The Serious Game “Top Eleven” as an Educational Simulation Platform for Acquiring Knowledge and Skills in the Management of Sports Clubs

The aim of this study is to examine whether students of a sport management undergraduate course can gain knowledge in the management of a professional soccer club, by participating in a commercial serious game. Serious is considered the cyber game that its purpose exceeds entertainment. For this case study, the serious sport club management game was “Top Eleven”. The theoretical model that this study was based on, is Misfeldt’s “scenarios based learning” for the transformation of a serious game into an educational means. It includes dimensions that cover part of the sport management class content in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, School of Physical Education and Sport Science. The transformation consisted of educational scenarios vested to the serious game, in order to add educational parameters to its basic elements with the purpose to relate further to the sport management class. The application showed that Top Eleven covers adequately Misfeldt’s model dimensions; therefore it can be used as an educational tool. Furthermore, an evaluation of the class gamification was conducted by the participating students (n = 62). The data collected showed that the majority of the students (f = 61, 98.4%) agreed that the participation in the serious game was “helpful” to their sport management class education process. They further agreed that they gained “very” or “very much” knowledge related to the management of a professional soccer club (f = 41, 66.1%) and that 59.7% (f = 37) of them would choose to work in a position of “sport club manager” as a result of the experience they gained by participating in the serious game. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V

Unravelling Stimulus Direction Dependency of Visual Acuity in Larval Zebrafish by Consistent Eye Displacements Upon Optokinetic Stimulation

PURPOSE Impairment of visual acuity (VA) can be seen early on in various diseases and has a major impact on patients' daily activities. Zebrafish is an important model for studying visual disorders. We developed a new method in zebrafish larva to easily and precisely measure the VA, which should allow for better estimation of affected vision such as after genetic manipulation or pharmacologic intervention. METHODS We used an optokinetic reflex (OKR) paradigm with a staircase technique to estimate VA of zebrafish larva. Consistent eye displacements were used as the indicator for OKR. We measured VA and determined the dependence of VA on clockwise and counterclockwise horizontal stimulus directions. RESULTS Visual acuity in zebrafish larva was estimated to be 0.179 ± 0.013 cyc/deg binocularly and 0.129 ± 0.008 cyc/deg (left eye) and 0.128 ± 0.012 cyc/deg (right eye) monocularly. We found within single subjects spatial frequency thresholds that showed highly significant differences between the two horizontal stimulus directions. Average higher and lower binocular thresholds were 0.181 ± 0.026 and 0.158 ± 0.014 cyc/deg, respectively. Importantly, no correlations were found between spatial frequency thresholds and average median peak slow-phase eye velocities (SPV) of OKR in all experiments. CONCLUSIONS Consistent eye displacements evoked by OKR stimuli can be used as an indirect measure of VA in zebrafish larva. Conversely, using SPV of OKR to determine VA does not seem to be accurate. With our method, single larva showed significantly different VA depending on stimulus directions, which might reflect asymmetric maturation of retinal and/or visual pathway structures

How do perceptions of other customers affect satisfaction and loyalty in public aquatic centres?

The aim of the present study was to examine the impact of perceptions of other customers on overall satisfaction and loyalty in the context of public aquatic centres. The proposed relationships were examined using empirical data from 299 customers of four Greek aquatic centres. Structural equation modelling analysis revealed that (a) the Other Customer Perception (OCP) scale [Brocato, E. D., Voorhees, C. M., & Baker, J. (2012). Understanding the influence of cues from other customers in the service experience: A scale development and validation. Journal of Retailing, 88(3), 384–398] has strong psychometric properties indicating evidence of convergent validity, discriminant validity, and construct reliability, and (b) two of the three OCP dimensions, similarity and suitable behaviour, significantly predicted satisfaction and loyalty for aquatic centre customers. In contrast, the third OCP dimension, physical appearance, did not significantly influence satisfaction or loyalty. Finally, results showed that satisfaction has an impact on loyalty. Practical implications for aquatic centres managers are discussed. © 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Customers' expectations of service in Greek fitness centers. Gender, age, type of sport center, and motivation differences

