Score-line effect on work-rate in English FA Premier League soccer

This paper investigates the effect of score-line on work-rate in English FA Premier League soccer. Player movement data from 110 matches where a goal was scored between 15 minutes and the end of the first half were captured by the ProzoneTM player tracking system. The number of V-cut path changes performed per minute declined more after the first goal in matches that were won by one of the sides than in drawn matches (p < 0.017). V-cut path changes involve players changing direction more than 135o to the left or the right. There was also a significant interaction of match type (won, drawn or lost by the team scoring first), period of the match (before and after the first goal), venue and the relative quality of the teams on the total number of path changes performed (p < 0.05). Players from the scoring and conceding teams spent significantly less time in the middle third of the pitch after the first goal then before (p < 0.017). This suggests that variability in work-rate is influenced by a combination of factors. The results suggest that the first goal has an influence on teams’ tactics and work-rate. However, the study did not find any differences in work-rate between teams achieving different outcomes having scored first

Needle exchange provision in Ireland: The context, current levels of service provision and recommendations. A joint report by the National Drugs Strategy Team and the National Advisory Committee on Drugs.

This document emerged out of concerns from the Voluntary Drug Sector about the need for additional needle exchange services to match the increases in injecting drug use nationally. A working group was established to review the current position in relation to needle exchange provision in Ireland and assess how the relevant National Drug Strategy recommendations should be progressed as we enter the last year of the National Drug Strategy

The effect of dismissals on work-rate in English FA Premier League soccer

The current paper studies the effect of dismissals on work-rate in English FA Premier League soccer. The study included 28 matches where a team had a player dismissed while they were winning by a single goal or the score was level. Two types of match were compared; matches where the team reduced to 10 players maintained the drawing or winning score-line until the end of the match and matches where they failed to do so. Similar reductions in work-rate variables were observed for teams reduced to 10 players and for their opponents after the dismissal irrespective of the outcome of the match. A significant interaction effect of team (the team reduced to 10 players v the team that played with 11 players throughout the match), match period (before v after the dismissal) and type of match was found on the percentage of time spent in the defending and attacking thirds (p < 0.05). The teams reduced to 10 players tended to spend more time in the defending third and less time in the attacking third after the dismissal. This pattern was observed to a greater extent in matches where the 10 players successfully maintained or improved the score between the dismissal and the end of the match. This suggests that outnumbered teams played strategically to defend the match status, rationing their efforts after the dismissal

That's maybe where I come from but that’s not how I read: Diaspora, Location and Reading Identities

First paragraph: The historical neglect of readers within the field of postcolonial studies has produced what C. L. Innes suggests is a reductive and presumptuous idea of  "the reader": "most critical analyses of postcolonial writing implicitly or explicitly presume that the reader is either a member of the writer's nation, as in Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities (1983) . . . or, more frequently, a generalized cosmopolitan Westerner"; even in those accounts that do exist "there is little differentiation between different kinds of Western reader" (2007, 200). Much of the haziness around readers here hinges upon commonsense assumptions about the location of reading, whether it is conceived in terms of national affiliation or in more generalised, global and diasporic terms of cosmopolitan consumption in "the" West. In what follows we explore some of the findings of a recent project that attempted to firm up current conceptions of readership by investigating how readers in a series of geographically dispersed locations made sense of the same, or similar works of fiction associated with postcolonial or diaspora writing. These works included canonical classics such as Things Fall Apart (1958), as well as proto-canonical contemporary works such as White Teeth (2001), experimental writers like Junot Diaz and more mainstream realist novelists like Andrea Levy and Monica Ali, poetry and short fiction, as well as novels, and prescribed works as well as books selected by the individual groups themselves. By recording and transcribing a series of isolated book group readings of these texts in Africa (Lagos, Kano, Nigeria; Tetuan, Morocco), India (New Delhi), Canada (Kingston), the Caribbean (Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; Kingston, Jamaica) and across the UK (from Cornwall to Glasgow), this project asked how (if at all) the reception of the same book differs according to the place in which it is read

That's maybe where I come from but that’s not how I read: Diaspora, Location and Reading Identities

