Fair-Play vs Sports Performance: A Critical Investigation

AbstractThis study aims to highlight the need for fair-play among sportsmen and women in society, during trainings and competitions, and how their attitudes and behaviours reveal the presence of fair play. My working hypothesis is that sportsmen and women's varies depending on their level of training, the type of sports that they practice and their level of qualification. The group on which I conducted my research is made up of sportsmen and women who practice the following sports: athletics, football, handball, rugby, volley. Data analysis and interpretation was done using SPSS 11.0 for Windows, a special software for psychological statistics. The research methods aim to prove the relevance of fair-play in high performance sports achievements and for an appropriate conduct in society. In order to investigate sportsmen and women's opinions and attitudes in society and in competitions we designed and used a questionnaire to test fair-play, a questionnaire to test sportsmen and women's “moral values” and a questionnaire for sportsmen and women's “behavior self-determination”. The results of the questionnaire showed that sportsmen and women who practice individual spots have lower scores for fair-play in competitions and social conduct in comparison with practitioners of team sports.ConclusionsFrom a qualitative point of view one can argue that the lack of statistically significant differences between our study groups could be due to the fact that fair-play has the same importance for all sportsmen and women. Data analysis and result interpretation confirmed our working hypothesis

INVESTMENT IDEAS IN A VOLATILE ENVIRONMENT - A STUDY CASE FOR THE 2012 SOCIETY

The year 2011 has proven to be a highly volatile year, especially if we take into account the Eurozone crisis. Even so, the year 2011 has proved to be a year in which great opportunities were created, as well. Our article “Investment Ideas in a Volatile Environment - A Study Case for the 2012 Society” starts by presenting both the strong and the weak points of the year 2011, in terms of assets markets and net results, continuing with the general outlook of the year 2012 and putting a strong emphasis on the investment ideas for 2012. In our study we are going to describe the opportunities that exist in the year 2012, providing answers to questions such as: what equities should investors focus on, what changes can be predicted in terms of foreign exchange market, what will the evolution of the commodities be like, how will the evolution of different types of currencies look like

CORRELATIVE STUDY BETWEEN THE FAIR PLAY DISPLAYED IN COMPETITIONS AND THE ATHLETES’ BEHAVIOUR

Introduction. Fair play represents an ensemble of displayed moral qualities and attitudes, in order to perform sports activities in a climate favourable for sports performances, competition, supporters and athletes. Sport, by its purpose, represents the athletes’ capacity of winning honestly, by respecting their opponents, teammates, supporters, etc. Education in the spirit of fair play is done by the coach in collaboration with the athlete, based on the moral knowledge and values taught by family and school. The athletes with an adequate level of fair play displayed in trainings and competitions determine a proper behaviour and an easier social integration, starting from the observation that “well-raised persons” are significantly easier to accept than persons situated at the other extreme, from the perspective of behaviour in this case. The objective of our investigation consists of identifying the correlations between fair play in competitions and fair play displayed in the society. The research methods used within the study were the method of bibliographic study, the observation method, the survey method, (within which we applied the questionnaire for fair play) and the SPSS method of analysis and interpreting the results. Results and discussions. Results have demonstrated that the athletes displaying fair play behaviour in competitions have proper behaviour, by respecting the moral norms and values imposed by the society. Conclusions. The study confirms that fair play conduct is based on the moral dimension that must be controlled and learnt (as the case may be) in trainings, competitions and in social relationships outside arenas and gymnasiums. Thus, the athlete will represent a model for young people, for the future athletes, and he will integrate easily in the society, both while practicing sport and mostly after wrapping up the sports career and integrating in various fields of activity. REZUMAT. Studiu corelativ dintre fair-play-ul manifestat în competiţii şi conduita sportivilor. Introducere. Fair-play-ul reprezintă un cumul de calităţi morale şi atitudini manifestate, în vederea desfăşurării activităţilor sportive într-un climat favorabil performanţelor sportive, competiţiei, suporterilor şi sportivilor. Sportul, în funcţie de finalitatea sa, reprezintă capacitatea sportivilor de a câștiga în mod cinstit, respectând adversarii, coechipierii, suporterii, etc. Educaţia în spiritul fair-play-ului se face de antrenor în colaborare cu sportivul, având la bază un fundament al cunoștințelor şi valorilor morale din familie şi din şcoală. Sportivii care deţin un nivel adecvat al fair-play-ului şi îl manifestă în competiţii şi antrenamente, determină o conduită adecvată şi o integrare socială mai bună şi mai facilă pentru acesta, plecând de la considerentul că „oamenii binecrescuți” sunt mult mai ușor de acceptat decât cei care se află la polul opus, din punct de vedere al conduitei în acest caz. Obiectivului investigaţiei noastre constă în identificarea corelaţiilor dintre fair-play în competiţii şi fair-play-ul manifestat în societate. Metodele de cercetare utilizate in cadrul studiului au fost metoda studiului bibliografic, metoda observației, metoda anchetei în cadrul căreia am aplicat chestionarul pentru fair-play şi metoda de analiza şi interpretare a rezultatelor (SPSS). Rezultate şi discuţii. În urma rezultatelor s-a demonstrat că sportivii care manifestă o conduită fair-play în competiţii, manifestă o conduită adecvată, respectând normele şi valorile morale impuse de societate. Concluzii. Studiul confirma că la baza unei conduite fair-play, sta o bună fundamentare a dimensiunii morale care trebuie să fie controlată şi învăţată (după caz) în antrenamente, competiţii şi în relaţiile sociale dinafara stadioanelor şi a sălilor de sport. Astfel, sportivul va reprezenta un model pentru tineri, pentru viitorii sportivi şi se va integra cu uşurinţă în societate, atât pe parcursul practicării sportului cât, mai ales după încheierea carierei sportive și integrare în diverse domenii de activitate. Cuvinte cheie: Sport – fair-play – competiţie - conduită morală - integrare socială