Purpose - Aims to identify the aspects of service delivery deemed most important by the users of Greek fitness centers and to examine whether their desires differ according to the type of fitness center they use as well as according to certain demographic and motivation patterns. Design/methodology/approach - The study was based on the QUESC instrument developed by Kim and Kim. A total of 346 individuals who were members of public and private fitness centers in Athens/Greece completed the questionnaires. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was conducted for each item of the instrument in order to examine whether different groups had different desires for service delivery. Where a difference between group means was identified, Duncan's multiple range tests were performed to determine which means were significantly different. Findings - The aspects of service delivery desired more by sports centers users refer to the tangible elements of the facilities, the personnel attitudes and abilities, attributes related to the cost of participation and items related to the programming and scheduling of services provided. The findings also suggest that significant differences of desires exist between males and females as well as between users of public and private sports centers. Research limitations/implications - The sample of the fitness centers was convenient rather than statistical. The reason was that there is no official agency in Greece with a complete list of fitness centers. Practical implications - This paper is a useful source of information for fitness centers management to identify their customers' wants, take action to improve service delivery, and establish standards of performance to address the identified customers' needs. Originality/value - This paper sought to address questions on the way certain demographic variables and patterns of use might affect sports centers' users' desires, so that an information package can be applied in making marketing decisions for improving sports centers service delivery. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Effect of Gabapentin/Memantine on the Infantile Nystagmus Syndrome in the Zebrafish Model: Implications for the Therapy of Ocular Motor Diseases

Purpose: Infantile nystagmus syndrome (INS) is a disorder characterized by typical horizontal eye oscillations. Due to the uncertain etiology of INS, developing specific treatments remains difficult. Single reports demonstrated, on limited measures, alleviating effects of gabapentin and memantine. In the current study, we employed the zebrafish INS model belladonna (bel) to conduct an in-depth study of how gabapentin and memantine interventions alleviate INS signs, which may further restore visual conditions in affected subjects. Moreover, we described the influence of both medications on ocular motor functions in healthy zebrafish, evaluating possible iatrogenic effects. Methods: Ocular motor function and INS characteristics were assessed by eliciting optokinetic response, spontaneous nystagmus, and spontaneous saccades in light and in dark, in 5- to 6-day postfertilization bel larvae and heterozygous siblings. Single larvae were recorded before and after a 1-hour drug treatment (200 mM gabapentin/0.2 mM memantine). Results: Both interventions significantly reduced nystagmus intensity (gabapentin: 59.98%, memantine: 39.59%). However, while the application of gabapentin affected all tested ocular motor functions, memantine specifically reduced nystagmus amplitude and intensity, and thus left controls completely unaffected. Finally, both drug treatments resulted in specific changes in nystagmus waveform and velocity. Conclusions: Our study provides deeper insight into gabapentin and memantine treatment effect in the zebrafish INS model. Moreover, this study should establish zebrafish as a pharmacologic animal model for treating nystagmus and ocular motor disease, serving as a basis for future large-scale drug screenings.ISSN:0146-040

Activation of tumor suppressor LKB1 by honokiol abrogates cancer stem-like phenotype in breast cancer via inhibition of oncogenic Stat3.

Tumor suppressor and upstream master kinase Liver kinase B1 (LKB1) plays a significant role in suppressing cancer growth and metastatic progression. We show that low-LKB1 expression significantly correlates with poor survival outcome in breast cancer. In line with this observation, loss-of-LKB1 rendered breast cancer cells highly migratory and invasive, attaining cancer stem cell-like phenotype. Accordingly, LKB1-null breast cancer cells exhibited an increased ability to form mammospheres and elevated expression of pluripotency-factors (Oct4, Nanog and Sox2), properties also observed in spontaneous tumors in Lkb1-/- mice. Conversely, LKB1-overexpression in LKB1-null cells abrogated invasion, migration and mammosphere-formation. Honokiol (HNK), a bioactive molecule from Magnolia grandiflora increased LKB1 expression, inhibited individual cell-motility and abrogated the stem-like phenotype of breast cancer cells by reducing the formation of mammosphere, expression of pluripotency-factors and aldehyde dehydrogenase activity. LKB1, and its substrate, AMP-dependent protein kinase (AMPK) are important for HNK-mediated inhibition of pluripotency factors since LKB1-silencing and AMPK-inhibition abrogated, while LKB1-overexpression and AMPK-activation potentiated HNKs effects. Mechanistic studies showed that HNK inhibited Stat3-phosphorylation/activation in an LKB1-dependent manner, preventing its recruitment to canonical binding-sites in the promoters of Nanog, Oct4 and Sox2. Thus, inhibition of the coactivation-function of Stat3 resulted in suppression of expression of pluripotency factors. Further, we showed that HNK inhibited breast tumorigenesis in mice in an LKB1-dependent manner. Molecular analyses of HNK-treated xenografts corroborated our in vitro mechanistic findings. Collectively, these results present the first in vitro and in vivo evidence to support crosstalk between LKB1, Stat3 and pluripotency factors in breast cancer and effective anticancer modulation of this axis with HNK treatment