Confidentiality and surveillance challenges for psychologists working in men’s football academies in England

We examine challenges to confidentiality experienced by sports psychologists in men’s English football academies. Sixteen psychologists, six women, and ten men working in English football academies participated in two semi-structured interviews. We carried out a reflexive thematic analysis after each round of interviews and developed two themes: (1) challenges to client-psychologist confidentiality; (2) a context of normalized surveillance. First, participants explained that several staff members (e.g., coaches, managers, and support staff) would use covert and subtle ways to make psychologists break confidentiality. This included trying to get the psychologist to “slip up.” Second, the football academy context was characterized by widespread surveillance of players. It was evident that it is common practice for clubs to gather objective and self-report data creating extreme transparency in the young people’s lives. We also propose two research-based solutions allowing psychologists to handle these issues

Confidentiality and surveillance challenges for psychologists working in men’s football academies in England

We examine challenges to confidentiality experienced by sports psychologists in men’s English football academies. Sixteen psychologists, six women, and ten men working in English football academies participated in two semi-structured interviews. We carried out a reflexive thematic analysis after each round of interviews and developed two themes: (1) challenges to client-psychologist confidentiality; (2) a context of normalized surveillance. First, participants explained that several staff members (e.g., coaches, managers, and support staff) would use covert and subtle ways to make psychologists break confidentiality. This included trying to get the psychologist to “slip up.” Second, the football academy context was characterized by widespread surveillance of players. It was evident that it is common practice for clubs to gather objective and self-report data creating extreme transparency in the young people’s lives. We also propose two research-based solutions allowing psychologists to handle these issues

A Qualitative Meta-Study of a Decade of the Holistic Ecological Approach to Talent Development

The Holistic-Ecological Approach (HEA) was introduced in 2010, and it is now important to provide a critical review after a decade of research elaborating on the framework. The purpose of this study was to critically assess the methodological and theoretical trends in research using the HEA in the study of athletic talent development environments (ATDE). We used a qualitative meta-study to review twelve studies published from 2010 to the first quarter of 2021. Our meta-theory analysis found that future studies should consider the use of Bronfenbrenner’s work on development and address previous critiques on its use since it can limit the potential of the HEA re-search. In the meta-methods, we found that all studies used multiple and varied data collection strategies (e.g., interviews, observations, organisational documents). We also found a high degree of transparency and rigour exemplified by using multiple validity strategies. Method weaknesses were an underrepresentation of neutral or negative cases. The meta-data analysis showed that most ATDEs were classified as successful or unsuccessful ahead of data collection, suggesting potential confirmation bias. We also found that all ATDEs had competing findings, which suggests a need for exploring negative or ambiguous findings. Future research could benefit from clarifying the use of underlying theoretical assumptions; contrasting findings with neutral cases, outliers, and negative cases to clarify the definition of successful ATDEs; and expanding on the methodological approach

The influence of date and place of birth on youth player selection to a National Football Association elite development programme

Aim: This study sought to examine whether the place and date of birth of elite youth Irish footballers influences their selection onto the Football Association of Ireland's primary development pathway; 12 regional centres of excellences called the “Emerging Talent Programme” (ETP). The proposed hypothesis was that players born earlier in the year would be over-represented compared to those born later in their age band. A secondary hypothesis was that access to the ETP would be independent of place of birth. Methods: The dates and place of birth of all elite youth footballers (n = 1936) selected onto the ETP since its inception were examined. χ2 tests were used to establish if the dates of birth differed from the expected population distribution. Odds ratios were used to identify spatial variation in relation to place of birth and talent production. Results: The results showed that admission to the ETP is not independent of quarter of birth (P .05, χ2 = 256.817, w = .388). Place of birth analysis showed an unequal geographical distribution of players gaining selection onto the ETP. Selection onto the ETP was not independent of place of birth (P < .05, χ2 = 149.457, w = .278). Footballers developed in counties that had an ETP centre were almost 50% more likely to gain selection than those without a centre (OR 1.455, 95% CI 1.314 -1.612). Conclusion: The current programme demonstrates inequitable distribution of opportunities to access elite development pathways due to biases related to date and place of birth

Emergent global patterns of ecosystem structure and function from a mechanistic general ecosystem model

