Identifying instructional practices employed by Massachusetts Special Olympics Hall of Fame coaches

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston UniversitySpecial Olympics athletes may experience unique learning needs not seen among many mainstream athletes. Consequently, research-based coaching practices recommended for coaches of mainstream teams may not be appropriate for Special Olympics coaches. With this in mind, the importance of establishing a research-based knowledge bank of coaching practices to use with athletes who have intellectual disabilities comes to light. Identified coaching practices can benefit coaches of Special Olympics teams, as well as coaches of mainstream teams who may work with athletes who have intellectual disabilities. This first-of-its-kind empirical research study sought to identify instructional practices demonstrated by Massachusetts Special Olympics Hall of Fame coaches (n = 8). Specifically, this study aimed to discover what instructional practices were most commonly used among the participant group; what these instructional practices looked like; and what instructional practices may have contributed to supporting a positive learning climate. A framework for instructional practices set by the National Council for Accreditation of Coach Education (NCACE) was used to assist with the identification of instructional behaviors employed by study participants. A second purpose of this study was to use the NCACE (2006) Domain Five Observation Instrument (DFOI), a competency-based observation tool developed for this study, to collect data on study participants' instructional practices. Each study participant was observed coaching a practice three times during their sport season. Using the DFOI, observed instructional behaviors were quantified via event recording procedures and described by recording descriptive field notes. To triangulate data collected on the DFOI, coaches were audio-recorded with a wireless lapel microphone during practice observations. Following each coach's third practice observation, audio-recorded interviews were conducted to gain further insight into demonstrated instructional practices. Participants were observed performing 2,157 instructional behaviors during 1,080 minutes of observation, averaging 1.99 behaviors per minute and 89.87 behaviors per practice. Based on data analysis, encouragement, positive correction, and tactical and technical cues were the three instructional practices most commonly employed by study participants, accounting for 68.33% of all recorded behaviors. Data also show that participants engaged athletes in sport-specific activities during 63.15% of the total observation time, and spent only 5.95% of the total observation time delivering instruction to their teams. While speculative, data suggest that participants' emphasis of initiative, choice, excellence, and interpersonal relationships may have contributed to the support of positive learning environments. Additionally, the DFOI proved to be a useful observation tool for collecting competency-based quantitative and qualitative data, and is recommended for use during future replications of the current study, as well as future assessments of sport coaches' instructional practices. Based on data collected in this study, 14 recommendations are presented for Special Olympics, community-based, and school-based coach education programs. These recommendations include: promoting the importance of weaving encouragement into coaching practices, using a feedback model to facilitate delivery of positive corrections, and prioritizing use of instructional tools using a "tools in hand, tools in the tool belt, and tools in the toolbox" model

Explanatory Journeys: Visualising to Understand and Explain Administrative Justice Paths of Redress

Administrative justice concerns the relationships between individuals and the state. It includes redress and complaints on decisions of a child's education, social care, licensing, planning, environment, housing and homelessness. However, if someone has a complaint or an issue, it is challenging for people to understand different possible redress paths and explore what path is suitable for their situation. Explanatory visualisation has the potential to display these paths of redress in a clear way, such that people can see, understand and explore their options. The visualisation challenge is further complicated because information is spread across many documents, laws, guidance and policies and requires judicial interpretation. Consequently, there is not a single database of paths of redress. In this work we present how we have co-designed a system to visualise administrative justice paths of redress. Simultaneously, we classify, collate and organise the underpinning data, from expert workshops, heuristic evaluation and expert critical reflection. We make four contributions: (i) an application design study of the explanatory visualisation tool (Artemus), (ii) coordinated and co-design approach to aggregating the data, (iii) two in-depth case studies in housing and education demonstrating explanatory paths of redress in administrative law, and (iv) reflections on the expert co-design process and expert data gathering and explanatory visualisation for administrative justice and law.Comment: 11 pages with 10 figures, accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphic

Public administration and a just Wales

Administrative justice concerns how government and public bodies treat people, the correctness of their decisions, the fairness of their procedures, and the opportunities people have to question and challenge decisions made about them. Our research has used a mixture of methods, including desk-based research identifying, collating and examining law and guidance applicable to Wales, alongside policy documents, previous research reports and statistical data. A central conclusion of our research is that public administration in Wales is seen as concerned with sustainability, well-being, equality and human rights, but less often as involving justice for individuals in their relationships with the state

