Complex training: The effect of exercise selection and training status on postactivation potentiation in rugby league players

This study compared the postactivation potentiation (PAP) response of the hex bar deadlift (HBD) and back squat (BS) exercises. The PAP response between different levels of athletes was also compared. Ten professional and 10 amateur rugby league players performed 2 experimental sessions. Participants performed a countermovement jump (CMJ) before and 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 minutes after a conditioning activity (CA) that contained 1 set of 3 repetitions at 93% 1 repetition maximum of either HBD or BS. A force platform determined peak power output (PPO), force at PPO, velocity at PPO, and jump height of each CMJ. Surface electromyography (EMG) of the vastus lasteralis, rectus femoris, tibialis anterior, and gastrocnemius medialis of each participant's dominant leg was recorded during each CMJ. A further 10 participants performed a control trial without a CA. The HBD expressed PAP between 2 and 6 minutes post-CA, whereas the BS did not. The HBD exhibited a significantly (p ≤ 0.05) greater PAP response than the BS for PPO. There were no significant (p > 0.05) differences between stronger and weaker players. There were no significant (p > 0.05) changes in the EMG variables. These results suggest that HBD is a suitable CA for eliciting PAP in stronger and weaker athletes. Strength and conditioning coaches should consider the CA and time frame between the CA and the plyometric exercise for optimal PAP responses

An economic analysis of trading on private information by external administrators: international comparisons

This paper examines the regulation of trades in listed securities by external administrators (EAs), such as trustees in bankruptcy, liquidators, receivers, and administrators on the basis of private information. We consider the economic policy issues associated with such trades. The principal considerations counsel in favour of taking a permissive approach. These are: the difficulties of associating trades with insider information, given the EA's necessarily short expected holding period, the asymmetric application of the insider trading prohibition to sales (rather than decisions not to sell), the market incentives not to misuse private information that apply to EAs, and the unlikelihood that the EA has monopolistic access to the information in question. We consider these considerations by reference to a number of hypothetical scenarios. The paper argues that the law should regulate the subject by coupling a broad exemption for EAs with a "goiod faith" proviso, a continuous disclosure obligation, and a requirement to sell "all or nothing" of a holding of listed securities

A CHILDREN’S GEOGRAPHY OF OCCUPATION: IMAGINARY, EMOTIONAL, AND EVERYDAY SPACES OF PALESTINIAN CHILDHOOD

This research examines the political geographies of Palestinian children, and the ways in which their everyday spaces and practices are shaped by broader social and political processes. This research begins with an investigation into the role of the child in the moral geopolitics of humanitarianism and the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. From here, the research explores how the competing discourses of Palestinian nationalism and international humanitarianism, and the legacy of forced migration, have shaped the subjectivity of Palestinian children and the spaces of childhood in a West Bank refugee camp, from homes, to schools, streets, and youth centers. Finally, using participant observation, visual methods and guided tours, this research explores how children reshape the discursive spaces of childhood and child subjectivity through their everyday practices

Organised interest representation and the European Parliament

This thesis is comprised of three papers, each making a distinctive theoretical and empirical contribution to our understanding of interest representation within the European Parliament (EP). The papers are unified by two assumptions: first, the strategic behaviour of organised interests is significantly determined by the distribution of legislative influence, and second, the opportunity to become influential is a function of the EP’s decision-making rules. Each paper addresses a different aspect of this opportunity structure, which together provides a coherent explanation of the link between lobbying and the EP’s decision-making process. In so doing, insights are provided into the distribution of legislative influence within the EP and the legitimacy of the European Union’s policy process. The first paper explains how organised interests’ strategic behaviour is considerably altered in response to changes in the political opportunity structure afforded by each phase of the committee process. The second paper presents and tests a theory of indirect lobbying of the rapporteur. Here the institutional context is shown to be such that rapporteurs come to rely upon officials from their committee’s secretariat for relatively independent policy advice. But the policy expertise required by officials to carry out this role turns out to be endogenously derived from amongst the same lobbyists whose informational submissions the rapporteur seeks to verify. The final paper draws on longitudinal survey data to assess the impact of institutional rules and European party group membership, in the context of uncertainty amongst lobbyists as to whether their most closely aligned large party group will form part of a given legislative majority. This uncertainty provides an incentive for organised interests to lobby MEPs from opposing party groups in addition to more natural allies. But crucially, in performing this action lobbyists defer to their hard-wired principle and lobby the most closely aligned members from the otherwise unfriendly party

"Peso Problem" Explanations for Term Structure Anomalies

We examine the empirical evidence on the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany using the Campbell-Shiller (1991) regressions and a vector-autoregressive" methodology. We argue that anomalies in the U.S. term structure, documented by Campbell and Shiller (1991), may be due to a generalized peso problem in which a high-interest rate regime occurred less frequently in the sample of U.S. data than was rationally anticipated. We formalize this idea as a regime-switching model of short-term interest rates estimated with data" from seven countries. Technically, this model extends recent research on regime-switching models with state-dependent transitions to a cross-sectional setting. Use of the small sample distributions generated by the regime-switching model for inference considerably weakens the evidence against the expectations hypothesis, but it remains somewhat implausible that our data-generating process produced the U.S. data. However, a model that combines moderate time-variation in term premiums with peso-problem effects is largely consistent with term structure data from the U.S., U.K., and Germany.

