Search results for "Elite"
showing 10 items of 370 documents
Stress, Professional Lifestyle, and Telomere Biology in Elite Athletes: A Growing Trend in Psychophysiology of Sport
2020
Professional lifestyle and championship period often put a great deal of pressure on athletes, who usually experience highly stressful periods during training for competitions. Recently, biomarkers of cellular aging, telomere length (TL) and telomerase activity (TA), have been considered to investigate the effects of stress and lifestyle factors. Studies in non-athletic populations have shown that stress and poor lifestyle decrease TL and TA. On the other hand, it has been shown that in general, exercise increases TL and its activity, although the underlying mechanisms remained largely unexplored. TL and TA outcomes in elite athletes remain inconclusive and mainly affected by confounding fa…
Power holders: one versus many. Leadership and elite theories
2016
‘Leadership’ and ‘elites’ are two crucial concepts that refer to individuals who hold power within a community. The aim of the article was to demonstrate to what extent the two concepts and theories are linked with each other in the literature. A quantitative and qualitative content analysis of the encyclopedic and dictionary entries demonstrates a divergence of approaches: on the one hand, a fundamental separation between the two theories, while on the other hand, a tendency to identify the one with the other. This shows the need for much more dialog between the frameworks of these two closely related phenomena.
The Decline of Political Party Elite
2019
In this article, the author presents a claim that, in parallel to the end of mass parties, it is possible to observe the progressing decline of elites within political parties. This phenomenon manifests itself on the following three levels: 1) a theoretical level—less and less attention is paid to elites in the theory of political parties as their place is being taken over by other approaches, in particular leadership theory; 2) a terminological level—the notion of elites is being removed from analyses devoted to political parties and supplanted by other terms such us “leaders.” They are sometimes considered as the synonyms of the word “elite”; 3) a factual level—there are strong reasons to…
Local regularity estimates for general discrete dynamic programming equations
2022
We obtain an analytic proof for asymptotic H\"older estimate and Harnack's inequality for solutions to a discrete dynamic programming equation. The results also generalize to functions satisfying Pucci-type inequalities for discrete extremal operators. Thus the results cover a quite general class of equations.
The role of collective action for the emergence and consolidation of democracy
2020
AbstractThe role of citizens' collective action for the emergence and consolidation of democracy is generally analysed within bottom-up theories. However, top-down theories show that elites might impede or promote both democracy and collective action through a set of strategies which are often unobserved and vary over time. Democratic persistence and change require then to be assessed in a dynamic framework which considers both citizens and elites' strategies. For such reason, on a large sample of countries in the period 1971–2014, we jointly estimate the probability of collective action and democracy using a Structural Dynamic Model. This allows us to account for the dynamic nature of the …
Relative age and perceptions of soccer specific skills among elite youth players in Norway
2019
One common feature among the selected players in talent development programs are the well-known relative age effect (RAE), characterized by a skewed birth distribution among selected players with an over-representation of players born early in the selection year. The aim of the present study was to examine potential differences in soccer-specific skills between players selected for national talent program born in the first half of the year compared to the players born in the second half of the year. A total of 753 elite male U 14 (N = 363) and U 13 players (N = 390) from 16 of 18 soccer regions in Norway participated. The results showed players born early in the selection year considered th…
The perception of elite athletes’ guided self-reflection and performance in archery
2016
AbstractSelf-reflection has been shown to enhance professional development in clinical, counselling and educational settings. Recent research found that self-reflection can enhance performance in elite sports. The purpose of this intervention study was two-fold: Firstly, to examine whether a guided reflective diary was effective in enhancing accuracy in elite archery, and secondly, to identify factors facilitating and hindering the usage of the guided reflective diary. Eight Singaporean elite archers (four females, four males), aged 20–24 years, reflected on their training using the diary for a period of five weeks. Their pre- and post-intervention performance scores were collected and qual…
Happy Birthday, Mr. Ulmanis! Reflections on the Construction of an Authoritarian Regime in Latvia
2014
AbstractThe authors of the article analyse the ideology of the authoritarian regime which lasted in Latvia from the coup d'etat on 15 May 1934 until the beginning of the Soviet occupation on 17 June 1940. A variety of sources (newspapers and books of the analysed period) are used for the article. The birthday celebrations of authoritarian leader Kārlis Ulmanis are used as a case study to show the performative elements of the regime. The authors argue that during the short period of authoritarian rule in Latvia, the new political culture known as authoritarianism was widely supported and popular due to the dominance of the performative and festive practices used by the political elite to est…
Associations between the dopamine D4 receptor gene polymorphisms and personality traits in elite athletes.
2019
Personality traits and temperament may affect sports performance. Previous studies suggest that dopamine may play an important role in behavior regulation and physical exercise performance. The aim of this study is to determine associations between dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4 Ex3) polymorphisms and personality traits (such as neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeability and conscientiousness) in elite combat athletes. A total of 302 physically active, unrelated, self-reported Caucasian participants were recruited for this study. The participants consisted of 200 elite male combat athletes and 102 healthy male participants (control group). For personality trait measurements, the NEO…
How populist crisis rhetoric affects voters in Switzerland
2019
Right-wing populism has a long tradition in Switzerland. Nevertheless, only little is known about how populist messages in the media contribute to the success of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) and to the acceptance of the party’s anti-immigration policies. In this study, we combine data from a large media content analysis (including newspapers and TV news shows) with data from a panel-survey in order to address this research gap. Thereby we differentiate between effects driven by the content and the form of right-wing populist communication. While right-wing populist content depicts immigrants and the political elite as a threat to the Swiss people, populist style evokes the sense of a cris…