Beyond relevance and recall: testing new user‐centred measures of database performance

Background: Measures of the effectiveness of databases have traditionally focused on recall, precision, with some debate on how relevance can be assessed, and by whom. New measures of database performance are required when users are familiar with search engines, and expect full text availability. Objectives: This research ascertained which of four bibliographic databases (bni, cinahl, medline and embase ) could be considered most useful to nursing and midwifery students searching for information for an undergraduate dissertation. Methods: Searches on title were performed for dissertation topics supplied by nursing students (n = 9), who made the relevance judgements. Measures of recall and precision were combined with additional factors to provide measures of effectiveness, while efficiency combined measures of novelty and originality and accessibility combined measures for availability and retrievability, based on obtainability. Results: There were significant differences among the databases in precision, originality and availability, but other differences were not significant (Friedman test). Odds ratio tests indicated that bni , followed by cinahl were the most effective, cinahl the most efficient, and bni the most accessible. Conclusions: The methodology could help library services in purchase decisions as the measure for accessibility, and odds ratio testing helped to differentiate database performance.     

Post-activation potentiation (PAP) in endurance sports: A review

While there is strong support of the usefulness of post-activation potentiation (PAP) phenomenon in power demanding sports, the role that PAP could play in endurance sports has received less attention. The aim of this review is to present evidence for a better understanding of PAP in endurance athletes; and to discuss the physiological basis and methodological aspects necessary for better practices and designing further studies. A search for relevant articles on PAP and endurance trained athletes was carried out using Medline and ISI Web of Knowledge databases. Twenty-two studies were included in the review. The current evidence suggests the possible influence of PAP for performance enhancement after appropriate conditioning activities during warm up. Evaluation of PAP responses during testing, training and competition may be also important for athletes monitoring. There are many unresolved questions about the optimum load parameters for benefiting from PAP in both training and competition; and the role that PAP may exert for optimal performance while interacting with central and peripheral factors associated with muscle fatigue. Further studies should elucidate the association between PAP responses and long-term adaptations in endurance athletes.