Donated Blood, the Body and the Self: Towards a Hierarchy of the Self?

This paper examines the changes in relationship between the body, society and donated blood. Studies in this area (Waldby 2004; Tutton 2002; Scully et al., 2006; Shaw, 2010) have focused on the moral or ethical issues related to blood donation rather than corporeal and cultural issues. This paper deconstructs the impact of developments in bio-technology and commodification of blood with regard to the self, blood donation and blood products and analyses the way in which donors understand bloods’ commodification has altered meanings attached to blood and of impact of corporeal connectedness on the self as Donor. Using data from a qualitative ethnographic study, this paper concludes that the Donor Self has become formed into a hierarchy of parts, to manage the moral and ethical demands on the person when donating, as a result of the medical need for all body parts. Increasingly, blood donors feel they ‘have to give something of themselves’, it introduces the unique concepts of differing selves: the Inner Self, the Liquid and Solid Self relating this to the work of Goffman, as donors seek to rationalize what being a blood donor means for them and their blood

A social support intervention to reduce intentions to drop-out from youth sport:the GAA super games centre

Research has highlighted that drop-out from youth sport has emerged to become a global trend with drop-out rates exceeding 30% in some countries. This study aimed to investigate the effect of a change in perceived support on intentions to drop out from youth sport at the end of a social support intervention. A pre-intervention examination of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in 2012 identified a 19.38% drop-out rate involving 3,491 participants between the ages of 12-16 years. A psychosocial intervention developed for the GAA called the Super Games Centre was delivered and evaluated over a 24-week period to 103 participants. The findings demonstrated that higher perceived available support was significantly associated with lower levels of intentions to drop out at the end of the intervention. Furthermore, social identity emerged as a significant mediating factor in explaining the association between changes in perceived support and intentions to drop out. A post-intervention examination in 2018 found that the GAA had established 95 Super Games Centres since 2015, and this has led to an increase in 7,012 new participants between the ages of 12-16 years. Future research and implications for social support intervention methodology are discussed

Calibrating Growth in the Ambitious SME: Growth Mapping as a New Direction in Business Model Visualisation

Research relating to management assumptions1 has largely being confined to mature industries where they are readily recognisable as influential business variables in finance, economics, organisational and business development. These studies have primarily considered senior managerial assumptions as part of the cognitive architecture of the firm, driving many developmental and growth processes of the organisation. This perspective of assumptions acting as intellectual assets of the organisation supporting the firm and its development is however largely absent from entrepreneurial and small business research. This is somewhat surprising given that research on the small firm suggests that entrepreneurs tend to operate on a high assumption to knowledge ratio. This paper, which introduces assumptive-led ‘growth maps’ attempts to address this apparent deficiency and considers how entrepreneurial assumptions impact upon the planning and development of ambitious, owner-managed, indigenous, Irish small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

'Here, you're all good enough to play':lessons learned from the GAA Super Games Centre

Dropout from youth sport participation is a significant issue that has emerged to become a major health concern around the world. In order to counteract drop out trends in sport, organisations responsible for promoting and sustaining participation have begun to redesign sport participation experiences in-line with the needs of young participants. The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) reversed a significant dropout rate among participants between the ages of 12–16 years within six years through an initiative called the Super Games Centre. The aim of this paper is to identify key factors associated with the implementation success of the GAA Super Games Centre other sport organisations could consider. Focus groups with participants, parents, and coaches identified several critical success factors that, when implemented, can help reverse drop out from sport. Recommendations are provided for organisations responsible for promoting and sustaining participation in sport

PEak: A Single Source of Truth for Hardware Design and Verification

Domain-specific languages for hardware can significantly enhance designer productivity, but sometimes at the cost of ease of verification. On the other hand, ISA specification languages are too static to be used during early stage design space exploration. We present PEak, an open-source hardware design and specification language, which aims to improve both design productivity and verification capability. PEak does this by providing a single source of truth for functional models, formal specifications, and RTL. PEak has been used in several academic projects, and PEak-generated RTL has been included in three fabricated hardware accelerators. In these projects, the formal capabilities of PEak were crucial for enabling both novel design space exploration techniques and automated compiler synthesis

Long-term Impacts of Partial Afforestation on Water and Salt Dynamics of an Intermittent Catchment under Climate Change

Soil salinization is a major environmental issue in arid and semi-arid regions, and has been accelerated in some areas by removal of native vegetation cover. Partial afforestation can be a practical mitigation strategy if efficiently integrated with farms and pastures. Using an integrated surface-subsurface hydrological model, this study evaluates the water and salt dynamics and soil salinization conditions of a rural intermittent catchment in the semi-arid climate of southeast Australia subjected to four different partial afforestation configurations under different climate change scenarios, as predicted by several general circulation models. The results show that the locations of afforested areas can induce a retarding effect in the outflow of groundwater salt, with tree planting at lower elevations showing the steadier salt depletion rates. Moreover, except for the configuration with trees planted near the outlet of the catchment, the streamflow is maintained under all other configurations. It appears that under both Representative Concentration Pathways considered (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5), the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model represents the fastest salt export scheme, whereas the Canadian Earth System Model and the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate represent the slowest salt export scheme. Overall, it is found that the location of partial afforestation generally plays a more significant role than the climate change scenarios

"Here, you're all good enough to play": Lessons Learned from the GAA Super Games Centre

Drop out from youth sport participation is a significant issue that has emerged to become a major health concern around the world. In order to counteract drop out trends in sport, organizations responsible for promoting and sustaining participation have begun to redesign sport participation experiences in-line with the needs of young participants. The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) reversed a significant drop-out rate among participants between the ages of 12-16 years within six years through an initiative called the Super Games Centre. The aim of this paper is to identify key factors associated with the implementation success of the GAA Super Games Centre other sport organizations could consider. Focus groups with participants, parents, and coaches identified several critical success factors that, when implemented, can help reverse drop out from sport. Recommendations are provided for organizations responsible for promoting and sustaining participation in sport

Physiological profile and activity pattern of minor Gaelic football players

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the physiological profile and activity pattern in club- and county-level under-18 (U-18) Gaelic football players relative to playing position. Participants (n = 85) were analyzed during 17 official 15-a-side matches using global positioning system technology (SPI Pro X II; GPSports Systems, Canberra, Australia) and heart rate (HR) telemetry. During the second part of this study, 63 participants underwent an incremental treadmill test to assess their maximal oxygen uptake (V_ o2max) and peak HR (HRmax). Players covered a mean distance of 5,774 6 737 m during a full 60-minute match. The mean %HRmax and %V_ O2max observed during the match play were 81.6 6 4.3% and 70.1 6 7.75%, respectively. The playing level had no effect on the distance covered, player movement patterns, or %HRmax observed during match play. Midfield players covered significantly greater distance than defenders (p = 0.033). Playing position had no effect on %HRmax or the frequency of sprinting or high-intensity running during match play. The frequency of jogging, cruise running, striding (p = 0.000), and walking (p = 0.003) was greater in the midfield position than in the forward position. Time had a significant effect (F(1,39) = 33.512, p-value = 0.000, and h2 Ρ = 0.462) on distance covered and %HRmax, both of which showed a reduction between playing periods. Gaelic football is predominantly characterized by low-to-moderate intensity activity interspersed with periods of high-intensity running. The information provided may be used as a framework for coaches in the design and prescription of training strategies. Positional specific training may be warranted given the comparatively greater demands observed in the midfield playing position. Replicating the demands of match play in training may reduce the decline in distance covered and % HRmax observed during the second half of match play

Potential of machine learning in linking national airborne radiometric data to soil class mapping

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