Tapering practices of strongman athletes: Test-retest reliability study

BACKGROUND: Little is currently known about the tapering practices of strongman athletes. We have developed an Internet-based comprehensive self-report questionnaire examining the training and tapering practices of strongman athletes. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to document the test-retest reliability of questions associated with the Internet-based comprehensive self-report questionnaire on the tapering practices of strongman athletes. The information will provide insight on the reliability and usefulness of the online questionnaire for use with strongman athletes. METHODS: Invitations to complete an Internet questionnaire were sent via Facebook Messenger to identified strongman athletes. The survey consisted of four main areas of inquiry, including demographics and background information, training practices, tapering, and tapering practices. Of the 454 athletes that completed the survey over the 8-week period, 130 athletes responded on Facebook Messenger indicating that they intended to complete, or had completed, the survey. These participants were asked if they could complete the online questionnaire a second time for a test-retest reliability analysis. Sixty-four athletes (mean age 33.3 years, standard deviation [SD] 7.7; mean height 178.2 cm, SD 11.0; mean body mass 103.7 kg, SD 24.8) accepted this invitation and completed the survey for the second time after a minimum 7-day period from the date of their first completion. Agreement between athlete responses was measured using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) and kappa statistics. Confidence intervals (at 95%) were reported for all measures and significance was set at P<.05. RESULTS: Test-retest reliability for demographic and training practices items were significant (P<.001) and showed excellent (ICC range=.84 to .98) and fair to almost perfect agreement (κ range=.37-.85). Moderate to excellent agreements (ICC range=.56-.84; P<.01) were observed for all tapering practice measures except for the number of days athletes started their usual taper before a strongman competition (ICC=.30). When the number of days were categorized with additional analyses, moderate reliability was observed (κ=.43; <.001). Fair to substantial agreement was observed for the majority of tapering practices measures (κrange=.38-.73; P<.001) except for how training frequency (κ=.26) and the percentage and type of resistance training performed, which changed in the taper (κ=.20). Good to excellent agreement (ICC=.62-.93; P<.05) was observed for items relating to strongman events and traditional exercises performed during the taper. Only the time at which the Farmer's Walk was last performed before competition showed poor reliability (ICC=.27). CONCLUSIONS: We have developed a low cost, self-reported, online retrospective questionnaire, which provided stable and reliable answers for most of the demographic, training, and tapering practice questions. The results of this study support the inferences drawn from the Tapering Practices of Strongman Athletes Stud

Options for International Financing of Climate Change Mitigation in Developing Countries

This paper provides a model-based analysis of the potential macro-economic impacts of different options for international financing of climate change mitigation in developing countries. The model used is the multi-region and multi-sector climate change version of the WorldScan model. Following the outcome of the UNFCCC conference in Copenhagen, it makes no specific assumptions about the future international climate regime. The analysis shows that the environmental prospects systematically improve in a transition from the Clean Development Mechanism projects towards a global carbon market, while the opposite is foreseen for the economic costs. The more of a carbon market we have when moving from the project-based CDM to sectoral crediting mechanisms and internationally linked cap-and-trade, the more finance the carbon market will channel to developing countries.european union eu annex I non-annex I climate conference in Copenhagen climate change mitigation clean development mechanism emission trading system the US brazil china india own participation of developing countries sectoral crediting mechanisms hayden Veenendaal Zarnic

Investigation of cloud/water vapor motion winds from geostationary satellite

Work has been primarily focussed on three tasks: (1) comparison of wind fields produced at MSFC with the CO2 autowind/autoeditor system newly installed in NESDIS operations; (2) evaluation of techniques for improved tracer selection through use of cloud classification predictors; and (3) development of height assignment algorithm with water vapor channel radiances. The contract goal is to improve the CIMSS wind system by developing new techniques and assimilating better existing techniques. The work reported here was done in collaboration with the NESDIS scientists working on the operational winds software, so that NASA funded research can benefit NESDIS operational algorithms

A Critical Study of the Doctrine of Revelation as Held by Three Contemporary American Theologians -- Georgia Harkness, Nels F.S. Ferré, and Edwin Lewis -- In the Light of the Wesleyan View

Men are curious beings. They like to know. According to the Biblical account of the fall of man he was tempted and fell at this very point. The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was desired by Adam and Eve to make them wise. The Bible shows that they satisfied this desire to their own detriment. By a little observation, or even introspection, one can see that man still has this desire to know. A trip to the library, to inspect the multitudinous volumes on a myriad of subjects, should convince the most skeptical person of the human desire to know. Men not only want to know, they also want to know how and why they know. The same library would contain many volumes treating the sources and nature of knowledge. Some of the greatest minds in history have dealt with this problem. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Francis Bacon, Locke, Hume, Leibnitz, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel and many other eminent men have seriously studied the problem of knowledge

Increasing the voluntary and community sector’s involvement in Integrated Offender Management(IOM)

As part of an undertaking to increase voluntary and community sector (VCS) involvement in service delivery, the Home Office set up an initiative to provide small grants to VCS organisations to work with IOM partnerships. The Home Office commissioned an evaluation of the initiative which aimed to: explore the strengths and weaknesses of the funding model; identify perceived barriers and facilitators to voluntary and community sector involvement in IOM; explore how the Home Office might best work with the VCS to encourage and support their capacity to work in partnership with statutory agencies; and identify any implications for the delivery of future similar projects

On black hole thermalization, D0 brane dynamics, and emergent spacetime

When matter falls past the horizon of a large black hole, the expectation from string theory is that the configuration thermalizes and the information in the probe is rather quickly scrambled away. The traditional view of a classical unique spacetime near a black hole horizon conflicts with this picture. The question then arises as to what spacetime does the probe actually see as it crosses a horizon, and how does the background geometry imprint its signature onto the thermal properties of the probe. In this work, we explore these questions through an extensive series of numerical simulations of D0 branes. We determine that the D0 branes quickly settle into an incompressible symmetric state -- thermalized within a few oscillations through a process driven entirely by internal non-linear dynamics. Surprisingly, thermal background fluctuations play no role in this mechanism. Signatures of the background fields in this thermal state arise either through fluxes, i.e. black hole hair; or if the probe expands to the size of the horizon -- which we see evidence of. We determine simple scaling relations for the D0 branes' equilibrium size, time to thermalize, lifetime, and temperature in terms of their number, initial energy, and the background fields. Our results are consistent with the conjecture that black holes are the fastest scramblers as seen by Matrix theory.Comment: 43 pages, 12 figures; v2: added analysis showing that results are consistent with and confirm Susskind conjecture on black hole thermalization. Added clarification about strong coupling regime. Citation adde