An ecological niche is a field in a landscape of affordances, rich in information inviting its inhabitants to develop functionality and effectiveness of their behavior. This idea means that, in sports like soccer, the playing area encapsulates an ecological niche, replete with affordances inviting collective and individual technical-tactical actions, contextualized with associated psychological and physical demands. To examine the co-adaptive relationships framing players' actions in their ecological niche, the present study employed a crossover design with repeated measures to compare the players' transactions within 11 vs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Twenty years after the 2004 European Union (EU) enlargement, life expectancy differences between established (EMS) and new member states (NMS) remain large. Contributing to this gap are deaths that can be avoided through preventive services or adequate medical treatment. We estimate the impact of reducing avoidable mortality on life expectancy and lifespan disparities in the enlarged EU.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member states are heterogeneous in their social, economic, and health conditions.
Aims: a) to analyze age-specific mortality rate (ASMR) and age-specific disability-adjusted life year (DALY) rate among older people in countries by age groups (65-74 years and 75+ years) and sex, and b) to estimate the association between age-specific DALY rate with Socio-Demographic Index (SDI) and with Healthcare Access and Quality Index (HAQI).
Methods: Secondary analysis of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019.
Monitoring of internal exposure to short-lived alpha-emitting radionuclides such as actinium-225 (Ac), which are becoming increasingly important in nuclear medicine, plays an important role in the radiation protection of occupationally exposed persons. After having tested gamma spectrometry, liquid scintillation counting and alpha spectrometry for monitoring of internal exposure, the focus of the present study was on solid phase extraction of Ac from urine in combination with alpha spectrometry. The development of the method was based on recent findings from the literature on this topic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSports, with their various social manifestations, exhibit racist structures and incidents. Physical education (PE) has the potential to serve as an environment to combat racism, but it can also perpetuate and (re)produce racist attitudes and behaviors. This study aimed to conduct a systematic review of national (German) and international literature concerning racism and anti-racism within the context of PE specifically from a students' perspective.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe government of India introduced the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) programme in 2006 to connect marginalised communities to the health system. ASHAs are mandated to increase the uptake of modern contraception through the doorstep provision of services. There is currently no evidence on the impact of ASHAs on the uptake of contraception at the national level.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChanges in family structure (e.g., parental separation or stepfamily formation) are associated with a deterioration in children's well-being.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSensors (Basel)
October 2023
The capabilities of Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors to measure temperature variations in the bulk of liquid flows were considered. In the first step of our research project, reported in this paper, we investigated to what extent the use of thin glass fibers without encapsulation, which only minimally disturb a flow, can fulfill the requirements for robustness and measurement accuracy. Experimental tests were performed in a benchmark setup containing 24 FBG measuring positions, which were instrumented in parallel with thermocouples for validation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Along with European integration and the harmonisation of living conditions, improvements in health have been observed over the past decades. However, sociospatial inequalities within and across member states still exist today. While drivers of these health inequalities have been widely researched on a national and regional scale, cross-border regions remain understudied.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe positive effects of combined hyperoxia and physical exercise on physiological parameters and cognitive functioning are established for normobaric laboratory contexts. Still, increased practicability exists in hyperbaric settings like underwater activities and SCUBA diving, where environmental and sport-specific factors might moderate effects. Improved cognition, reduced ventilation (V̇), and lower blood lactate concentrations [Lac] are highly relevant, especially during high-stress and rescue scenarios.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe mortality gap between former East and West Germany decreased rapidly in the decade following the reunification of the country in 1990. However, because no previous study has estimated life expectancy (e0) over time for all German districts, the extent of mortality convergence across districts and its determinants are largely unknown. We used a novel relational Bayesian model to estimate district e0 in Germany during 1997-2016, examined mortality convergence using a novel convergence groups approach, and explored the role of selected district characteristics in the process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn volleyball, the overhead pass is important. Coaches usually teach players to push the ball, utilising the legs, especially for a long distance pass. The purpose of this study was to conduct a biomechanical analysis of an overhead pass to different distances.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Epidemiol Community Health
September 2022
Background: Research on the long-term health consequences of early-life exposure to economic crises is scarce. We examine for the first time the long-term effects of early-life exposure to an economic crisis on metabolic health risks. We study objective health measures, and exploit the quasi-experimental situation of the postreunification economic crisis in East Germany.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe large-scale flow structure and the turbulent transfer of heat and momentum are directly measured in highly turbulent liquid metal convection experiments for Rayleigh numbers varied between 4×10^{5} and ≤5×10^{9} and Prandtl numbers of 0.025≤Pr≤0.033.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Public Health
February 2022
Background: Evidence regarding the progression of the tobacco epidemic remains fragmented in low- and middle-income countries. In India, most of the studies that examined tobacco consumption focused on one time point, on the country as a whole, and on men. Despite important gender differences in tobacco consumption, vast economic and cultural differences exist within India.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHow does our brain manage to process vast quantities of sensory information that define movement performance? By extracting the required movement parameters for which brain dynamics are, inter alia, assumed to be functionally related to, we used electroencephalography to investigate motor-related brain oscillations. Visually guided movement (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Although European integration can be expected to result in mortality convergence (reduced mortality differences), a life expectancy divide persists in the European Union (EU) between the old Member States (OMS) in the west and the new Member States (NMS) in the east. Studies investigating the impact of European integration on mortality convergence are rare and did not consider regional differences. We examine the short-term effects of the 2004 enlargement on mortality convergence at the supranational, national, and subnational levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAmong tennis coaches and players, the standard volley and drop volley are considered basically similar, but muscles need to be relaxed (deactivation) just at the moment of impact when hitting the drop volley. However, this is not evidence-based. The aim of this study was to clarify racket head trajectory and muscle activity during the drop volley and to compare them with those of the standard volley.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Sport Exerc Psychol
September 2021
Decision making is an important prerequisite of soccer expertise. Beyond expertise, considering the effects of environmental constraints on decision-making processes could help specify existing theories. To address this gap, expert and nonexpert soccer players were enrolled to test how environmental constraints affect decision-making processes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: South Asian countries are ageing and experiencing a rapid increase in proportion of the older population. Income support programmes are of central importance for the older adults as they may help to mitigate the poverty risks associated with ageing and losing the ability to generate income from labour. Evidence related to the income support programmes can help in understanding whether the programmes have been impactful.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Investigation of cognitive performance during extravehicular activities (EVAs) in a space-analog setting.
Background: EVAs performed by humans in microgravity on the International Space Station (ISS) call for high cognitive performance during upper-body workload. Higher cardiovascular demands interact with cognitive performance, but no knowledge exists about EVA's special requirements.
Exercise intervention studies in mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a prodromal stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD), have demonstrated inconsistent yet promising results. Addressing the limitations of previous studies, this trial investigated the effects of a 12-month structured exercise program on the progression of MCI. The NeuroExercise study is a multicenter randomized controlled trial across three European countries (Ireland, Netherlands, Germany).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent work identified an explicit and implicit transfer of sensorimotor adaptation with one limb to the other, untrained limb. Here, we pursue the idea that different individual factors contribute differently to the amount of explicit and implicit intermanual transfer. In particular, we tested a group of judo athletes who show enhanced right-hemispheric involvement in motor control and a group of equally trained athletes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
September 2020
Resource sharing has always been a central component of human sociality. Children require heavy investments in human capital; during working years, help is needed due to illness, disability, or bad luck. While hunter-gatherer elders assisted their descendants, more recently, elderly withdraw from work and require assistance as well.
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