Reawakening Sport and Community Engagament in a previous Olympic Host City: Capitalising on the Athens 2004 Olympic Volunteer Legacy 17 Years on

This project aimed to revise understanding of the current experiences of civil and volunteer sector stakeholders. It employed a qualitative, mixed-method, research design comprising strategically targeted semi-structured interviews and surveys with 19 civil society professionals and Athens 2004 volunteer programme administrators and participants. Findings reveal that the Athens 2004 Olympic Games was aided by existing sector expertise and resources, eventually encouraged further third sector development in the country, and inspired individuals to continue wider volunteer-related work. Additionally, while broader social, political, economic factors and a lack of post-Games strategy hindered sector development, new collaborative opportunities were also created. Ultimately, these findings provide a critical appraisal and guidelines for enhancing future Olympic volunteer legacies in host cities

"I Just Go on Wi-Fi": Imagining Worlds Through Professional Basketball Migrants' Deployment of Information and Communication Technology

The connection between athletes and technology has developed in recent years, with the focus on how lives are augmented and presented through this relationship. Building on previous reflections concerning the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to support the sometimes fractious experiences of sport migration, we suggest a need to develop our understandings of migrant athletes’ use of ICT by interrogating socially-embedded processes driving its usage. In so doing, we draw on 18 semistructured interviews with professional basketball migrants based (at the time) in the United Kingdom but whose seasonal work moves them frequently across the globe. We explore these participants’ experiences through the lens of Appadurai’s model of scapes and disjuncture. With this framework we explore themes of negotiation, need, expectation, and barriers. Consequently, we propose expanding how we understand migrant athletes’ relationships with technology

Analytical attractions and the techno-continuum: Conceptualising data obsessions and consequences in elite sport

The proliferation of sports science and technological innovation within performance settings has precipitated the generation of increasing volumes of data to aid athletes. Copious data production has also perpetuated the privileging of scientific information, and a ‘thirst’ for ‘more data’ as an unproblematic ‘truth’. Of significance is not merely the use of technology for the production of data-for-data’s sake, or the utility of data for a greater cause (e.g., the good of the team), but the quest for personalised data for individual athletes to be analysed, and reflected upon ad nauseam. Furthering scholarship on disciplining bodies, we argue that increased technological consumption, and the related excessive quantification of athletes’ bodies via data production, adds further insecurity into performance sports work. Finally, attention is given to the cultural step-change new techno-dispositions may now present

A participant centred approach to understanding athletics in the UK: using 'mobile' methodologies

This project investigates the state of grassroots athletics in the UK from the perspective of coaches and officials over the course of a calendar year. Utilising a longitudinal study design provides an effective means to understand how experiences vary in light of changing schedule of club training demands, organisational pressures and infrastructure and resource demands within the sport. The aims of the study are: 1) To discover what it means to be a coach and/or official within athletics in the UK; 2) To develop understanding and context to the complexities of (voluntary) working within athletics in the UK; and 3) To reveal perspectives of the athletics eco system to develop recommendations for future practice. Subsequently, there is a three 3-step approach to data collection: Step 1) Contextual participant generated photographs which will be accompanied by a piece of writing in a diary of the participants choosing. Step 2) Go-along interviews and observations with each participant. And Step 3: Photo elicitation interviews. Findings will be outlined from the halfway point of data collection and will focus on preliminary findings from Step 1 and Step 2 of the method

Professional sports work in times of geopolitical crises: experiences in men’s basketball in Ukraine

Purpose: Professional sport is distinct employment shaped by organisational and managerial relations, stakeholder involvements, performance imperatives, contextual forces and precarities. Such employment has raised questions regarding work, employment sustainability and careers. The purpose of this article is to examine experiences of sports workers in men’s professional basketball during the geopolitical conflict in Ukraine and highlight ways working conditions are negotiated in adverse contexts. Research methods: A case study approach that utilised semi-structured interviews was applied to enquire about the daily events, activities and related emotion as recalled by sports workers in men’s professional basketball in Ukraine during the geopolitical conflict. Findings: The examination reveals issues related to institutional/organisational, community and individual sustainability of the sport sector when faced with geopolitical crises. While turbulent events may unsettle sports workers, these sports workers demonstrated an ability to respond to the situation, mitigate adverse consequences, and sustain their careers. Practical implications: This work is of value those in sport organisations seeking to understand employees’ experiences and actions during periods of uncertainty, and how individual career continuity relates to organisational sustainability. Implications: Our approach advances understandings about sustainable organisational support and resources, and contingency planning in relation to navigating unforeseen events that arise in sports workers’ careers

