre-intervention. Post-intervention implementation evaluation results revealed that the teams used the game plan to support the team trademark, and athlete leaders and coaches encouraged team members to act according to the team game plan (scores > 5 on a 7-point scale). Interviews with athlete leaders described the different ways in which T4Us enhanced social identity within the team. Overall, the initial feasibility evidence and the proof-of-concept evaluation support the further development of T4Us, including a randomized-controlled T4Us protocol.

Shao et al. (2023) make a number of critical comments on our previous research on foreign language (FL) emotions, but also add debatable claims, present an inaccurate view of existing research and present an instrument, the Achievement Emotion Questionnaire – Second Language Learning (AEQ-L2L), that does not capture the full range of habitual positive and negative emotions in regular FL classrooms by focusing exclusively on learner emotions during exams. We agree with the authors that some early scales had unclear factor structures but claiming that therefore these scales are invalid and unreliable is unjustified. We do not deny that the AEQ can provide a comprehensive measure of emotion, but it does not prioritize the context which is fundamental in research on FL learners’ classroom emotions. Moreover, the AEQ-L2L is too long to be reasonably included in complex studies.