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT THROUGH MOVEMENT GAMES IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PUPILS

Introduction. As one of the most fundamental activities of childhood, dynamic game can have a primary significance as a mean of recreation and gradually advance to a major pedagogical influence. Movement games are an ideal means of education, fulfilling the highest level of movement, motor and cognitive development, personality shaping and social integration, ensuring the formation of a strong profile of the primary cycle graduate. The way the student responds, applies and adapts to the rules imposed by the game directly influences memory, thinking, language, creativity, sensations and perceptions, thus, its implications hold a significant percentage in cognitive development. Objectives. 1) knowing of the implications of motion games in the cognitive development of primary-cycle pupils; 2) increasing the attractiveness of physical education lessons; 3) learn to spend free time as actively as possible. Methods. The knowledge test contains 10 items and was applied to 54 students in the 3rd and 4th grades in rural areas, divided into control group - 27 students and experimental group - 27 students, following the implementation of a dynamic game program applied to the experimental group during the school year 2021-2022. Knowledge testing verifies how they have understood the games and the ability to use, adapt or build them in a personalized way. Results. The knowledge test has a maximum score of 10 points, each question being scored differently. The average score for the experimental group is 9.11 points and for the control group is 6.27. The difference between the result obtained by the experimental group and the control group is 2.84 points, a difference that confirms the proposed objectives given the dynamic game program applied to the experimental group. Conclusion. Applied dynamic games aim to stimulate students’ thinking, attention, memory and creativity in a fun way that does not provide the fear of rejecting their own ideas, rewarding and encouraging all attempts to build new dynamic games

Factors influencing alcohol and illicit drug use amongst first year medical students

The aims of this study were a) to investigate patterns of alcohol, smoking and illicit drug use and b) evaluate the relationship between substance abuse and personality factors in a cohort of 267 first year medical students. 12.3 % (men) and 11.8% (female) medical students reported to be drinking above the “low risk” level of alcohol. Illicit drug use was present amongst the students surveyed, with 12.4% having experimented with cannabis at some stage during their life. A significant proportion of the students (44.1%) suffered from anxiety. There are personality characteristics like extraversion and openness that influence the drug taking and drinking habits of students, suggesting that such individuals may still pursue these habits although they know these are not healthy habits. Considering these, it may be prudent to consider the promotion of harm reduction and safer use of drugs and alcohol in medical student

Shifting Horizons:The Impact of Global Events on the Intention to Migrate of the Next Generation Romanian Nurses

Background: This article investigates the determinants of the intention to migrate of nursing students at a major medical university in Romania and relates them to major international developments, specifically the Brexit referendum and the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: An online survey about the intention to migrate was made available to nursing students at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Iuliu Hațieganu”, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in 2016 (before Brexit) and again in 2016 (after Brexit), 2017, 2018, and 2021 and 2022 (during the pandemic). A total of 549 students responded (response rate: 84.6%). Results: Before the Brexit referendum, 62.6% of the respondents had a plan to seek employment abroad, whereas after the Brexit referendum, only 34.7% indicated that they had such a plan after graduation. Before the pandemic, 43.6% of the students expressed an intention to work abroad, while during the pandemic, only 19.8% had such plans. Conclusions: This study documented the effect of significant international developments—such as the Brexit referendum and the COVID-19 pandemic—on decreasing the intention to migrate. As expected, the change in preference for the UK as a destination country changed dramatically. Additionally, the study provides both theoretical and empirical insights into the types of and the consistency of preparation for migration of nursing students