Changing it up: implications of mid-season coach change on basketball players’ career and professional identities

Career and professional identities are utilized as a conceptual framework to consider the complexities of basketball players' working lives amidst mid-season coach change. Seven male professional basketball players, working in top European leagues, participated in semi-structured interviews. The interviews were centred on career trajectories and incidents of mid-season coach change. Results indicate sports workers' career success is contingent upon strategically undertaking identity work in order to best respond to the demands of the organizational context. Players' experiences of coach turnover, for example, may have varied however, the event had discernible influence on how they understood themselves, their positional relationship and overall longevity in the sport. Of concern is the necessity for organizations to appreciate their roles in shaping the settings in which their employees work, and the related consequences that contextual changes have in worker's abilities to labour and the strategies they may need to utilize to cope with such change

(Dis)located Olympic patriots: sporting connections, administrative communications and imperial ether in interwar New Zealand

During the interwar period (1919-1939) protagonists of the early New Zealand Olympic Committee NZOC worked to renegotiate and improve the country's international sporting participation and involvement in the International Olympic Committee IOC. To this end, NZOC effectively used its locally based administrators and well-placed expatriates in Britain to variously assert the organisation's nascent autonomy, independence and political power, progress Antipodean athlete's causes, and, counter any potential doubt about the nation's peripheral position in imperial sporting dialogues. Adding to the corpus of scholarship on New Zealand's ties and tribulations with imperial Britain (in and beyond sport) (e.g. Beilharz and Cox 2007; Belich 2001, 2007; Coombes 2006; MacLean 2010; Phillips 1984, 1987; Ryan 2004, 2005, 2007), in this paper I examine how the political actions and strategic location of three key NZOC agents (specifically, administrator Harry Amos and expatriates Arthur Porritt and Jack Lovelock) worked in their own particular ways to assert the position of the organisation within the global Olympic fraternity. I argue that the efforts of Amos, Porritt and Lovelock also concomitantly served to remind Commonwealth sporting colleagues (namely Britain and Australia) that New Zealand could not be characterised as, or relegated to being, a distal, subdued, or subservient colonial sporting partner. Subsequently I contend that NZOC's development during the interwar period, and particularly the utility of expatriate agents, can be contextualised against historiographical shifts that encourage us to rethink, reimagine, and rework narratives of empire, colonisation, national identity, commonwealth and belonging

Metabolite Levels in Paediatric Brain Tumours Correlate with Histological Features

&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Aims:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt; Metabolite levels can be measured non-invasively using in vivo &lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). These tumour metabolite profiles are highly characteristic for tumour type in childhood brain tumours; however, the relationship between metabolite values and conventional histopathological characteristics has not yet been fully established. This study systematically tests the relationship between metabolite levels detected by MRS and specific histological features in a range of paediatric brain tumours. &lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Methods:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt; Single-voxel MRS was performed routinely in children with brain tumours along with the clinical imaging prior to treatment. Metabolites were quantified using LCModel. Histological features were assessed semi-quantitatively for 27 children on H&amp;amp;E and immunostained slides, blind to the metabolite values. Statistical analysis included 2-tailed independent-samples &lt;i&gt;t&lt;/i&gt; tests and 2-tailed Spearman rank correlation tests. &lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Results:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt; Ki67, cellular atypia, and mitosis correlated positively with choline metabolites, and phosphocholine in particular. Apoptosis and necrosis were both associated with lipid levels, with the relationship dependent on the use of long or short echo time MRS acquisitions. Neuronal components correlated negatively and glial components positively with N-acetyl-aspartate. Glial components correlated positively with myoinositol. &lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;Conclusion:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt; Metabolite levels in children's brain tumours measured by MRS are closely associated with key histological features routinely assessed by histopathologists in the diagnostic process. This further elucidates our understanding of this important non-invasive diagnostic tool and strengthens our understanding of the relationship between metabolites and histological features.</jats:p

