A re-evaluation of the extraterrestrial origin of the Carolina Bays / Occasional publications of the Department of Geography, paper no. 9

Cover title.Bibliography: p. 44-46

Concussion injury management, perception, and knowledge in amateur field hockey

Background: Field hockey has a high risk for sports-related concussion (SRC) injuries due to the speed and intensity of the game, current rules, field surfaces and equipment composition. Head injuries are the second most common reported injury and up to 75% of SRCs go unreported or undetected. This increases the subsequent injury risk, long term health consequences and prolonged injury recovery. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the prevalence of SRC in hockey players within the Southern Gauteng Hockey Association (SGHA) premier league. Concussion knowledge and attitudes of hockey players, coaches, umpires, and officials were also investigated. Methods: A partially mixed sequential dominant status design (QUANT–qual) was used, divided into two phases. In Phase One hockey players, coaches, umpires, and technical officials (n=119) completed a modified RoCKAS-ST questionnaire. In Phase Two, a focus group discussion with umpires (n=3) and interviews with coaches (n=3) were conducted. Results: Injuries to the shoulder, neck, head, and face were reported from stick use (n=98); ball use (n=102) and collisions (n=187). Only 19% of hockey players were diagnosed with SRC, indicating that many of these injuries were undetected or not reported. Responses from the focus group discussion and interviews indicated that coaches, umpires, and officials felt they had insufficient knowledge of SRC. Conclusion: The recognition and management of on-field injuries require improvement to enhance the injury detection system

Assessing the needs of coaches in developing a coach education framework

The establishment of a global framework recognising coaching competencies and qualifications is part of the International Council for Coaching Excellence key objectives for the period 2009-2015. It is partly for this reason that the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) has developed a framework for Long-Term Coach Development in order to identify, recruit, support and provide recognition to coaches (SASCOC, 2011). As part of a study exploring the impact of coach education on coaching practice, a national survey of lifesaving coaches was conducted (n = 120). This was done using the Survey Monkey® internet tool and targeted all coaches and administrators listed on the Lifesaving South Africa’s database. Survey questions focused on obtaining a demographic profile, coaching experience and the foci of athlete training. Questions also sought to gather information on the coach education process, its content and the way it was assessed. Results from the survey indicated that 81% of respondents are volunteer coaches with an age range between 18 and 60 years. 50% of sampled coaches had been coaching lifesaving for between two and five years, mostly at the club level (96%). Coaches were asked where they had learnt to coach, and the most common responses were drawing from their own sporting experiences, watching other coaches and being self-taught. The implementation of a coach education programme through Lifesaving South Africa was well received, although only 54% felt that certification should be mandatory. It was through this preliminary data that an understanding of what the coaches’ require in a coach education programme was gained

Match loads of university rugby union players between the 2016 and 2018 Varsity Cup competitions

Background: Rugby union is a popular and continuously growing sport globally. With the advance of technology, practices have been implemented to quantify the match running demands of rugby union players. The aim of this study was to analyse the match loads of rugby union players between the 2016 and 2018 Varsity Cup competitions. Methods: The sample consisted of 562 match observations of male university rugby union players competing in the Varsity Cup tournaments. Results: The backline players ran significantly longer total distances (5105 m; p = 0.001; ES = 0.49); have greater high- speed running (496 m; p = 0.001; ES = 1.03), very high-speed running (260 m; p = 0.001; ES = 1.50) and sprint distances (117 m; p = 0.001; ES = 1.32) than forward players. Backline players also accumulated a high number of metres per minute (238 ± 94; p = 0.001; ES = 0.46), total Player Load (488 ± 203; p = 0.001; ES = 0.31), RHIE (9 ± 8; p = 0.001; ES = 0.75) and number of accelerations (4 ± 5; p = 0.001; ES = 0.49). Conclusion: These findings may assist coaches to develop player position specific training programmes to meet the physical demands of rugby. Keywords: rugby union, match loads, physical demands, positio

The perceived knowledge of the menstruation cycle and adjustment of swimming sets by swimming coaches based on menstrual-related issues

Background: Menstruation is the recurring discharge of the endometrial lining of the uterus as menstrual blood and tissue. The menstruation cycle affects most adolescent females and, although largely overlooked, affects women participating in sports. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine whether coaches were aware of their swimmers’ menstrual cycles and whether coaches considered this information when adjusting training sets. Methods: Within the case study, a partial mixed-method, sequential dominant status approach was used. Data were collected in the form of questionnaires, focus group discussions, and one-on-one interviews. Coaches’ awareness of their female swimmers’ menstrual cycles was based more on observation than communication from the swimmer. Results: Coaches explained that training is adjusted based on their observations, but whether this is being done correctly during the menstrual cycle requires more research. Swimmers and coaches alike seem to have minimal knowledge of menstruation, its effects on training, and how to adapt to, or overcome, those effects during training or competition. Conclusion: In future, this knowledge could ensure the longevity of female swimmers in the sport. Understanding whether coaches and swimmers recognise the effect of the menstrual cycle within training and competition provides a more inclusive approach to ensure athlete longevity after puberty. This approach is grounded in creating an understanding between the swimmer and coach about the effect of menstruation during training and competition. It ensures an extended and more successful participation which may also assist in dealing with the ‘taboo’ surrounding menstruation and the female athlete

'Barriers to Progress’: campaigns to remove gates from London’s streets, 1845-1895