"Peso problem" explanations for term structure anomalies

We examine the empirical evidence on the expectation hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany using the Campbell-Shiller (1991) regressions and a vector-autoregressive methodology. We argue that anomalies in the U.S. term structure, documented by Campbell and Shiller (1991), may be due to a generalized peso problem in which a high-interest rate regime occurred less frequently in the sample of U.S. data than was rationally anticipated. We formalize this idea as a regime-switching model of short-term interest rates estimated with data from seven countries. Technically, this model extends recent research on regime-switching models with state-dependent transitions to a cross-sectional setting. Use of the small sample distributions generated by regime-switching model for inference considerably weakens the evidence against the expectations hypothesis, but it remains somewhat implausible that our data-generating process produced the U.S. data. However, a model that combines moderate time-variation in term premiums with peso-problem effects is largely consistent with term-structure data from the U.S., U.K., and Germany.Interest rates ; Econometric models

The Implications of First-Order Risk Aversion for Asset Market Risk Premiums

Existing general equilibrium models based on traditional expected utility preferences have been unable to explain the excess return predictability observed in equity markets, bond markets, and foreign exchange markets. In this paper, we abandon the expected-utility hypothesis in favor of preferences that exhibit first-order risk aversion. We incorporate these preferences into a general equilibrium two-country monetary model, solve the model numerically, and compare the quantitative implications of the model to estimates obtained from U.S. and Japanese data for equity, bond and foreign exchange markets. Although increasing the degree of first-order risk aversion substantially increases excess return predictability, the model remains incapable of generating excess return predictability sufficiently large to match the data. We conclude that the observed patterns of excess return predictability are unlikely to be explained purely by time-varying risk premiums generated by highly risk averse agents in a complete markets economy.

Genetic diversity increases population productivity in a sessile marine invertebrate

Reductions in genetic diversity can have widespread ecological consequences: populations with higher genetic diversity are more stable, productive and resistant to disturbance or disease than populations with lower genetic diversity. These ecological effects of genetic diversity differ from the more familiar evolutionary consequences of depleting genetic diversity, because ecological effects manifest within a single generation. If common, genetic diversity effects have the potential to change the way we view and manage populations, but our understanding of these effects is far from complete, and the role of genetic diversity in sexually reproducing animals remains unclear. Here, we examined the effects of genetic diversity in a sexually reproducing marine invertebrate in the field. We manipulated the genetic diversity of experimental populations and then measured individual survival, growth, and fecundity, as well as the size of offspring produced by individuals in high and low genetic diversity populations. Overall, we found greater genetic diversity increased performance across all metrics, and that complementarity effects drove the increased productivity of our highdiversity populations. Our results show that differences in genetic diversity among populations can have pervasive effects on population productivity within remarkably short periods of time

Shallow-water Sponges from a High-sedimentation Estuarine Bay (Brunei, Northwest Borneo, Southeast Asia)

Tropical estuaries are important habitats for invertebrates including sponges, a group of marine organisms that fulfill significant ecological roles and provide ecosystem services. Here, we describe the sponge fauna from Pulau Bedukang, a small island in a turbid, variable salinity, acidified and eutrophic estuarine bay (Brunei Darussalam, northwest Borneo). We present records for 14 morphological species (OTUs). Six of these species belong to the Haplosclerida, an order of shallow-water sponges that usually tolerate more variable and extreme physical conditions. Our baseline data contribute to the regional biogeography of sponges and present a reference source for ecological studies on marine animals inhabiting variable estuarine environments. This is the first known record of sponges from the northwest Bornean region of the South China Sea that are not associated with a coral ecosystem; other studies have concerned Singapore, peninsular Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, southern China, and Taiwan. 

First records and descriptions of the marine littoral mite genus Amhyadesia Fain and Ganning 1979 (Acari : Astigmata : Hyadesiidae) from southern Africa

Three species of the rocky-shore inhabiting mite genus Amhyadesia Fain and Ganning 1979 (Acari, Astigmata. Hyadesiidae) were present in collections made across the extent of the southern African sub-continent, from Elandsbaai on the west coast to Inhambane (Mozambique) on the east coast. Two are new species, A austafricana spec. nov. and A. elizabethensisspec. nov., and are described herein. The third species, A heferophallus, collected from the east coast only, is widely-distributed throughout the Indo-Pacific region