Recent Submissions

  • Sleep Profiles and Mood States During an Expedition to the South Pole

    Pedlar, Charles R.; Lane, Andrew M.; Lloyd, Juliette C.; Dawson, Jean; Emegbo, Stephen; Whyte, Gregory P.; Stanley, Neil (2013-06-27)
  • Evidence of nationalistic bias in MuayThai

    Myers, Tony D.; Balmer, Nigel J.; Nevill, Alan M.; Thailand (Asist Group, 2006)
    MuayThai is a combat sport with a growing international profile but limited research conducted into judging practices and processes. Problems with judging of other subjectively judged combat sports have caused controversy at major international tournaments that have resulted in changes to scoring methods. Nationalistic bias has been central to these problems and has been identified across a range of sports. The aim of this study was to examine nationalistic bias in MuayThai. Data were collected from the International Federation of MuayThai Amateur (IFMA) World Championships held in Almaty, Kazakhstan September 2003 and comprised of tournament results from 70 A-class MuayThai bouts each judged by between five and nine judges. Bouts examined featured 62 competitors from 21 countries and 25 judges from 11 countries. Results suggested that nationalistic bias was evident. The bias observed equated to approximately one round difference between opposing judges over the course of a bout (a mean of 1.09 (SE=0.50) points difference between judges with opposing affilations). The number of neutral judges used meant that this level of bias generally did not influence the outcome of bouts. Future research should explore other ingroup biases, such as nearest neighbor bias and political bias as well as investigating the feasibility adopting an electronic scoring system.
  • Modeling longitudinal changes in maximal-intensity exercise performance in young male rowing athletes.

    Mikulic, Pavle; Blazina, Tomislav; Nevill, Alan M.; Markovic, Goran (Human Kinetics, 2013-06-27)
    he purpose of the current study was to examine the effect of age and body size upon maximal-intensity exercise performance in young rowing athletes. Male participants (n = 171) aged 12-18 years were assessed using an "all-out" 30-s rowing ergometer test, and reassessed after 12 months. The highest rate of performance development, which amounts to [mean(SD)] +34%(23%) and +32%(23%) for mean and maximal power output, respectively, is observed between the ages of 12 and 13, while this rate of development gradually declines as the athletes mature through adolescence. Performance increases with body size, and mass, stature and chronological age all proved to be significant (all p < .05) explanatory variables of mean power output, with respective exponents [mean(SE)] of 0.56(0.08), 1.84(0.30) and 0.07(0.01), and of maximal power output, with respective exponents of 0.54(0.09), 1.76(0.32) and 0.06(0.01). These findings may help coaches better understand the progression of rowing performance during adolescence.
  • Association of physical inactivity with increased cardiovascular risk in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

    Metsios, Giorgos S.; Stavropoulos-Kalinoglou, Antonios; Panoulas, Vasileios F.; Wilson, Mat; Nevill, Alan M.; Koutedakis, Yiannis; Kitas, George D. (2013-06-27)
  • Adjusting bone mass for differences in projected bone area and other confounding variables: an allometric perspective.

    Nevill, Alan M.; Holder, Roger L. (American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, 2007-01-25)
    The traditional method of assessing bone mineral density (BMD; given by bone mineral content [BMC] divided by projected bone area [Ap], BMD = BMC/Ap) has come under strong criticism by various authors. Their criticism being that the projected bone "area" (Ap) will systematically underestimate the skeletal bone "volume" of taller subjects. To reduce the confounding effects of bone size, an alternative ratio has been proposed called bone mineral apparent density [BMAD = BMC/(Ap)3/2]. However, bone size is not the only confounding variable associated with BMC. Others include age, sex, body size, and maturation. To assess the dimensional relationship between BMC and projected bone area, independent of other confounding variables, we proposed and fitted a proportional allometric model to the BMC data of the L2-L4 vertebrae from a previously published study. The projected bone area exponents were greater than unity for both boys (1.43) and girls (1.02), but only the boy's fitted exponent was not different from that predicted by geometric similarity (1.5). Based on these exponents, it is not clear whether bone mass acquisition increases in proportion to the projected bone area (Ap) or an estimate of projected bone volume (Ap)3/2. However, by adopting the proposed methods, the analysis will automatically adjust BMC for differences in projected bone size and other confounding variables for the particular population being studied. Hence, the necessity to speculate as to the theoretical value of the exponent of Ap, although interesting, becomes redundant.