The developing possibilities of sport tourism in Latvia

Bakalaura darba nosaukums ir „ Sporta tūrisma attīstības iespējas Latvijā”. Pēdējo gadu laikā, Latvijas sportistu sasniegumi pasaulē ir apliecinājuši, ka Latvijā ir attīstīti daudzi sporta veidi. Latvijā ir gatavā veidot, attīstīt un piedāvāt jaunus sporta tūrisma produktus. Sporta tūrismam nav kultūras vai valodas barjeru, un tas var ietvert visus iedomājamos sporta veidus, visas vecuma grupas un demogrāfiskās grupas, kā arī tos cilvēkus, kas ceļo, lai sportotu, vai arī dodas uz ārvalstīm, lai vērotu sporta sacensības. No darba autores viedokļa sporta tūrismam ir visas priekšrocības, lai mainītu un no jauna veidotu Latvijas tēlu , turklāt arī pozitīvi ietekmētu Latvijas ekonomiku. Darbs sastāv no piecām nodaļām, jeb trim daļām: teorētiskās, analītiskās un praktiskās daļas. Trīs nodaļas tiek veltītas teorētiskajam pamatojumam, pārejas divas daļas tiek atvēlētas analītiskai un praktiskai daļai. Darba struktūra ir sekojoša: pirmajā nodaļā tiek noskaidrota un pamatota darba teorētiskā daļa. Noskaidroti sporta tūrisma veidi un to iedalījums, sporta tūrisma definējums, vēsture, ka arī sporta tūrisma vieta kopēja tūrisma iedalījumā. Galvenais uzsvars ir sporta un tūrisma saiknes, kas veido sporta tūrismu. Otrajā nodaļa tiek veltīta maratonam kā atsevišķam sporta tūrisma veidam. Noskaidrota maratona izcelsme, aprakstīta tāda jauna tendence sporta tūrismā kā maratona tūrisms. Aprakstīti visslavenākie un pazīstamākie pasaules maratoni. Darba trešajā nodaļa atveltīta tādam veidojumam kā tūrisma produkts un tūrisma produkta sastāvdaļām, sporta pasākumu tūristu piesaistes spēkam, tiek izanalizēts ekonomiskais aspekts, izdevīgums valstij ,kur notiek pasākums. Darba ceturtā nodaļa ir analītiskā, tur tiek apkopoti statistiski dati par sporta tūrismu Latvijā. Tiek izanalizēti izejoša un ienākoša tūrisma dati. Aprakstīti sporta infrastruktūru finansējuma avoti. Kā arī izklāstīta tūrisma aģentūru darbība, kuru pakalpojumu klāstā ir sporta tūrisma produkts. Piektā praktiskā nodaļa fokusējas uz sporta tūrismu Latvijā un tā perspektīvām. Galvenais uzsvars ir uz maratona tūrismu. Latvijai jāpiedāvā maratonu kā jauno tūrisma produktu. Darba autore piedāvā maratona uzlabošanas programmu. Nobeigumā tiek izstrādāta speciāla programma ,kas ir balstīta uz Rīgas maratona attīstīšanu kā instrumentu sporta tūristu piesaistīšanai. Darba nobeigumā tiek sniegti izstrādāti secinājumi un priekšlikumi. Pēc autores domām, sekmīgas darbā piedāvātas programmas ieviešanas gadījumā, var cerēt uz maratonu tūristu pieplūdumu arī nākotnē.Bachelor`s diploma title is “The developing possibilities of Sport tourism in Latvia”. Within last couple of years, Latvian athlete achievements in major sport events have proved that Latvia is developed country in all kinds of sport. Latvia is ready to create, develop and offer brand new tourism products. Sport tourism does not have any cultural or language barriers, it can include all possible age and demographical groups, even those people, who travel to participate in sport activities or those, who travel in order to watch major sport events. In Author`s opinion, sport tourism has all advantages to change and create Latvian image as well as positively affect Latvian economy. This Bachelor`s work consists of 5 (five) chapters or 3(three) parts: theoretical, analytic and practical application parts. 3 chapters are devoted to theoretical argumentation, the least 2 (two) dedicated to analytical and practical application. This work has following structure: In the first chapter author clarifies and justifies theory about sport tourism. Clarifies sport tourism forms and classifications, definitions, as well as history of sport and it`s role in common tourism classification. Primary accent is on connection between sport and tourism that forms sport tourism The second chapter is dedicated to marathon as a brand new sport tourism form. Author clarifies the origin of the marathon, describes new tendency in sport tourism like marathon tourists, describes world most popular marathons. The third chapter is devoted to tourism product and its components, sport event attraction, author analyses economic aspect and economic advantage of staging sport events in the cities. The forth chapter is analytical, where author summarizes all statistical facts and figures about Latvian sport tourism, analyses incoming and outgoing statistical information of Latvian tourism, gives a small feedback about finance sources for sport infrastructures as well as summarizes tourism agency operations and products in sport tourism area. The fifth chapter focuses on sport tourism and its perspectives in Latvia. The main accent is on marathon tourism. Latvia should offer marathon as a brand new sport tourism product. Author offers Riga Nordea marathon improvement programme implementation, develops special programme, which is based on Riga Nordea Marathon as instrument to attract tourists. As a result of deep analysis author offers conclusions and propositions about sport tourism development in Latvia

