Despite warnings of impending water scarcity concerns, most residents persistently engage in excessive water consumption behaviours, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. This has spurred interest in understanding why water demand management strategies fail to foster voluntary residential conservation behaviours. Recent literature indicates a lack of consideration of cultural factors that may influence residential water conservation. Thus, this study draws on and extends the protection motivation theory with place attachment and spirituality to examine how cultural and psychological factors influence residential water conservation intention and behaviour. Analysing 346 survey responses, the study reveals that place attachment amplifies vulnerability and severity perceptions regarding water scarcity concerns and significantly drives perceptions of self and response efficacies for water conservation intention and behaviour. In particular, the study reveals that as a resident’s spirituality increases, the intention for water conservation behaviour reduces. The study highlights theoretical and practical implications for scholars and policymakers.
Evidence for low-dose oral minoxidil (LDOM) and topical minoxidil in male and female pattern hair loss (MPHL and FPHL), particularly around hair transplant surgery, lack standardization. This study developed consensus-based guidance for their use in these patients. An international panel involving hair transplant surgeons used a three-round modified Delphi process (consensus ≥ 70%) to rate 47 items on baseline assessment, dosing, monitoring, peri-operative use, safety, and topical minoxidil. Panelists agreed that body weight and blood pressure should be checked before initiating LDOM, with additional individualized testing. Recommended adult starting doses were 1.25–2.5 mg/day for MPHL and 0.625–1.25 mg/day for FPHL, with maximum daily doses of 5 mg and 2.5 mg, respectively. Clinical response is expected within 4–6 months. Therapy maybe continued long-term if effective and well tolerated. After hair-transplant surgery, LDOM can generally be taken 1–3 days post-procedure. Topical minoxidil can be applied to the grafted area at 7–14 days post-transplant. Topical minoxidil 5% is effective at the frontal scalp and vertex. Minoxidil should be avoided during pregnancy/breastfeeding. These consensus statements provide recommendations and a treatment algorithm for integrating LDOM and topical minoxidil into care of hair-transplant patients with pattern hair loss.
We first show how the quantile approach used for univariate optimal portfolio choice can also be useful when dealing with the multivariate case. Specifically, when a related multivariate risk-sharing problem (in the absence of a financial market) can be solved explicitly, then the multivariate optimal portfolio choice is shown to reduce to a one-dimensional problem that can be dealt with using the quantile approach. We then use this finding to develop an efficient algorithm to determine optimal portfolios. We also develop a numerical approach that makes it possible to obtain approximate solutions for general multivariate portfolio selection problems.
Performance management regimes are important tools for government agencies operating across networks of non-profit organizations. This study investigates a regime deployed towards autonomous sport organizations and considers its intended purposes and implementation ‘in practice’. Findings show the regime’s ‘mixed motivational demands’ with from the incompatibility between ‘hard’ rule-based demands for accountability and ‘soft’ practices consistent with learning and partnership. The case suggests the government-sport institutional context is a built-in feature, which cannot be ‘administered out’ by using single-purpose tools for accountability or learning/partnership. The article recommends a tolerance for paradox and organizational hypocrisy for administrators working within the context of networked governance.
Performance information is often presented in a ranked format. Rankings aggregate a multitude of performance dimensions into an overall score. Simultaneously, rankings may constrain cognitive processing of performance information because they distract users’ attention away from the information underlying the ranking calculation. We test this adverse effect using university performance rankings in an eye-tracking experiment based on 1,071 decisions from 153 student-participants. Results show that performance rankings reduce cognitive processing of the underlying performance information, demonstrating the existence of a substitution effect. This study contributes to theorizing about and testing the effectiveness of performance management practices in public management.
Adolescents’ moods have been shown to affect the way in which they perceive their social media use. So far, studies have not investigated reciprocal relationships between moods and perceptions of social media use. The current study used an experience sampling methodology to examine reciprocal relationships between momentary (positive/negative) affect, and adolescents’ (positive/negative) perceptions of their social media use both between and within individuals ( N = 116, M age = 15.57, SD age = 1.23, 80.2% girls, 19.8% boys). Dynamic structural equation models for chatting and viewing on social media indicated that adolescents’ momentary positive and negative affect were associated with congruent affective perceptions of their chatting and content viewing activities on social media. Furthermore, negative affective perceptions of chatting were associated with momentary negative affect, and positive affective perceptions of content viewing were associated with momentary positive affect. In general, relationships from social media use to momentary affect were stronger than the reverse relationships. Minor differences were observed between the within-person and between-person level.
Mountain glaciers are disappearing rapidly, and with their disappearance, we may be losing unstudied biodiversity and genetic resources. A variety of habitats for microorganisms exist on glaciers, especially within pockets of supraglacial sediments (cryoconite) that support high levels of biological activity and diversity. We used biogeochemical approaches, high-throughput DNA sequencing, and microscopy to describe the biogeochemistry and microbial communities of supraglacial sediments on the Dinwoody Glacier in the Wind River Range, Wyoming. Carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) concentrations were high, and C:N ratios were close to the Redfield ratio indicating active nutrient cycling. We found unique microbial communities in sediments at different elevations on the glacier, with greater diversity near the terminus. Bacterial communities were dominated by photosynthetic cyanobacteria and numerous polymer-decomposing members of the Bacteroidetes. Eukaryotic communities were dominated by snow algae and ciliated protists among other predators and decomposers. DNA sequencing also yielded evidence of past eolian inputs of insect and plant materials including DNA from Orthoptera that may be remnants of locust swarms that were entombed in the glacier in the past. Overall, we found a robustly functioning ecosystem on Dinwoody Glacier with distinct supraglacial habitats and organisms that are rapidly disappearing due to human-induced climate change.
Social media has become a major part of modern social connection. Yet, especially for young people, using social media is associated with numerous negative mental health outcomes. In this paper, we develop and test a mindfulness intervention that disrupts potentially harmful habitual usage of social media. The mindfulness exercise is designed to help social media users shift their usage behavior with enhanced awareness of their habits and intentions. To test the effectiveness of the mindfulness exercise, we conducted an online experiment with 212 participants from a public university in Amherst, Massachusetts. The results show that a three-minute mindfulness practice brought more awareness to participants’ social media usage patterns, and through contemplation, resulted in future intentions to reduce planned social media use. The amount of reduction in planned social media use was statistically greater for those who participated in the mindfulness intervention compared to the control group. This finding is the first to empirically demonstrate the effect of a mindfulness-based intervention on intentions to improve social media usage. We discuss reasons for why a mindfulness-based solution to the global mental health crisis linked to social media usage can be a more effective approach than prior approaches based on restriction or abstinence from using social media.