German Sports Medicine in the 1950s: Prevention and Public Health in East and West

Abstract

The article is part of a research project on the history of German sports medicine, from its organized beginnings in the early twentieth century until today. Through analyzing newly available archival documents, the focus is on the 1950s, when both German society and the political system had to be rebuilt after the war and ‘complete surrender’ of the Third Reich in 1945. Sports and sports medicine in both Germanys of the 1950s had the same roots or traditions, but had to be developed under completely different political and economic conditions. However, a crucial legacy of German sports medicine in East and West was and still is prevention. The specific and very different roles and systems of top-level sports, including sports medical and scientific support which developed since the 1960s, are by contrast, one of the major differences between East and West, causing major conflicts and problems until today.     

Regional lifelong learning policies and the social vulnerability of young adults in Girona and Vienna

ABSTRACT

This article explores the interface between lifelong learning policies and the definition of social vulnerability of young adults in two regions located within the European Union. Girona comprises a constellation of small towns with important industry, service and hospitality sectors. Vienna is a global city where many key international operators are based and employ a large number of highly qualified professionals. The article explores to what extent the meta-governance and the ‘causal narratives’ of lifelong learning policies contribute towards shaping the prevailing images of youth vulnerability in these regions. In Girona, bureaucratic governance patterns lifelong learning policies, which strongly rely on the potential of career guidance to encourage the youth to undertake further education. Correspondingly, policy designs and professional discourses emphasise that the beneficiaries previously failed at school. In Vienna, authorities govern lifelong learning by means of both bureaucracy and complex networks of employers and non-profit organisations. The ‘causal narrative’ of the policies straightforwardly claims that all youth must have an experience with employment, whether in apprenticeships or in transitional workshops that emulate real jobs. There, policies portray beneficiaries according to their capacity to undertake and finish apprenticeships.     

Universities’ Autonomy in Times of Changing Higher Education Governance: A study of the Swiss academic labour market

Tertiary Education and Management - Although eternally debated, the issue of autonomy in higher education is rarely analysed in its complexity. To address this issue, this article uses an...     

Subset selection for visualization of relevant image fractions for deep learning based semantic image segmentation

Semantic image segmentation is a challenging problem from image processing where deep convolutional neural networks (CNN) have been applied with great success in the recent years. It deals with pixel-wise classification of an input image, dividing it into regions of multiple object classes. However, CNNs are opaque models. Given a trained CNN, it is hard to tell which information encoded in the input image is important for the network to perform segmentation. Such information could be useful to judge whether a trained network learned to segment in a plausible way or how its performance can be improved.For a trained CNN, we formulate an optimization problem to extract relevant image fractions for semantic segmentation. We try to identify a subset of pixels that contain the relevant information for the segmentation of one selected object class. In experiments on the Cityscapes dataset, we show that this is an easy way to gain valuable insight into a CNN trained for semantic segmentation. Looking at the relevant image fractions, we can identify possible limits of a trained network and draw conclusions about possible improvements.     

Long-term effects of acoustic reafference training (ART)

In sport visual feedback is often used to enhance performance, mostly neglecting the auditory modality. However, athletes produce natural sounds when they move (acoustic reafferences) which they perceive and use to control their movements. We examined the short- and long-term effects of a training intervention on a complex movement by using acoustic reafferences. Natural step sounds produced during hurdling were recorded and played back to the participants immediately before each trial, with an increase (fast group), decrease (slow group), or no manipulation (control group) in the tempo. All groups increased their hurdling performance regarding overall running time, with the slow group showing the best performance development. After a 10-week retention, the fast and slow group further increased performance, whereas the control group declined. The repeated experience with acoustic information associated with the rhythmic pattern of hurdling may have helped developing a cognitive representation of that movement, especially regarding long-term effects.     

The association of socio-economic factors with physical fitness and activity behaviours,spinal posture and retinal vessel parameters in first graders in urban Switzerland

Socio-economic status during childhood has been shown to be a strong predictor of adult health outcome. Therefore, we examined associations of parental educational level, household income and migrant background with physical fitness, spinal flexibility, spinal posture as well as retinal vessel diameters in children of an urban Swiss region. A total of 358 first graders of the Swiss canton Basel-Stadt (age: 7.3, SD: 0.4) were examined. Physical fitness (20 m shuttle run test, 20 m sprint, jumping sidewards and balancing backwards), spinal flexibility and spinal posture (MediMouse^®, Idiag, Fehraltdorf, Switzerland) and retinal microcirculation (Static Retinal Vessel Analyzer, Imedos Systems UG, Jena, Germany) were assessed. Parental education, household income, migrant background and activity behaviour were evaluated with a questionnaire. Parental education was associated with child aerobic fitness (P = 0.03) and screen time (P < 0.001). Household income was associated with jumping sidewards (P = 0.009), balancing backwards (P = 0.03) and sports club participation (P = 0.02). Migrant background was associated with BMI (P = 0.001), body fat (P = 0.03), aerobic fitness (P = 0.007), time spent playing outdoors (P < 0.001) and screen time (P < 0.001). For spinal flexibility and retinal vessel diameter, no associations were found (0.06 < P < 0.8). Low parental education, low household income and a migrant background are associated with poor physical fitness, higher BMI and body fat percentage and low-activity behaviour.     

