The Role of Professional Football Clubs in Enhancing the Mental Health and Well-Being of Young People

Introduction: Football Club Community Trusts (FCCTs) that are attached to professional football clubs in the UK use the sport brand to engage marginalised populations in various initiatives designed to address public health agendas. Studies highlight the impact that FCCTs can have on adults’ mental health, yet less was known about programmes for younger age groups. Following the MRC and NIHR Framework for assessing feasibility and acceptability, the overall aim of this thesis was to explore FCCT interventions for young people, with the purpose of identifying recommendations to inform future practice.Study 1: A systematic review of published physical activity (PA)-based interventions (N=54) found improvements in young people's mental health, yet only one was delivered by an FCCT.Study 2: A mixed-method survey of UK FCCTs (N = 54) identified 32 mental health-focused initiatives for young people. Reported aims included promoting resilience (n = 27/32, 84.4%) and self-esteem (n = 26/32, 81.3%), as well as identifying young people at-risk of developing a mental health problem (n = 15/32, 46.9%). However, features of individual programmes varied. Some used football to increase social inclusion and overall well-being, whereas others included education sessions to improve mental health literacy (e.g., anti-stigma, strategies to promote mental health). FCCTs also reported challenges with evaluation, sustaining funding, and keeping up to date with mental health training.Study 3: Interviews and focus groups with staff (N = 17) and young people (N = 19) involved with 6 FCCT programmes found that several features were important. This included: (1) the draw of the professional club badge, (2) opportunities to play football, (3) using sport examples to teach mental health topics, (4) ensuring facilitators were relatable role models, and (5) encouraging open mental health discussions. Areas for refinement included (1) understanding how to keep participants engaged, and (2) providing interactive activities.Conclusion: This thesis showed that FCCTs programmes align with mental health promotion and prevention policy, by providing opportunity to participate in PA, develop mental health literacy, and identify young people at-risk. Recommendations for developing, delivering, and evaluating such programmes are presented in the final chapter of this thesis. Implications for researchers and practitioners, as well as directions for future research, are also discussed.<br/

Fantastic Beasts and How to Find Them: An Examination of How Historians Search for Animals in the Archives

This paper investigates the ways in which academic historians locate archival materials related to animals. Over the past twenty years, animals have become an increasingly popular subject for historians to research. However, these historians face challenges when searching in special collections or archives because of the authorship of their sources and current practices in archival description. In order to understand how these scholars search for these materials and their opinions on potential changes, the study consists of three semi-structured interviews with historians who work on animal-related histories. Knowledge of how niche researchers, such as animal-related historians, operate may benefit reference and technical services, helping archivists provide higher quality services to these patrons.Master of Science in Library Scienc

Multimodal Data Fusion and Behavioral Analysis Tooling for Exploring Trust, Trust-propensity, and Phishing Victimization in Online Environments

Online environments, including email and social media platforms, are continuously threatened by malicious content designed by attackers to install malware on unsuspecting users and/or phish them into revealing sensitive data about themselves. Often slipping past technical mitigations (e.g. spam filters), attacks target the human element and seek to elicit trust as a means of achieving their nefarious ends. Victimized end-users lack the discernment, visual acuity, training, and/or experience to correctly identify the nefarious antecedents of trust that should prompt suspicion. Existing literature has explored trust, trust-propensity, and victimization, but studies lack data capture richness, realism, and/or the ability to investigate active user interactions. This paper defines a data collection and fusion approach alongside new open-sourced behavioral analysis tooling that addresses all three factors to provide researchers with empirical, evidence-based, insights into active end-user trust behaviors. The approach is evaluated in terms of comparative analysis, run-time performance, and fused data accuracy

