Understanding elite youth athletes’ knowledge and perceptions of sport psychology

The purpose of this study was to examine elite youth athletes’ knowledge, perceptions, and understanding of sport psychology, psychological characteristics, and psychological skills. To address this purpose an interpretive description methodology was employed. Data were collected through five focus groups with 34 elite youth swimmers, triathletes, and athletes (aged 13–20 years). Following each focus group, the recordings were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis. The first theme labeled perceptions, knowledge, and experiences of sport psychology encompassed athletes’ current and future perceptions of sport psychology as well as the factors impacting on athletes’ perceptions of sport psychology. The second theme was psychological characteristics for success in elite sport, which included athletes’ perceptions of the characteristics held by other elite athletes as well as the development of their own characteristics. The final theme accounted for the psychological skills deemed necessary for success in elite sport. Overall, the findings provide an insight into youth athletes’ varying perceptions of sport psychology, as well as their limited knowledge and understanding of key psychological considerations for sport. Lay Summary: Focus groups were used to explore the perception and understanding of sport psychology of elite youth athletes involved in swimming, athletics, and triathlon. Overall perceptions of sport psychology were varied, with multiple factors impacting upon them including the use and understanding of sport psychology, as well as coaches’ perceptions

Hydrological Outlook UK; seasonal river flow forecasts using rainfall forecasts

Hydrological predictions in the UK are strongly influenced by both rainfall and antecedent soil conditions. The Flood Forecasting Centre (FFC) and Scottish Flood Forecasting Service (SFFS) operationally issue flood alerts and warnings, however these typically apply only days to weeks ahead. There was a desire to produce a more long-term (seasonal) forecast of the water situation for flooding and drought periods similar to that produced in countries such as the USA and Australia. The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) along with a number of partners have developed a long-range hydrological forecast for the UK. The Hydrological Outlook UK (www.hydoutuk.net) is the first operational forecast system for the UK that delivers monthly outlooks of the water situation for both river flow and groundwater levels. It brings together information on current and forecast weather conditions, soil moisture, river flows and groundwater levels, and uses a number of modelling approaches to explore possible future hydrological conditions. It is based on merging three complementary methods: (i) a statistical method based on river flow analogues and persistence, (ii) a Streamflow Ensemble Prediction System applied to selected catchments and boreholes; and (iii) a national hydrological forecast driven by an ensemble of 1 and 3 month-ahead rainfall forecasts from the UK Met Office’s GloSea5 model. Here we focus on the national scale hydrological forecasts, showing an example of the seasonal river flow forecasts and how they contribute to the Hydrological Outlooks UK monthly summary. The output from the different modelling methods and the summary are publicly available and used each month by government agencies, practitioners and academics alongside other sources of information such as flood warnings, meteorological forecasts and water situation reports

Use of very high resolution climate model data for hydrological modelling in southern Britain

Previous work driving hydrological models directly with data from regional climate models (RCMs) used data on an approximately 25x25km grid, which generally required some form of further downscaling before use by hydrological models. Recently, higher resolution data have become available from a NERC Changing Water Cycle project, CONVEX. As part of that project the Met Office Hadley Centre has run a very high resolution (1.5km) RCM, nested in a 12km RCM driven by ERA-Interim boundary conditions (1989-2008). They have also run baseline and future climate scenarios, nesting the RCMs in a global climate model. The 12km RCM runs cover Europe, while the 1.5km RCM runs only cover southern Britain

Evaluating soil moisture simulations from a national-scale gridded hydrological model over Great Britain

•Study Region: The study covers sites across Great Britain. •Study Focus: Soil moisture information is important for a range of applications including flood and drought monitoring, seasonal hydrological forecasting, and agricultural management. However, spatially distributed soil moisture estimates for sub-surface soils are scarce despite their importance. The Grid-to-Grid hydrological model (G2G) was primarily developed to simulate river flows at a national scale, but can also output simulated depth-integrated soil moisture on a 1 km grid. Here, we evaluate G2G soil moisture simulations against in situ neutron probe (NP) observations at 85 sites across Great Britain, to evaluate whether modelled soil moisture outputs have value and to identify areas for improvement. •New Hydrological Insights for the Region: Despite large uncertainties in observed soil moisture within a site, there was a good temporal correlation between observed and modelled soil moisture, with Pearson correlation values exceeding 0.7 for 77% of sites. However, the model tended to under-predict soil moisture values (median bias of −12 cm/m) and over-predict variation (median standard deviation error of 2 cm/m). Model agreement with observations was generally better for areas with deep or mid-depth mineral soils and worst in areas of peat. Based on this evaluation against NP observations, we demonstrate that G2G soil moisture is a useful resource for estimating relative wetness of the soil, but not necessarily the soil moisture content values themselves