The rise of work-based academic education in Austria,Germany and Switzerland

Austria, Germany and Switzerland are renowned for their extensive systems of collective vocational skill formation, which, however, have developed largely in separation from higher education. This divide has become increasingly contested as a result of a variety of socioeconomic factors that have led to an increasing demand for higher level skills. Do the three countries deal with these challenges in similar ways? The comparative analysis is based on process tracing from the 1960s to 2013 and builds on historical institutionalism as well as several dozen expert interviews with key stakeholders. A key finding is that all three countries have developed hybrid forms of work-based academic education that combine elements of vocational training and higher education. However, in Austria and Switzerland, these hybrids have been integrated into the traditional model of collective governance, whereas the German case signifies a departure from this model.     

Handgrip strength and health outcomes: Umbrella review of systematic reviews with meta-analyses of observational studies

PurposeThe aim of the present study was to assess both the credibility and strength of evidence arising from systematic reviews with meta-analyses of observational studies on handgrip strength and health outcomes.MethodsAn umbrella review of systematic reviews with meta-analyses of observational studies was conducted. We assessed meta-analyses of observational studies based on random-effect summary effect sizes and their p values, 95% prediction intervals, heterogeneity, small-study effects, and excess significance. We graded the evidence from convincing (Class I) to weak (Class IV).ResultsFrom 504 articles returned in a search of the literature, 8 systematic reviews were included in our review, with a total of 11 outcomes. Overall, nine of the 11 of the outcomes reported nominally significant summary results (p < 0.05), with 4 associations surviving the application of the more stringent p value (p < 10⁻⁶). No outcome presented convincing evidence. Three associations showed Class II evidence (i.e., highly suggestive): (1) higher handgrip values at baseline were associated with a minor reduction in mortality risk in the general population (n = 34 studies; sample size = 1,855,817; relative risk = 0.72, 95% confidence interval (95%CI): 0.67–0.78), (2) cardiovascular death risk in mixed populations (n = 15 studies; relative risk = 0.84, 95%CI: 0.78–0.91), and (3) incidence of disability (n = 7 studies; relative risk = 0.76, 95%CI: 0.66–0.87).ConclusionThe present results show that handgrip strength is a useful indicator for general health status and specifically for early all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, as well as disability. To further inform intervention strategies, future research is now required to fully understand mechanisms linking handgrip strength scores to these health outcomes.     

Microfluidic carbon-blackened polydimethylsiloxane device with reduced ultra violet background fluorescence for simultaneous two-color ultra violet/visible-laser induced fluorescence detection in single cell analysis

In single cell analysis (SCA), individual cell-specific properties and inhomogeneous cellular responses are being investigated that is not subjected to ensemble-averaging or heterogeneous cell population effects. For proteomic single cell analysis, ultra-sensitive and reproducible separation and detection techniques are essential. Microfluidic devices combined with UV laser induced fluorescence (UV-LIF) detection have been proposed to fulfill these requirements. Here, we report on a novel microfluidic chip fabrication procedure that combines straightforward production of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) chips with a reduced UV fluorescence background (83%-reduction) by using PDMS droplets with carbon black pigments (CBP) as additives. The CBP-droplet is placed at the point of detection, whereas the rest of the chip remains transparent, ensuring full optical control of the chip. We systematically studied the relation of the UV background fluorescence at CBP to PDMS ratios (varying from 1:10 to 1:1000) for different UV laser powers. Using a CBP/PDMS ratio of 1:20, detection of a 100 nM tryptophan solution (S/N = 3.5) was possible, providing a theoretical limit of detection of 86 nM (with S/N = 3). Via simultaneous two color UV/VIS-LIF detection, we were able to demonstrate the electrophoretic separation of an analyte mixture of 500 nM tryptophan (UV) and 5 nM fluorescein (VIS) within 30 s. As an application, two color LIF detection was also used for the electrophoretic separation of the protein content from a GFP-labeled single Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf9) insect cell. Thereby just one single peak could be measured in the visible spectral range that could be correlated with one single peak among others in the ultraviolet spectra. This indicates an identification of the labeled protein γ-PKC and envisions a further feasible identification of more than one single protein in the future.