Exploring the Role of Spirituality and Spiritual Beliefs in the Pursuit of Excellence and Attainment of Peak Performance in Professional Athletes

Little research has been found which examines the assessment of spirituality in sport performers and its possible role in performance enhancement. The goal of the current study was to understand if and how spirituality impacts athleticism. The subjective experiences of Christian spirituality in an American World Sprinter (male), a British Olympic Sprint Canoe Racer (female), and a retired American Minor League Baseball player (male) were analyzed through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith & Osborn, 2003). Semi-structured interviews were used to gather data leading to three major themes: “The Belief and Confidence in God”, “Individual and Communal Prayer”, and “The Influential Role of Scripture”. These findings support previous research into athletic excellence and optimal performance. Moreover, this research provides insight into how spirituality can be acknowledged and used in athlete-centered models to enhance performance while providing holistic care for the entirety the athlete: mind, body, and spirit

REWILDING CHILDREN: Creating Digital Tools for K-5 Wildlife Education

As people are moving and expanding into more rural and unoccupied areas, the number of human-wildlife interactions have increased. Public attitudes toward wildlife are essential for the safety of both, as well as maintaining a healthy ecosystem. Lack of awareness and education surrounding wildlife results in relationships with wildlife becoming disconnected, dangerous, and harmful to both native wildlife species and people. We believe through proper education, these conflicts can be mitigated and prevented. With our literature review, we learned that starting education about wildlife at an early age is important. While some resources for teachers exist, they do not allow for students to interact with the material, nor feel empowered by it. Through the interviews that we conducted, we gained a greater understanding as to which subjects should be included in our curriculum on our website, where the current gaps are in education with wildlife and related topics, and what resources would be helpful to allow students to understand this material better. We interviewed a variety of people of different backgrounds, including parents, teachers, wildlife educators, scientists, and international scholars, in order to understand what to include in our created website. With this, we hope to educate children about the natural world and how they can interact with it, as well as develop a love and respect for nature and wildlife. This knowledge will give kids a head start in the science world and help them develop skills such as teamwork, problem-solving, reasoning, critical thinking, and collaborative skills when they are at their most impressionable age. This will be helpful for wildlife, and it will be vital in furthering education and developing skills they will take into their adult life

UK sustainable drainage systems: past, present and future

Urban drainage has developed from an engineering discipline, concerned principally with public health and safety outcomes, into a multifaceted vision linking drainage with environmental and wider social and economic imperatives to deliver multifunctional outcomes. UK attention is too often focused on surface water as ‘a problem’, despite international progress and initiatives showing that an ‘opportunity-centred’ approach needs to be taken. Sustainable drainage systems, or ‘Suds’, can, when they are part of an integrated approach to water management, cost-effectively provide many benefits beyond management of water quality and quantity. New tools are available that can design Suds for maximum value to society but this requires greater collaboration across disciplines to seize all of the opportunities available. This paper introduces those tools and a roadmap for their use, including guidance, design objectives and criteria for maximising benefits. These new supporting tools and guidance can help to provide a business case for greater use of Suds in future

CD39 activity correlates with stage and inhibits platelet reactivity in chronic lymphocytic leukemia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is characterized by accumulation of mature appearing lymphocytes and is rarely complicated by thrombosis. One possible explanation for the paucity of thrombotic events in these patients may be the presence of the ecto-nucleotidase CD39/NTDPase-1 on the surface of the malignant cells in CLL. CD39 is the major promoter of platelet inhibition <it>in vivo </it>via its metabolism of ADP to AMP. We hypothesize that if CD39 is observed on CLL cells, then patients with CLL may be relatively protected against platelet aggregation and recruitment and that CD39 may have other effects on CLL, including modulation of the disease, via its metabolism of ATP.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Normal and malignant lymphocytes were isolated from whole blood from patients with CLL and healthy volunteers. Enzyme activity was measured via radio-TLC assay and expression via FACS. Semi-quantititative RT-PCR for CD39 splice variants and platelet function tests were performed on several samples.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Functional assays demonstrated that ADPase and ATPase activities were much higher in CLL cells than in total lymphocytes from the normal population on a per cell basis (p-value < 0.00001). CD39 activity was elevated in stage 0–2 CLL compared to stage 3–4 (p < 0.01). FACS of lymphocytes demonstrated CD39 expression on > 90% of normal and malignant B-lymphocytes and ~8% of normal T-lymphocytes. RT-PCR showed increased full length CD39 and splice variant 1.5, but decreased variant 1.3 in CLL cells. Platelet function tests showed inhibition of platelet activation and recruitment to ADP by CLL cells.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>CD39 is expressed and active on CLL cells. Enzyme activity is higher in earlier stages of CLL and decreased enzyme activity may be associated with worsening disease. These results suggest that CD39 may play a role in the pathogenesis of malignancy and protect CLL patients from thrombotic events.</p

Surgery for small asymptomatic abdominal aortic aneurysms

An abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is an abnormal ballooning of the major abdominal artery. Some AAAs present as emergencies and require surgery; others remain asymptomatic. Treatment of asymptomatic AAAs depends on many factors but an important one is size of the aneurysm, as risk of rupture increases with aneurysm size. Large asymptomatic AAAs (> 5.5 cm in diameter) are usually operated on; very small AAAs (< 4.0 cm diameter) are monitored with ultrasonography. The optimal timing of surgery would benefit from further evidence

Use of complementary and alternative medicine and breast cancer survival in the Health, Eating, Activity, and Lifestyle Study

PURPOSE: Use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is common among breast cancer patients, but less is known about whether CAM influences breast cancer survival. METHODS: Health Eating, Activity, and Lifestyle (HEAL) Study participants (n = 707) were diagnosed with stage I-IIIA breast cancer. Participants completed a 30-month post-diagnosis interview including questions on CAM use (natural products such as dietary and botanical supplements, alternative health practices, and alternative medical systems), weight, physical activity, and comorbidities. Outcomes were breast cancer-specific and total mortality, which were ascertained from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results registries in Western Washington, Los Angeles County, and New Mexico. Cox proportional hazards regression models were fit to data to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95 % confidence intervals (CI) for mortality. Models were adjusted for potential confounding by sociodemographic, health, and cancer-related factors. RESULTS: Among 707 participants, 70 breast cancer-specific deaths and 149 total deaths were reported. 60.2 % of participants reported CAM use post-diagnosis. The most common CAM were natural products (51 %) including plant-based estrogenic supplements (42 %). Manipulative and body-based practices and alternative medical systems were used by 27 and 13 % of participants, respectively. No associations were observed between CAM use and breast cancer-specific (HR 1.04, 95 % CI 0.61-1.76) or total mortality (HR 0.91, 95 % CI 0.63-1.29). CONCLUSION: Complementary and alternative medicine use was not associated with breast cancer-specific mortality or total mortality. Randomized controlled trials may be needed to definitively test whether there is harm or benefit from the types of CAM assessed in HEAL in relation to mortality outcomes in breast cancer survivors

The Piper Fatigue Scale-12 (PFS-12): psychometric findings and item reduction in a cohort of breast cancer survivors

Brief, valid measures of fatigue, a prevalent and distressing cancer symptom, are needed for use in research. This study’s primary aim was to create a shortened version of the revised Piper Fatigue Scale (PFS-R) based on data from a diverse cohort of breast cancer survivors. A secondary aim was to determine whether the PFS captured multiple distinct aspects of fatigue (a multidimensional model) or a single overall fatigue factor (a unidimensional model)