Credibility clusters, preferences, and helpfulness beliefs for specific forms of psychotherapy

Background. There is some evidence that the perceived credibility of specific forms of psychotherapy, beliefs about helpful and not-so-helpful interventions, and differential treatment preferences may influence both therapeutic alliance and outcome, at least in the short term. The present study explored whether distinct clusters exist, based on credibility ratings, and how these may be related to treatment preferences and beliefs about the helpfulness of specific interventions. less thanbrgreater than less thanbrgreater thanMethod. Written descriptions of psychodynamic, cognitive, and cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy were rated by a random community sample with the normal level of psychiatric treatment (n = 121), psychiatric outpatients with limited previous experience of psychiatric care (n = 118), and a group of psychiatric veterans with long experience of psychiatric care (n = 48). Participants completed a questionnaire focusing on beliefs about the helpfulness of specific therapy components, rated the credibility of each form of psychotherapy, and ranked the alternatives in terms of preferences. less thanbrgreater than less thanbrgreater thanResults. Using cluster analysis, six distinct groups of participants were delineated. Some approached psychotherapy in an undifferentiated manner, tending to either embrace all or reject all of the methods examined. Others had differentiated ideas about the credibility of specific therapeutic approaches. These clusters were strongly associated with differential treatment preferences. They were also associated with helpfulness beliefs, type of psychological problems, previous experiences with psychotherapy, and gender. Analysis of the interactions among these factors revealed that the distribution across clusters was almost entirely accounted for by the helpfulness beliefs. less thanbrgreater than less thanbrgreater thanConclusions. For clinicians, it may be important to investigate the differential appeal of specific components of psychotherapy as well as entire therapy packages in individual cases prior to commencing therapy. For researchers, it may be important to consider whether outcome studies would become more informative by taking patients beliefs and preferences into account

High Resolution Electronic Spectroscopy of Vibrationally Hot Bands of Benzimidazole

Rotationally resolved electronic spectra of seven vibrationally excited bands in the electronic spectrum of benzimidazole have been measured and analyzed. From the vibrational contributions to the rotational constants, an assignment of the hot bands could be made on the basis of anharmonic corrections to the harmonic normal modes and by using the information contained in the Duschinsky matrix calculated by second order coupled cluster (CC2) theory. Fluorescence emission and (hot) absorption spectra of benzimidazole from Jalviste and Treshchalov [<i>Chem. Phys.</i> <b>1993</b>, <i>172</i>, 325] have been simulated using Franck–Condon integrals obtained from CC2 optimized geometries and Hessians

The role of Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor in Critical Illness

