622 research outputs found

    Differences between 48 and 72-hour intervals on match load and subsequent recovery: a report from the Brazilian under-20 national football team

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    PurposeTo compare the external and internal load and subsequent recovery of football players after international tournament matches separated by 48 h vs. 72 h.MethodsA total of 14 male football players from the Brazilian National Team, competing in the 2019 South American Under-20 Championship, participated in the study. Match load was quantified using GPS variables and perceived exertion ratings (1). Additionally, before and 13–15 h after each match, players answered questions about the number of hours and quality of sleep, recovery status, and muscle soreness (0–10) and provided a blood sample for creatine kinase and reactive C-protein analysis. Values of all variables were compared between matches played with 48-h intervals (matches 1–4) and 72-h intervals (matches 5–8).ResultsNo significant differences in performance or perceptual parameters were observed between matches (p = 0.136–0.953). However, CK was higher in matches 1–4 compared to matches 5 and 6; and ΔPCR was higher in matches 2 and 3 compared to matches 5 and 6, and in match 4 compared to matches 5 and 8.ConclusionsAfter matches with a 48-h rest interval, players showed increased markers of inflammation and muscle damage compared to matches with a 72-h rest interval

    Does elite European match-play affect salivary immunoglobulin- a and cortisol in soccer players? The influence of playing status and match outcome

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    Introduction: The aims of this study were to: a) investigate salivary immunoglobulin A (s-IgA) and cortisol (s-Cort) responses to nine competitive fixtures in starting and non- starting soccer players; and b) compare s-IgA and s Cort responses of starters and non-starters considering match outcome. Methods: Saliva from 19 male outfield players from an elite soccer team (mean ± SD, age 26 ± 4 years; weight 80.5 ± 8.1 kg; height 1.83 ± 0.07 m; body-fat 10.8% ± 0.7%) was collected. Saliva samples were taken on the day before each match (MD-1), 60-min before kick-off (MDpre), 30-min post-match (MDpost), and 72-h post-match (MD+3). There were five wins, one draw and three losses. Results: The mean s-IgA value was found to be significantly lower at MD+3 compared to MDpre and MDpost. s-Cort was significantly higher at MDpost compared to MD-1 and MDpre. When compared to MDpre, a statistically significant decrease in s-Cort was observed at MD+3 compared to MDpost. Starters displayed higher s-Cort values across the nine matches. There was a significant group-by-time interaction for s-Cort. There was a significant increase in s-Cort levels at MDpost compared to MD-1 and from MDpre to MDpost in starting players. At MDpost, starters had significantly higher s-Cort values. s-IgA values of starting and non- starting players following successful and unsuccessful matches did not reveal a significant difference. However, similar analysis of s-Cort in successful matches showed a significant difference between starters and non starters. s-IgA values at MD-1, MDpre, MDpost and MD+3 in starters and non starters following successful and unsuccessful matches revealed significant differences at MDpre and MDpost in starters, respectively. Furthermore, s-Cort values at MD-1, MDpre, MDpost and MD+3 in starters and non-starters in successful and unsuccessful matches revealed significant differences at MD+3 in starting players.Discussion: The present study suggests that in elite level soccer players, both starting status and match outcome influence s-IgA and s-Cort responses, particularly starters. Specifically, s-IgA was lower for starters before and after the match following successful outcomes. Moreover, higher s-Cort values were found before the match while lower values occurred after the match for starters in successful matches.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    The accountability of football as a form of public good on local communities: a pilot study

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    Study purpose. Football is a social phenomenon, especially due to the enormous use of the media and the economic and financial implications that derive from its complex sporting activities. Amateur sports associations (ASD) are part of this phenomenon since they represent socio-educational agencies that pursue the aims of sports training by adopting specific educational, social, and economic models. Individually, they have modest dimensions but considered in an aggregate manner, they present a significant and not negligible dimension in society. The purpose of the study is to try to understand the stakeholders’ perceptions concerning the issues of youth football and the accountability that football, understood as a public good, produces in local communities. Materials and methods. The study was conducted through a survey submitted to a sample made up by presidents and trainers of 112 amateur sports clubs in the province of Salerno, a city in Southern Italy. The survey includes two thematic sections. The first section presents 6 items, common for both presidents and trainers, about the various social and educational issues related to the practice of the sport. The second section presents 4 items, that analyse the contribution that the U.S. Salernitana 1919 football club, considered as a “public good”, brings to the territory in terms of economic and social return. Validity and reliability were calculated. The collected data were analysed using the Chi-square (χ2) test to check the correlation between the responses given by the stakeholders. Results.The results show a concordance of opinions among the stakeholders regarding the most relevant educational aspects related to the practice of football, and the major critical issues involving the youth academy of U.S. Salernitana 1919 football club. Conclusions. These results highlight the stakeholders’ full awareness of the potential positive social effects of the presence of football ASDs in the territory, even considering the limitations of the study sample and the territorially circumscribed objective of the research

