The effect of carbohydrate ingestion on the motor skill proficiency of soccer players

This study examined the effects of ingesting a glucose-polymer (GP) solution on the motor skill proficiencies of association football (soccer) players from two teams playing during two matches in a cool environment. Fifteen minutes before each match and at halftime, players from both teams ingested 5 ml/kg of either placebo or a 6.9% GP solution. GP ingestion did not improve tackling, heading, dribbling, or shooting ability. On the contrary, the mean of successful tackles was lower with GP ingestion than with placebo. The success rate for heading, dribbling, and shooting also tended to be lower in the GP than in the placebo condition. In contrast, success in passing and ball control was similar in the two conditions. Improvements in passing and ball control may have been related to a decrease in the intensity of play in the second half of the game. These data indicate that there are no measurable benefits of GP ingestion for the motor skill proficiencies of soccer players during games played in a cool environment.IS

Developing a Concept of Adaptive Community Learning: Case Study of a Rapidly Urbanizing Watershed

An iterative approach to working with a community’s environmental concerns, at the interface between science and society, is presented. We call this adaptive community learning, within which the principles of adaptive environmental assessment and management are embedded. Handling uncertainty – indeed, gross uncertainty – is integral to our approach. We place our discussion in the context of the evolving foundations of the kind of science needed to address contemporary issues of the environment and sustainability.We then illustrate development and application of our approach in a prototypical case study of managing the quality of Lake Lanier, Georgia (USA), in the face of potentially significant suburbanisation of its watershed. Our primary purpose is to communicate the entirety of the approach as succinctly as possible, without the clutter of the specific results emerging in the several disciplines keyed into the project as a whole

What do we know about the effects of crime on victims?

A wide ranging and critical review of the present literature on the impacts of crime on victim