Physiology in the Journal of Sports Sciences

Abstract

Doping in sports is commonplace. The prevention of harm to the athlete, the guarantee of fair play, and a level playing field for all competitors are the basis of the current anti-doping strategies. As healthcare systems are forced to allocate increasing resources to prevent and treat the prevailing pathologies worldwide, funding for anti-doping campaigns will necessarily be restricted. Ideally, additional resources should be devoted to increasing the number of athletes tested, the panels of tests used, and the frequency of out-of-competition controls. Since doping prevention cannot be considered a priority for most healthcare systems, such an approach is unaffordable and an alternative framework should be devised, focused primarily on harm reduction rather than fair play. The identification of abnormal deviations from reference values, regardless of pathological or artificial causes, would allow the athlete to be followed and tested using conventional laboratory tests, which are affordable to governments and healthcare systems and available to clinical laboratories. Although this strategy would not detect cheating, it would safeguard athletes' health.     

Robot companions: A legal and ethical analysis

This article addresses some of the most important legal and ethical issues posed by robot companions. Firstly, we clarify that robots are to be deemed objects and more precisely products. This on the one hand excludes the legitimacy of all such considerations involving robots as bearers of own rights and obligations, and forces a functional approach in the analysis. Secondly, pursuant to these methodological considerations we address the most relevant ethical and legal concerns, ranging from the risk of dehumanization and isolation of the user, to privacy and liability concerns, as well as financing of the diffusion of this—still expensive—technology. Solutions are briefly sketched, in order to provide the reader with sufficient indications on what strategies could and should be implemented, already in the design phase, as well as what kind of intervention ought to be favored and expected by national and European legislators. The recent Report with Recommendations to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Robotics of January 24, 2017 by the European Parliament is specifically taken into account.     

The challenges of setting up the evaluation of extension systems by using a systems approach: the case of Greece,Italy and Slovenia

Purpose: Considering current debates on ecosystem services’ effectiveness and the AIS/AKIS functioning, in this study we suggest a new, systemic way to evaluate extension systems (ESs). Using this model, we compared the effectiveness of ESs in three countries with essential differences but also characteristic similarities in their agricultural sectors: Greece, Italy and Slovenia.

Design/methodology/approach: Initially, we defined ‘extension system’ as a wide range of actors integrating resources with the aim of co-producing value (not for but with) farmers. To capture the value flow within this constellation of actors we distinguished between the notion of ‘value in production’ – i.e. the value embodied in service offerings – and the value emanating when service content is used in real settings or ‘value in use.’

Findings: Our approach revealed that, despite their structural and organizational differences, the ES in the three countries share common problems arising from a limited focus on the issue of value in use.

Practical implications: The application of a systemic approach – seeing farmers as co-creators and not as end-users of extension services – in the evaluation of ESs contributes to better understand the complexity of value flow within the system and can strengthen extension systems’ effectiveness.

Theoretical implications: The present study, by reconsidering traditional evaluation approaches and by focusing on value co-production, offers an alternative value-centric framework for the conceptualization of extension services and points out to the need for refining the evaluation criteria of ESs.

Originality/value: Our work, by emphasizing the reciprocal creation of value within ESs, and by adding the concept of value in use, offers a new systems approach worth considering when evaluating ESs within different organizational and sociocultural contexts.     

Determinants of the half-turn with the ball in sub-elite youth soccer players

We explored the biomechanics of the 180° change-of-direction with the ball (half-turn) in soccer. We aimed at identifying movement strategies which enhance the players’ half-turning performance, by characterising technique kinematics and understanding the structure of biomechanical and anthropometrics variables. Ten Under-13 sub-elite male players were recorded with an optoelectronic motion analyser while performing a 5-m straight dribbling followed by a half-turn with the sole. Joints kinematics differences between faster and slower trials were found in support-side hip rotation, driving-side hip adduction, trunk flexion and rotation, and arms abduction. To unveil the data-set structure, a principal component (PC) analysis and a stepwise linear discriminant analysis were performed using 30 biomechanical parameters and four anthropometric variables for each trial. Seven retained PCs explained 79% of the overall variability, featuring combinations of original variables that help in understanding the factors facilitating fast half-turns: keeping short steps, minimising lateral and forward body movements, and centre-of-mass lowering, even with ample lower limbs ranges of motion (RoM); abducting the upper limbs while limiting trunk flexion and pelvic inclination RoM. Balance and task-constrained exercises may be proposed to improve this technique. Moreover, a quantitative knowledge of the movement structure could give coaches objective insights to better instruct young players.     

The role of context in a collaborative problem-solving task during professional development

This article analyses how a group of teachers managed the resources available while performing computer-supported collaborative problem-solving tasks in the context of professional development. The authors video-recorded and analysed collaborative sessions during which the group of teachers used a digital environment to prepare a pedagogical scenario for subsequent implementation in their schools. The findings provide evidence that some aspects of context management can be explained in terms of explorative (opening problem space) and focused (closing problem space) actions. The results indicate that (a) the focused problem-solving took place when the problem space reached a provisional stability and problem-solvers developed a plan for proceeding with the task, (b) the individual exploration of the context was associated with the process of appropriation of a digital educational environment, and (c) the collective exploration of the context fostered the advancement of collaborative problem-solving and the introduction of new elements in the joint problem space.     