Evaluating the Effects of Symptom Monitoring on Menopausal Health Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Evidence suggests that monitoring and appraising symptoms can result in increased engagement in medical help-seeking, improved patient-doctor communication, and reductions in symptom prevalence and severity. To date, no systematic reviews have investigated whether symptom monitoring could be a useful intervention for menopausal women. This review explored whether symptom monitoring could improve menopausal symptoms and facilitate health-related behaviours. Results suggested that symptom monitoring was related to improvements in menopausal symptoms, patient-doctor communication and medical decision-making, heightened health awareness, and stronger engagement in setting treatment goals. Meta-analyses indicated large effects for the prolonged use of symptom diaries on hot flush frequencies. Between April 2019 and April 2021, PsychInfo, EMBASE, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane, ProQuest, PsychArticles, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched. Eighteen studies met the eligibility criteria and contributed data from 1,718 participants. Included studies quantitatively or qualitatively measured the impact of symptom monitoring on menopausal populations and symptoms. Research was narratively synthesised using thematic methods, 3 studies were examined via meta-analysis. Key themes suggest that symptom monitoring is related to improvements in menopausal symptoms, improved patient-doctor communication and medical decision-making, increased health awareness, and stronger engagement in goal-setting behaviours. Meta-analysis results indicated large effects for the prolonged use of symptom diaries on hot flush frequency: 0.73 [0.57, 0.90]. This review is limited due to the low number of studies eligible for inclusion, many of which lacked methodological quality. These results indicate that symptom monitoring has potential as an effective health intervention for women with menopausal symptoms. This intervention may be beneficial within healthcare settings, in order to improve patient-doctor relations and adherence to treatment regimes. However, findings are preliminary and quality assessments suggest high risk of bias. Thus, further research is needed to support these promising outcomes. Systematic Review Registration Number: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?, PROSPERO, identifier: CRD42019146270

Factors that affect powered wheelchair use for an adult population: A systematic Review

PurposeThe purpose of the review was to explore current factors affecting the use of a powered wheelchair for an adult person a with a disability.Materials and MethodsThis review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) statement. Information about the characteristics of the studies (type, setting) and perceived barriers and facilitators to powered wheelchair use were extracted using a data extraction sheet. Data synthesis was achieved using narrative synthesis. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the Standard Quality Assessment Criteria for Evaluating Primary Research Papers from a Variety of Fields (SQAC) and the CASP checklist (Critical Appraisal Skills Programme), Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, SIGN (Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network).ResultsFifteen studies qualified for inclusion in the review. The narrative synthesis produced a conceptual map of reported factors affecting the usability of a powered wheelchair.ConclusionsThis review demonstrates that powered wheelchair use is a multifaceted and multidisciplinary phenomenon that is dependent on numerous interconnected factors including individual adjustment, stakeholder cooperation, societal attitudes, functional performance, and environmental features. Based on the review findings, there are several applied learning outcomes and practical applications to the powered wheelchair prescription and provision.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATIONThe rejection, misuse or damage of a powered wheelchair can result in condition deterioration and loss of independence for the user.Adult powered wheelchair prescription, maintenance, and use is a multi-faceted process spanning social, individual, environmental, technical and functional, and organisational factors.Individuals in this stakeholder network should aim to account for these interdisciplinary factors when engaging with people who use powered wheelchairs

Welcome? Investigating the reception of new contributors to organizational-communal open source software projects

The way new contributors are received by the established contributors in an open source project is a factor in whether they will become more regular contributors. This research examines the reception of new contributors in three open source projects to discover whether there are differences in how established contributors respond to new contributors, and if so, what those differences are. Through statistical analysis of time to first response and sentiment analysis of that response to a new contributor’s issue, we found that there is a difference in both the speed and content of responses to new contributors’ issues as opposed to those of established contributors. This difference suggests that the open source projects we observed are attentive to whether an issue was created by a new contributor and may make an effort to respond in a welcoming manner

Margalefidinium polykrikoides Cyst Resuspension in the Lafayette River, a Sub-tributary of the Chesapeake Bay

Harmful Algal Blooms are a collection of algae in a body of water that can cause serious environmental issues and health problems in both people and aquatic organisms. Dinoflagellates are microscopic, unicellular, and eukaryotic organisms that are well known for forming harmful algal blooms because of eutrophication. Coastal Virginia suffers from HABs in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. A common species of dinoflagellate, known as Margalefidinium polykrikoides exists in the Chesapeake Bay. The purpose of this study is to determine if sediment resuspension produced by wind generated surface gravity waves cause cysts (dinoflagellate resting stages) to be suspended into the water column, which could contribute to bloom initiation if they germinate and then inoculate the water column with motile cells. Using light microscopy and qPCR, we will determine the percentage of resuspended dinoflagellate cysts being identified as Margalefidinium polykrikoides