Addressing the Health and Physical Activity Needs of Girls in the Boston Metropolitan Area

This report examines girls' level of participation in sports and physical activity in the Boston metropolitan area and its relation to girls' health. Girls' sports and physical activity delivery systems, as well as public policy affecting the availability of such systems are reviewed

Women in the 2006 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games: An Analysis of Participation, Leadership and Media Coverage

Increasing women's participation in the Olympic Movement as participants and leaders has been a slow and challenging process. While the number of "events" open to female athletes has increased steadily during the past 30 years, the actual number of female Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games participants and the number of opportunities to medal within those events has yet to equal the number of male participants or medals.The 2006 Paralympic Winter Games statistics are a good illustration of this discrepancy; while there are nearly an equal number of events open to female athletes, the total number of female Paralympic athletes was 99 of 474 or 20.9%. And, while women's participation has attempted to "catch up" with small increases in participation numbers, men's events and participation opportunities have continued to increase, thereby perpetuating and increasing the participation gap. For instance, there were 1,006 women (38.3%) and 1,627 men (61.7%) in the 2006 Olympic Winter Games compared to 886 women (36.9%) and 1,513 men (63.1%) in 2002. Interestingly, the same continued growth of men's sport and, as a result, the perpetuation of the gender gap has occurred in U.S. high school and college sport in the wake of Title IX's push for gender equity (BFHSA, 2006; NCAA, 2006). Some countries claim that the lack of women in their delegation is a result of lack of funding. The majority of these countries cite other reasons for the exclusion of women, such as social, cultural and religious differences (Good, 2002). However, the Olympic Charter specifically states that "Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement." (IOC, 2004). Thus, social, cultural and religious differences between men and women are not legitimate justifications for the lack of women in delegations. While the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has made significant efforts to play a leadership role in growing women's participation, it has had limited success in encouraging the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the 203 National Olympic Committees (NOC) and international winter sport federations (IF) to commit to gender equality. Women are also significantly underrepresented in the IOC and on IF boards of directors, the international governance structures that determine whether women's sports are offered in Olympic, Paralympic and world championship competition. There are few women serving as members of National Olympic Committees (NOC), such as the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), that determine the size and composition of their respective national Olympic and Paralympic delegations and whether developmental programs are offered to support women's sports participation. And, like the situation in the United States, the underrepresentation of women is also reflected within each country's respective National Sports Governing Bodies (NGB) boards of directors (e.g., USA Hockey, U.S. Figure Skating, etc.) and at community leadership levels where grassroots participation opportunities ultimately determine the Olympic and Paralympic participation pipeline. Without strong leadership from governing boards at all levels, insufficiencies in financial support and programmatic infrastructure will continue and the number of female Olympic and Paralympic athletes will continue to lag behind men. Olympic status raises the visibility of both sports and athletes, opening new doors to media visibility, high earnings through prize money and endorsements, college scholarships and jobs and key influencer connections. More significantly, Olympic status also ignites the aspirations of millions of girls who are inspired to participate by the heroes they see. With an estimated audience of 2 billion, the Olympic Winter Games is the most widely viewed forum for winter sports (USA Weekend, 2006). Thus, it is important to regularly examine the state of women's participation as leaders and athletes in the Olympic and Paralympic Games. This report specifically examines such participation and leadership in the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games from both an international and United States perspective

A Method for Converting 4-Option Multiple-Choice Items to 3-Option Multiple-Choice Items Without Re-Pretesting

The purpose of this study is to introduce a method for converting scored 4-option multiple-choice (MC) items into scored 3-option MC items without re-pretesting the 3-option MC items. This study describes a six-step process for achieving this goal. Data from a professional credentialing exam was used in this study and the method was applied to 24 forms of the exam. The results found 100% accuracy in predicting the rounded passing score for all forms

Delayed priming promotes CNS regeneration post-rhizotomy in Neurocan and Brevican-deficient mice

A wealth of literature has provided evidence that reactive tissue at the site of CNS injury is rich in chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans which may contribute to the non-permissive nature of the CNS. We have recently demonstrated using a murine model of human brachial plexus injury that the chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans Neurocan and Brevican are differentially expressed by two subsets of astrocytes in the spinal cord dorsal root entry zone (DREZ) following dorsal root lesion (Beggah et al., Neuroscience 133: 749-762, 2005). However, direct evidence for a growth-inhibitory role of these proteoglycans in vivo is still lacking. We therefore performed dorsal root lesion (rhizotomy) in mice deficient in both Neurocan and Brevican. Rhizotomy in these animals resulted in no significant increase in the number of sensory fibres regenerating through the DREZ compared to genetically matched controls. Likewise, a conditioning peripheral nerve lesion prior to rhizotomy, which increases the intrinsic growth capacity of sensory neurons, enhanced growth to the same extent in transgenic and control mice, indicating that absence of these proteoglycans alone is not sufficient to further promote entry into the spinal cord. In contrast, when priming of the median nerve was performed at a clinically relevant time, i.e. 7 weeks post-rhizotomy, the growth of a subpopulation of sensory axons across the DREZ was facilitated in Neurocan/Brevican-deficient, but not in control animals. This demonstrates for the first time that (i) Neurocan and/or Brevican contribute to the non-permissive environment of the DREZ several weeks after lesion and that (ii) delayed stimulation of the growth program of sensory neurons can facilitate regeneration across the DREZ provided its growth-inhibitory properties are attenuated. Post-injury enhancement of the intrinsic growth capacity of sensory neurons combined with removal of inhibitory chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans may therefore help to restore sensory function and thus attenuate the chronic pain resulting from human brachial plexus injur

