Coffee Ingestion Improves 5 km Cycling Performance in Men and Women by a Similar Magnitude

Caffeine is a well-established ergogenic aid, although research to date has predominantly focused on anhydrous caffeine, and in men. The primary aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of coffee ingestion on 5 km cycling time trial performance, and to establish whether sex differences exist. A total of 38 participants (19 men and 19 women) completed a 5 km time trial following the ingestion of 0.09 g·kg-1 coffee providing 3 mg·kg-1 of caffeine (COF), a placebo (PLA), in 300 mL of water, or control (CON). Coffee ingestion significantly increased salivary caffeine levels (p < 0.001; η P 2 = 0.75) and, overall, resulted in improved 5 km time trial performance (p < 0.001; η P 2 = 0.23). Performance following COF (482 ± 51 s) was faster than PLA (491 ± 53 s; p = 0.002; d = 0.17) and CON (487 ± 52 s; p =0.002; d = 0.10) trials, with men and women both improving by approximately 9 seconds and 6 seconds following coffee ingestion compared with placebo and control, respectively. However, no differences were observed between CON and PLA (p = 0.321; d = 0.08). In conclusion, ingesting coffee providing 3 mg·kg-1 of caffeine increased salivary caffeine levels and improved 5 km cycling time trial performance in men and women by a similar magnitude

Exploring the use of Controlled English for communication with ACT-R agents

Research is being undertaken into sense-making by collaborative agents, based upon a cognitive framework of human behaviour, ACT-R, together with communication between the agents. We explore the use of Controlled English for this purpos

Evaluating semi-automatic annotation of domestic energy consumption as a memory aid

Frequent feedback about energy consumption can help conservation, one of the current global challenges. Such feedback is most helpful if users can relate it to their own day-to-day activities. In earlier work we showed that manual annotation of domestic energy consumption logs aids users to make such connection and discover patterns they were not aware of. In this poster we report how we augmented manual annotation with machine learning classification techniques. We propose the design of a lab study to evaluate the system, extending methods used to evaluate context aware memory aids, and we present the results of a pilot with 5 participants

What's in a name? Exploiting URIs to enrich provenance explanations in plain English

Provenance allows decision-makers to evaluate the importance of pieces of data. PROV is the standardised model of provenance for use on the web, particularly suited for situations where data is generated by systems under distributed control, such as in coalition operations. If human decision-makers are to make effective use of provenance data, they need to understand it, and this work establishes techniques for explaining PROV graphs to human users in natural English.In this paper, we demonstrate the potential role of exploiting the linguistic information that is informally encoded in the URIs used to denote provenance data resources to generate these more natural English explanations of provenance. We show how this additional linguistic information allows us to generate richer, more readable explanation texts, thus enabling better decision-making and increasing the value of preexisting provenance data.<br/

Towards the domain agnostic generation of natural language explanations from provenance graphs for casual users

As more systems become PROV-enabled, there will be a cor- responding increase in the need to communicate provenance data directly to users. Whilst there are a number of existing methods for doing this — formally, diagrammatically, and textually — there are currently no application-generic techniques for generating linguistic explanations of provenance. The principal reason for this is that a certain amount of linguistic information is required to transform a provenance graph — such as in PROV — into a textual explanation, and if this information is not available as an annotation, this transformation is presently not possible. In this paper, we describe how we have adapted the common ‘consensus’ architecture from the field of natural language generation to achieve this graph transformation, resulting in the novel PROVglish architecture. We then present an approach to garnering the necessary linguistic information from a PROV dataset, which involves exploiting the linguistic information informally encoded in the URIs denoting provenance resources. We finish by detailing an evaluation undertaken to assess the effectiveness of this approach to lexicalisation, demonstrating a significant improvement in terms of fluency, comprehensibility, and grammatical correctness

Coffee and Caffeine Ingestion Have Little Effect on Repeated Sprint Cycling in Relatively Untrained Males

The present study investigated the effect of ingesting caffeine-dose-matched anhydrous caffeine or coffee on the performance of repeated sprints. Twelve recreationally active males (mean ± SD age: 22 ± 2 years, height: 1.78 ± 0.07 m, body mass: 81 ± 16 kg) completed eighteen 4 s sprints with 116 s recovery on a cycle ergometer on four separate occasions in a double-blind, randomised, counterbalanced crossover design. Participants ingested either 3 mg·kg−1 of caffeine (CAF), 0.09 g·kg−1 coffee, which provided 3 mg·kg−1 of caffeine (COF), a taste-matched placebo beverage (PLA), or a control condition (CON) 45 min prior to commencing the exercise protocol. Peak and mean power output and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were recorded for each sprint. There were no significant differences in peak power output (CAF: 949 ± 199 W, COF: 949 ± 174 W, PLA: 971 ± 149 W and CON: 975 ± 170 W; p = 0.872; η P 2 = 0.02) or mean power output (CAF: 873 ± 172 W, COF: 862 ± 44 W, PLA: 887 ± 119 W and CON: 892 ± 143 W; p = 0.819; η P 2 = 0.03) between experimental conditions. Mean RPE was similar for all trials (CAF: 11 ± 2, COF: 11 ± 2, PLA: 11 ± 2 and CON: 11 ± 2; p = 0.927; η P 2 = 0.01). Neither the ingestion of COF or CAF improved repeated sprint cycling performance in relatively untrained males