Treatment outcomes in aggressive Non-Hodgkin lymphoma with primary abdominal lymph nodes involvement

Hematology discipline, Department of Internal Medicine, “Nicolae Testemitanu” SUMPh, Chișinău, Republic of Moldova, Congresul consacrat aniversării a 75-a de la fondarea Universității de Stat de Medicină și Farmacie „Nicolae Testemițanu” din Republica Moldova, Ziua internațională a științei pentru pace și dezvoltareIntroduction. Non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL) are malignant tumors of lymphatic tissue. NHL can primarily develop in any tissue or organ. One of the primary involvements of NHL is the abdominal lymph nodes. Their frequency constitutes 7.6.Purpose.To evaluate aggressive NHL with primary abdominal lymph nodes involvement treatment results.Material and methods. Retrospective study. Treatment outcomes were studied in 37 patients with aggressive NHL with primary abdominal lymph nodes involvement, aged between 25 and 73 years old. Polychemotherapy (PChT) cycles were used for treatment: CHOP (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisolone) - in 24 patients and rituximab + CHOP (R-CHOP) - in 13 patients.Results. Complete remissions were obtained in 48.7% of cases. The rate of complete remissions was higher (69.2%) when PChT R-CHOP was administered, comparing to patients in whom PChT CHOP (37.5%) was used (table 1.). Progression-free survival (PFS) over 5 years was higher in patients who recieved PChT R-CHOP (75.6%). PFS in the same terms in cases when PChT CHOP was given was equal to 41.3%.Conclusions. Adding anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies (rituximab) to the standard PChT CHOP regimen contributed significantly to the increase of complete remissions rate and progression-free survival

Deciphering the morphology of motor evoked potentials

Motor Evoked Potentials (MEPs) are used to monitor disability progression in multiple sclerosis (MS). Their morphology plays an important role in this process. Currently, however, there is no clear definition of what constitutes a normal or abnormal morphology. To address this, five experts independently labeled the morphology (normal or abnormal) of the same set of 1,000 MEPs. The intra- and inter-rater agreement between the experts indicates they agree on the concept of morphology, but differ in their choice of threshold between normal and abnormal morphology. We subsequently performed an automated extraction of 5,943 time series features from the MEPs to identify a valid proxy for morphology, based on the provided labels. To do this, we compared the cross-validation performances of one-dimensional logistic regression models fitted to each of the features individually. We find that the approximate entropy (ApEn) feature can accurately reproduce the majority-vote labels. The performance of this feature is evaluated on an independent test set by comparing to the majority vote of the neurologists, obtaining an AUC score of 0.92. The model slightly outperforms the average neurologist at reproducing the neurologists consensus-vote labels. We can conclude that MEP morphology can be consistently defined by pooling the interpretations from multiple neurologists and that ApEn is a valid continuous score for this. Having an objective and reproducible MEP morphological abnormality score will allow researchers to include this feature in their models, without manual annotation becoming a bottleneck. This is crucial for large-scale, multi-center datasets. An exploratory analysis on a large single-center dataset shows that ApEn is potentially clinically useful. Introducing an automated, objective, and reproducible definition of morphology could help overcome some of the barriers that are currently obstructing broad adoption of evoked potentials in daily care and patient follow-up, such as standardization of measurements between different centers, and formulating guidelines for clinical use

Rapamycin rescues loss of function in blood-brain barrier- interacting Tregs

In autoimmunity, FOXP3+ Tregs skew toward a proinflammatory, nonsuppressive phenotype and are, therefore, unable to control the exaggerated autoimmune response. This largely affects the success of autologous Treg therapy, which is currently under investigation for autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS). There is a need to ensure in vivo Treg stability before successful application of Treg therapy. Using genetic fate-mapping mice, we demonstrate that inflammatory, cytokine-expressing exFOXP3 T cells accumulate in the CNS during experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. In a human in vitro model, we discovered that interaction with inflamed blood-brain barrier endothelial cells (BBB-ECs) induces loss of function by Tregs. Transcriptome and cytokine analysis revealed that in vitro migrated Tregs have disrupted regenerative potential and a proinflammatory Th1/17 signature, and they upregulate the mTORC1 signaling pathway. In vitro treatment of migrated human Tregs with the clinically approved mTORC1 inhibitor rapamycin restored suppression. Finally, flow cytometric analysis indicated an enrichment of inflammatory, less-suppressive CD49d+ Tregs in the cerebrospinal fluid of people with MS. In summary, interaction with BBB-ECs is sufficient to affect Treg function, and transmigration triggers an additive proinflammatory phenotype switch. These insights help improve the efficacy o