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Giovan Maria Cecchi (1517–1587) was the most prolific and popular of sixteenth-century Florentine daramatists. His best-known play, L'Assiuolo (The Horned Owl), brings to the stage the amorous adventure of two students at the university of Pisa who fall in love with the same married lady. Through a servant's ruse they both succeed in gratifying their senses and in establishing a love affair that will see them through their undergraduate career.

Adolescents' evaluations of discriminatory race-based humor and their expectations about peer responses to discrimination were investigated in 8th- (Mage = 13.80) and 10th-grade (Mage = 16.11) primarily European-American participants (N = 256). Older adolescents judged race-based humor as more acceptable than did younger adolescents and were less likely to expect peer intervention. Participants who rejected discrimination were more likely to reference welfare/rights and prejudice and to anticipate that peers would intervene. Showing awareness of group processes, adolescents who rejected race-based humor believed that peers who intervened would be more likely to be excluded. They also disapproved of exclusion more than did participants who supported race-based humor. Results expose the complexity of situations involving subtle discrimination. Implications for bullying interventions are discussed.

Background Humour is an essential quality and key factor in communication, particularly in leadership. This study explores leader humour within university departments to design a comprehensive model using grounded theory. The study also examines the effects and dynamics of humour in leadership and its influence on followers. Methods This qualitative study employed Glaser’s 6 C family approach. Data were collected from 18 Iranian university professors, selected via purposive sampling until theoretical saturation was reached. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and data were analysed using MAXQDA2020 software to facilitate the coding process. Results The axial category was named ‘leader humorous behaviour’ and the main attributes of humour were ‘benign violation’ and ‘moderation’. This study highlights the importance of moderation in humorous behaviour (frequency and repetition) as an important attribute of leader humour alongside benign violation, which can have negative and unwanted outcomes for both leader and followers despite positive and constructive content. The final model identifies a sense of humour as the central cause and organisational factors as correlated causes. It also identifies the mediators, moderators, context, and consequences of leader humorous behaviour. Sense of humour is found to be the most important factor in followers’ perception and interpretation of leader humour. Conclusions Leader humour can have positive ethical implications in organisations, thus enhancing relationships and communication when employed appropriately. The findings suggest that positive outcomes of leader humour over time foster greater expression and mitigate misunderstandings. This study offers a foundational understanding of leader humorous behaviour and its potential positive outcomes in organisational settings.

Research on humor is carried out in a number of areas in psychology, including the cognitive (What makes something funny?), developmental (when do we develop a sense of humor?), and social (how is humor used in social interactions?) Although there is enough interest in the area to have spawned several societies, the literature is dispersed in a number of primary journals, with little in the way of integration of the material into a book. Dr. Martin is one of the best known researchers in the area, and his research goes across subdisciplines in psychology to be of wide appeal. This is a singly authored monograph that provides in one source, a summary of information researchers might wish to know about research into the psychology of humor. The material is scholarly, but the presentation of the material is suitable for people unfamiliar with the subject-making the book suitable for use for advanced undergraduate and graduate level courses on the psychology of humor-which have not had a textbook source.2007 AATH Book Award for Humor/Laughter Research category! *Up-to-date coverage of research on humor and laughter in every area of psychology*Research findings are integrated into a coherent conceptual framework*Includes recent brain imaging studies, evolutionary models, and animal research*Draws on contributions from sociology, linguistics, neuroscience, and anthropology*Provides an overview of theories of humor and early research*Explores applications of humor in psychotherapy, education, and the workplace*Points out interesting topics for further research and promising research methodologies*Written in a scholarly yet easily accessible style*2007 AATH Book Award for Humor/Laughter Research category

Purpose Tour guides often use humor to entertain tourists, but the process of tour guide humor (TGH) affecting tourists’ positive word of mouth (PWOM) remains unclear. To fill the gap, this study aims to investigate how TGH enhances tourists’ PWOM through perceived relationship investment, perceived wellness value and trust in tour guides. Design/methodology/approach A comprehensive mediation model was proposed based on social exchange theory (SET). Data were obtained from 335 tour group tourists and analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings Results present that TGH positively predicts tourists’ PWOM. Perceived relationship investment, perceived wellness value and trust in tour guides not only play mediating roles between TGH and tourists’ PWOM, respectively, but also jointly provide two sequential mediation paths (TGH → perceived relationship investment → trust in tour guides → tourists’ PWOM and TGH → perceived wellness value → trust in tour guides → tourists’ PWOM). Research limitations/implications The findings have practical value for tour guides and travel agencies to use TGH to improve tourists’ PWOM. Originality/value The major contribution is that a reciprocity-based framework rooted in SET was proposed to parse the complex process of TGH promoting tourists’ PWOM. Furthermore, this study enriches current knowledge by confirming that perceived wellness value is not only available in wellness tourism but can be experienced from TGH in mass tourism.

As a research technique, poetic transcription transforms people’s stories and enables deeper analysis and engagement between participants, readers and researchers. Chronic illness is often characterised as a ‘biographical disruption’, which may threaten a patient’s self-identity and equanimity. Such disruptions often influence patients’ perceptions of imminent life changes, social relationships and cognitive and material resources. Thus, poetic transcription offers a valuable tool for making sense of complex illnesses and lived experiences. This paper demonstrates how raw interview data can be reconstructed into a poetic format to highlight the nuances of people’s lived illness experiences, which may remain elusive to them and others. A qualitative survey was conducted with a small group of patient participants, eliciting chronic illness narratives analysed through poetic transcription. Poetic transcription becomes a rigorous and legitimate qualitative research method through multiple iterations and extensive data engagement. Our main themes are focused on biographical disruption, temporality, humour, voice and ableism.

