Velocity and acceleration before contact in the tackle during rugby union matches

Abstract The velocity and acceleration at which the ball-carrier or tackler enters the tackle may contribute to winning the contest and prevailing injury free. Velocity and acceleration have been quantified in controlled settings, whereas in match-play it has been subjectively described. The purpose of this study was to determine the velocity and acceleration of the ball-carrier and tackler before contact during match-play in three competitions (Super 14, Varsity Cup, and Under-19 Currie Cup). Using a two-dimensional scaled version of the field, the velocity and acceleration of the ball-carrier and tackler were measured at every 0.1 s to contact for 0.5 s. For front-on tackles, a significant difference (P??0.05) were evident. Also, the ball-carrier's velocity over the 0.5 s was relatively stable compared with that of the tackler. Results suggest that tacklers adjust their velocity to reach a suitable relative velocity before making contact with the ball-carrier.     

Evaluation of a truancy court intervention in four middle schools

The effectiveness of a school‐based truancy court intervention in four middle schools in a mid‐sized school district was evaluated. Cumulative data from 185 youth attending a truancy court from 2004 through 2008 were included in the analyses. Results indicated a differential impact of the truancy court intervention depending on truancy severity at baseline. The intervention was most successful in increasing attendance for students with severe truancy, but had limited impact on students with moderate truancy, and no impact on mild truancy. The intervention did not result in improved school attachment or grade point averages, nor did it significantly reduce discipline offenses. Furthermore, the aftercare intervention, consisting of regular meetings with an authority figure (e.g., a juvenile officer), was only effective at maintaining truancy court attendance gains for students with severe truancy at baseline, although it was associated with a substantial decrease in discipline offenses for all groups. These results suggest that truancy courts similar to the one described here may have an impact on truancy for severely truant students, but may have a limited effect on students with mild or moderate truancy. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Twitter,Team GB and the Australian Olympic Team: representations of gender in social media spaces

Twitter is used by athletes, sporting teams and sports media to provide updates on the results of sporting events as they happen. Unlike traditional forms of sports media, online sports media offers the potential for diverse representations of athletes. The current study examined gender in social media coverage of the 2016 Olympic Games using a third wave feminist lens. The analysis focused on the Twitter pages of ‘Team GB’ and the ‘Australian Olympic team’ and the sports stories and images posted during the Rio Olympic Games. Despite a number of traditional differences in the ways that male and females were represented being present, such as the presence of ‘active’ images of male athletes accompanying sports stories and the presence of infantalization in the language used to represent female performers, this analysis demonstrated significant strides forward in terms of the quantity of coverage received by women in online spaces. It further highlights virtual platforms as dynamic spaces for the representation of women athletes.     

Teenage Kicks: Exploring cultural value from a youth perspective

In contemporary accounts of cultural value, young people's perspectives are often restricted to analyses of their encounters with formal cultural institutions or schools or to debates surrounding the cultural implications of new digital spaces and technologies. Other studies have been dominated by instrumental accounts exploring the potential economic benefit and skills development facilitated by young people's cultural encounters and experiences. In this paper we examine the findings of a nine month project, which set out to explore what cultural value means to young people in Bristol. Between October 2013 and March 2014, the Arts and Humanities Research Council “Teenage Kicks” project organised 14 workshops at 7 different locations across the city, with young people aged 11–20. Working in collaboration with a network of cultural and arts organisations, the study gathered a range of empirical data investigating the complex ecologies of young people's everyday/“lived” cultures and values. Young people's own accounts of their cultural practices challenge normative definitions of culture and cultural value but also demonstrate how these definitions act to reproduce social inequalities in relation to cultural participation and social and cultural capital. The paper concludes that cultural policy-makers should listen and take young people's voices seriously in re-imaging the city's cultural offer for all young people.     

Changes in respiratory muscle and lung function following marathon running in man

Respiratory muscle fatigue has been reported following short bouts of high-intensity exercise, and prolonged, moderate-intensity exercise, as evidenced by decrements in inspiratory and expiratory mouth pressures. However, links to functionally relevant outcomes such as breathing effort have been lacking. The present study examined dyspnoea and leg fatigue during a treadmill marathon in nine experienced runners. Maximal inspiratory and expiratory pressure, peak inspiratory and expiratory flow, forced vital capacity, and forced expiratory volume in one second were assessed before, immediately after, and four and 24 hours after a marathon. During the run, leg effort was rated higher than respiratory effort from 18 through 42 km (P < 0.05). Immediately after the marathon, there were significant decreases in maximal inspiratory pressure and peak inspiratory flow (from 118 +/- 20 cm H(2)O and 6.3 +/- 1.4 litres x s(-1) to 100 +/- 22 cm H(2)O and 4.9 +/- 1.5 litres x s(-1) respectively; P < 0.01), while expiratory function remained unchanged. Leg maximum voluntary contraction force was significantly lower post-marathon. Breathing effort correlated significantly with leg fatigue (r = 0.69), but not inspiratory muscle fatigue. Our results confirm that prolonged moderate-intensity exercise induces inspiratory muscle fatigue. Furthermore, they suggest that the relative intensity of inspiratory muscle work during exercise makes some contribution to leg fatigue.     

Developing tests of impaired coordination for Paralympic classification: normative values and test–retest reliability

Current methods of assessing coordination in Paralympic classification are non-instrumented and are based on ordinal scales of measurement and therefore impede the development of evidence-based methods of classification. This paper describes an instrumented battery of tests that measure impaired coordination in a way that will permit evidence-based classification. Test–retest reliability and normative values for each of the tests are reported. Twenty participants visited the laboratory on two occasions, each time completing 11 tests: three running-specific, lower-limb reciprocal tapping tests (yielding five outcome measures); four throwing-specific, upper-limb discrete tapping tests (yielding four outcome measures); and four wheelchair-specific, upper-limb reciprocal tapping tests yielding seven outcome measures. Reliability was evaluated using Intra-class Correlation Coefficients (ICCs), Standard Error of Measurement, Limits of Agreement and Paired t-tests. ICCs for fourteen of the 16 outcome measures were excellent (ICC ≥ 0.80), although systematic bias was evident in two of these—a unilateral, running-specific lower-limb tests on the non-dominant side, and a unilateral wheelchair-specific upper limb test on the dominant side. ICCs for two tests—a bilateral wheelchair-specific upper limb test (0.74), and a unilateral wheelchair-specific upper limb test on the non-dominant side (0.54)—were good and fair respectively. Results indicate that 12 of the measures evaluated have measurement properties that will facilitate the development of evidence-based methods of Paralympic classification in athletics. Positional adjustment and increased familiarization may improve reliability in the other four. Studies evaluating reliability of this test battery in people with coordination impairments are warranted.     

Interactions of perinatal depression versus anxiety and infants' early temperament trajectories

This study examines the interplay between maternal depression/anxiety and infant temperament's developmental trajectory in 1687 Swedish-speaking mother–infant dyads from Uppsala County (2009–2019), Sweden. The sample includes a high proportion of university-educated individuals and a low share of foreign-born participants. Maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms were assessed using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale during gestational weeks 17 and 32 and postpartum at week 6. Multinomial regression explored associations between maternal variables and infant temperament trajectories at 6 weeks, 12 months, and 18 months. Prenatal anxiety is associated with the high-rising infant difficult temperament trajectory, while prenatal depression/anhedonia is associated with the stable-medium trajectory, attenuated postpartum. Associations between infant temperament and maternal mood depended on timing (pre/postpartum) and symptom type (depression/anhedonia vs. anxiety).