Reaching older people with PA delivered in football clubs: the reach, adoption and implementation characteristics of the Extra Time Programme.

Background Older adults (OA) represent a core priority group for physical activity and Public Health policy. As a result, significant interest is placed on how to optimise adherence to interventions promoting these approaches. Extra Time (ET) is an example of a national programme of physical activity interventions delivered in professional football clubs for OA aged 55+ years. This paper aims to examine the outcomes from ET, and unpick the processes by which these outcomes were achieved. Methods This paper represents a secondary analysis of data collected during the evaluation of ET. From the 985 OA reached by ET, n=486 adopted the programme and completed post-intervention surveys (typically 12 weeks). We also draw on interview data with 18 ET participants, and 7 staff who delivered the programme. Data were subject to thematic analysis to generate overarching and sub themes. Results Of the 486 participants, the majority 95%, (n= 462) were White British and 59.7% (n=290) were female. Most adopters (65.4%/n=318) had not participated in previous interventions in the host clubs. Social interaction was the most frequently reported benefit of participation (77.2%, n=375). While the reach of the club badge was important in letting people know about the programme, further work enhanced adoption and satisfaction. These factors included (i) listening to participants, (ii) delivering a flexible age-appropriate programme of diverse physical and social activities, (iii) offering activities which satisfy energy drives and needs for learning and (iv) extensive opportunities for social engagement. Conclusions Findings emerging from this study indicate that physical activity and health interventions delivered through professional football clubs can be effective for engaging OA

Understanding football as a vehicle for enhancing social inclusion: Using an intervention mapping framework

This article outlines a partnership between an academic institute and a third sector organisation attached to a professional football club in the United Kingdom. The partnership concerns a sport for development intervention. The purpose of the article is to outline the development of applied monitoring and evaluation and the application of intervention mapping for an intervention to tackle anti-social behaviour through a football-based social inclusion project for children and young people. This case supports the development of third sector-university partnerships and the use of intervention mapping to meet shared objectives in relation to articulating the impact of interventions to funders and for research outputs

Comments on Bruun, D.M. et al. Community-based recreational football: a novel approach to promote physical activity and quality of life in prostate cancer survivors. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public health 2014, 11, 5557-5585-time to raise our game.

Bruun and colleagues [1] provide a timely and thorough insight into the potential health opportunities on offer via the structural organisation of football associations, football clubs and the global grip of the beautiful game. Their extensive evaluation framework represents an important clarion call for those concerned with football-led health improvement. At the same time, it is wise to consider how this can be made realistic and relevant to those who may regard the football-led ‘concept’ as too alternative or even inappropriate, in the contemporary socio-political and economic context. [...

Lense-Thirring precession of accretion disks around compact objects

Misaligned accretion disks surrounding rotating compact objects experience a torque due to the Lense-Thirring effect, which leads to precession of the inner disk. It has been suggested that this effect could be responsible for some low frequency Quasi-Periodic Oscillations observed in the X-ray lightcurves of neutron star and galactic black hole systems. We investigate this possibility via time-dependent calculations of the response of the inner disk to impulsive perturbations for both Newtonian point mass and Paczynski-Wiita potentials, and compare the results to the predictions of the linearized twisted accretion disk equations. For most of a wide range of disk models that we have considered, the combination of differential precession and viscosity causes the warps to decay extremely rapidly. Moreover, at least for relatively slowly rotating objects, linear calculations in a Newtonian point mass potential provide a good measure of the damping rate, provided only that the timescale for precession is much shorter than the viscous time in the inner disk. The typically rapid decay rates suggest that coherent precession of a fluid disk would not be observable, though it remains possible that the damping rate of warp in the disk could be low enough to permit weakly coherent signals from Lense-Thirring precession.Comment: ApJ, in press. Minor revisions to match accepted version. Animations showing warp evolution are available at http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~armitage/lense_thirring.htm

Warped discs and the directional stability of jets in Active Galactic Nuclei

Warped accretion discs in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) exert a torque on the black hole that tends to align the rotation axis with the angular momentum of the outer disc. We compute the magnitude of this torque by solving numerically for the steady state shape of the warped disc, and verify that the analytic solution of Scheuer and Feiler (1996) provides an excellent approximation. We generalise these results for discs with strong warps and arbitrary surface density profiles, and calculate the timescale on which the black hole becomes aligned with the angular momentum in the outer disc. For massive holes and accretion rates of the order of the Eddington limit the alignment timescale is always short (less than a Myr), so that jets accelerated from the inner disc region provide a prompt tracer of the angular momentum of gas at large radii in the disc. Longer timescales are predicted for low luminosity systems, depending on the degree of anisotropy in the disc's hydrodynamic response to shear and warp, and for the final decay of modest warps at large radii in the disc that are potentially observable via VLBI. We discuss the implications of this for the inferred accretion history of those Active Galactic Nuclei whose jet directions appear to be stable over long timescales. The large energy deposition rate at modest disc radii during rapid realignment episodes should make such objects transiently bright at optical and infrared wavelengths.Comment: MNRAS, in press. Revised to match accepted version, with one new figure showing alignment timescale as a function of black hole mas

