Toughen up snowflake! Sports coaches can be emotionally abusive – here’s how to recognise it

[Extract] Sports coaches have been in the headlines recently for all the wrong reasons. At the end of 2018, the University of Maryland investigated a football coach for intimidation, humiliation and verbal abuse. This followed a player dying of heat stroke after a training session on a 41°C day

Consent and complicity: The athletes' role in the normalisation of damaging coaching practices

This chapter reviews scholarship relating to the normalisation and proliferation of abusive coaching practice and the way that athletes come to misrecognise and contribute to this. In the first part of the chapter, the nuanced ways that athlete abuse is enacted within the coach–athlete relationship are contextualised. The mechanisms of constraint that encourage coaches to recycle taken-for-granted notions of best coaching practice are also elaborated upon. The second part of the chapter centres on a case study that reveals how female cyclists bought into questionable coaching practices in order to achieve national team selection. Social theory is used to illuminate how the athletes consented and conformed and were in part complicit with the normalisation and proliferation of abusive coaching practice. This chapter demonstrates the ways that abuse can be perpetrated by coaches, the complexity of resistance within the coach–athlete relationship, and the role of both parties in the proliferation of damaging practices that affect athlete well-being

Are you one of the many Australians who never learned to swim? Here’s how to get started

[Extract] As a kid growing up in one of the hottest parts of Australia, I was always in the water – pond, pool or creek. It was the only way to get cool. I was lucky enough to pick up swimming as I went along – but plenty don’t. As a coach and teacher of swimming for over 30 years I regularly meet adults who can’t swim. Swimming is one of the most popular physical activities undertaken by Australians, but a large number of Australians are poor swimmers or cannot swim at all. Recent research for Royal Life Saving Australia found one in four adults are either weak swimmers or can’t swim. If you’re an adult non-swimmer, you’re not alone

Effect of acceleration forces during transport through a pneumatic tube system on ROTEM® analysis

Background: ROTEM® is considered a helpful point-of-care device to monitor blood coagulation in emergency situations. Centrally performed analysis is desirable but rapid transport of blood samples is an important prerequisite. The effect of acceleration forces on sample transport through a pneumatic tube system on ROTEM® should be tested at each institution to exclude a pre-analytical influence. The aims of the present work were: (i) to investigate the effect of pneumatic tube transport on ROTEM® parameters; (ii) to compare blood sample transport via pneumatic tube vs. manual transportation; and (iii) to determine the effect of acceleration forces on ROTEM® parameters. Methods: This is a single centre study with 20 healthy volunteers. Five whole blood samples were transferred to the central haematology laboratory by either normal transport or pneumatic delivery with different speed and acceleration forces. EXTEM, INTEM, FIBTEM and APTEM were analysed in parallel with two ROTEM® devices and compared. Acceleration forces were measured during transport with two different instruments. Results: Increment of transport time, speed and distance resulted in an augmentation of acceleration forces and peaks. All results of the ROTEM® analysis after manual transport or pneumatic delivery were within normal range. However, increase in acceleration forces resulted in minimally but statistically significant changes in multiple ROTEM® parameters. The higher the acceleration forces, the more ROTEM® parameters are influenced. Conclusions: Acceleration forces during transport through a pneumatic tube system have an influence on ROTEM® parameters. Prior to transfer blood samples via pneumatic tube system these influences should be tested to exclude clinically relevant blood coagulation activation in vitr

Automated segmentation of tissue images for computerized IHC analysis

This paper presents two automated methods for the segmentation ofimmunohistochemical tissue images that overcome the limitations of themanual approach aswell as of the existing computerized techniques. The first independent method, based on unsupervised color clustering, recognizes automatically the target cancerous areas in the specimen and disregards the stroma; the second method, based on colors separation and morphological processing, exploits automated segmentation of the nuclear membranes of the cancerous cells. Extensive experimental results on real tissue images demonstrate the accuracy of our techniques compared to manual segmentations; additional experiments show that our techniques are more effective in immunohistochemical images than popular approaches based on supervised learning or active contours. The proposed procedure can be exploited for any applications that require tissues and cells exploration and to perform reliable and standardized measures of the activity of specific proteins involved in multi-factorial genetic pathologie

Statin therapy inhibits remyelination in the central nervous system

Remyelination of lesions in the central nervous system contributes to neural repair following clinical relapses in multiple sclerosis. Remyelination is initiated by recruitment and differentiation of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) into myelinating oligodendrocytes. Simvastatin, a blood-brain barrier-permeable statin in multiple sclerosis clinical trials, has been shown to impact the in vitro processes that have been implicated in remyelination. Animals were fed a cuprizone-supplemented diet for 6 weeks to induce localized demyelination in the corpus callosum; subsequent return to normal diet for 3 weeks stimulated remyelination. Simvastatin was injected intraperitoneally during the period of coincident demyelination and OPC maturation (weeks 4 to 6), throughout the entire period of OPC responses (weeks 4 to 9), or during the remyelination-only phase (weeks 7 to 9). Simvastatin treatment (weeks 4 to 6) caused a decrease in myelin load and both Olig2(strong) and Nkx2.2(strong) OPC numbers. Simvastatin treatment (weeks 4 to 9 and 7 to 9) caused a decrease in myelin load, which was correlated with a reduction in Nkx2.2(strong) OPCs and an increase in Olig2(strong) cells, suggesting that OPCs were maintained in an immature state (Olig2(strong)/Nkx2.2(weak)). NogoA+ oligodendrocyte numbers were decreased during all simvastatin treatment regimens. Our findings suggest that simvastatin inhibits central nervous system remyelination by blocking progenitor differentiation, indicating the need to monitor effects of systemic immunotherapies that can access the central nervous system on brain tissue-repair processes

"Learning the hard way": Understanding the workplace learning of sports coach mentors

The purpose of this study was to understand the workplace learning of sports coach mentors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 coach mentors employed by a sport governing body (SGB) as part of a formalised mentoring programme. ‘Current’ coach mentors (n = 9) had been employed for a minimum of one year by the organisation and were all interviewed once. ‘New’ coach mentors (n = 9) were all interviewed twice, once at the start of their employment and once again 9 months later. Moreover, regional mentors (n = 8) who oversee the training and practice of the coach mentors participated in one focus group. Data were analysed thematically, with the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and relevant workplace learning literature used to support the analytical process. The findings highlight how habitus structures coach mentors’ participation in learning opportunities afforded to them in the workplace. In addition, habitus and embodied capital will impact how coach mentors interact with and interpret mentor training, whilst influencing their level of engagement with other employees. It is argued SGB social fields are crucial in the production of promoted norms and ‘legitimate’ knowledge within workplaces, which subsequently influences mentor learning. Recommendations are made for critically transformative approaches to training coach mentors