Anthropogenic activities are causing widespread degradation of ecosystems worldwide, threatening the ecosystem services upon which all human life depends. Improved understanding of this degradation is urgently needed to improve avoidance and mitigation measures. One tool to assist these efforts is predictive models of ecosystem structure and function that are mechanistic: based on fundamental ecological principles. Here we present the first mechanistic General Ecosystem Model (GEM) of ecosystem structure and function that is both global and applies in all terrestrial and marine environments. Functional forms and parameter values were derived from the theoretical and empirical literature where possible. Simulations of the fate of all organisms with body masses between 10 µg and 150,000 kg (a range of 14 orders of magnitude) across the globe led to emergent properties at individual (e.g., growth rate), community (e.g., biomass turnover rates), ecosystem (e.g., trophic pyramids), and macroecological scales (e.g., global patterns of trophic structure) that are in general agreement with current data and theory. These properties emerged from our encoding of the biology of, and interactions among, individual organisms without any direct constraints on the properties themselves. Our results indicate that ecologists have gathered sufficient information to begin to build realistic, global, and mechanistic models of ecosystems, capable of predicting a diverse range of ecosystem properties and their response to human pressures

Evidence for Mito-Nuclear and Sex-Linked Reproductive Barriers between the Hybrid Italian Sparrow and Its Parent Species

Studies of reproductive isolation between homoploid hybrid species and their parent species have rarely been carried out. Here we investigate reproductive barriers between a recently recognized hybrid bird species, the Italian sparrow Passer italiae and its parent species, the house sparrow P. domesticus and Spanish sparrow P. hispaniolensis. Reproductive barriers can be difficult to study in hybrid species due to lack of geographical contact between taxa. However, the Italian sparrow lives parapatrically with the house sparrow and both sympatrically and parapatrically with the Spanish sparrow. Through whole-transcriptome sequencing of six individuals of each of the two parent species we identified a set of putatively parent species-diagnostic single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers. After filtering for coverage, genotyping success (>97%) and multiple SNPs per gene, we retained 86 species-informative, genic, nuclear and mitochondrial SNP markers from 84 genes for analysis of 612 male individuals. We show that a disproportionately large number of sex-linked genes, as well as the mitochondria and nuclear genes with mitochondrial function, exhibit sharp clines at the boundaries between the hybrid and the parent species, suggesting a role for mito-nuclear and sex-linked incompatibilities in forming reproductive barriers. We suggest that genomic conflict via interactions between mitochondria and sex-linked genes with mitochondrial function ("mother's curse") at one boundary and centromeric drive at the other may best explain our findings. Hybrid speciation in the Italian sparrow may therefore be influenced by mechanisms similar to those involved in non-hybrid speciation, but with the formation of two geographically separated species boundaries instead of one. Spanish sparrow alleles at some loci have spread north to form reproductive barriers with house sparrows, while house sparrow alleles at different loci, including some on the same chromosome, have spread in the opposite direction to form barriers against Spanish sparrows

A functional SUMO-interacting motif in the transactivation domain of c-Myb regulates its myeloid transforming ability

c-Myb is an essential hematopoietic transcription factor that controls proliferation and differentiation of progenitors during blood cell development. Whereas sumoylation of the C-terminal regulatory domain (CRD) is known to have a major impact on the activity of c-Myb, no role for noncovalent binding of small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) to c-Myb has been described. Based on the consensus SUMO-interacting motif (SIM), we identified and examined putative SIMs in human c-Myb. Interaction and reporter assays showed that the SIM in the in the transactivation domain of c-Myb (V 267 NIV) is functional. This motif is necessary for c-Myb to be able to interact noncovalently with SUMO, preferentially SUMO2/3. Destroying the SUMO-binding properties by mutation resulted in a large increase in the transactivation potential of c-Myb. Mutational analysis and overexpression of conjugation-defective SUMO argued against intramolecular repression caused by sumoylated CRD and in favor of SUMO-dependent repression in trans. Using both a myeloid cell line-based assay and a primary hematopoietic cell assay, we addressed the transforming abilities of SUMO binding and conjugation mutants. Interestingly, only loss of SUMO binding, and not SUMO conjugation, enhanced the myeloid transformational potential of c-Myb. c-Myb with the SIM mutated conferred a higher proliferative ability than the wild-type and caused an effective differentiation block. This establishes SUMO binding as a mechanism involved in modulating the transactivation activity of c-Myb, and responsible for keeping the transforming potential of the oncoprotein in check