Inter-letter spacing,inter-word spacing,and font with dyslexia-friendly features: testing text readability in people with and without dyslexia

Over the last years, several studies have suggested a possible link between dyslexia and deficits in low-level visual processing (e.g., excessive crowding). At the same time, specially designed “dyslexia-friendly” fonts appeared on the market. This class of fonts presents two main features: the particular graphic characteristics of the letterform designed to avoid confusion between similarly shaped letters, and wider inter-letter and inter-word spacing to limit crowding. The literature testing the efficacy of “dyslexia-friendly” fonts in improving reading accuracy and increasing reading speed is controversial. We evaluated the impact of letterform (with vs. without dyslexia-friendly graphic features), inter-letter spacing (standard vs. increased), and inter-word spacing (standard vs. increased) on reading accuracy and speed. Two groups of 64 children each, with and without dyslexia, read aloud 8 equivalent texts. The data collected failed to show any effect from the letterform. As regards spacing, the data showed that reading speed is impaired by an increase in inter-letter spacing not combined with an adequate increase in inter-word spacing.     

¿Por qué el niño tiende el objeto hacia el adulto? La construcción social de la significación de los objetos

Resumen

Este artículo examina las diferentes funciones del gesto del niño, en la fase preverbal, consistente en tender un objeto hacia el adulto y cuya intención no es la de dárselo. Entre estas funciones cabe destacar el papel que el adulto adopta en tanto que regulador de la acción del niño a partir de la demanda explícita de éste en este sentido, y la convergencia entre el adulto y el niño en cuanto a las significaciones que se le atribuyen al objeto. La unidad de análisis adecuada en esta situación debe de tener en cuenta al adulto, al niño y al objeto, integrados en una totalidad. Cualquier análisis que no tenga en cuenta esta totalidad corre el riesgo de ser parcial.     

The CIGR project for the harmonization of Agricultural Engineering University Curricula

Abstract

A project for the harmonization of Agricultural Engineering University Curricula was started in 1989 at European level. This project led to two seminars (in 1991 and 1992) and to a survey of current University organization and Curricula of Agricultural Engineering in 25 Countries. The harmonization project is still under way and has achieved world-wide interest. In this paper the main results already obtained, together with possible future developments, are presented.     

Could light meal jeopardize laboratory coagulation tests?

Background:

Presently the necessity of fasting time for coagulation tests is not standardized. Our hypothesis is that this can harm patient safety. This study is aimed at evaluating whether a light meal (i.e. breakfast) can jeopardize laboratory coagulation tests.

Materials and methods:

A blood sample was firstly collected from 17 fasting volunteers (12 h). Immediately after blood collection, the volunteers consumed a light meal. Then samples were collected at 1, 2 and 4 h after the meal. Coagulation tests included: activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), prothrombin time (PT), fibrinogen (Fbg), antithrombin III (AT), protein C (PC) and protein S (PS). Differences between samples were assessed by Wilcoxon ranked-pairs test. The level of statistical significance was set at P < 0.05. Mean % differences were determined and differences between and baseline and 1, 2 and 4h samples were compared with reference change value (RCV).

Results:

A significantly higher % activity of AT was observed at 1 h and 4 h after meal vs. baseline specimen [113 (104–117) and 111 (107–120) vs. 109 (102–118), respectively; P = 0.029 and P = 0.016]. APTT at 2 h was found significantly lower than baseline samples [32.0 (29.9–34.8) vs. 34.1 (32.2–35.2), respectively; P = 0.041]. The results of both Fbg and PS tests were not influenced by a light meal. Furthermore, no coagulation tests had significant variation after comparison with RCV.

Conclusion:

A light meal does not influence the laboratory coagulation tests we assessed, but we suggest that the laboratory quality managers standardize the fasting time for all blood tests at 12 hours, to completely metabolize the lipids intake.     

Periodic disturbance rejection with unknown frequency and unknown plant structure

This paper deals with asymptotic rejection of a multi-sinusoidal signal for linear single-input single-output stable systems with unknown structure. An adaptive orthogonal signals generator is used to both reconstruct the disturbance and cancel its effect on the system output. An interesting feature is that the disturbance is removed by the generated internal signals with no additional dynamics in the cancellation algorithm. A fractional-order controller is designed which guarantees the closed-loop stability of the system if the location of the plant frequency response at the estimated frequencies lies in a half-plane passing through the origin of the complex plane, i.e. no information about the order of the system to be controlled, the relative degree, the nature of its poles and zeros, is required. The case of multi-sinusoidal disturbance is also analyzed. Simulations and comparisons with existing approaches are presented that highlight the performances of the proposed method.