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Fuel-90: validation of a questionnaire to assess players’ knowledge of carbohydrate guidelines for soccer
No full textPurpose
Professional soccer players typically under-consume carbohydrate in relation to contemporary guidelines, where their dietary behaviors may, in part, be underpinned by lack of knowledge. Accordingly, we aimed to develop and validate a novel and time-efficient questionnaire for use with professional soccer players to assess soccer players’ knowledge of the current carbohydrate guidelines.
Method
The Fuel-90 questionnaire was developed by research-active practitioners, based upon the 2021 Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) expert group statement on nutrition in elite soccer. The Fuel-90 questionnaire comprised 25 multiple choice questions divided into 5 sub-sections, assessing: (1) Fueling Fundamentals, (2) Match Day-1, (3) Pre-match Meal, (4) In-match fueling and (5) Post-match Recovery. The questionnaire was administered to 62 professionally Sport and Exercise Nutrition registered practitioners (SENR), 186 professional male adult soccer players from the English Premier League and Championship (PRO) and 145 recreational male adult soccer players (REC) ( n = 393). Of the 186 professional soccer players, 31 completed a second questionnaire within 21 days of their first completion.
Results: Construct validity was confirmed by significant differences in Fuel-90 score between the three groups (SENR: 24 ± 2; 96 ± 6% > PRO: 15 ± 4; 59 ± 17% > REC 13 ± 4; 51 ± 14%; ( p < 0.005). Fuel-90 demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0⋅86). Fuel-90 questionnaire was established (r = 0.74; p < 0.001), with no significant learning effect between test (17 ± 4) and re-test (18 ± 4; p = 0.295).
Conclusion
The Fuel-90 questionnaire presents a valid, reliable, and practical tool for practitioners to assess professional soccer players’ knowledge of current carbohydrate guidelines, thereby providing an initial framework to tailor subsequent education and nutrition interventions
Seismic fragility analysis of a three-story cross-laminated timber building considering near and far field ground motions
No full textThis paper investigates the seismic response of the three-story Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) building of the SOFIE project subjected to the Near-Field (NF) Far-Field (FF) ground motions according to FEMA P-695. The numerical models have been developed in connector, wall and full-scale building levels in OpenSees. Nonlinear nonlinear springs have been utilised to model the behaviour of CLT connectors while considering Gap joints only to transfer compression forces between panels and the rigid foundation without the ability to carry tensile forces. The CLT panels have been modelled as moment-resisting frames by applying elastic beam elements with high stiffness. The panel-to-panel and panel-to-foundation friction has also been considered by modifying the initial stiffness of the CLT connector springs. The building was analysed using Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA), including 2450 time-history simulations, to assess its behaviour during ground motions. Significant Damage (SD) and Near-Collapse (NC) damage stated have been identified for the building based on EN12512 standard through Modal Push-over Analysis (MPA). Subsequently, the fragility curves have been developed for the CLT building under NF and FF ground motions. The IDA curves prove that the CLT building considered in this paper is more affected by Near-Field Pulse-like (NF-P) than by Near-Field No-Pulse (NF-NP) and FF ground motions. Moreover, the modelled building is significantly more affected by NF-P ground motions than by NF-NP and FF motions, with a higher probability of collapse under NF-P conditions
An Evidence Based Pathway to Net Zero Ready Homes
No full textIn the UK, the Future Homes Standard (FHS) will be used to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 75-80% in newly constructed houses as part of the effort to achieve net zero by 2050. This chapter explains what this means in practice through design and building of houses by a housing association and speculative housebuilder. Research carried out by the Centre for Future Homes at Birmingham City University (BCU), has enabled a deeper understanding to emerge in how technology and collaborative approaches to production by all participants engaged in the supply chain can ensure attainment of carbon emissions. Crucially, the research has incorporated analysis of the experiences of occupants of innovative houses in altering behaviour and interaction with technology including heat pumps and ventilation systems. Findings from the research will be widely disseminated to assist others in appreciating the potential for housing, built with traditional locally available labour materials to be part of the effort to arrest climate change through proactive carbon reduction
Cross-cultural differences in attention: An investigation through computational modelling
No full textBehavioural research has shown that cultural membership can shape visual perception and attentional processes. In picture perception, members of collectivist cultures are more likely to attend the whole of the perceptual field than an individual salient item. Members of individualist cultures tend to attend the most salient object in the visual field. Understanding the brain processes that underlie these differences in visual attention is very important, as attentional processes can have significant impact on learning, navigation, communication and more. This study examines the perception of saliency among collectivist and individualist cultural groups using a computational modelling approach that is based on spiking neurons, the binding spiking Search over Time and Space (b-sSoTS) model. We simulated visual search for a salient target among distracters. We successfully simulated cross-cultural differences in early visual processes by altering the coupling parameter and varying the strength of connections between representations in the model. These findings indicate that the one of the potential causes of cross-cultural differences in visual perception can be the differences in encoding the mechanisms between individualist and collectivist cultural groups This study marks the first step investigating these processes by extending the behavioural research finding with computational modelling
Digital Twins and AI Decision Models: Advancing Cost Modelling in Off-Site Construction
No full textThe rising demand for housing continues to outpace traditional construction processes, highlighting the need for innovative, efficient, and sustainable delivery models. Off-site construction (OSC) has emerged as a promising alternative, offering faster project timelines and enhanced cost management. However, current research on cost models for OSC, particularly in automating material take-offs and optimising cost performance, remains limited. This study addresses this gap by proposing a new cost model integrating Digital Twin (DT) technology and AI-driven decision models for modular housing in the UK. The research explores the role of DTs in enhancing cost estimation and decision-making processes. By leveraging DTs and AI, the proposed model evaluates the impact of emergent technologies on cost performance, material efficiency, and sustainability across social, environmental, and economic dimensions. As proposed, this integrated approach enables a cost model tailored for OSC systems, providing a data-driven foundation for cost optimisation and material take-offs. The study’s findings highlight the potential of combining DTs and AI decision models to enhance cost modelling in modular construction, offering new capabilities to support sustainable and performance-driven housing delivery. The paper introduces a dynamic, data-driven cost model integrating real-time data acquisition through DTs and AI-powered predictive analytics. This dynamic approach enhances cost accuracy, reduces lifecycle cost variability, and supports adaptive decision-making throughout the OSC project lifecycle
Rhythms of Vocational Education: A Lefebvrian Perspective
No full textThis thesis explores how historic spatial and temporal influences have shaped both vocational education and vocational teachers in a Further Education College in England. It tenders an under-researched individual reflexivity, explored through a novel repurposing of Henri Lefebvre’s tri-dimensional spatial dialectic, that challenges previous literature. Vocational education has been forged through a complex interplay of historical influences, policy initiatives, and reform. Repeated attempts to achieve parity of esteem with academic education or to enhance productivity in response to global competition have left the sector struggling with a contradictory sense of purpose. At the centre of these cyclical policy shifts are vocational teachers, who face a culture of continuous measurement and bureaucracy that clashes with altruistic intentions to impart practical knowledge and skills to future generations.
