The impact of a self-development coaching programme on medical and dental students’ psychological health and academic performance: A randomised controlled trial

Background Psychological distress is well-documented worldwide among medical and dental students. Few studies have assessed the impact of self-development coaching programs on the students’ psychological health. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of a self-development coaching programme on the psychological health and academic performance of preclinical medical and dental students at Umm Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia. Methods Four-hundred and twenty-two participants (n = 422, 20–22 years) fulfilled the study requirements and were invited into a parallel-randomised controlled trial that was partially blinded. Participants were stratified by faculty, gender, and academic year, and then randomised. A total of 156 students participated in the intervention group (IG) and 163 students participated in the control group (CG). The IG received the selfdevelopment programme, involving skills and strategies aimed to improve students’ psychological health and academic performance, through a two-day workshop. Meanwhile, the CG attended an active placebo programme focussing on theoretical information that was delivered through a five-hour workshop. Both programmes were conducted by the same presenter during Week 1 of the second semester of the 2012–2013 academic year. Data were gathered immediately before (T1), one week after (T2) and five weeks (T3) after the intervention. Psychological health was measured using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21), the General Self-Efficacy (GSE), and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Academic performance was measured using students’ academic weighted grades (WG). Student cognitive and emotional perceptions of the intervention were measured using the Credibility/Expectancy Questionnaire (CEQ). Results Data from 317 students, who completed the follow ups, were analysed across the three time periods (IG, n = 155; CG, n = 162). The baseline variables and demographic data of the IG and CG were not significantly different. The IG showed short-term significant reductions in depression and anxiety in compared to CG from T1 to T2. The short-term changes in stress, GSE and SWLS of the IG were not significantly different from those of the CG. While both groups showed a significant change on most of the psychological variables from T1 to T3, no significant differences were found between the groups in this period. In addition, no significant difference was found in WG between the IG and CG after the intervention. No harms relevant to the intervention were reported. Conclusion The investigated self-development coaching programme showed only a short-term improvement on depression and anxiety compared with an active control. There was no effect of the intervention on academic performance.

Transforming beyond self: fluidity of parent identity in family decision-making

When a household welcomes a new infant a transformation occurs whereby household routines, values and decisions change. This research explores how decision-making is influenced by fluctuating identity subjectivities. We explore longitudinally, using a family identity framework, how the transitioning between self, couple and family self-identities influences the decisions made regarding social issues, in this case infant feeding. Results indicate that decision-making during a period of transformation is not straightforward, relying on a multiplicity of identities that are constantly renegotiated and dependent on other influences. Decisions made conform to the identity-construct-of-the-moment, but are fluid and subject to change, such that pinpointing causal pathways is inappropriate. Implications for influencing the consumption of social behaviors for consumer researchers are one size does not fit all and require an in-depth understanding of the fluidity of decision-making. Consequently, social marketing strategies need to be tailored to constructed identities and flexible across time to remain influential.

Endogenous and exogenous effects in self-exciting process models of terrorist activity

A model based on the cluster process representation of the self-exciting process model in White and Porter 2013 and Ruggeri and Soyer 2008is derived to allow for variation in the excitation effects for terrorist events in a self-exciting or cluster process model. The details of the model derivation and implementation are given and applied to data from the Global Terrorism Database from 2000–2012. Results are discussed in terms of practical interpretation along with implications for a theoretical model paralleling existing criminological theory.

The fight for fair use in Australia: Copyright law in an age of cloud computing

Fair Use Week has celebrated the evolution and development of the defence of fair use under copyright law in the United States. As Krista Cox noted, ‘As a flexible doctrine, fair use can adapt to evolving technologies and new situations that may arise, and its long history demonstrates its importance in promoting access to information, future innovation, and creativity.’ While the defence of fair use has flourished in the United States, the adoption of the defence of fair use in other jurisdictions has often been stymied. Professor Peter Jaszi has reflected: ‘We can only wonder (with some bemusement) why some of our most important foreign competitors, like the European Union, haven’t figured out that fair use is, to a great extent, the “secret sauce” of U.S. cultural competitiveness.’ Jurisdictions such as Australia have been at a dismal disadvantage, because they lack the freedoms and flexibilities of the defence of fair use.

Young drivers’ responses to anti-speeding advertisements: Comparison of self-report and objective measures of persuasive processing and outcomes

Objective Self-report measures are typically used to assess the effectiveness of road safety advertisements. However, psychophysiological measures of persuasive processing (i.e., skin conductance response [SCR]) and objective driving measures of persuasive outcomes (i.e., in-vehicle GPS devices) may provide further insights into the effectiveness of these advertisements. This study aimed to explore the persuasive processing and outcomes of two anti-speeding advertisements by incorporating both self-report and objective measures of speeding behaviour. In addition, this study aimed to compare the findings derived from these different measurement approaches. Methods Young drivers (N = 20, Mage = 21.01 years) viewed either a positive or negative emotion-based anti-speeding television advertisement. Whilst viewing the advertisement, SCR activity was measured to assess ad-evoked arousal responses. The RoadScout® GPS device was then installed into participants’ vehicles for one week to measure on-road speed-related driving behaviour. Self-report measures assessed persuasive processing (emotional and arousal responses) and actual driving behaviour. Results There was general correspondence between the self-report measures of arousal and the SCR and between the self-report measure of actual driving behaviour and the objective driving data (as assessed via the GPS devices). Conclusions This study provides insights into how psychophysiological and GPS devices could be used as objective measures in conjunction with self-report measures to further understand the persuasive processes and outcomes of emotion-based anti-speeding advertisements.

A penalty-based genetic algorithm for the migration cost-aware virtual machine placement problem in cloud data centers

In the past few years, the virtual machine (VM) placement problem has been studied intensively and many algorithms for the VM placement problem have been proposed. However, those proposed VM placement algorithms have not been widely used in today's cloud data centers as they do not consider the migration cost from current VM placement to the new optimal VM placement. As a result, the gain from optimizing VM placement may be less than the loss of the migration cost from current VM placement to the new VM placement. To address this issue, this paper presents a penalty-based genetic algorithm (GA) for the VM placement problem that considers the migration cost in addition to the energy-consumption of the new VM placement and the total inter-VM traffic flow in the new VM placement. The GA has been implemented and evaluated by experiments, and the experimental results show that the GA outperforms two well known algorithms for the VM placement problem.