This interdisciplinary collection explores the nexus of social justice and sport to consider how sport and physical education can serve as a unique point of commonality in an era of religious, ...political, economic, and cultural polarity.
Originally published as a special issue of Quest, Sport, Physical Education, and Social Justice offers timely theoretical perspectives from the fields of theology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. The volume demonstrates the multiple ways in which sport can be used to overcome inequalities and marginalization relating to gender, race, disability, religion, and sexuality, and posits sports education as a powerful mechanism for addressing school-based issues including bullying, racism, and citizenship education. Truly international in scope, the text includes contributions from scholars addressing issues in both formal and informal sports education settings, communities, and locales.
Sport, Physical Education, and Social Justice will be of interest to researchers, scholars, policy makers, and advocates in the fields of education, psychology, sociology, and religious studies.
Retirement from sport is widely reported as a challenging time of transition in the lives of elite athletes and is one that has been explored from a range of different perspectives both by sport ...psychologists and socio-cultural scholars of sport. However, of late, a small number of scholars have considered athlete career transition within the context of religion and spirituality, identifying the religious identity and belief of athletes as central to their transition experiences. That said, this work does not go as far as developing a theological understanding of sports retirement. Here, we explore and frame the phenomenon of sports retirement through the theological lens put forward by the neo-Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr in his book Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. In this paper, we suggest how Rohr’s ideas might help develop an alternative and more nuanced understanding of sports retirement, building on those currently promoted in sport psychology and the sociology of sport the literature.
Abstract Pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) is an ulcerative inflammatory disorder affecting the lower legs in 80% of patients. The use of biologic medications to treat PG is increasing, although there is a ...limited evidence base to guide treatment choices. In some health systems, such as the UK National Health Service, limitations are placed on biologic prescribing for PG, leading to wide variations in prescribing. A survey of mainly UK clinicians showed that prednisolone remains the first-line treatment for PG (90%, 34/38). Biologics have been used by 66% (25/38) of clinicians as second-line therapy, but 19% (7/38) have had prescribing requests declined. Further research is needed to determine optimal treatment strategies for PG.
Biologic therapies have shown high efficacy in psoriasis, but individual response varies and is poorly understood. To inform biomarker discovery in the Psoriasis Stratification to Optimise Relevant ...Therapy (i.e., PSORT) study, we evaluated a comprehensive array of omics platforms across three time points and multiple tissues in a pilot investigation of 10 patients with severe psoriasis, treated with the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitor, etanercept. We used RNA sequencing to analyze mRNA and small RNA transcriptome in blood, lesional and nonlesional skin, and the SOMAscan platform to investigate the serum proteome. Using an integrative systems biology approach, we identified signals of treatment response in genes and pathways associated with TNF signaling, psoriasis pathology, and the major histocompatibility complex region. We found association between clinical response and TNF-regulated genes in blood and skin. Using a combination of differential expression testing, upstream regulator analysis, clustering techniques, and predictive modeling, we show that baseline samples are indicative of patient response to biologic therapies, including signals in blood, which have traditionally been considered unreliable for inference in dermatology. In conclusion, our pilot study provides both an analytical framework and empirical basis to estimate power for larger studies, specifically the ongoing PSORT study, which we show as powered for biomarker discovery and patient stratification.
The vast majority of social scientific studies of sport have been secular in nature and/or have tended to ignore the importance of studying the religious aspects of sport. In light of this, a recent ...study has sought to encourage sociologists of sport not to divorce the 'religious' and the 'sacred' from their studies. In response to this call, the goal of the current essay is to explore how the conception of Christianity as 'public religion' can be utilized to help justify the use of a Christian sociological approach for studying the social scientific aspects of sport. After making a case for Christianity as public religion, we conclude that many of the sociological issues inherent in modern sport are an indirect result of its increasing secularization and argue that this justifies the need for a Christian sociological approach. We encourage researchers to use the Bible, the tools of Christian theology and sociological concepts together, so to inform analyses of modern sport from a Christian perspective.
•H3N2 serology titres were highest in those with current season influenza vaccination.•Titres were higher in those with past season vaccination over those with no vaccination recorded.•Influenza ...vaccination protection was good against influenza requiring emergency care in children.•Vaccine effectiveness in adults was modest.
We present England 2021/22 end-of-season adjusted vaccine effectiveness (aVE) against laboratory confirmed influenza related emergency care use in children aged 1–17 and in adults aged 50+, and serological findings in vaccinated vs unvaccinated adults by hemagglutination inhibition assay.
Influenza vaccination has been routinely offered to all children aged 2–10 years and adults aged 65 years + in England. In 2021/22, the offer was extended to children to age 15 years, and adults aged 50–64 years. Influenza activity rose during the latter half of the 2021/22 season, while remaining comparatively low due to COVID-19 pandemic control measures. Influenza A(H3N2) strains predominated.
A test negative design was used to estimate aVE by vaccine type. Cases and controls were identified within a sentinel laboratory surveillance system. Vaccine histories were obtained from the National Immunisation Management Service (NIMS), an influenza and COVID-19 vaccine registry. These were linked to emergency department presentations (excluding accidents) with respiratory swabbing ≤ 14 days before or ≤ 7 days after presentation. Amongst adults, 423 positive and 32,917 negative samples were eligible for inclusion, and 145 positive and 6,438 negative samples among children. Those admitted to hospital were further identified.