Literature suggests that vocational teachers identify more strongly with their prior occupation than with their role as a teacher, despite being fully qualified in both disciplines. This thesis, however, challenges this narrative, adapting Lefebvre’s tri-dimensional spatial dialectic from The Production of Space away from a geographically rooted methodology centred on space, to one that centres on the self. Through this lens, it argues that vocational teachers no longer consider an overwhelming allegiance to their former occupations. Instead, the evolution of further education—shaped by policy shifts including the extension of compulsory education to age 18, the introduction of the study programme, the impact of austerity, and the disruption of the global pandemic—has redefined their professional identities. Vocational teachers displayed a transcendence beyond the dual professional inference, emerging as reflexive individuals, with the ability to navigate and adapt to incessant reform, escalating bureaucratic and managerial pressures, and the increasing complexity of student needs. It is this reflexivity that flows through the dialectic, demonstrating how vocational educators continuously reshape their professional selves, offering a compelling counter-narrative to established assumptions.
The study employed a combination of semi-structured go-along interviews with teachers in their everyday vocational settings, supplemented by an observation in an automotive workshop to enhance and contextualise their contributions. The findings were grouped and themed using reflexive thematic analysis, then examined through Lefebvre’s rhythmic characteristics and the adaptation of his spatial dialectic. The findings highlight the need for more inclusive and well-planned reforms, with greater involvement from vocational practitioners, addressing shifting student behaviours, reducing administrative burdens, and enhancing support for continuing professional developmen
Mary Russell Mitford’s “Our Village” and the Development of the Professional Periodical Writer
No full textDriven by financial necessity, Mary Russell Mitford was one of the first consistently paid writers working in the periodical press and an early success story with her sketches appearing in multiple periodicals as well as in a range of collected editions throughout the century. This article builds on recent scholarship that places Mary Russell Mitford’s “Our Village” sketches in the context of the evolving print culture of the 1820s, and seeks to understand the characteristics of her long-lasting appeal. It argues that, as a professional writer, Mitford’s long-term success across multiple publication formats hinged on her marketable brand identity as a canonical woman writer alongside Jane Austen, connecting writing, image, and biography, and her influential development of a descriptive prose technique able to generate an illusion of truthful pictures drawn from life
‘Mine the volume’: Excess and the voluminous ecological politics of capitalist frontiers
No full textMining frontiers are moving ever further beyond Earth's surface, as new subterranean realms, the seafloor, the atmosphere and outer space increasingly come into the purview of entrepreneurial activity. In this paper, we deploy an environmental governmentality analytic to examine mining as a site-specific, intervening activity that brings the relationship between these different material spaces into view. We recognise that as mining expands through technological advancement ever further beyond its previous terrestrial foundations, it builds on and deepens colonial environmental governance strategies. We argue that as it does so, efforts to govern mining are likely to be increasingly challenged by its ‘excess’, by which we mean the matter that surpasses surficial enclosures and goes on to produce unintended physical and social consequences for other spaces and places. We construct our argument by examining secondary data on mining at three resource frontiers at varying stages of exploitation and associated governance: (i) surface mining during European colonialisation of the Amazon Basin; (ii) ongoing preparations for deep-sea mining in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone of the Pacific Ocean; and (iii) the prospect of asteroid mining in outer space. Overall, the paper draws attention to the overlapping nature of the planet's voluminous, material spaces and its ability to frustrate environmental governance efforts. It offers a voluminous analysis across material spaces to burgeoning debates within political ecology
Opportunistic Insider Trading During the COVID‐19 Pandemic
No full textThis paper examines whether opportunistic or routine insiders in US markets engage in informed trading and earn higher short‐term returns during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Our findings indicate that trades by opportunistic insiders are indeed informative, yielding higher returns compared to those of routine insiders during the pandemic. Interestingly, we also observe that opportunistic directors earn higher returns than CEOs. Additionally, opportunistic insiders trading in the Nasdaq market achieve higher returns compared to those in the NYSE, and opportunistic insiders in the financial sector outperform those in the non‐financial sector. Our results remain robust across various model specifications, alternative measures and considerations for endogeneity. Overall, our findings suggest that opportunistic insiders possess a significant informational advantage, enabling them to engage in informed trading during the pandemic