Is –110°C cold air cryotherapy effective in improving post-exercise recovery in sports people?

Whole body cryotherapy (WBC) involves repeatedly exposing an individual, dressed in minimal clothing, to extremely cold air (–100 to –130°C) for a short period. One specific claim that is often made is that WBC is effective in treating exercise-induced muscle soreness and damage. However, our results suggest that two bouts of WBC were ineffective in improving recovery from eccentric exercise when administered 24 hours after eccentric exercise.

Strolling through the (post)modern city: Modes of being a flaneur in picture books

The city and the urban condition, popular subjects of art, literature, and film, have been commonly represented as fragmented, isolating, violent, with silent crowds moving through the hustle and bustle of a noisy, polluted cityspace. Included in this diverse artistic field is children’s literature—an area of creative and critical inquiry that continues to play a central role in illuminating and shaping perceptions of the city, of city lifestyles, and of the people who traverse the urban landscape. Fiction’s textual representations of cities, its sites and sights, lifestyles and characters have drawn on traditions of realist, satirical, and fantastic writing to produce the protean urban story—utopian, dystopian, visionary, satirical—with the goal of offering an account or critique of the contemporary city and the urban condition. In writing about cities and urban life, children’s literature variously locates the child in relation to the social (urban) space. This dialogic relation between subject and social space has been at the heart of writings about/of the flâneur: a figure who experiences modes of being in the city as it transforms under the influences of modernism and postmodernism. Within this context of a changing urban ontology brought about by (post)modern styles and practices, this article examines five contemporary picture books: The Cows Are Going to Paris by David Kirby and Allen Woodman; Ooh-la-la (Max in love) by Maira Kalman; Mr Chicken Goes to Paris and Old Tom’s Holiday by Leigh Hobbs; and The Empty City by David Megarrity. I investigate the possibility of these texts reviving the act of flânerie, but in a way that enables different modes of being a flâneur, a neo-flâneur. I suggest that the neo-flâneur retains some of the characteristics of the original flâneur, but incorporates others that take account of the changes wrought by postmodernity and globalization, particularly tourism and consumption. The dual issue at the heart of the discussion is that tourism and consumption as agents of cultural globalization offer a different way of thinking about the phenomenon of flânerie. While the flâneur can be regarded as the precursor to the tourist, the discussion considers how different modes of flânerie, such as the tourist-flâneur, are an inevitable outcome of commodification of the activities that accompany strolling through the (post)modern urban space.

Choosing work and care : four Australian women negotiating return to paid work in the first year of motherhood

Australian women make decisions about return to paid work and care for their child within a policy environment that presents mixed messages about maternal employment and child care standards. Against this background an investigation of first-time mothers’ decision-making about workforce participation and child care was undertaken. Four women were studied from pregnancy through the first postnatal year using interview and diary methods. Inductive analyses identified three themes, all focused on dimensions of family security: financial security relating to family income, emotional security relating to child care quality, and pragmatic security relating to child care access. The current policy changes that aim to increase child care quality standards in Australia present a positive step toward alleviating family insecurities but are insufficient to alleviate the evidently high levels of tension between workforce participation and family life experienced by women transitioning back into the workforce in Australia.

The lived experience of post-traumatic stress disorder as described by motor vehicle accident victims in Jordan

Aim: To explore the lived experience of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as described by individuals who have been involved in a motor vehicle accident (MVA) in Jordan. Background: Motor vehicle accident (MVA) survivors who develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have become an important health issue. The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that trauma resulting from MVAs is a phenomenon of increasing concern, with death from injuries projected to rise from 5.1 million in 1990 to 8.4 million in 2020 particularly in developing countries such as Jordan (WHO, 2002). The impact of trauma from MVAs inevitably compromises the victim’s quality of life (WHO, 2002; Blanchard & Hickling, 2007) resulting in psychological and emotional distress, occupational disability, family disintegration, and socio-economic difficulty (Jordan Ministry of Health, 2005). The development of PTSD as a result of an MVA is not limited to the individual, but also extends to the family, friends, and the health care team involved in the person's care and rehabilitation. Design: A descriptive phenomenological approach was used for this study. Method: This study was conducted in an orthopaedic unit in Amera Basma Hospital in Irbid Jordan. Fifteen (15) participants were voluntary recruited through the process of purposeful sampling. Data was collected by face-to-face in depth-interviews. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. The process of analysis was undertaken using Colaizzi’s (1978) eight step approach with the addition of two extra steps. Findings: The process of analysis identified seven themes explicated from the participants’ transcripts of interview. The seven themes were: 1. Feeling frustrated at a diminishing health status 2. Struggling to maintain a sense of independence 3. Harbouring feelings of not being able to recover 4. Feeling discriminated against and marginalised by society 5. Feeling ignored and neglected by health care professionals 6. Feeling abandoned by family, and 7. Moving toward acceptance through having faith in Allah. Conclusion: The findings of this study have the potential to make a significant contribution to extant knowledge on the topic which can inform future nursing practice, education, policy development, and research initiatives in Jordan and internationally.

