Physical education down under: Fusion or confusion

At the International Council for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, Sport and Dance (ICHPER-SD) Conference held in Wellington in October 2006, the authors presented a keynote titled: Physical Education Down Under: Fusion or Confusion. This presentation was somewhat unusual as it took the form of a three act play. The story line was based around a final year teacher education student (Digger) who had a passion for physical education – doing it, studying it and wanting to teach it. In the first two scenes the story evolved around Digger planning for an in-class assessment – a 10 minute presentation on an issue relating to physical education and/or sport (in school). Digger was a dogmatic character who relished the opportunity to engage in arguments with his lecturers and fellow students about matters to do with physical edcuation. Although a ‘novice’ this helped him develop a good understanding about the purpose of physical education and its place in the school curriculum. The setting for the third scene was a lecture room at the university where the students were to give their presentations. To ensure the students took this task seriously, the Professor made it a competition. The prize for the student with the best presentation was a trip to the ICHPER-SD conference. Five minutes into the scene Digger was asked to step forward to deliever his presentation to the Professor and ‘Lady PENZ’. It was titled ‘Food for Thought’

The role of strategic alliances in gaining sustainable competitive advantage for firms

This article offers a critical assessment of the role of strategic alliances in gaining sustainable competitive advantage through building knowledge assets. To do so, it develops a conceptual model, in which three key concepts: the role of 'knowledge assets' in gaining 'sustainable competitive advantage' via 'strategic alliances' between firms are defined and related to each other. It argues core competencies and dynamic capabilities of firms depend on knowledge assets of the firm. In turn, knowledge assets of the firm determine its sustainable competitive advantage. Furthermore, it explicates how knowledge assets can be exploited or explored in a strategic alliance context. In addition, by offering a new conceptual model, this article contributes to our understanding of the linkages among knowledge building and collaborative ventures between firms and stimulates further research on strategic alliances

A half-second glimpse often lets radiologists identify breast cancer cases even when viewing the mammogram of the opposite breast

Humans are very adept at extracting the “gist” of a scene in a fraction of a second. We have found that radiologists can discriminate normal from abnormal mammograms at above-chance levels after a half-second viewing (d′ ∼ 1) but are at chance in localizing the abnormality. This pattern of results suggests that they are detecting a global signal of abnormality. What are the stimulus properties that might support this ability? We investigated the nature of the gist signal in four experiments by asking radiologists to make detection and localization responses about briefly presented mammograms in which the spatial frequency, symmetry, and/or size of the images was manipulated. We show that the signal is stronger in the higher spatial frequencies. Performance does not depend on detection of breaks in the normal symmetry of left and right breasts. Moreover, above-chance classification is possible using images from the normal breast of a patient with overt signs of cancer only in the other breast. Some signal is present in the portions of the parenchyma (breast tissue) that do not contain a lesion or that are in the contralateral breast. This signal does not appear to be a simple assessment of breast density but rather the detection of the abnormal gist may be based on a widely distributed image statistic, learned by experts. The finding that a global signal, related to disease, can be detected in parenchyma that does not contain a lesion has implications for improving breast cancer detection

Criticality in Physical Education Teacher Education: Do Graduating Standards Constrain and or Inhibit Curriculum Implementation

Over the last decade and a half, physical education curricula in New Zealand and Australia have had a strong socio-cultural-critical orientation, providing in depth opportunities for critical inquiry. This article suggests that trying to achieve a criticality maybe impeded and or constrained by present graduating teacher standards. In the discussion, it is highlighted that neither New Zealand nor Australia graduating teacher standards overtly suggest critical inquiry as a part of beginning teachers’ required knowledge, skills or dispositions. This could be a significant constraint on maximising the intent of the New Zealand and Australia physical education curricula. As a result, this article makes suggestions as to how a pedagogical constructive framework, with an emphasis on critical constructivism, might provide a way forward

Radiographer reporting in the UK: Is the current scope of practice limiting plain film reporting capacity?

yesObjective: To update knowledge on individual radiographer contribution to plain-film reporting workloads; to assess whether there is scope to further increase radiographer reporting capacity within this area. Methods: Reporting radiographers were invited to complete an online survey. Invitations were posted to every acute National Health Service trust in the UK whilst snowball sampling was employed via a network of colleagues, ex-colleagues and acquaintances. Information was sought regarding the demographics, geographical location and anatomical and referral scope of practice. Results: A total of 259 responses were received. 15.1% and 7.7% of respondents are qualified to report chest and abdomen radiographs, respectively. The mean time spent reporting per week is 14.5 h (range 1–37.5). 23.6% of radiographers report only referrals from emergency departments whilst 50.6% of radiographers have limitations on their practice. Conclusion: The scope of practice of reporting radiographers has increased since previous studies; however, radiographer reporting of chest and abdomen radiographs has failed to progress in line with demand. There remain opportunities to increase radiographer capacity to assist the management of reporting backlogs. Advances in knowledge: This study is the first to examine demographic factors of reporting radiographers across the UK and is one of the largest in-depth studies of UK reporting radiographers, at individual level, to date

Neonatal respiratory distress syndrome: Chest X-ray or lung ultrasound? A systematic review

