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Post-activation performance enhancement in sprinters: effects of hard versus sand surfaces
Get PDFAbstract This study aimed to compare the post-activation performance enhancement induced by successive drop-jumps performed on hard and sand surfaces in sprint and jump performance of top-level sprinters. Athletes were tested on two occasions. On each visit they were allocated to one of the experimental protocols, which consisted of performing 2x5 drop-jumps from a box with the height of 60-cm on hard or sand surfaces in randomized order, seven days apart. Prior to and 7 and 15-min after executing drop-jumps, sprinters performed countermovement jumps and 60-m sprint tests. Differences between sprinting splits and surfaces were assessed using a two-way analysis of variance with repeated measures. No significant differences in jump height or sprint time were observed (p>0.05), regardless of the surface used (i.e., hard or sand) during the conditioning activity (effect sizes [95% confidence intervals] ranging from 0.01 [-0.84;0.84] to 0.44 [-0.42;1.27]). Performing drop-jumps on sand or hard surfaces immediately before maximum sprinting bouts does not provide any advantage or disadvantage to top-level sprinters. Sprint coaches may prescribe short-plyometric training activities on sand surfaces even close to competitions, bearing in mind that this strategy will not compromise sprint-specific performance
RAMPVIS: Answering the challenges of building visualisation capabilities for large-scale emergency responses
Get PDFThe effort for combating the COVID-19 pandemic around the world has resulted in a huge amount of data, e.g., from testing, contact tracing, modelling, treatment, vaccine trials, and more. In addition to numerous challenges in epidemiology, healthcare, biosciences, and social sciences, there has been an urgent need to develop and provide visualisation and visual analytics (VIS) capacities to support emergency responses under difficult operational conditions. In this paper, we report the experience of a group of VIS volunteers who have been working in a large research and development consortium and providing VIS support to various observational, analytical, model-developmental, and disseminative tasks. In particular, we describe our approaches to the challenges that we have encountered in requirements analysis, data acquisition, visual design, software design, system development, team organisation, and resource planning. By reflecting on our experience, we propose a set of recommendations as the first step towards a methodology for developing and providing rapid VIS capacities to support emergency responses
Beware Maria: Mike Dines, Punk Scholar [Podcast]
No full textThis week, Maria Soriano has a conversation with Mike Dines of the Punk Scholars Network. Mike Dines is a British musician, writer, scholar, publisher and co-founder of the Punk Scholars Network. He founded Itchy Monkey Press (http://itchymonkeypress.com) with the publication of the anarcho-punk novella the darkening light (2014), followed by Tales From the Punkside (2014), Some of Us Scream, Some of Us Shout (2016) and And All Around Was Darkness (2017) with Greg Bull
The official discourse of academic credit in England
No full textA discussion about Credit practice in England as part of a section of each of the countries in the UK.Credit is intertwined with higher education around the world and the book introduces and analyses the long-term effects that this connection brings
Author Correction: National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic
Get PDFCorrection to: Nature Communications https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27668-9, published online 26 January 2022
Using a hot-spot procedure in an online study of perceptions of hand contamination
No full textA hot-spot question format has one or more configurable click-sensitive regions superimposed on an image where some kind of variable of interest is present. The researcher records how often the regions are clicked, therefore providing frequency data about choices or preferences. In this case study, a rationale is presented for using hot-spot questions and comparisons are made with alternatives such as numeric scales and rank-ordering approaches. The study describes how a hot spot question format was adapted and applied to investigate perceived hand contamination. For this investigation, four images of the palmar and dorsal sides of the left and right hands were overlaid with multiple hotspot regions so that the skin surface was divided into zones. In two separate studies, adult participants interacted, through a browser interface, with the skin surface hot spots to show what zones they perceived as contaminated after being in a public urban space and before washing their hands. The results supported a hypothesis that perceptual re-experience in the hands is highly associated with known densities of sensory neurons. In conclusion, hot-spot questions are engaging for participants and offer flexible, adaptable, and efficient ways of collecting frequency data online
What is risk?