In serology against the circulating A(H3N2) A/Bangladesh/4005/2020-like strain, 61 % of current season adult vaccinees had titres ≥ 1:40 compared to 17 % of those unvaccinated in 2020/21 or 2021/22 (p < 0.001).
We found good protection from influenza vaccination against influenza requiring emergency care in children (72.7 % 95 % CI 52.7, 84.3 %) and modest effectiveness in adults (26.1 % 95 % CI 4.5, 42.8 %). Adult VE was higher for A(H1N1) (81 % 95 % CI 50, 93 %) than A(H3N2) (33 % 95 % CI 6, 53 %). Consistent protection was observable across preschool, primary and secondary school aged children. Imperfect test specificity combined with very low prevalence may have biased estimates towards null. With limited influenza circulation, the study could not determine differences by vaccine types.
Individuals carrying rare, but biologically informative genetic variants provide a unique opportunity to model major mental illness and inform understanding of disease mechanisms. The rarity of such ...variations means that their study involves small group numbers, however they are amongst the strongest known genetic risk factors for major mental illness and are likely to have large neural effects. DISC1 (Disrupted in Schizophrenia 1) is a gene containing one such risk variant, identified in a single Scottish family through its disruption by a balanced translocation of chromosomes 1 and 11; t(1;11) (q42.1;q14.3).
Within the original pedigree, we examined the effects of the t(1;11) translocation on white matter integrity, measured by fractional anisotropy (FA). This included family members with (n = 7) and without (n = 13) the translocation, along with a clinical control sample of patients with psychosis (n = 34), and a group of healthy controls (n = 33).
We report decreased white matter integrity in five clusters in the genu of the corpus callosum, the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, acoustic radiation and fornix. Analysis of the mixed psychosis group also demonstrated decreased white matter integrity in the above regions. FA values within the corpus callosum correlated significantly with positive psychotic symptom severity.
We demonstrate that the t(1;11) translocation is associated with reduced white matter integrity in frontal commissural and association fibre tracts. These findings overlap with those shown in affected patients with psychosis and in DISC1 animal models and highlight the value of rare but biologically informative mutations in modeling psychosis.
Despite evidence of the efficacy of adjuvant endocrine therapy (AET) in reducing the risk of recurrence and mortality after treatment for primary breast cancer, adherence to AET is suboptimal. This ...study aimed to explore factors that influence adherence and nonadherence to AET following breast cancer to inform the development of supportive interventions.
Interviews were conducted with 32 women who had been prescribed AET, 2-4 years following their diagnosis of breast cancer. Both adherers (n=19) and nonadherers (n=13) were recruited. The analysis was conducted using the Framework approach.
Factors associated with adherence were as follows: managing side effects including information and advice on side effects and taking control of side effects, supportive relationships, and personal influences. Factors associated with nonadherence were as follows: burden of side effects, feeling unsupported, concerns about long-term AET use, regaining normality, including valuing the quality of life over length of life, and risk perception.
Provision of timely information to prepare women for the potential side effects of AET and education on medication management strategies are needed, including provision of timely and accurate information on the efficacy of AET in reducing breast cancer recurrence and on potential side effects and ways to manage these should they arise. Trust in the doctor-patient relationship and clear patient pathways for bothersome side effects and concerns with AET are important. Training and education on AET for GPs should be considered alongside novel care pathways such as primary care nurse cancer care review and community pharmacist follow-up.
Using over a million and a half extragalactic spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey we study the correlations of the diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) in the Milky Way. We measure the correlation ...between DIB strength and dust extinction for 142 DIBs using 24 stacked spectra in the reddening range E(B − V) < 0.2, many more lines than ever studied before. Most of the DIBs do not correlate with dust extinction. However, we find 10 weak and barely studied DIBs with correlations that are higher than 0.7 with dust extinction and confirm the high correlation of additional five strong DIBs. Furthermore, we find a pair of DIBs, 5925.9 and 5927.5 Å, which exhibits significant negative correlation with dust extinction, indicating that their carrier may be depleted on dust. We use Machine Learning algorithms to divide the DIBs to spectroscopic families based on 250 stacked spectra. By removing the dust dependence, we study how DIBs follow their local environment. We thus obtain six groups of weak DIBs, four of which are tightly associated with C2 or CN absorption lines.
The aim of this article is to examine the legitimacy of claims that athletes in extreme sports may encounter the mystical and sublime, when examined though a Christian theological lens. Drawing on ...the works of theologians and religious studies scholars - in particular, that of Richard Zaehner (1961) - and social scientists who have written on the topic of the mystical and sublime in sporting experience, the two major themes explored are first, the differences and similarities between positive psychological states commonly reported in extreme sport, for example the 'flow' experience, and theistic mystical experiences articulated in the bible and in Christian theology, and, secondly, the possibility of experiencing the sublime through the nature-person interaction in wilderness settings. As to whether extreme sport experience provides access to the mystical realms of the Holy that Rudolph Otto, St Paul, Jonathan Edwards and St John of the Cross refer to, our answer is an emphatic no. That said, we wish clearly to articulate our endorsement of sports such as mountaineering, surfing and snowboarding. Within a balanced theology of leisure, they can be seen as forms of deep play, an avenue to well-being and growth, even spiritual expression in an aesthetic, creative sense that provides opportunities for meaningful, therapeutic and exhilarating wilderness experience. It is hoped that for those readers wishing to delve further into this challenging and complicated field of study, our argument will provide a 'position statement' that will provoke further scholarship and empirical research.
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