Public administration and a just Wales

Administrative justice concerns how government and public bodies treat people, the correctness of their decisions, the fairness of their procedures, and the opportunities people have to question and challenge decisions made about them. Our research has used a mixture of methods, including desk-based research identifying, collating and examining law and guidance applicable to Wales, alongside policy documents, previous research reports and statistical data. A central conclusion of our research is that public administration in Wales is seen as concerned with sustainability, well-being, equality and human rights, but less often as involving justice for individuals in their relationships with the state

Tissue Glucocorticoid Metabolism in Adrenal Insufficiency:A Prospective Study of Dual-release Hydrocortisone Therapy

Background: Patients with adrenal insufficiency (AI) require life-long glucocorticoid (GC) replacement therapy. Within tissues, cortisol (F) availability is under the control of the isozymes of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11β-HSD). We hypothesize that corticosteroid metabolism is altered in patients with AI because of the nonphysiological pattern of current immediate release hydrocortisone (IR-HC) replacement therapy. The use of a once-daily dual-release hydrocortisone (DR-HC) preparation, (Plenadren®), offers a more physiological cortisol profile and may alter corticosteroid metabolism in vivo.Study Design and Methods: Prospective crossover study assessing the impact of 12 weeks of DR-HC on systemic GC metabolism (urinary steroid metabolome profiling), cortisol activation in the liver (cortisone acetate challenge test), and subcutaneous adipose tissue (microdialysis, biopsy for gene expression analysis) in 51 patients with AI (primary and secondary) in comparison to IR-HC treatment and age- and BMI-matched controls.Results: Patients with AI receiving IR-HC had a higher median 24-hour urinary excretion of cortisol compared with healthy controls (72.1 µg/24 hours [IQR 43.6-124.2] vs 51.9 µg/24 hours [35.5-72.3], P = .02), with lower global activity of 11β-HSD2 and higher 5-alpha reductase activity. Following the switch from IR-HC to DR-HC therapy, there was a significant reduction in urinary cortisol and total GC metabolite excretion, which was most significant in the evening. There was an increase in 11β-HSD2 activity. Hepatic 11β-HSD1 activity was not significantly altered after switching to DR-HC, but there was a significant reduction in the expression and activity of 11β-HSD1 in subcutaneous adipose tissue.Conclusion: Using comprehensive in vivo techniques, we have demonstrated abnormalities in corticosteroid metabolism in patients with primary and secondary AI receiving IR-HC. This dysregulation of pre-receptor glucocorticoid metabolism results in enhanced glucocorticoid activation in adipose tissue, which was ameliorated by treatment with DR-HC

DNA Polymerase Epsilon Deficiency Causes IMAGe Syndrome with Variable Immunodeficiency.

During genome replication, polymerase epsilon (Pol ε) acts as the major leading-strand DNA polymerase. Here we report the identification of biallelic mutations in POLE, encoding the Pol ε catalytic subunit POLE1, in 15 individuals from 12 families. Phenotypically, these individuals had clinical features closely resembling IMAGe syndrome (intrauterine growth restriction [IUGR], metaphyseal dysplasia, adrenal hypoplasia congenita, and genitourinary anomalies in males), a disorder previously associated with gain-of-function mutations in CDKN1C. POLE1-deficient individuals also exhibited distinctive facial features and variable immune dysfunction with evidence of lymphocyte deficiency. All subjects shared the same intronic variant (c.1686+32C>G) as part of a common haplotype, in combination with different loss-of-function variants in trans. The intronic variant alters splicing, and together the biallelic mutations lead to cellular deficiency of Pol ε and delayed S-phase progression. In summary, we establish POLE as a second gene in which mutations cause IMAGe syndrome. These findings add to a growing list of disorders due to mutations in DNA replication genes that manifest growth restriction alongside adrenal dysfunction and/or immunodeficiency, consolidating these as replisome phenotypes and highlighting a need for future studies to understand the tissue-specific development roles of the encoded proteins