    Pattern Matching in Encrypted Stream from Inner Product Encryption

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    Functional encryption features secret keys, each associated with a key function ff, which allow to directly recover f(x)f(x) from an encryption of xx, without learning anything more about xx. This property is particularly useful when delegating data processing to a third party as it allows the latter to perfom its task while ensuring minimum data leakage. However, this generic term conceals a great diversity in the cryptographic constructions that strongly differ according to the functions ff they support. A recent series of works has focused on the ability to search a pattern within a data stream, which can be expressed as a function ff. One of the conclusions of these works was that this function ff was not supported by the current state-of-the-art, which incited their authors to propose a new primitive called Stream Encryption supporting Pattern Matching (SEPM). Some concrete constructions were proposed but with some limitations such as selective security or reliance on non-standard assumptions. In this paper, we revisit the relations between this primitive and two major subclasses of functional encryption, namely Hidden Vector Encryption (HVE) and Inner Product Encryption (IPE). We indeed first exhibit a generic transformation from HVE to SEPM, which immediately yields new efficient SEPM constructions with better features than existing ones. We then revisit the relations between HVE and IPE and show that we can actually do better than the transformation proposed by Katz, Sahai and Waters in their seminal paper on predicate encryption. This allows to fully leverage the vast state-of-the-art on IPE which contains adaptively secure constructions proven under standard assumptions. This results in countless new SEPM constructions, with all the features one can wish for. Beyond that, we believe that our work sheds a new light on the relations between IPE schemes and HVE schemes and in particular shows that some of the former are more suitable to construct the latter

    A comparison of activity demands between trial matches and in-season matches across multiple teams and seasons in semiprofessional, male rugby league players

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    Trial matches are frequently used for team preparation in rugby league competitions, making it essential to understand the demands experienced to assess their specificity to actual competition. Consequently, this study aimed to compare the activity demands between pre-season trial matches and early in-season rugby league matches. Following a repeated-measures observational design, 39 semi-professional, male rugby league players from two clubs were monitored using microsensors during two trial matches and the first two in-season matches across two consecutive seasons. Total distance, average speed, peak speed, absolute and relative high-speed running (HSR; > 18 km · h-1) and low-speed running (LSR; 3 m · s-2), and decelerations (total and high-intensity < -3 m · s-2) were measured. Linear mixed models and Cohen's d effect sizes were used to compare variables between match types. Playing duration was greater for in-season matches (p < 0.001, d = 0.64). Likewise, higher (p < 0.001, d = 0.45-0.70) activity volumes were evident during in-season matches indicated via total distance, HSR distance, LSR distance, total accelerations, high-intensity accelerations, total decelerations, and high-intensity decelerations. Regarding activity intensities, a higher average speed (p = 0.008, d = 0.31) and relative LSR distance (p = 0.005, d = 0.31) only were encountered during in-season matches. Despite players completing less volume, the average activity intensities and impact demands were mostly similar between trial and early in-season matches. These findings indicate trial matches might impose suitable activity stimuli to assist players in preparing for early in-season activity intensities

    From Pitch to Commentary Gantry: Investigating Syntactic Features in High-Pressure Events in the Sports Announcer Talk (SAT) of Football Commentators.

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    This MA thesis investigates the various syntactic elements in the register of football commentators to determine the presence of prevailing notions of temporal pressure. More precisely, the register of football commentators is defined as Sports Announcer Talk (SAT). Drawing on the theories of Increment Functional Grammar (IFG), this investigation addresses four research questions concerning on-pitch occurrences, the application of holophrastic utterances, formulaic language, and syntactic characteristics in high-pressure situations. The study reveals a correlation between the employment of holophrastic utterances by commentators and the statistical metric Expected Goals (xG), wherein a predominant frequency of holophrastic utterances is associated with greater xG values. Furthermore, the prevalence and functions of time expressions are scrutinised, with the conclusion that different roles of commentary (play-by-play and colour commentators) exhibit varying frequencies of expressions. The analysis of formulaic routines in goal-scoring events identifies persistent structures involving player names, goals, metonymic and metaphoric sequences. Moreover, the pervasive usage of right dislocation (RD) structures is discussed to explore their connection with temporal pressure. This study posits that RD structures are ubiquitous in the SAT register of football commentary contributing to their fluency in both pressurised and unpressurised linguistic settings. Overall, this study establishes the prevalence of temporal pressure in the SAT of football commentators and emphasises the significance of certain syntactic elements in high-pressure situations

