Prejudice in the people’s game. A content analysis of race/ethnicity in Polish televised football

This study explores how televised football in Poland serves as a site for the (re)construction of discourses surrounding race and ethnicity and to what extent this squares with previous studies on sport media conducted mainly in Western countries. In our analysis, we identify the discourses surrounding race and ethnicity that the commentators in televised football draw on and examine how they relate to hegemonic discourses and categorizations in wider Polish society. Our findings show that Polish football commentators draw on transnationally circulating racialized/ethnicized discourses on assumed superior physicality when talking about Black football players and on supposed negative psychological capabilities when talking about White Southern European football players. The findings also show that when talking about non-Polish players and head coaches, the commentators regularly rely on an us-versus-them frame that constructs foreign influences as a threat

Biofuel scenarios in a water perspective: the global blue and green water footprint of road transport in 2030

The trend towards substitution of conventional transport fuels by biofuels requires additional water. The EU aims In the last two centuries, fossil fuels have been our major source of energy. However, issues concerning energy security and the quality of the environment have given an impulse to the development of alternative, renewable fuels. Particularly the transport sector is expected to steadily switch from fossil fuels to a larger fraction of biofuels - liquid transport fuels derived from biomass. Many governments believe that biofuels can replace substantial volumes of crude oil and that they will play a key role in diversifying the sources of energy supply in the coming decades. The growth of biomass requires water, a scarce resource. The link between water resources and (future) biofuel consumption, however, has not been analyzed in great detail yet. Existing scenarios on the use of water resources usually only consider the changes in food and livestock production, industry and domestic activity. The aim of this research is to assess the change in water use related to the expected increase in the use of biofuels for road transport in 2030, and subsequently evaluate the contribution to potential water scarcity. The study builds on earlier research on the relation between energy and water and uses the water footprint (WF) methodology to investigate the change in water demand related to a transition to biofuels in road transport. Information about this transition in each country is based on a compilation of different energy scenarios. The study distinguishes between two different bio-energy carriers, bio-ethanol and biodiesel, and assesses the ratio of fuel produced from selected first-generation energy crops per country. For ethanol these crops are sugar cane, sugar beet, sweet sorghum, wheat and maize. For biodiesel they are soybean, rapeseed, jatropha, and oil palm

Producing Sport Mega Events:A Meta-analysis of Discourses Surrounding Race/ethnicity in European Televised Football Production.

A large body of academic work has identified sport media as a popular discursive site where meanings are given to race/ethnicity. These works often focus on international mega-events such as the Olympic Games and themen’s football World Cup and point to how athletes in these events are often made sense of through reductive and racializing stereotypes. The findings of these – often textual – analyses seem remarkably persistent,notwithstanding what seems a broader societal awareness about the role of sport media in reproducing racial/ethnic stereotypes, also among sport media professionals. In this article we will focus on this apparent sturdiness and resilience of racialized representations in sport media. We argue that further sustained attention to the cultures of production in mediated sport events such as the Olympic Games can advance understandings as to why representations take the shape that they do. We will do so by drawing on our recent studies on the production of televised football in four different European countries: Spain, England, The Netherlands and Poland. The article will include reflections on how theoretical perspectives from Cultural Studies and Critical Race Theory can serve as useful theoretical underpinnings in exploring the role of race/ethnicity in the production process of mediated sport and will conclude with some sensitizing concepts for studies to further deconstruct the racialized regimes of representation that have been persistently identified in sport mediaresearch.<br/

Investigations on the role of impaired lysosomes of macrophages in disease

The research described in this thesis combines the latest insights in lysosomal function with lysosome centred cell signalling. Novel imaging and labelling techniques are applied to provide in depth characterization of lysosome function in health and disease. An integrative approach was used to study the physiological role of the lysosome, characterizing the function of lysosomal hydrolases and signalling on a cellular level as well as within the context of tissue.Medical Biochemistr

Induction of Tumor Growth After Preoperative Portal Vein Embolization: Is It a Real Problem?

Although preoperative portal vein embolization (PVE) is an effective means to increase future remnant liver (FRL) volume, little has been published on possible adverse effects. This review discusses the clinical and experimental evidence regarding the effect of PVE on tumor growth in both embolized and nonembolized liver lobes, as well as potential strategies to control tumor progression after PVE. A literature review was performed using MEDLINE with keywords related to experimental and clinical studies concerning PVE, portal vein ligation (PVL), and tumor growth. Cross-references and references from reviews were also checked. Clinical and experimental data suggest that tumor progression can occur after preoperative PVE in embolized and nonembolized liver segments. Clinical evidence indicating possible tumor progression in patients with colorectal metastases or with primary liver tumors is based on studies with small sample size. Although multiple studies demonstrated tumor progression, evidence concerning a direct increase in tumor growth rate as a result of PVE is circumstantial. Three possible mechanisms influencing tumor growth after PVE can be recognized, namely changes in cytokines or growth factors, alteration in hepatic blood supply and an enhanced cellular host response promoting local tumor growth after PVE. Post-PVE chemotherapy and sequential transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) before PVE have been proposed to reduce tumor mass after PVE. We conclude that tumor progression can occur after PVE in patients with colorectal metastases as well as in patients with primary liver tumors. However, further research is needed in order to rate this risk of tumor progression after PV