First paragraph: The historical neglect of readers within the field of postcolonial studies has produced what C. L. Innes suggests is a reductive and presumptuous idea of  "the reader": "most critical analyses of postcolonial writing implicitly or explicitly presume that the reader is either a member of the writer's nation, as in Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities (1983) . . . or, more frequently, a generalized cosmopolitan Westerner"; even in those accounts that do exist "there is little differentiation between different kinds of Western reader" (2007, 200). Much of the haziness around readers here hinges upon commonsense assumptions about the location of reading, whether it is conceived in terms of national affiliation or in more generalised, global and diasporic terms of cosmopolitan consumption in "the" West. In what follows we explore some of the findings of a recent project that attempted to firm up current conceptions of readership by investigating how readers in a series of geographically dispersed locations made sense of the same, or similar works of fiction associated with postcolonial or diaspora writing. These works included canonical classics such as Things Fall Apart (1958), as well as proto-canonical contemporary works such as White Teeth (2001), experimental writers like Junot Diaz and more mainstream realist novelists like Andrea Levy and Monica Ali, poetry and short fiction, as well as novels, and prescribed works as well as books selected by the individual groups themselves. By recording and transcribing a series of isolated book group readings of these texts in Africa (Lagos, Kano, Nigeria; Tetuan, Morocco), India (New Delhi), Canada (Kingston), the Caribbean (Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; Kingston, Jamaica) and across the UK (from Cornwall to Glasgow), this project asked how (if at all) the reception of the same book differs according to the place in which it is read

Asymmetry analysis of the arm segments during forward handspring on floor

Asymmetry in gymnastics underpins successful performance and may also have implications as an injury mechanism; therefore, understanding of this concept could be useful for coaches and clinicians. The aim of this study was to examine kinematic and external kinetic asymmetry of the arm segments during the contact phase of a fundamental skill, the forward handspring on floor. Using a repeated single subject design six female National elite gymnasts (age: 19 ± 1.5 years, mass: 58.64 ± 3.72 kg, height: 1.62 ± 0.41 m), each performed 15 forward handsprings, synchronised 3D kinematic and kinetic data were collected. Asymmetry between the lead and non-lead side arms was quantified during each trial. Significant kinetic asymmetry was observed for all gymnasts (p < 0.005) with the direction of the asymmetry being related to the lead leg. All gymnasts displayed kinetic asymmetry for ground reaction force. Kinematic asymmetry was present for more gymnasts at the shoulder than the distal joints. These findings provide useful information for coaching gymnastics skills, which may subjectively appear to be symmetrical. The observed asymmetry has both performance and injury implications

Not reading Brick Lane

When someone becomes or does not become a reader - and how we make a claim to or refuse these kinds of identity - clearly matters within globalised cultures, where the challenges of literary representation quickly become problems of cultural misrepresentation. Yet precisely because not reading would appear to amount to nothing, its significance remains unexplored. In order to trace the conjunctural and multiple meanings of not reading, this essay explores the embattled reception surrounding Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane (2003) and its adaptation into film (2007), and locates not reading within a longer history of book controversies that is overshadowed by the Rushdie Affair. Our paper argues that, far from mere negation, not reading is an intensely productive site of cross-cultural negotiation and conflict without which the contemporary significance of global readerships and reading acts makes only partial sense

Final report on project SP1210: Lowland peatland systems in England and Wales – evaluating greenhouse gas fluxes and carbon balances

Lowland peatlands represent one of the most carbon-rich ecosystems in the UK. As a result of widespread habitat modification and drainage to support agriculture and peat extraction, they have been converted from natural carbon sinks into major carbon sources, and are now amongst the largest sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the UK land-use sector. Despite this, they have previously received relatively little policy attention, and measures to reduce GHG emissions either through re-wetting and restoration or improved management of agricultural land remain at a relatively early stage. In part, this has stemmed from a lack of reliable measurements on the carbon and GHG balance of UK lowland peatlands. This project aimed to address this evidence gap via an unprecedented programme of consistent, multi year field measurements at a total of 15 lowland peatland sites in England and Wales, ranging from conservation managed ‘near-natural’ ecosystems to intensively managed agricultural and extraction sites. The use of standardised measurement and data analysis protocols allowed the magnitude of GHG emissions and removals by peatlands to be quantified across this heterogeneous data set, and for controlling factors to be identified. The network of seven flux towers established during the project is believed to be unique on peatlands globally, and has provided new insights into the processes the control GHG fluxes in lowland peatlands. The work undertaken is intended to support the future development and implementation of agricultural management and restoration measures aimed at reducing the contribution of these important ecosystems to UK GHG emissions

Postcolonial Poetry of Great Britain

This chapter develops a way to examine twentieth-century and contemporary poetry in terms of Great Britain&rsquo;s postcoloniality. Beginning with Stuart Hall&rsquo;s call to understand the ramifications of the British Empire within its center&rsquo;s &ldquo;home&rdquo;, I trace a chronology of counter-discourses of identification and disidentification that move from the imperial concept of &ldquo;Britisher&rdquo; to an ambivalently devolved poetry of Britishness. The work of Claude McKay, Una Marson, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jackie Kay, Imtiaz Dharker, Patience Agbabi and their contemporaries offers a remapping of poetry, migration and ethnicity in Britain, articulating how poetic vocabularies can unravel notions of standardising English, and how in-placeness can be performed within landscapes unevenly naturalized through centuries of settlement. What emerges in this chapter is a poetics of contradictory affinity, a poetry that disavows shared identity and refuses recognition just as often as it demands them