Biomechanics of aggressive inline skating: landing and balancing on a grind rail

Currently, only epidemiological injury data have been reported for the new extreme sport of aggressive inline skating, or trick skating. No studies have examined the biomechanics of this sport, which involves repetitive jumping and landing from railings, ramps, and ledges, often over 1 m in height. We present results of a pilot study that examined the effect of skater experience and lower extremity biomechanics on energy absorption ability, and observed balance strategies used during two basic tricks. In these tricks, the skater jumps onto an elevated rail and maintains balance while standing in a single position (stall) or sliding along the rail (grind). Lower extremity joint kinematics, impact force characteristics, and general movement behaviours were examined during landing and balance phases. Ten male skaters performed ten stalls and ten frontside grinds on an instrumented grind rail, capable of measuring vertical force. Vertical impact force was found to decrease with increasing skater experience in stalls (r = -0.84, P = 0.002) and grinds (r = -0.84, P = 0.009). This might imply that less-experienced skaters are (subconsciously) more concerned about maintaining balance than refining technique to minimize impact force. Similar to drop landing experiments, peak impact force decreased with increasing knee flexion during stalls (r = -0.65, P = 0.04). During stalls, skaters demonstrated classic balance maintenance strategies (ankle, hip, or multi-joint) depending on trick length. During grinds, skater centre of mass never passed over the rail base of support, suggesting the use of momentum produced from obliquely approaching the rail.     

Helsen, Gilis and Weston (2006) err in testing the optical error hypothesis

In this commentary, we react to the recent study by Helsen, Gilis and Weston (2006) on judging offside in football. Helsen et al. claim that their data falsify the optical error hypothesis presented by Oudejans et al. (2000). However, as we will elucidate here, they misinterpret this hypothesis and present a data set that is seriously flawed, and hence not suited to test it. Therefore, their conclusions regarding the optical error hypothesis are in error.     

Humility & Humiliation: The Transformation of Franciscan Humour,c.1210–1310

Humiliation and self-ridicule worked as surprisingly important tools of evangelical outreach in the first decades of the Franciscan Order (c.1210–50). According to early Franciscan texts such as the Assisi Compilation (c.1240s) and Jordan of Giano’s Chronica (c.1260), St Francis and his earliest followers sought to win supporters by stripping naked in public, mocking learned preachers and ludicrously imitating animals. Yet within a few decades of the founder’s death this type of humour had been erased from Franciscan texts. Chronicles now omitted references to Francis’s laughter, while humiliating behaviour came to be condemned by Franciscan preachers, chroniclers and theologians alike. From being a means of undermining dignity and reason, joking was now instead celebrated as a tool of upholding these very same values. Describing the nature of this shift, and contextualising it within the evolving institutional priorities of the Franciscans under the leadership of Bonaventure (d.1274), this article will complicate debates about the development of medieval humour, while also reflecting on laughter’s role as a means of resistance to the significant social and cultural upheavals of the 1200s.     

Excellence and Frontier Research as Travelling Concepts in Science Policymaking

Excellence and frontier research have made inroads into European research policymaking and structure political agendas, funding programs and evaluation practices. The two concepts travelled a long way from the United States and have derived from contexts outside of science (and policy). Following their conceptual journey, we ask how excellence and frontier research have percolated into European science and higher education policies and how they have turned into lubricants of competition that buttress an ongoing reform process in Europe.     

Football Club Formation and the Lancashire Leisure Class, 1857–1870

This paper outlines the transition from football games played for occasional amusement to a system of organized football clubs playing regular matches in Lancashire in the mid-nineteenth century. This was led by young men of an emerging Lancashire leisured class being, in the main, the public school educated sons of the northern county’s commercial and industrial elite. These families had accumulated sufficient wealth, especially in the first half of the nineteenth century, to exempt a considerable part of their population from work both at weekends and during the normal working week with football becoming an act of conspicuous consumption. Three case studies of individual clubs and leading individuals within those clubs are presented with detailed archival research carefully avoiding the teleology implicit in much historical writing of the past. It also swells the paucity of good historical material about the organization of sport at levels below national bodies. In so doing, it aims to illuminate some of the shadows in the big picture of the evolution of sport and leisure in Lancashire and Britain itself while informing the ongoing orthodox/revisionist debate into the origins of football in the nineteenth century.     

生活方式干预对心血管疾病危险因素的影响——美国HELPS项目成果

摘要：心血管疾病（CVD）一直是全世界最主要的死因。由于CVD等慢性疾病对健康的威胁越来越大,有必要开展生活方式干预项目以控制这些疾病的危险因素。本研究的目的是评估美国的重要慢病干预项目—HELPS治疗型生活方式改变（TLC）项目对减少CVD危险因素和其他慢性疾病的有效性。方法：140位大学教职工参加为期12周的HELPS TLC项目,干预前后用配对t检验对其体重、BMI、腰围（WC）、6分钟步行距离（6MWD）、空腹血脂和血糖进行测定和比较。结果：干预后6MWD显著增加,总胆固醇（TC）和WC显著下降。对“高危”参与者进一步分析显示：BMI（-1.5±0.5,-3.9%）、TC（- 22.8±4.0,-9.0%）、LDL（- 14.1±4.9,9.3%）和血糖（-6.9±2.2,-6.1%）均显著下降;男性腰围（-4.5±0.8,-10%）显著减小,女性未见显著改变（-1.5±0.5,-4.0%）。此外,体重的变化与TC（r=0.43）、LDL（r=0.35）和血糖（r=0.44）的变化均显著相关。结论：参加12周的生活方式干预项目可以使CVD危险因素减少,特别是在CVD“高危”个体中。HELPS TLC项目的远期效果还待进一步深入研究。     

International football tournaments,emotional entrainment and the reproduction of symbolic boundaries. A case study in Germany

Understanding the social consequences of major soccer events is important for social science researchers and policy-makers alike. On the one hand, socially integrative effects are ascribed to these events. On the other hand, they are suspected of increasing the devaluation of minorities and disadvantaged groups. Sociological theories in a Durkheimian tradition suggest that the emotional entrainment that goes along with football-related rituals might play a role. We thus investigated the effects of the World Cup 2010 on the derogation of minorities and disadvantaged groups in Germany and hypothesized that the emotional entrainment is a predictor of changes in derogation. Results of our naturalistic study show significant increases in derogative attitudes after the World Cup. Contrary to our expectations, emotional entrainment is not associated with this increase. We discuss possible alternative explanations, in particular the influence of public discourse.