    Creating immersive, play-anywhere handheld augmented reality stories, through remote user testing

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    This thesis outlines new instances of Extended Reality (XR) stories as well as associated user studies with them, to create more immersive story experiences delivered at a user’s choice of location through a mobile phone. This extends prior work on Location Based Experiences (LBEs), which have typically been designed to offer a game or story at a pre-determined location. A play-anywhere experience offers potential to open up LBEs to a wider audience, as well as to those may prefer to take part individually or closer to home, such attitude shifts becoming increasingly more common. The current research adopted an in the wild approach combining practice, studies and theory, with most user data being collected remotely. Each story application developed is subsequently referred to as an app, with each app offering a bespoke story incorporating Augmented Reality (AR) features, to better bring users’ location inline with the narrative. Testing the apps across various locations matched their intended use, and resulted in new guidelines for both incorporating AR into such LBEs, as well as for conducting remote user studies. A final app offered a site-specific curated story, with all study participants taking part under similar conditions at the same location, the ability to observe them using the app providing additional insights. The story apps used available local map data alongside Handheld Augmented Reality (HAR), to overlay interactable virtual objects on top of the physical environment, and visible on the phone’s display. Guidelines from related methodologies were used to better allow for the variety of factors that might influence different users’ immersion and engagement. These included the implementation of the AR features, the story itself, real world activity, and personal preferences including onboarding requirements. The approach taken contributed a reverse methodology to a lot of related research, that would typically begin with laboratory testing before moving to public spaces. User studies with the five mobile apps contributed guidelines for such experiences, that could benefit both practitioners and researchers in related fields. In the later case, a need was identified to develop new research tools specifically suited to the subtleties of handheld play-anywhere LBEs, such issues explored within the apps tested. The guidelines identified for offering more effective XR LBEs were also implemented in the creation of a new open source Unity project, called Map Story Engine. This offers a tool to test new features, as well as providing a fully customisable template for practitioners to author their own play-anywhere HAR stories and games

    Specificity of the innate immune responses to different classes of non-tuberculous mycobacteria

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    Mycobacterium avium is the most common nontuberculous mycobacterium (NTM) species causing infectious disease. Here, we characterized a M. avium infection model in zebrafish larvae, and compared it to M. marinum infection, a model of tuberculosis. M. avium bacteria are efficiently phagocytosed and frequently induce granuloma-like structures in zebrafish larvae. Although macrophages can respond to both mycobacterial infections, their migration speed is faster in infections caused by M. marinum. Tlr2 is conservatively involved in most aspects of the defense against both mycobacterial infections. However, Tlr2 has a function in the migration speed of macrophages and neutrophils to infection sites with M. marinum that is not observed with M. avium. Using RNAseq analysis, we found a distinct transcriptome response in cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction for M. avium and M. marinum infection. In addition, we found differences in gene expression in metabolic pathways, phagosome formation, matrix remodeling, and apoptosis in response to these mycobacterial infections. In conclusion, we characterized a new M. avium infection model in zebrafish that can be further used in studying pathological mechanisms for NTM-caused diseases

    Hungarian-Slovak relations through the eyes of football stadiums

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    Slovak-Hungarian relations have long been burdened by a different view of the common past. While Hungary and Slovakia cooperate as good and reliable partners in international relations and despite friendly relations between their governments, deep-seated tensions between the two nations is regularly displayed when it comes to football matches. The goal of the article is to map the political expressions of relevant actors at mutual football matches. It analyzes in more detail the behavior and political or ideological expressions of national football associations, clubs, players or fans during two international matches between Slovan Bratislava and Ferencvárosi TC (Budapest) in 2022. The conclusions show that the matches were seen by some spectators as an expression of rivalry between Hungarians and Slovaks. Despite the efforts of UEFA, national football federations or the clubs themselves, the spectators presented political attitudes that bore the signs of aggressive nationalism or chauvinism
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