Ethical and Technical Solutions for Security in Smart City Infrastructure

The emerging concept of smart cities has begun to develop a new wave of transformative changes in urban infrastructures; the IoT plays a critical role in enabling city-wide connectivity, automation, and data-driven services. Two critical features researched in this thesis are some of the key technical security challenges posed by IoT infrastructure and the ethical implications of large-scale data gathering. The first revolves around the vulnerabilities that are inherently bound to IoT systems and reviews common attack vectors, security protocols, and best practices that ensure minimum risks in a highly interconnected urban environment. It puts into perspective just how indispensable large-scale security frameworks are needed to protect not only devices but also sensitive information transferred by those devices. The second article addresses the ethical considerations involved in the collection and management of large volumes of data from citizens, researching issues of privacy, surveillance, and consent. The paper evaluates current policies to give guidance on ethically responsible data governance in smart cities. Considering them together, these articles contribute to the emerging debate around how IoT infrastructures can be secured while assuring ethical uses of data and forming recommendations for policymakers, planners, and technology developers

Movement Velocity during High- and Low-Velocity Resistance Exercise Protocols in Older Adults

© 2017 Elsevier Inc. The primary aim of the present study was to determine the actual movement velocity of high-velocity, low-load (HVLL) and low-velocity, high-load (LVHL) resistance exercise in a group of older adults. The secondary aim was to examine the differences in velocities produced between male and females. In a crossover study design, four males (age: 67 ± 3 years) and five females (age: 68 ± 2 years) completed three sets of leg press, calf raise, leg curl, leg extension, chest press, seated row, bicep curl and tricep extension on six separate occasions (three HVLL and three LVHL sessions). The command “as fast as possible” was given for the concentric phase of HVLL, and 2 s using a 60-bpm metronome controlled the concentric phase during LVHL. Participants had three days of recovery between each session, and a 7-day period before crossing over to the other protocol. Movement velocity was measured during the concentric and eccentric phases of resistance exercise using two-dimensional video analysis. The concentric phases for all exercises were significantly faster (P < 0.001) during HVLL compared to LVHL. Furthermore, males produced significantly greater velocities than females during the concentric phase of the chest press, seated row, bicep curl, and tricep extension for both HVLL and LVHL (P < 0.05). These protocols provide a simple solution for exercise professionals to ensure that older adults are training at desired velocities when carrying out resistance exercise, without the need for equipment that measures velocity

Osservazioni sul concetto di oggetto della psicologia

[English]:Remarks on the concept of object of psychology is Richard Avenarius last work and it represents his attempt to establish the fledgling scientific, physiological, experimental psychology on rigorous philosophical basis. With this work the founder of the so-called Empiriocriticism participates to the wide debate on the definition of psychology, along with notable personalities of the time, such as Wilhelm Wundt, Ernst Mach, Oswald Külpe, Hermann Ebbinghaus, Hugo Münsterberg and Edward B. Titchener./ [Italiano]: Le Osservazioni sul concetto di oggetto della psicologia costituiscono l’ultima opera di Richard Avenarius, in cui il fondatore dell’empiriocriticismo presenta il suo tentativo di fondare su basi filosoficamente rigorose la neonata psicologia scientifica di stampo fisiologico-sperimentale. Questo scritto si colloca così all’incrocio di quell’ampio dibattito sulla definizione di psicologia, che sul finire del diciannovesimo secolo vide coinvolte personalità del calibro di Wilhelm Wundt, Ernst Mach, Oswald Külpe, Hermann Ebbinghaus, Hugo Münsterberg ed Edward B. Titchener

End-user involvement in a systematic review of quantitative and qualitative research of non-pharmacological interventions for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder delivered in school settings: reflections on the impacts and challenges.

JOURNAL ARTICLEBACKGROUND: The benefits of end-user involvement in health-care research are widely recognized by research agencies. There are few published evaluations of end-user involvement in systematic reviews. OBJECTIVES: (i) Describe end-user involvement in a complex mixed-methods systematic review of ADHD in schools, (ii) reflect on the impact of end-user involvement, (iii) highlight challenges and benefits experienced and (iv) provide suggestions to inform future involvement. METHODS: End-users were involved in all stages of the project, both as authors and as members of an advisory group. In addition, several events were held with groups of relevant end-users during the project. RESULTS: End-user input (i) guided the direction of the research, (ii) contributed to a typology of interventions and outcomes, (iii) contributed to the direction of data analysis and (iv) contributed to the robustness of the syntheses by demonstrating the alignment of interim findings with lived experiences. Challenges included (i) managing expectations, (ii) managing the intensity of emotion, (iii) ensuring that involvement was fruitful for all not just the researcher, (iv) our capacity to communicate and manage the process and (v) engendering a sense of involvement amongst end-users. CONCLUSIONS: End-user involvement was an important aspect of this project. To minimize challenges in future projects, a recognition by the project management team and the funding provider that end-user involvement even in evidence synthesis projects is resource intensive is essential to allow appropriate allocation of time and resources for meaningful engagement.NIHR HTA programmeNIHRExeter NHS Foundation Trus