Sportverenigingen in Nederland dragen bij aan een gezonde leefstijl, sociale cohesie en inclusieve sportdeelname. Ondanks dat de sportparticipatie toeneemt, hebben de clubs het moeilijk om hun ledental op peil te houden. Diverse ontwikkelingen spelen daarbij een rol. De focus van het onderzoek in dit proefschrift richt zich op twee maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen, ‘individualisering’ en ‘digitalisering’. In zeven studies wordt antwoord gegeven op twee onderzoeksvragen: 1) hoe het clubgevoel van leden van sportvereniging kan worden geconceptualiseerd in termen van definitie, voorspellers en opbrengsten en 2) hoe sociaalnetwerksites van sportverenigingen kunnen bijdragen het ontwikkelen van het clubgevoel van leden? Die studies vormen samen een multimethode onderzoek. Resultaten laten zien dat clubgevoel verwijst naar de gevoelsband van leden met hun club op basis van participatie, relevantie en de sociale wereld van de club. Clubgevoel hangt samen met bindingsaspecten zoals de intentie om je in te zetten voor de club en te blijven. Sociaalnetwerksites van sportverenigingen kunnen helpen om dit clubgevoel te ontwikkelen, bij voorkeur door de kanalen in te zetten voor informatie en interactie over de club, de sport en de leden. De online kanalen vormen samen de virtuele community van de vereniging die, afhankelijk van de aanpak door de club en de leden, verschillende verschijningvormen kan hebben. Met hun virtuele community bieden sportverenigingen, naast de accommodatie, ook een ónline ontmoetingsplek voor sport en andere activiteiten waarmee ze het clubgevoel onder hun leden kunnen bevorderen. Met dit proefschrift geeft Nanny Kuijsters inzichten voor de ontwikkeling van virtuele community’s voor verenigingen, professionals en geïnteresseerden in de georganiseerde sport.
Objective: To investigate the effects of a school-based once-a-week sports program on physical fitness, physical activity, and cardiometabolic health in children and adolescents with a physical disability. Methods: This controlled clinical trial included 71 children and adolescents from four schools for special education [mean age 13.7 (2.9) years, range 8–19, 55% boys]. Participants had various chronic health conditions including cerebral palsy (37%), other neuromuscular (44%), metabolic (8%), musculoskeletal (7%), and cardiovascular (4%) disorders. Before recruitment and based on the presence of school-based sports, schools were assigned as sport or control group. School-based sports were initiated and provided by motivated experienced physical educators. The sport group (n = 31) participated in a once-a-week school-based sports program for 6 months, which included team sports. The control group (n = 40) followed the regular curriculum. Anaerobic performance was assessed by the Muscle Power Sprint Test. Secondary outcome measures included aerobic performance, VO2 peak, strength, physical activity, blood pressure, arterial stiffness, body composition, and the metabolic profile. Results: A significant improvement of 16% in favor of the sport group was found for anaerobic performance (p = 0.003). In addition, the sport group lost 2.8% more fat mass compared to the control group (p = 0.007). No changes were found for aerobic performance, VO2 peak, physical activity, blood pressure, arterial stiffness, and the metabolic profile. Conclusion: Anaerobic performance and fat mass improved following a school-based sports program. These effects are promising for long-term fitness and health promotion, because sports sessions at school eliminate certain barriers for sports participation and adding a once-a-week sports session showed already positive effects for 6 months.
A broad agenda with societal urgency — From improving children's learning performances to delaying the onset of Alzheimer's disease. From productive employees to playing football to counteract radicalisation. From including the disabled to economic export product. Sport can make a positive contribution to dealing with social, cultural and healthcare issues more effectively and can stimulate both personal and economic growth. Two conditions must be satisfied if these contributions are to be realised in a structural, sustainable and successful manner. One: all parties involved must collaborate to realise the evidence-based added value of sport in practice. Two: politicians, industry, healthcare and health insurers must recognise that it is in everybody's interest that sport acquires this key role.
Currently, many novel innovative materials and manufacturing methods are developed in order to help businesses for improving their performance, developing new products, and also implement more sustainability into their current processes. For this purpose, additive manufacturing (AM) technology has been very successful in the fabrication of complex shape products, that cannot be manufactured by conventional approaches, and also using novel high-performance materials with more sustainable aspects. The application of bioplastics and biopolymers is growing fast in the 3D printing industry. Since they are good alternatives to petrochemical products that have negative impacts on environments, therefore, many research studies have been exploring and developing new biopolymers and 3D printing techniques for the fabrication of fully biobased products. In particular, 3D printing of smart biopolymers has attracted much attention due to the specific functionalities of the fabricated products. They have a unique ability to recover their original shape from a significant plastic deformation when a particular stimulus, like temperature, is applied. Therefore, the application of smart biopolymers in the 3D printing process gives an additional dimension (time) to this technology, called four-dimensional (4D) printing, and it highlights the promise for further development of 4D printing in the design and fabrication of smart structures and products. This performance in combination with specific complex designs, such as sandwich structures, allows the production of for example impact-resistant, stress-absorber panels, lightweight products for sporting goods, automotive, or many other applications. In this study, an experimental approach will be applied to fabricate a suitable biopolymer with a shape memory behavior and also investigate the impact of design and operational parameters on the functionality of 4D printed sandwich structures, especially, stress absorption rate and shape recovery behavior.