In order to elucidate involvement of cyclic AMP and intracellular Ca 2+ ,[Ca 2+ ] i , in the modulation of aqueous humour formation (AHF), we studied the effects of terbutaline, forskolin and 8-Br-cAMP in the isolated bovine eye. We also studied the interaction of cAMP on calcium signaling in cultured ciliary epithelial (CE) cells. Drug effects on AHF were measured by fluorescein dilution. Drug effects on [Ca 2+ ] i were studied by the fura-2 fluorescence ratio technique. Terbutaline (100 nmol-100 M), forskolin (30 nM-100 M) or 8-Br-cAMP (100 nM– 10 μM), administered in the arterial perfusate produced significant reductions in AHF. The AH reducing effect of terbutaline was blocked by a selective inhibitor of protein kinase A (KT-5720). ATP (100 M) caused a rapid, transient (peak) increase in [Ca 2+ ] i followed by a sustained plateau phase lasting more than 5 minutes. Preincubation of the cells (6 min) with terbutaline, forskolin or 8-Br-cAMP significantly reduced the peak calcium response to ATP. The sustained plateau phase of the response, on the other hand, was augmented by each of the agents. KT-5720 partially reversed the inhibitory effect of terbutaline on the peak and totally inhibited its effect on the plateau phase. These data indicate: (a) that AHF in the bovine eye can be manipulated through cyclic AMP, operating via protein kinase A, (b) that protein kinase A can affect [Ca 2+ ] i homeostasis, (c) that calcium release from the intracellular store, not the entry, affects AHF, and (d) that interaction of [Ca 2+ ] i with cAMP plays a role in modulating AH secretion.

Previous reports have shown possible association between altered protein levels in aqueous humor (AH) and normal-tension glaucoma (NTG), but the underlying pathogenetic mechanism as well as specific molecular biomarkers for NTG remains still elusive. Here, we aimed to identify novel biomarkers for advanced NTG by analyzing the proteome of patient-derived AH and their correlation with various functional and structural parameters from the visual field test (VF), optical coherence tomography (OCT), and OCT angiography (OCTA). We determined differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) of the AH of patients with advanced NTG (n = 20) using label-free quantitative (LFQ) proteomics with pooled samples and data-independent acquisition (DIA) analysis with individual samples, and the roles of AH DEPs in biological pathways were evaluated using bioinformatics. We identified 603 proteins in the AH of patients with advanced NTG, and 61 of them were selected as DEPs via global proteome LFQ profiling. Individual DIA analyses identified a total of 12 DEPs as biomarker candidates, seven of which were upregulated, and five were downregulated. Gene ontology enrichment analysis revealed that those DEPs were mainly involved in the immune response. Moreover, IGFBP2, ENO1, C7, B2M, AMBP, DSP, and DCD showed a significant correlation with the mean deviation of VF and with peripapillary and macular parameters from OCT and OCTA. The present study provides possible molecular biomarkers for the diagnosis of advanced NTG.

Vitreous humor is a complex biofluid whose composition determines its structure and function. Vitreous viscosity will affect the delivery, distribution, and half-life of intraocular drugs, and key physiological molecules. The central pig vitreous is thought to closely match human vitreous viscosity. Diffusion is inversely related to viscosity, and diffusion is of fundamental importance for all biochemical reactions. Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching (FRAP) may provide a novel means of measuring intravitreal diffusion that could be applied to drugs and physiological macromolecules. It would also provide information about vitreous viscosity, which is relevant to drug elimination, and delivery. Vitreous viscosity and intravitreal macromolecular diffusion of fluorescently labelled macromolecules were investigated in porcine eyes using fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP). Fluorescein isothiocyanate conjugated (FITC) dextrans and ficolls of varying molecular weights (MWs), and FITC-bovine serum albumin (BSA) were employed using FRAP bleach areas of different diameters. The mean (±standard deviation) viscosity of porcine vitreous using dextran, ficoll and BSA were 3.54 ± 1.40, 2.86 ± 1.13 and 4.54 ± 0.13 cP respectively, with an average of 3.65 ± 0.60 cP. FRAP is a feasible and practical optical method to quantify the diffusion of macromolecules through vitreous.

This study of an incident involving a male Chinese university lecturer and two Thai learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) who were engaged in verbal humor in intercultural classroom communication examined whether two variables, namely the genders and roles of the metaparticipants, caused them to regard the verbal humor in question as an impoliteness act, as well as the metaparticipants’ metapragmatic evaluations regarding the humor. A further aim was to examine whether the cited incident affected the student-teacher relationship from the metaparticipants’ perspectives. In total, 80 Thai EFL learners’ metapragmatic evaluations of the lecturer’s verbal humor were investigated. The chi-square test results revealed that male Thai EFL learners regarded the verbal humor as being impolite significantly more often than the females did; moreover, the participants were more likely to regard the verbal humor as an impoliteness act when they were the direct targets than when they were witnesses. The factors that led the metaparticipants to regard the verbal humor as being successful or a failed attempt revealed that the metaparticipants who regarded the attempt as being impolite were mainly influenced by the Thai culture. Furthermore, almost half of the participants indicated that they would have some short-term negative affect following the incident. Accordingly, lecturers should be more careful when creating verbal humor in which their students are the direct targets in intercultural classroom communication. Lecturers should also avoid using words with negative connotations.