Emerging evidence suggests a crucial role for Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor (MIF) within the adaptive and innate immune system. In contrast to most cytokines, MIF is stored in preformed cytoplasmatic vesicles of various cell types enabling a rapid release in response to various inflammatory stimuli such as infection, surgical stress, hypoxia, ischemia and reperfusion. MIF acts as key player within the inflammatory cascade and provides several biological functions such as control of cell growth and arrest (activation of ERK1/2), sensing of pathogen stimuli (up regulation of TLR4 expression), inhibition of glucocorticoid induced immunosuppression and prevention of p53-mediated apoptosis of macrophages. The functional role of MIF within inflammation and infection seems however ambiguous: On the one hand, the pro-inflammatory effects of MIF are essential for an effective host defense. On the other hand, an overwhelming MIF release might be associated with organ dysfunction and various deleterious effects. Even more puzzling, recent data indicate a protective role of this pleiotrope cytokine during ischemia and reperfusion. This review focuses on new insights regarding the biological significance of MIF release in the context of critical illness and ischemia/reperfusion.status: publishe

Argon Induces Protective Effects in Cardiomyocytes during the Second Window of Preconditioning

Increasing evidence indicates that argon has organoprotective properties. So far, the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Therefore, we investigated the effect of argon preconditioning in cardiomyocytes within the first and second window of preconditioning. Primary isolated cardiomyocytes from neonatal rats were subjected to 50% argon for 1 h, and subsequently exposed to a sublethal dosage of hypoxia (&lt;1% O2) for 5 h either within the first (0–3 h) or second window (24–48 h) of preconditioning. Subsequently, the cell viability and proliferation was measured. The argon-induced effects were assessed by evaluation of mRNA and protein expression after preconditioning. Argon preconditioning did not show any cardioprotective effects in the early window of preconditioning, whereas it leads to a significant increase of cell viability 24 h after preconditioning compared to untreated cells (p = 0.015) independent of proliferation. Argon-preconditioning significantly increased the mRNA expression of heat shock protein (HSP) B1 (HSP27) (p = 0.048), superoxide dismutase 2 (SOD2) (p = 0.001), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) (p &lt; 0.001) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) (p = 0.001). No difference was found with respect to activation of pro-survival kinases in the early and late window of preconditioning. The findings provide the first evidence of argon-induced effects on the survival of cardiomyocytes during the second window of preconditioning, which may be mediated through the induction of HSP27, SOD2, VEGF and iNOS

Operator design and mechanism for CarA repressor-mediated downregulation of the photo-inducible carB operon in Myxococcus xanthus. J.

The carB operon encodes all except one of the enzymes involved in light-induced carotenogenesis in Myxococcus xanthus. Expression of its promoter (PB) is repressed in the dark by sequence-specific DNA binding of CarA to a palindrome (pI) located between positions 47 and 64 relative to the transcription start site. This promotes subsequent binding of CarA to additional sites that remain to be defined. CarS, produced in the light, interacts physically with CarA, abrogates CarA-DNA binding, and thereby derepresses PB. In this study, we delineate the operator design that exists for CarA by precisely mapping out the second operator element. For this, we examined how stepwise deletions and site-directed mutagenesis in the region between the palindrome and the transcription start site affect CarA binding around PB in vitro and expression of PB in vivo. These revealed the second operator element to be an imperfect interrupted palindrome (pII) spanning positions 26 to 40. In vitro assays using purified M. xanthus RNA polymerase showed that CarA abolishes PB-RNA polymerase binding and runoff transcription and that both were restored by CarS, thus rationalizing the observations in vivo. CarA binding to pII (after association with pI) effectively occludes RNA polymerase from PB and so provides the operative mechanism for the repression of the carB o p e r o n b y C a r A . T h e b i p a r t i t e o p e r a t o r d e s i g n , whereby transcription is blocked by the low affinity CarA-pII binding and is readily restored by CarS, may have evolved to match the needs for a rapid and an effective response to lightThis work was supported in part by Grants BMC2000-1006 (to F. J. M.), BMC2002-03818 (to M. S.), and BMC2002-00539 and Programa Ramón y Cajal (to S. P.) from the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, Spain. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact. Supported by a fellowship from Fundación Séneca (Murcia-Spain).Peer reviewe

Recombinant MIF activates AMPK and PKCε whereas it inhibits phosphorylation of JNK1/2.

<p>Cardiomyocytes were incubated with 100/ml recombinant mouseMIF for the indicated time points. Relative activation PKCε (A) AMPK (B), JNK1 (C) and JNK2 (D) was assessed via western blotting. Band intensities were normalized to actin. Data represented means ± SEM of at least 3 independent experiments. *(**)  =  p<0.05 (0.01) vs. baseline.</p