Background and aim: Neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (NRDS) is a leading cause of morbidity in preterm new-born babies (< 37 weeks gestation age [GA]). The current diagnostic reference standard includes clinical testing and chest radiography (CXR) with associated exposure to ionising radiation. The aim of this review was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of lung ultrasound (LUS) against the reference standard in symptomatic neonates of ≤ 42 weeks GA. Methods: A systematic search of literature published between 1990 and 2016 identified 803 potentially relevant studies. Six studies met the review inclusion criteria and were retrieved for analysis. Quality assessment was performed before data extraction and meta-analysis. Results: Four prospective cohort studies and two case control studies included 480 neonates. All studies were of moderate methodological quality although heterogeneity was evident across the studies. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of LUS were 97% (95% confidence interval [CI] 94%-99%) and 91% (CI: 86%-95%) respectively. False positive diagnoses were made in sixteen cases due to pneumonia (n=8), transient tachypnoea (n=3), pneumothorax (n=1) and meconium aspiration syndrome (n=1); the diagnoses of the remaining three false positive results were not specified. False negatives diagnoses occurred in nine cases, only two were specified as air-leak syndromes. Conclusions: LUS was highly sensitive for the detection of NRDS although there is potential to miss co-morbid air-leak syndromes (ALS). Further research into LUS diagnostic accuracy for neonatal ALS and economic modelling for service integration is required before LUS can replace CXR as the imaging component of the reference standard

THE GENETIC DIVERSITY OF SAFFLOWER (Carthamus tinctorius L.) GENOTYPES DEVELOPED BY HYBRIDIZATION USING SSR MARKERS

Safflower is an annual oilseed crop which has healthy edible oil containing high amount of unsaturated fatty acids in the world. In this study, we investigated safflower registered cultivars of Turkey (4), genotypes retrieved from USDA (10) and their hybrids (45) for genetic variation using 10 simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci. Genetic diversity calculated registered cultivars, genotypes and hybrids were as follows: mean number of alleles (4.67), expected heterozygosity (0.680), average effective number of alleles (3.172), and polymorphism information content (0.664). The dendrogram analysis revealed at least four possible major clusters in the parents and hybrids. High level of genetic diversity explained between the populations and Fst calculate (0.593) suggested that the clusters were differentiated to each other. Registered safflower cultivars of Turkey were distributed across all four clusters and the accessions from USA were defined in most of the clusters. The dendrogram based method analysis revealed two major clusters which corresponded to spiny and spineless safflower genotypes. It was suggested that the studied 6 SSR markers could be utilized for safflower breeding studies based on molecular analysis © 2022, Genetika.All Rights Reserved.The authors thank Dr. Raziye IŞIK and Dr. Nihan ŞAHİN for their contributions in laboratory techniques. The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interes

HETEROSIS AND COMBINING ABILITY VIA LINE × TESTER ANALYSIS FOR QUALITY AND SOME AGRONOMIC CHARACTERS IN SAFFLOWER

This research was conducted in 2018 and 2019 at Tekirdag Namık Kemal University, Faculty of Agriculture, Field Crops Department, Research and Experimental area. It was aimed to determine general combining abilities (GCA) of parental lines, specific combining abilities (SCA) of hybrids, having F1 hybrids from 5 female lines and 9 male testers. For this purpose, lines and testers were hybridized in all combinations using line x tester method in 2018. The field experiments for hybrids (F1) were designed in a randomized complete block with three replications in 2019. The male parents Linas as high general combiners for developing increased seed and oil yields in safflower hybrids. The highest heterosis for oil content was calculated EC18 hybrid (14.281%). The highest heterosis was calculated in EC2 (34.079%) and EC4 (34.548%) for seed and oil yield, respectively. In the study, similar heterotic effect was observed between seed and oil yield as there is interaction between them. Hybrid EC2, EC4 and EC18 were determined as best combinations for high seed yield, oil content and oil yield according to the SCA and heterosis values. The promising hybrids will be grown in the next generations together with the other hybrids in order to ensure sufficient variation, and the selection will be started in the later generations such as F3 and F4. © 2022, Society of Field Crops Science. All rights reserved

Running-centred injury prevention support. A scoping review on current injury risk reduction practices for runners.

BACKGROUND: Runners have not benefited from the same reduction in injury rates seen in injury prevention studies conducted in other sports. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this scoping review was to identify and map injury risk reduction practices for Running-Related Injury (RRI), methods of delivery, and understand views of experts and runner’s preferences in reducing RRI. DESIGN: Scoping review. METHODS: We conducted systematic database searches of MEDLINE, CINAHL and SPORTDiscus from 2000 to April 2024. Eligible studies included injury prevention strategies for RRI. Data synthesis was conducted according to PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews using Joanna Briggs Institute framework methodology. Extracted data was mapped and coded from intervention studies, expert opinions and reviews, and inductive thematic analysis created subthemes and themes from prospective cohort, qualitative studies and surveys. RESULTS: 3765 studies were identified, and 106 studies met the inclusion criteria. In intervention studies supervision and support appeared critical for better effect. Key injury prevention topics were strengthening, gait re-education and wearables, graduated running programmes, footwear, recovery and educational advice. A multifactorial approach considering individual risk profiles was recommended by experts but there was disparity in what runners do to reduce injury risk compared to expert advice, with actions appearing to be related to self-efficacy rather than avoidance. CONCLUSION: This scoping review highlighted runners require individualized, supported, multifactorial approaches for injury risk reduction, and runners seek knowledge on purpose. We found runners injury risk reduction practices should begin early with youth runners and facilitating this through coaching supervision is likely to support behaviour change. Strategies such as gait re-training, wearables and recovery need further exploration but provide promising strategies runners may engage with more. As runners are likely to choose familiar options minimally impacting lifestyle and running, they should be provided with education but need support with their choices to influence beliefs. <br/