No full textPresentation to Army Safety and Environment Matters conference (ASEC22) on risk
Development of the Dance Fitness Indicator©: a high-intensity dance fitness test: a preliminary study
No full textThe aim of this study was to develop a contemporary dance technique-specific, high-intensity dance fitness test and carry out preliminary testing into measuring the physiological intensity and reliability. The choreography of the Dance Fitness Indicator© (DFI©) is based upon Humphrey/Limón, Graham, and Cunningham techniques and includes dance elements that relate to fitness elements, that increase in intensity over four levels designed to observe changes in heart rate (HR) and rate of perceived exertion (RPE) as the DFI© progresses. Each level lasts for 4 minutes, 16 seconds, with a 1-minute rest between each level; the full DFI lasts for 20 minutes, 12 seconds. Twelve contemporary dancers (9 females, age 24±6.86 yrs; 3 males, age 20±0.58 yrs) were taught the DFI© in a familiarization session before undertaking two test trials, within a 1-week period. Dependent variables to measure intensity were heart rate (HR), rate of perceived exertion (RPE), and blood lactate (BLa). Data for level 4 during test 1 and test 2, respectively, were: HR 184±16.79 bpm vs 187±16.18 bpm; RPE 17 ±2.43 vs 17 ±2.12; and BLa 8.9 ±2.71 mmol/L vs 9.1±2.41 mmol/L. Reliability was calculated by determining the coefficient of variation from paired samples t-tests between test 1 and test 2, which demonstrated consistency/good reliability (<5%) for end BLa (3.2%), HR (1.7%), and RPE (0.9%). These preliminary results suggest that the DFI© requires a high physiological intensity demand, through movement-specific contemporary dance technique, relating to dance performance intensity, and is a reliable testing mode within a dance studio environment. It could also be used to assess dancers' physiological abilities to cope with high-intensity intermittent cardiovascular and technical demands of dance performance; however, further testing with greater numbers of subjects is recommended
Routledge Handbook of law and the COVID-19 pandemic
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic not only ravaged human bodies but also had profound and possibly enduring effects on the health of political and legal systems, economies and societies. Almost overnight, governments imposed the severest restrictions in modern times on rights and freedoms, elections, parliaments and courts. Legal and political institutions struggled to adapt, creating a catalyst for democratic decline and catastrophic increases in poverty and inequality.
This handbook analyses the global pandemic response through five themes: governance and democracy; human rights; the rule of law; science, public trust and decision making; and states of emergency and exception. Containing 12 thematic commentaries and 25 chapters on countries of diverse size, wealth and experience of COVID-19, it represents the combined effort of more than 50 contributors, including leading scholars and rising voices in the fields of constitutional, international, public health, human rights and comparative law, as well as political science, and science and technology studies. Taking stock after the onset of global emergency, this book provides essential analysis for politicians, policy-makers, jurists, civil society organisations, academics, students and practitioners at both national and international level on the best, and most concerning, practices adopted in response to COVID-19 – and key insights into how states and multilateral institutions should reform, adapt and prepare for future emergencies
The racialisation of class and the racialisation of the nation: ethnic minority identity formation across the british south asian middle classes
Get PDFThis paper considers negotiations of social identity across British-born Bangladeshis, Indians and Pakistani professionals who experience racial / ethno-religious marginality alongside relative socioeconomic privilege. Drawing on 20 semi-structured interviews, it finds that beneath the generalised salience of British identity to their sense of self, the racialised limits of national belonging are implicit in discussions of social identity. The ways in which class is brought to bear in identity work which often seeks to subvert and/or align with British middle class norms underscores the relationship between the racialisation of class and the racialisation of the nation. This paper also identifies different modes of identity construction around the racialised idea of the nation across dimensions of religion and gender, and thus also stresses the need to consider the heterogeneity of the British South Asian middle classes when analysing the material and symbolic dimensions of their group belongings