Anxiety versus fundamental emotions as predictors of perceived functionality of pre-competitive emotional states, threat, and challenge in individual sports

The objectives of this study were to examine the contribution of anxiety and fundamental emotions to perceived emotion functionality and evaluate the informational value of anxiety measures used in sport versus measures of fundamental emotions in terms of appraisal. A battery of questionnaires comprising the somatic and cognitive subscale of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2), the State Anxiety Inventory, the Differential Emotions Scale–IV, a perceived functionality of emotions single item, and two items assessing challenge and threat appraisals was administered to 202 athletes competing in individual sports in the United Kingdom. They were tested on recalled pre-competitive emotions experienced before their best and worst competition ever and momentary emotions experienced one hour before an actual competition. In general, measures of fundamental emotions with clear approach or avoidance action tendencies were better predictors of emotion functionality than anxiety measures. Results also suggested that the CSAI-2 does not convey clear information about an athlete’s appraisal of a competition. Measures of negative and positive fundamental emotions with clear action tendencies were better indicators of athletes’ appraisal patterns. It was concluded that assessment of athletes’ emotional state should not be exclusively based on anxiety measures but should encompass or be replaced with measures of emotions conveying unambiguous information about the athlete-competition relationship.

Mini-micro unmanned aerial vehicle intelligence: a threat to land vehicles

Increasing use of commercial off-the-shelf Mini-Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (MAV) systems with enhanced intelligence methodologies can potentially be a threat, if this technology falls into the wrong hands. In this study, we investigate the level of threat imposed on critical infrastructure using different MAV swarm artificial intelligence traits and coordination methodologies. The critical infrastructure in consideration is a moving commercial land vehicle that may be transporting for example an important civil servant or politician. Non-dimensional fitness functions used for measuring MAV mission effectiveness have been established for the case studies considered in this paper. The findings indicated that increased in intelligent and coordination level elevate teams' efficiency, therefore poses a higher degree of threat to targeted land vehicle. Observations from the study have suggested that memory-based cooperative technique provides a consistent efficiency compared to other methods for the mission objectives considered in this paper. © 2014 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved.

Assessing the threat status of ecological communities

Conservationists are increasingly interested in determining the threat status of ecological communities as a key part of their planning efforts. Such assessments are difficult because of conceptual challenges and a lack of generally accepted criteria. We reviewed 12 protocols for assessing the threat status of communities and identified conceptual and operational issues associated with developing a rigorous, transparent, and universal set of criteria for assessing communities, analogous to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List standards for species. We examined how each protocol defines a community and its extinction and how each applies 3 overarching criteria: decline in geographic distribution, restricted geographic distribution, and changes to ecological function. The protocols vary widely in threshold values used to assess declines and distribution size and the time frames used to assess declines, leading to inconsistent assessments of threat status. Few of the protocols specify a scale for measuring distribution size, although assessment outcomes are highly sensitive to scale. Protocols that apply different thresholds for species versus communities tend to require greater declines and more restricted distributions for communities than species to be listed in equivalent threat categories. Eleven of the protocols include a reduction in ecological function as a criterion, but almost all assess it qualitatively rather than quantitatively. We argue that criteria should be explicit and repeatable in their concepts, parameters, and scale, applicable to a broad range of communities, and address synergies between types of threats. Such criteria should focus on distribution size, declines in distribution, and changes to key ecological functions, with the latter based on workable proxies for assessing the severity, scope, and immediacy of degradation. Threat categories should be delimited by thresholds that are assessed at standard scales and are logically consistent with the viability of component species and important ecological functions.

Segregation-of-duties conflicts in the insider threat landscape: an overview and case study

Many insider attacks originate from misuse of privileges granted by organizations to their internal employees, contractors or third-party service providers. A fundamental means of ensuring that conflicts of privilege cannot occur is to segregate role allocations in order to ensure that no individual can perform a task from beginning to end. In this paper, we provide background on insider attacks in connection with conflicts in Segregation of Duties, and present the current strategies for preventing and detecting such conflicts. To illustrate how a conflict can occur and what can result, we present an in-depth case study demonstrating a conflict in Segregation of Dutiesin an organization, along with the consequent fraud, and we discuss how it might have been prevented.

Managerial turnover and leverage under a takeover threat

How do shareholders perceive managers who lever up under a takeover threat? Increasing leverage conveys good news if it reflects management's ability to enhance value. It conveys bad news, though, if inefficient managers are more pressured to lever up. This paper demonstrates that negative (positive) updating prevails when takeover costs are small (large). Managers who leve r up to end a takeover threat thus may commit to an increase in the firm's value and yet increase their chances of being replaced by their shareholders. The model predicts that intraindustry leverage is less dispersed when takeover costs are low.

Inferring conduct under the threat of entry : the case of Brazilian cement industry

This paper demonstrates that when an industry faces potential entry and this threat of entry constrains pre-entry prices, cost and conduct are not identified from the comparative statics of equilibrium. In such a setting, the identifying assumption behind the well-established technique of relying on exogenous demand perturbations to empirically distinguish between alternative hypotheses of conduct is shown to fail. The Brazilian cement industry, where the threat of imports restrains market outcomes, provides an empirical illustration. In particular, pricecost margins estimated using this established technique are considerably biased downward, underestimating the degree of market power. A test of conduct is proposed, adapted to this constrained setting, which suggests that outcomes in the industry are collusive and characterised by market division.

The price of threat: the role of identity-safe marketplaces in predicting intergroup price sensitivity

In field experiments with subjects living either inside or outside Brazilian slums (n=955), we show that consumers living in slums are less price sensitive, in opposition with recent price sensitivity research. Comparing slum and non-slum dwellers, we found that negatively stereotyped consumers (e.g. slum dwellers) were more likely to pay higher amounts for friendlier customer service when facing social identity threats (SITs) in marketplaces such as banks. The mechanism which makes them less price sensitive is related to the perception of how other people evaluate their social groups, and we argue that they pay more because they are seeking identity-safe commercial relationships. This work, besides extending the literature in SITs, presents a perspective for the exchange between economics and psychology on price sensitivity, showing that consumers living in slums are willing to pay more to avoid possibly social identity threating experiences.

Effects of postural threat on walking features of Parkinson's disease patients

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

International finance and development: opportunity or threat?

Includes bibliography

Luminescent threat: toxicity of light stick attractors used in pelagic fishery

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Tackling ionospheric scintillation threat to GNSS in Latin America

Scintillations are rapid fluctuations in the phase and amplitude of transionospheric radio signals which are caused by small-scale plasma density irregularities in the ionosphere. In the case of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers, scintillation can cause cycle slips, degrade the positioning accuracy and, when severe enough, can even lead to a complete loss of signal lock. Thus, the required levels of availability, accuracy, integrity and reliability for the GNSS applications may not be met during scintillation occurrence; this poses a major threat to a large number of modern-day GNSS-based applications. The whole of Latin America, Brazil in particular, is located in one of the regions most affected by scintillations. These effects will be exacerbated during solar maxima, the next predicted for 2013. This paper presents initial results from a research work aimed to tackle ionospheric scintillation effects for GNSS users in Latin America. This research is a part of the CIGALA (Concept for Ionospheric Scintillation Mitigation for Professional GNSS in Latin America) project, co-funded by the EC Seventh Framework Program and supervised by the GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA), which aims to develop and test ionospheric scintillation countermeasures to be implemented in multi-frequency, multi-constellation GNSS receivers.