The past, present and future of research on judgment and decision making in sport

Objectives: The study of judgment and decision-making in sports is at least as old as the anniversary of FEPSAC we celebrate with this special issue. It seems therefore appropriate to look into the past, present and future of this topic. Design: For the past, a focus of the review is relating the European perspective of the co-authors into a larger frame of areas in judgment and decision making within the last 50 years and beyond. Method/Results/Conclusions: For the present, scientific current developments will be structured as judgments from the most influential perspectives such as the economical, social cognition, ecological dynamics or cognitive approaches illustrating some milestones in research on judgment and decision-making in sports of today. For the future, potentials of the field will be structured based on theory, methodology and practical applications showcasing challenges for the next decades of research ahead of us

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on European police officers: Stress, demands, and coping resources

Purpose: Facing the COVID-19 pandemic, police officers are confronted with various novel challenges, which might place additional strain on officers. This mixed-method study investigated officers’ strain over a three- month-period after the lockdown. Methods: In an online survey, 2567 police officers (77% male) from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Spain participated at three measurement points per country in spring, 2020. Three-level growth curve models assessed changes in strain and its relation to stressor appraisal, emotion regulation, and pre- paredness through training. To add context to the findings, free response answers about officers’ main tasks, stressors, and crisis measures were coded inductively. Results: On average, officers seemed to tolerate the pandemic with slight decreases in strain over time. Despite substantial variance between countries, 66% of the variance occurred between individuals. Sex, work experience, stressor appraisal, emotion regulation, and preparedness significantly predicted strain. Risk of infection and deficient communication emerged as main stressors. Officers’ reports allowed to derive implications for governmental, organizational, and individual coping strategies during pandemics. Conclusion: Preparing for a pandemic requires three primary paths: 1) enacting unambiguous laws and increasing public compliance through media communication, 2) being logistically prepared, and 3) improving stress regulation skills in police training

Application of a stochastic modeling to evaluate tuberculosis onset in patients treated with tumor necrosis factor inhibitors

In this manuscript we apply stochastic modeling to investigate the risk of reactivation of latent mycobacterial infections in patients undergoing treatment with tumor necrosis factor inhibitors. First, we review the perspective proposed by one of the authors in a previous work and which consists in predicting the occurrence of reactivation of latent tuberculosis infection or newly acquired tuberculosis during treatment; this is based on variational procedures on a simple set of parameters (e.g. rate of reactivation of a latent infection). Then, we develop a full analytical study of this approach through a Markov chain analysis and we find an exact solution for the temporal evolution of the number of cases of tuberculosis infection (re)activation. The analytical solution is compared with Monte Carlo simulations and with experimental data, showing overall excellent agreement. The generality of this theoretical framework allows to investigate also the case of non-tuberculous mycobacteria infections; in particular, we show that reactivation in that context plays a minor role. This may suggest that, while the screening for tuberculous is necessary prior to initiating biologics, when considering non-tuberculous mycobacteria only a watchful monitoring during the treatment is recommended. The framework outlined in this paper is quite general and could be extremely promising in further researches on drug-related adverse events.Comment: 26 pages, 7 figure

Corporeality, equality and education. A biopedagogical perspective

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Anatomy of life and well-being: A framework for the contributions of phenomenology and complexity theory

This paper proposes an anatomy of the phenomena of life and of correlate qualitative modes of empirical research, theory, and professional practice concerned with health and well-being. I explicate the qualitative dynamic operative at every level of order, from the biological realm of cells and organisms, through distinctively human lifeworld experiences and practices, to communities of organisms in ecosystems and bio-cultural regions. This paper clarifies the unity of the dimensions of life and aligns these with demonstrated and emerging contributions of hermeneutical phenomenology and current complexity–autopoietic theory (including disciplinary and professional interpretations of empirical findings). The intent is begin to delineate a common framework upon which we could build—facilitating better understanding of the distinctive contributions of each specialization as well as the integration of diverse qualitative approaches with each other (and with quantitative complements)