Tries and conversions: are sports sponsors pursuing the right objectives?

Sports sponsorship is perceived as important in developing relationships with key clients. However, few companies set relationship marketing objectives when sponsoring sports. This paper aims to examine whether sports sponsors are pursuing the right objectives. It concludes that a deeper understanding of the sponsor's relationship marketing objectives could heighten the sponsor's success, thereby reinforcing and sustaining their own relationship with the sponsoring organisation

Motor imagery and action observation: cognitive tools for rehabilitation

Rehabilitation, for a large part may be seen as a learning process where old skills have to be re-acquired and new ones have to be learned on the basis of practice. Active exercising creates a flow of sensory (afferent) information. It is known that motor recovery and motor learning have many aspects in common. Both are largely based on response-produced sensory information. In the present article it is asked whether active physical exercise is always necessary for creating this sensory flow. Numerous studies have indicated that motor imagery may result in the same plastic changes in the motor system as actual physical practice. Motor imagery is the mental execution of a movement without any overt movement or without any peripheral (muscle) activation. It has been shown that motor imagery leads to the activation of the same brain areas as actual movement. The present article discusses the role that motor imagery may play in neurological rehabilitation. Furthermore, it will be discussed to what extent the observation of a movement performed by another subject may play a similar role in learning. It is concluded that, although the clinical evidence is still meager, the use of motor imagery in neurological rehabilitation may be defended on theoretical grounds and on the basis of the results of experimental studies with healthy subjects

The phenomenon of phototoxicity and long-term risks of commonly prescribed and structurally diverse drugs

Photosensitivity to structurally diverse drugs is a common but under-reported adverse cutaneous reaction and can be classified as phototoxic or photoallergic. Phototoxic reactions occur when the skin is exposed to sunlight after administering topical or systemic medications that exhibit photosensitizing activity. These reactions depend on the dose of medication, degree of exposure to ultraviolet light, type of ultraviolet light, and sufficient skin distribution volume. Accurate prediction of the incidence and phototoxic response severity is challenging due to a paucity of literature, suggesting that phototoxicity may be more frequent than reported. This paper reports an extensive literature review on phototoxic drugs; the review employed pre-determined search criteria that included meta-analyses, systematic reviews, literature reviews, and case reports freely available in full text. Additional reports were identified from reference sections that contributed to the understanding of phototoxicity. The following drugs and/or drug classes are discussed: amiodarone, voriconazole, chlorpromazine, doxycycline, fluoroquinolones, hydrochlorothiazide, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and vemurafenib. In reviewing phototoxic skin reactions, this review highlights drug molecular structures, their reactive pathways, and, as there is a growing association between photosensitizing drugs and the increasing incidence of skin cancer, the consequential long-term implications of photocarcinogenesis

University and community partnerships: building social capital and community capacity

Higher education has great capacity to build ongoing partnerships with community groups to address a range of issues associated with social disadvantage. In early 2004, Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia, established a Community Engagement Working Party to clarify the principles and objectives underpinning the university’s approach to community engagement. As a result of that process a new Learning in the Workplace and Community (LiWC) policy was established and is now a key feature of all teaching programmes at Victoria University in vocational education and higher education. LiWC provides a good opportunity to develop partnerships that will be ongoing and developmental. The aim of this paper is to discuss the unique partnership between a community centre and a university that would see, in 2009, over 100 students from eight different disciplines across the university working in teams, on projects and individually with young people in the heart of Melbourne’s west as a part of their own undergraduate course work. A case study approach has been used to explore the features of the partnership, which has produced educational and community outcomes. This partnership evidences the important role that a university can play in partnering community change, building the capacity of the teaching programmes among their own students and staff and building social capital in a community