515 research outputs found
Devotional fitness: aspects of a contemporary religious system
The aim of this paper is to describe some more or less representative groups within the area of devotional fitness in the USA, to compare their ideas to those held in Christian congregations in Germany and to extract some of the most important features of these movements. The descriptive section, âExamples of fitness in US evangelicalismâ, will have a short look at three of these movements and then examine one of them more thoroughly, namely, the concept of âShaped by Faithâ. The next part of the descriptive section (âAspects of religion and fitness in Germanyâ) will look into the connections between sports and religion in Christian congregations in Germany. In the third section, some of the historical trajecÂtories which have influenced contemporary body ideals in both âreligiousâ and âsecularâ contexts in the United States and Germany are briefly described. In the analytical section, the material is screened for striking similarities and recurring motifs and a preliminary definition of âdevotional fitnessâ is suggested. One particular feature of these currents, the blurring of genres, is dealt with more thoroughly in section âThe blurring of genres in devotional fitnessâ. The article ends with some ideas as to how these concepts of devotional fitness could be researched within the analytical frame of cultural semiotics
Pulmonary and renal protection: targeting PARP to ventilator-induced lung and kidney injury?
Both acute lung injury and acute kidney injury (AKI) are frequent and serious problems in intensive care medicine. Therefore, the avoiding of any iatrogenic insult to these organs is of great importance. While an increasing body of evidence suggests that mechanical ventilation is capable of inducing lung and distant organ injury, the complex underlying molecular mechanisms remain insufficiently understood. In the previous issue of Critical Care, Vaschetto and colleagues reported the results of an experimental study designed to further explore pathways linking injurious ventilation with AKI. The authors demonstrated that scavenging of peroxynitrite or inhibiting poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) afforded protection against AKI induced by double-hit lung injury. Although PARP inhibition or peroxynitrite detoxification or both may become viable candidates for a protective strategy in this setting, the implementation of a lung-protective ventilatory strategy remains the only clinical tool to mitigate the lung biotrauma and its systemic consequences
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