Inclusion in sport: disability and participation

Abstract

For the last couple of decades UNESCO has aimed to achieve to a far extent the implementation of the guiding principle of inclusion at all levels in education systems worldwide. The idea that countries ‘should ensure an inclusive education system at all levels’ is also a central objective of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This Introduction to the Special Issue explores what participation as an aspect of inclusion means in general, and realistically can mean in sport and quality physical education in particular. Sport is introduced as a context in which, unlike in education, the individual choice of a sporting activity on a spectrum ranging from separate activities for persons with disabilities to modified activities designed for all makes it necessary to attribute each approach equal importance and validity instead of discrediting segregated structures and glorifying supposedly inclusive ones.     

Indoor days

Winter days can be long and dreary, causing restless, cranky children. These activities will help to fill the hours with fun, and learning too.Carolyn Haas is co-author of the new bookPurple Cow to the Rescue published by Little, Brown and Co., as well as many other creative activity books for parents, teachers, and children. These activities are excerpted from the bookRecipes For Fun and Learning by Carolyn Haas, Ann Cole, and Betty Weinberger, CBH Publishing, Box 236-D, Glencoe, IL 60022. For a copy of the book, send $4.95 plus $1.00 for postage and handling to the above address.     

Microfluidic system for near-patient extraction and detection of miR-122 microRNA biomarker for drug-induced liver injury diagnostics

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) results in over 100 000 hospital attendances per year in the UK alone and is a leading cause for the post-marketing withdrawal of new drugs, leading to significant financial losses. MicroRNA-122 (miR-122) has been proposed as a sensitive DILI marker although no commercial applications are available yet. Extracellular blood microRNAs (miRNAs) are promising clinical biomarkers but their measurement at point of care remains time-consuming, technically challenging, and expensive. For circulating miRNA to have an impact on healthcare, a key challenge to overcome is the development of rapid and reliable low-cost sample preparation. There is an acknowledged issue with miRNA stability in the presence of hemolysis and platelet activation, and no solution has been demonstrated for fast and robust extraction at the site of blood draw. Here, we report a novel microfluidic platform for the extraction of circulating miR-122 from blood enabled by a vertical approach and gravity-based bubble mixing. The performance of this disposable cartridge was verified by standard quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis on extracted miR-122. The cartridge performed equivalently or better than standard bench extraction kits. The extraction cartridge was combined with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy to detect miR-122 as an initial proof-of-concept toward an application in point-of-care detection. This platform enables the standardization of sample preparation and the detection of miRNAs at the point of blood draw and in resource limited settings and could aid the introduction of miRNA-based assays into routine clinical practice.