GDNF reduces drug-induced rotational behavior after medial forebrain bundle transection by a mechanism not involving striatal dopamine

Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by the progressive loss of the substantia nigra (SN) dopaminergic neurons projecting to the striatum. Neurotrophic factors may have the potential to prevent or slow down the degenerative process occurring in PD. To that end, we examined whether low amounts of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) continuously released from polymer-encapsulated genetically engineered cells are able to prevent the loss of tyrosine hydroxylase immunoreactivity (TH-IR) in SN neurons and ameliorate the amphetamine-induced rotational asymmetry in rats that have been subjected to a unilateral medial forebrain bundle (MFB) axotomy. Baby hamster kidney (BHK) cells transfected with the cDNA for GDNF were encapsulated in a polymer fiber and implanted unilaterally at a location lateral to the MFB and rostral to the SN. ELISA assays before implantation show that the capsules release approximately 5 ng of GDNF/capsule per day. One week later, the MFB was axotomized unilaterally ipsilateral to the capsule placement. Seven days later, the animals were tested for amphetamine-induced rotational asymmetry and killed. The striatum was excised and analyzed either for catecholamine content or TH-IR, while the SN was immunostained for the presence of TH-IR. GDNF did not prevent the loss of dopamine in the striatum. However, GDNF significantly rescued TH-IR neurons in the SN pars compacta. Furthermore, GDNF also significantly reduced the number of turns per minute ipsilateral to the lesion under the influence of amphetamine. Improvement of rotational behavior in the absence of dopaminergic striatal reinnervation may reflect neuronal plasticity in the SN, as suggested by the dendritic sprouting observed in animals receiving GDNF. These results illustrate that the continuous release of low levels of GDNF close to the SN is capable of protecting the nigral dopaminergic neurons from an axotomy-induced lesion and significantly improving pharmacological rotational behavior by a mechanism other than dopaminergic striatal reinnervation

Honneth on Social Pathologies: A Critique

Over the last two decades, Axel Honneth has written extensively on the notion of social pathology. He has presented it as a distinctive critical resource of Frankfurt School Critical Theory, in which tradition he places his own work; and as an alternative to the mainstream liberal approaches in political philosophy. In this paper, I review the developments in Honneth's writing about this notion and offer an immanent critique, with a particular focus on his recent major work Freedom's Right. Both his early context-transcendent approach and his more recent immanent approach are found wanting, and his increasing reformism is exposed and criticized. The central distinction in Freedom's Right between social pathologies and misdevelopments is also shown to be unworkable. In addition, I demonstrate that Zurn's influential proposal to characterize the phenomena Honneth identified as social pathologies in terms of a cognitive disconnect does not fit (with Zurn's own description of) these phenomena. While some such phenomena, like what Honneth describes as “Organized Self-Realization,” call out for conceptualization in terms of the notion of social pathology, an alternative characterization of this notion is necessary

Workforce participation among international medical graduates in the National Health Service of England: a retrospective longitudinal study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Balancing medical workforce supply with demand requires good information about factors affecting retention. Overseas qualified doctors comprise 30% of the National Health Service (NHS) workforce in England yet little is known about the impact of country of qualification on length of stay. We aimed to address this need.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Using NHS annual census data, we calculated the duration of 'episodes of work' for doctors entering the workforce between 1992 and 2003. Survival analysis was used to examine variations in retention by country of qualification. The extent to which differences in retention could be explained by differences in doctors' age, sex and medical specialty was examined by logistic regression.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Countries supplying doctors to the NHS could be divided into those with better or worse long-term retention than domestically trained doctors. Countries in the former category were generally located in the Middle East, non-European Economic Area Europe, Northern Africa and Asia, and tended to be poorer with fewer doctors per head of population, but stronger economic growth. A doctor's age and medical specialty, but not sex, influenced patterns of retention.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Adjusting workforce participation by country of qualification can improve estimates of the number of medical school places needed to balance supply with demand. Developing countries undergoing strong economic growth are likely to be the most important suppliers of long stay medical migrants.</p

Deterministic Preparation of a Tunable Few-Fermion System

Systems consisting of few interacting fermions are the building blocks of matter with atoms and nuclei being the most prominent examples. We have created an artificial few-body quantum system with complete control over the system's quantum state using ultracold fermionic atoms in an optical dipole trap. We deterministically prepare ground state systems consisting of one to ten particles with fidelities of ~ 90%. We can tune the inter-particle interactions to arbitrary values using a Feshbach resonance and have observed the interaction-induced energy shift for a pair of repulsively interacting atoms. With this work, quantum simulation of strongly correlated fewbody systems has become possible. In addition, these microscopic quantum systems can be used as building blocks for scalable quantum information processing.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Expanding the Taxonomy of (Mis-)Recognition in the Economic Sphere

This paper makes a contribution to debates in recognition theory by expanding the taxonomy of (mis-)recognition in the economic sphere. We argue that doing justice to the variety of ways in which recognition is engaged in economic relationships requires: (1) to take into consideration not just the recognition principle of esteem, but also (various aspects of) need and respect; (2) to distinguish a productive from a consumptive dimension with regards to each principle of recognition (need, esteem and respect); (3) and to identify the specific economic relationship at stake (e.g. between consumers and producers, or between employers and employees). In this way, we can account for the diversity of demands for recognition made in the economic sphere, explain what underpins them, and bring structure into these diverse phenomena. What is more, our expanded taxonomy is a useful tool for social pathology theorists. They have to appreciate the full range of variants of misrecognition when diagnosing pathologies of misrecognition in the economic sphere