Turnpike roads and private gated estates—both innovations of the period circa 1760-1830—were seen as boons when first introduced. The former greatly improved main roads in and around the metropolis, while the latter facilitated better estate planning and preservation of property values in a city where every new development seemed subject to a slow decline. The result was a proliferation of gates—tollgates on the highways and private barriers in the streets—numbering at their greatest extent more than 400. From the mid-1840s there were a succession of campaigns to remove these, first, in the period 1845-1865, centring on tollgates, then moving to private gates where widespread abolition was achieved in the 1890s. Given that London’s traffic was inconvenient and congested but not on the point of paralysis, these campaigns were motivated as much by wider intellectual and ideological concerns as by practical matters, by the dominant belief in laissez faire and conceptions of progress and improvement and the way the city needed to be to bring these about. The campaigns involved arguments about free trade, local government powers and their use, property rights, the role of newspapers and Utilitarian ethics, and invoked ideas of anachronism, modernity and class-relations to provide a critique of Victorian London. As the promise of laissez faire faded in the 1880s, the ‘free streets’ movement metamorphosed away from its commerce-based origin toward a movement rooted in class-antagonism in pursuit of the widening of democratic values. The ‘free streets’ movements contributed to change the way Londoners viewed the city, municipal management generating a sense of ‘ownership’. Developments in recent years have threated both the legacy of this sense of public proprietorship and the free streets themselves. An understanding of the Victorian campaigns prompts interesting questions for modern campaigns to reverse their achievements

F-term uplifting via consistent D-terms

The issue of fine-tuning necessary to achieve satisfactory degree of hierarchy between moduli masses, the gravitino mass and the scale of the cosmological constant has been revisited in the context of supergravities with consistent D-terms. We have studied (extended) racetrack models where supersymmetry breaking and moduli stabilisation cannot be separated from each other. We show that even in such cases the realistic hierarchy can be achieved on the expense of a single fine-tuning. The presence of two condensates changes the role of the constant term in the superpotential, W_0, and solutions with small vacuum energy and large gravitino mass can be found even for very small values of W_0. Models where D-terms are allowed to vanish at finite vevs of moduli fields - denoted `cancellable' D-terms - and the ones where D-terms may vanish only at infinite vevs of some moduli - denoted `non-cancellable' - differ markedly in their properties. It turns out that the tuning with respect to the Planck scale required in the case of cancellable D-terms is much weaker than in the case of non-cancellable ones. We have shown that, against intuition, a vanishing D-term can trigger F-term uplifting of the vacuum energy due to the stringent constraint it imposes on vacuum expectation values of charged fields. Finally we note that our models only rely on two dimensionful parameters: M_P and W_0.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, plain Latex, references adde

Effect of a therapeutic dose of pseudoephedrine on swimmers’ performance

Background. The potential performance-enhancement effect of pseudoephedrine (PSE) use has led to its prohibition in competition sports (urine concentrations >150 μg/ml). Data are, however, scarce regarding whether therapeutic PSE use enhances swimming performance.Objective. To investigate the effect of therapeutic PSE use on performance in aerobic and explosive sprint swimming events.Method. A double-blinded cross-over study design was used. Participants in the control group initially received a placebo and those in the experimental group received a divided PSE dose of 90 mg/d. Anaerobic  power (50 m sprint) and aerobic (2 000 m) swimming testing was conducted at (i) baseline; (ii) after ingestion of a placebo or PSE; and (iii)  after the groups were crossed over, following a wash-out period of 4 days, to determine changes in performance between trials.Results. The participants (mean age 44 years; N=7) were competitive  masters swimmers with normal resting heart rates (68 beats per minute (bpm); standard deviation (SD) ±14) and blood pressures (BPs) (171 (SD ±27)/83 (SD ±16) mmHg). The use of PSE during the anaerobic swim test showed only a trivial chance (68%) of improvement, with a likely enhancement in systolic BP (86%). The aerobic swim test did not affirm performance enhancement as measured by time to completion (52%  chance of a positive effect; 41% chance of a negative effect), nor did any other physiological variable of interest (peak heart rate and exercising BP)  differ significantly from baseline results.Conclusion. The use of a therapeutic amount of PSE in short and endurance swimming trials did not appear to have any major ergogenic effect on performance

Parents’ experiences and perceptions of the acceptability of a whole-hospital, pro-active electronic pediatric early warning system (the DETECT study): A qualitative interview study

BackgroundFailure to recognize and respond to clinical deterioration in a timely and effective manner is an urgent safety concern, driving the need for early identification systems to be embedded in the care of children in hospital. Pediatric early warning systems (PEWS) or PEW scores alert health professionals (HPs) to signs of deterioration, trigger a review and escalate care as needed. PEW scoring allows HPs to record a child's vital signs and other key data including parent concern.AimThis study aimed to explore the experiences and perceptions of parents about the acceptability of a newly implemented electronic surveillance system (the DETECT surveillance system), and factors that influenced acceptability and their awareness around signs of clinical deterioration and raising concern.MethodsDescriptive, qualitative semi-structured telephone interviews were undertaken with parents of children who had experienced a critical deterioration event (CDE) (n = 19) and parents of those who had not experienced a CDE (non-CDE parents) (n = 17). Data were collected between February 2020 and February 2021.ResultsQualitative data were analyzed using generic thematic analysis. Analysis revealed an overarching theme of trust as a key factor that underpinned all aspects of children's vital signs being recorded and monitored. The main themes reflect three domains of parents' trust: trust in themselves, trust in the HPs, and trust in the technology.ConclusionParents' experiences and perceptions of the acceptability of a whole-hospital, pro-active electronic pediatric early warning system (The DETECT system) were positive; they found it acceptable and welcomed the use of new technology to support the care of their child