Network centrality and organizational aspirations: A behavioral interaction in the context of international strategic alliances

Whereas social network analysis has been associated with organizational aspirations, little is known on how firm's structural positioning, and particularly network centrality, affects organizational aspirations to engage in international strategic alliances (ISA). This study examines the impact of network centrality on firm's internationalization behavior within the ISA domain in response to the performance-aspiration gap. We build on social and behavioral perspectives to predict that network centrality and performance-based aspirations will be associated with the number of ISA the firm engages in. Using a sample of 7760 alliance collaborations from the top 81 global pharmaceutical firms for the period of 1991-2012, we find supporting evidence for most of our arguments

The metabolic profiling of exercise intervention: exercise metabolomics

In exercise intervention science, the nascent fields of exercise ‘omics’ (metabolomics and proteomics) encompass the identification, characterisation, and quantification of the changes over time for metabolite and protein content of whole cells, tissues, or body fluids. In order to establish the current status, a literature search was completed using a metasearch engine linked to academic database resources using a combination of the keywords; ‘exercise’, ‘sport’, ‘intervention’, ‘metabol*’ which resulted in 235 potential studies. The search was refined to relevance based on the following inclusion criteria: healthy human subjects; exercise/training intervention; analysis of targeted or untargeted metabolites in muscle, blood or urine; published between 1999-2011. Studies were excluded that concerned animal subjects, humans diagnosed with mechanical or medical problems, no exercise/training intervention, diet-based intervention or nutritional studies, reviews, abstracts without full-text available and duplicates. These inclusion/exclusion criteria were used to select relevant studies to extract and compare data on the change in metabolites induced by exercise intervention, and compare the analytical techniques used over the past 12years. The refined search resulted in a final selection of eighteen studies that were reviewed. Data on study design, populations, exercise intervention, outcome measures and analytical techniques, were compiled and analysed. Studies have been reported for targeted and nontargeted biological profiling of blood and urine, based mostly on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Standardised protocols for sampling and analysis are at an early stage and few studies report chemometric analysis of the data. GC-MS and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometry data for urine, plasma and saliva from baseline studies in our laboratory are presented. AL acknowledges a PhD scholarship from the School of Health, Sport and Bioscience, University of East London Where applicable, the authors confirm that the experiments described here conform with The Physiological Society ethical requirements

Potential urinary biomarkers of systemic responses towards muscular exercise

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Translating systems biology of elite athletes from the laboratory to the sports clinic and arena

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The metabolic profiling of exercise intervention: exercise metabolomics

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The effect of increasing effort on movement economy during incremental cycling exercise in individuals early after acquired brain injury

Objective: To investigate the effect of increasing effort on energy cost as measured by oxygen consumption (V.O2) during cycling exercise in individuals early after acquired brain injury (ABI). Design: An experimental correlation design. Setting: Specialist neurorehabilitation centre. Participants: Thirty-eight individuals were recruited early after acquired brain injury. Nine individuals had spasticity; Ashworth Scale >1 in either upper or lower limbs. Intervention: The V.O2 was measured in relation to workload during a graded exercise test. Results: The V.O2 increased in a linear fashion with increases in workload in 34 individuals. Only one individual with spasticity demonstrated a nonlinear relationship. Conclusion: Increasing the workload during cycling exercise does not disproportionately increase energy cost in most individuals with spasticity early after ABI.sch_phy17pub4476pub