The Temperature and Cooling Age of the White-Dwarf Companion to the Millisecond Pulsar PSR B1855+09

We report on Keck and HST observations of the binary millisecond pulsar PSR B1855+09. We detect its white-dwarf companion and measure m_(F555W) = 25.90 ± 0.12 and m_(F814W) = 24.19 ± 0.11 (Vega system). From the reddening-corrected color we infer a temperature T_(eff) = 4800 ± 800 K. The companion mass is known accurately from measurements of the Shapiro delay of the pulsar signal, M_C = 0.258^(+0.028)_(-0.016) M⊙. Given a cooling model, one can use the measured temperature to determine the cooling age. The main uncertainty in the cooling models for such low-mass white dwarfs is the amount of residual nuclear burning, which depends on the thickness of the hydrogen layer surrounding the helium core. For PSR B1855+09, such models lead to a cooling age of ∼10Gyr, which is twice the spin-down age of the pulsar. It may be that the pulsar does not brake (n=3.0) like a dipole rotating in vacuo. For other pulsar companions, however, ages well over lOGyr are inferred, indicating that the problem may lie with the cooling models. There is no age discrepancy for models in which the white dwarfs are formed with thinner hydrogen layers (< 3 × 10^(−4)M⊙). See van Kerkwijk et al. ApJ (submitted) for more details

Effect of Fibre Supplementation on Body Weight and Composition, Frequency of Eating and Dietary Choice in Overweight Individuals

Fibre supplementation can potentially reduce energy intake and contribute to weight loss. The mechanism may be reduced frequency of eating, resulting in reduced food consumption. The objective of this research was to determine the effectiveness of fibre supplementation with PolyGlycopleX® (PGX®), on body weight and composition, frequency of eating and dietary intake in 118 overweight adults. In a three-arm, parallel, blind, randomised controlled trial participants were randomised to one of three groups; 4.5 g PGX as softgels (PGXS), 5 g PGX granules (PGXG) or 5 g rice flour (RF) control. Prior to supplementation and at 12 weeks, participants captured before and after images of all food and beverages consumed within 4 days using a mobile food record app (mFR). The mFR images were analysed for food group serving sizes and number of eating occasions. In the PGXG group, intention-to-treat analysis showed there was a significant reduction in waist circumference (2.5 cm; p = 0.003). Subgroup analysis showed that PGXG supplementation at the recommended dose resulted in a reduction in body weight (-1.4 ± 0.10 kg, p &lt; 0.01), body mass index (BMI) reduction (-0.5 ± 0.10, p &lt; 0.01), reduced number of eating occasions (-1.4 ± 1.2, p &lt; 0.01) and a reduced intake of grain food (-1.52 ± 1.84 serves, p = 0.019). PGXG at the recommended dose resulted in a reduction in weight and BMI which was significantly greater than that for RF (p = 0.001). These results demonstrate the potential benefits of PGX fibre in controlling frequency of eating and in weight loss

Evaluating the acceptability of a co-produced and co-delivered mental health public engagement festival : Mental Health Matters, Jakarta, Indonesia

Abstract: Background: Public engagement events are an important early strategy in developing a meaningful research agenda, which is more impactful and beneficial to the population. Evidence indicates the potential of such activities to promote mental health literacy. However, this has not yet been explored in Indonesia. Aim: This paper describes a mental health public engagement festival carried out in Indonesia in November 2018 and uses evaluation data to consider the acceptability and use of such activities in Indonesia in the future. Method: Evaluation data was collected from 324 of the 737 people who attended a six-day mental health festival comprising 18 events including public lectures, film screenings, arts activities, exercise classes and panel discussions. Attendees were asked to evaluate the festival in terms of its quality, benefits and areas for improvement. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the evaluation data. 87 service users, carers, academics and professionals also engaged in a research prioritisation exercise to collaboratively determine mental health research priorities for Indonesia. Results: Participants evaluated the festival extremely positively with a significant majority (92%) rating the quality of the festival as good or excellent. Attendees reported an increase in their understanding of mental health issues and identified intended behaviour change including an increased propensity for future engagement with mental health research. Key strengths of the festival included the central role of patients, carers and the local community in the design and delivery of the festival which promoted emotional engagement and development of shared understanding and the use of international experts which in attendees’ opinion further enhanced the credibility of festival activities. Conclusion: This manuscript indicates that a co-produced mental health public engagement festival is a potentially acceptable way to increase awareness of mental health in Indonesian populations. Future festivals should be larger in scope and target men, older people and the general public to maximise benefit and incorporate rigorous evaluation of effectiveness