Megamaser Disks in Active Galactic Nuclei

Recent spectroscopic and VLBI-imaging observations of bright extragalactic water maser sources have revealed that the megamaser emission often originates in thin circumnuclear disks near the centers of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Using general radiative and kinematic considerations and taking account of the observed flux variability, we argue that the maser emission regions are clumpy, a conclusion that is independent of the detailed mechanism (X-ray heating, shocks, etc.) driving the collisionally pumped masers. We examine scenarios in which the clumps represent discrete gas condensations (i.e., clouds) and do not merely correspond to velocity irregularities in the disk. We show that even two clouds that overlap within the velocity coherence length along the line of sight could account (through self-amplification) for the entire maser flux of a high-velocity ``satellite'' feature in sources like NGC 4258 and NGC 1068, and we suggest that cloud self-amplification likely contributes also to the flux of the background-amplifying ``systemic'' features in these objects. Analogous interpretations have previously been proposed for water maser sources in Galactic star-forming regions. We argue that this picture provides a natural explanation of the time-variability characteristics of extragalactic megamaser sources and of their apparent association with Seyfert 2-like galaxies. We also show that the requisite cloud space densities and internal densities are consistent with the typical values of nuclear (broad emission-line region-type) clouds.Comment: 55 pages, 7 figures, AASTeX4.0, to appear in The Astrophysical Journal (1999 March 1 issue

Burton Albion Community Trusts, Golden Goal Over 50’s Activity Club – Project Report

Background: In England we have an ageing population and major health concerns for Older Adults (OA). The financial burden this places on the National Health Service (NHS), alongside government public spending austerity provides a compelling case for preventative medicine. PA offers a valuable method to tackle health concerns in OA. One approach to overcome OA barriers to PA opportunities has been to utilise football clubs as a vehicle to support OA in meeting recommended guidelines for PA. This report will detail an evaluation study that investigates the impact of Golden Goal Activity Club (GGAC), a pilot programme of PA-led health improvement for OA delivered by and at Burton Albion FC. Intervention: Sessions involved the delivery of a weekly moderate-intensity PA sessions led by health coaches employed by the club. Methods: At baseline and at week 12, participants (N=23 males (42.6%) and n=31 females (57.4%) with a mean age of 69.38 (±5.87) (n=40), ranging from 55-85 years engaged the evaluation) completed self-reports for demographics, health screening/complications and EQ5D (quality of life) using the EQVAS. Registers recorded attendance at 12 weekly sessions by the health coaches. Results: The mean attendance was 7.73 (±3.12) sessions for all (n=51). Participants with a number of health complications (two or more) (n=22, 42.3%) attended fewer sessions on average (6.91 ±3.322) compared to those reporting less than two health complications (8.65 ±2.694). EQVAS results highlighted self-rated health was much higher for women (87.32 ±9.573) compared to men (80.16 ±18.557). There was an increase in self-rated health scores by men between post-intervention compared to pre-intervention (81.16 ±17.270), while women reported a marginal decline (86.79 ±8.946). Conclusion: Burton Albion FC can recruit and engage both male and female OA. Whilst the participants appear predominantly healthy, GGAC was able to maintain engagement of those who reported a number of health issues throughout the duration of the intervention. Adopting flexible and varied, participant led PA opportunities worked for participants, notably those with two or more health complications. The key design characteristics of GGAC should be considered by other agencies delivering health improvement work with OA. The partnership with independent Public Health and Academic departments to inform delivery and evaluation of the intervention was both valuable to inform current and future delivery and is recommended. Whilst this pilot offered a unique insight in work of this ilk, further research and evaluation is needed to explore the potential of professional football clubs in engaging inactive OA into health-improvement programmes. Key words: Health, Older Adults, Football Clubs, Communit

Magnetically Torqued Thin Accretion Disks

We compute the properties of a geometrically thin, steady accretion disk surrounding a central rotating, magnetized star. The magnetosphere is assumed to entrain the disk over a wide range of radii. The model is simplified in that we adopt two (alternate) ad hoc, but plausible, expressions for the azimuthal component of the magnetic field as a function of radial distance. We find a solution for the angular velocity profile tending to corotation close to the central star, and smoothly matching a Keplerian curve at a radius where the viscous stress vanishes. The value of this ''transition'' radius is nearly the same for both of our adopted B-field models. We then solve analytically for the torques on the central star and for the disk luminosity due to gravity and magnetic torques. When expressed in a dimensionless form, the resulting quantities depend on one parameter alone, the ratio of the transition radius to the corotation radius. For rapid rotators, the accretion disk may be powered mostly by spin-down of the central star. These results are independent of the viscosity prescription in the disk. We also solve for the disk structure for the special case of an optically thick alpha disk. Our results are applicable to a range of astrophysical systems including accreting neutron stars, intermediate polar cataclysmic variables, and T Tauri systems.Comment: 9 sharper figs, updated reference

Hercules X-1: Empirical Models of UV Emission Lines

The UV emission lines of Hercules X-1, resolved with the HST GHRS and STIS, can be divided into broad (FWHM 750 km/s) and narrow (FWHM 150 km/s) components. The broad lines can be unambiguously identified with emission from an accretion disk which rotates prograde with the orbit. The narrow lines, previously identified with the X-ray illuminated atmosphere of the companion star, are blueshifted at both phi=0.2 and phi=0.8 and the line flux at phi=0.2 is 0.2 of the flux at phi=0.8. Line ratio diagnostics show that the density of the narrow line region is log n=13.4+/-0.2 and the temperature is T=1.0+/-0.2x10^5 K. The symmetry of the eclipse ingress suggests that the line emission on the surface of the disk is left-right symmetric relative to the orbit. Model fits to the O V, Si IV, and He II line profiles agree with this result, but fits to the N V lines suggest that the receding side of the disk is brighter. We note that there are narrow absorption components in the N V lines with blueshifts of 500 km/s.Comment: To be published in the Astrophysical Journa