Metabolite profiles of medulloblastoma for rapid and non-invasive detection of molecular disease groups

BackgroundThe malignant childhood brain tumour, medulloblastoma, is classified clinically into molecular groups which guide therapy. DNA-methylation profiling is the current classification ‘gold-standard’, typically delivered 3–4 weeks post-surgery. Pre-surgery non-invasive diagnostics thus offer significant potential to improve early diagnosis and clinical management. Here, we determine tumour metabolite profiles of the four medulloblastoma groups, assess their diagnostic utility using tumour tissue and potential for non-invasive diagnosis using in vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS).MethodsMetabolite profiles were acquired by high-resolution magic-angle spinning NMR spectroscopy (MAS) from 86 medulloblastomas (from 59 male and 27 female patients), previously classified by DNA-methylation array (WNT (n = 9), SHH (n = 22), Group3 (n = 21), Group4 (n = 34)); RNA-seq data was available for sixty. Unsupervised class-discovery was performed and a support vector machine (SVM) constructed to assess diagnostic performance. The SVM classifier was adapted to use only metabolites (n = 10) routinely quantified from in vivo MRS data, and re-tested. Glutamate was assessed as a predictor of overall survival.FindingsGroup-specific metabolite profiles were identified; tumours clustered with good concordance to their reference molecular group (93%). GABA was only detected in WNT, taurine was low in SHH and lipids were high in Group3. The tissue-based metabolite SVM classifier had a cross-validated accuracy of 89% (100% for WNT) and, adapted to use metabolites routinely quantified in vivo, gave a combined classification accuracy of 90% for SHH, Group3 and Group4. Glutamate predicted survival after incorporating known risk-factors (HR = 3.39, 95% CI 1.4–8.1, p = 0.025).InterpretationTissue metabolite profiles characterise medulloblastoma molecular groups. Their combination with machine learning can aid rapid diagnosis from tissue and potentially in vivo. Specific metabolites provide important information; GABA identifying WNT and glutamate conferring poor prognosis

Running With the Ball? Making a Play for Sport Heritage Archives in Higher Education Contexts

For considerable time, academia (in particular, the Humanities) has been in an intellectual, economic and pragmatic par des deux with the culture and arts sector (in this case, heritage, museums and archives). In many ways, given their respective pursuits of scientific enquiry and learning, valuable contribution to a knowledge economy, commitment to public enlightenment, and exploration of critical and creative endeavour, a relationship between the sectors makes sense. Unity notwithstanding, the relationships have become increasingly now influenced by (en)forced contextual constraints (e.g., government policy development and intervention, neoliberal market forces, structural and ideological shifts in funding acquisition and allocation, patronage changes and demands, and/or individual political priorities) (Dubuc 2011; McCall and Gray 2014; Watson 2002). Drawing on education and heritage scholarship, and theoretical frameworks of sport culture spaces (Hardy, Loy and Booth 2009; Phillips 2012; Pinson 2017), this paper examines efforts undertaken at one specific Higher Education establishment in the United Kingdom in which institutional agendas (vis-à-vis historical and cultural foci, encouraging ‘impactful’ academic activity, brand exposure, economic efficiency, and community engagement) have contoured, and become entwined with, an embryonic sport heritage and archive project. Recalling similar arrangements elsewhere (Krüger 2014; Reilly, Clayton and Hughson 2014; Reilly 2015), the aim of this case study is to explore how the wider education and cultural policy context have precipitated an increasingly symbiotic and dependent relationship between university and cultural/arts initiatives. The paper considers how the impetus to develop a sports-based (basketball) heritage archive and study centre reflects the current fragilities of the two sectors, yet, concomitantly, reveals the potentials that might be developed from fostering greater intellectual and pragmatic alliances. The paper concludes by advocating the practical, political and ideological usefulness of network formation, sustainability measures and continued cross-sector dialogue