Using digital storytelling as a change agent for women’s participation in the Turkish public sphere

This thesis builds on the scholarship and practical know-how that have emerged from digital storytelling projects around the world with diverse groups of participants in a range of institutions. I have used the results of these projects to explore the opportunities Digital Storytelling workshop practice may hold for women’s participation in the public sphere in Turkey. Through theoretical discussion and practical experimentation, I examine the potential of Digital Storytelling workshop practice as a means to promote agency and self-expression in a feminist activist organisation, focusing in particular on whether Digital Storytelling can be used as a change agent – as a tool for challenging the idea of public sphere in ways that make it more inclusive of women’s participation. The thesis engages with feminist scholarship’s critiques of the public/private dichotomy, as well as the concept of gender, to seek connections with narrative identity in the light of the analysis of the Digital Storytelling workshops and the digital stories that were created in a feminist context. The study on which this thesis is based saw the introduction of Digital Storytelling to Turkey for the first time through workshops in Istanbul and Antakya, conducted in partnership with the feminist activist organisation Amargi Women’s Academy. Applying the principles of feminist post-structuralist discourse analysis as used by Judith Baxter (2003), I examine two sets of data collected in this project. First, I analyse the interactions during the Digital Storytelling workshops, where women from Amargi created their digital stories in a collaborative setting. This is done through participatory observation notes and in-depth interviews with the workshop participants and facilitators. Second, I seek to uncover the strategies that these women used to ‘speak back to power’ in their digital stories, reading these as texts. I conclude that women from the Amargi network used the workshops to create digital content in order to communicate their concerns about issues that can be classified as gender-specific matters. During this process, they also cooperated, established new connections, and at the end of the process even defined new ways of using, circulating and repurposing their digital stories for feminist activism in Turkey. My research thereby contributes equally to feminist discourse analysis, the study of new-media usage and uptake among non-professionals, and the study of media–public sphere interactions in a particular national setting: Turkey. My conclusion indicates that the process of production is as important as the product itself, and from that I am able to draw out some strategies for developing digitally equipped women’s activism in Turkey.

Evaluation of an intervention to promote protective infant feeding practices to prevent childhood obesity : outcomes of the NOURISH RCT at 14 months of age and 6 months post the first of two intervention modules

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate a universal obesity prevention intervention, which commenced at infant age 4-6 months, using outcome data assessed 6-months after completion of the first of two intervention modules and 9 months from baseline. DESIGN: Randomised controlled trial of a community-based early feeding intervention. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: 698 first-time mothers (mean age 30±5 years) with healthy term infants (51% male) aged 4.3±1.0 months at baseline. Mothers and infants were randomly allocated to self-directed access to usual care or to attend two group education modules, each delivered over three months, that provided anticipatory guidance on early feeding practices. Outcome data reported here were assessed at infant age 13.7±1.3 months. Anthropometrics were expressed as z-scores (WHO reference). Rapid weight gain was defined as change in weight-for-age z-score (WAZ) > +0.67. Maternal feeding practices were assessed via self-administered questionnaire. RESULTS: There were no differences according to group allocation on key maternal and infant characteristics. At follow up (n=598 [86%]) the intervention group infants had lower BMIZ (0.42±0.85 vs 0.23±0.93, p=0.009) and infants in the control group were more likely to show rapid weight gain from baseline to follow up (OR=1.5 CI95%1.1-2.1, p=0.014). Mothers in the control group were more likely to report using non- responsive feeding practices that fail to respond to infant satiety cues such as encouraging eating by using food as a reward (15% vs 4%, p=0.001) or using games ( 67% vs 29%, p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: These results provide early evidence that anticipatory guidance targeting the ‘when, what and how’ of solid feeding can be effective in changing maternal feeding practices and, at least in the short term, reducing anthropometric indicators of childhood obesity risk. Analyses of outcomes at later ages are required to determine if these promising effects can be sustained.