Search

Despite the wide availability of PrEP, Latino men who have sex with men (LMSM) continue to experience access barriers. Novel HIV prevention research strategies to increase PrEP uptake and adherence among the high incidence populations, such as LMSM who misuse drugs, include social network analyses. This study identified the associations of drug use homophily within LMSM friendship networks and PrEP promotion conversations and described the physical overlap between geographic drug risk areas with conversations of PrEP promotion. Respondent-driven sampling was used to recruit 10 sociocentric networks. Quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) correlations and multiple regression QAPs were used to identify influences of drug use homophily, and geocoding and visualizations to describe drug use polygons and PrEP conversations. Friendship relationships in which both friends used cocaine or marijuana were more likely to report PrEP-related conversations in the past six months. The likelihood of talking about PrEP in the next six months was higher among dyads with cocaine use homophily and ecstasy use homophily, while lower among dyads with marijuana use homophily. Participants reported using marijuana and cocaine throughout Miami-Dade County while ecstasy polygons were mostly in urban areas. The majority of drug polygons associated with PrEP conversations were located in north and central Miami. Future interventions can consider enrolling entire sociocentric friendship groups, configuring friendship networks to connect those without PrEP information to those with information, and incorporating peer leaders.

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has led to pervasive social and economic disruptions. This cross-sectional investigation aimed to evaluate associations between religious/spiritual factors and mental health symptoms among community residents in a southern US state. In particular, we focused on perceptions of God's distance, a salient aspect of religious/spiritual struggle that has received little scrutiny in health research. Methods Participants included 551 respondents assessed during a period of gradual reopening but rising infection rates. Mental health outcomes were assessed using standardized measures of generalized anxiety, depression, and trauma symptoms. Perceptions of an affirming relationship with God, anger at God, and disappointment at God's distance were evaluated using an adapted version of the Attitudes-Toward-God Scale-9. Results In multivariate analyses that accounted for pandemic-related and demographic factors, positive relationships with God were related to diminished symptoms on all three mental heatlh indices (all p's ≤.003), whereas disappointment with God's distance was associated with more pronounced difficulties (all p's ≤.014). Limtations The cross-sectional design precludes causal conclusions. Conclusions Findings suggest that perceived relationships with God are tied to clinically relevant mental health outcomes during periods of major upheaval. Disappointment with God's distance may be an important, understudied dimension of religious/spiritual struggle meriting further investigation.

In this paper, we outline a systematic testing programme developed to help identify excellence in youth basketball players. We examine the links between biological maturation and training experience with anthropometry, body composition, physical performance, technical and tactical skills from five age-cohorts, and characterize, in detail, facets of their environment. In total, 238 young basketball players aged 11-15 years, clustered into five age-cohorts (11, 12, 13, 14, 15 years) were recruited. We assessed measures across three domains: (1) biological [anthropometry, body composition, biological maturation and physical performance]; (2) skill/game proficiency [technical skills and tactical skills]; and (3) contextual [family support, coach knowledge and competence and club context]. The data were analysed using one-way ANOVAs and multivariate analysis of covariance adjusting for biological maturation and training experience. We report significant differences favouring older basketball players on most biological and skill/game proficiency variables. However, differences between age-cohorts in physical performance and technical skills were mitigated after controlling for the effects of both covariates. In conclusion, our findings highlight the important role of both biological maturation and training experience on youth basketball players' performance and development. We discuss the implications of these findings for research as well as for athletes, parents, coaches and clubs.

In radiology, 60% to 80% of diagnostic errors are perceptual. The use of more efficient visual search behaviors is expected to reduce these errors. We collected eye-tracking data from participants with different levels of experience when interpreting chest X-rays during the completion of a pathology-detection task. Eye-tracking measures were assessed in the context of three existing visual search theories from the literature to understand the association between visual search behavior and underlying processes: the long-term working memory theory, the information-reduction hypothesis, and the holistic model of image perception. The most experienced participants (radiology residents) showed the highest level of performance, albeit their visual search behaviors did not differ from the intermediate group. This suggests that radiology residents better processed the represented information on the X-ray, using a visual search strategy similar to the intermediate group. Since similar visual search resulted in more information extraction in the radiology residents compared with the intermediates, we suggest that this result might support the long-term working memory theory. Furthermore, compared with novices, intermediates and radiology residents fixated longer on areas that were more important to avoid missing any pathology, which possibly confirms the information-reduction hypothesis. Finally, the larger distances between fixations observed in more experienced participants could support the holistic model of image perception. In addition, measures of generic skills were related to a lower time cost for switching between global and local information processing. Our findings suggest that the three theories may be complementary in chest X-ray interpretation. Therefore, a unified theory explaining perceptual-cognitive superiority in radiology is considered.

We examined positive youth development within a high performance sport environment. Youth football players (N = 455; Males = 315; Females = 140) completed a range of questionnaires including: the Youth Experiences Survey for Sport; Self-Confidence subscale of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 Revised; Sport Competence Inventory; Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviour in Sport Scale; and the modified Coach-Athlete Relationship questionnaire. The players reported a relatively high level of self-confidence, competence and positive youth experiences. They felt a strong coach-athlete relationship and displayed higher levels of prosocial than antisocial behaviour. Males scored significantly higher than females on self-confidence, perceived self-competence, antisocial behaviour to teammates and opponents, relationship with their coach, and cognitive skills. Findings suggest a relationship between high performance sport environments and positive youth development.

To the north of Hanoi, about a day's drive by car, lies Ha Giang Province, the northernmost region of Vietnam. Ha Giang is remote from the hustle and bustle of daily life, and beyond its eponymous provincial capital towards the border with China, mountains rise quickly to Quan Ba, ‘Heaven's Gate’. The mountains form an uneven landscape of steep‐sided karst rising from deep river‐cut gorges and form a formidable barrier on the northern frontier of Vietnam. Beyond ‘Heaven's Gate’ lies the little travelled region of Dong Van, with its majestic mountains of Palaeozoic strata rising precipitously to the sky. Here, a century ago, the French geologists Henri Mansuy and Jacques Deprat documented early finds of fossils from lower Palaeozoic strata on the border with China.

Learning Analytics (LA) can be employed to identify course-specific factors that hinder student course (outcome) performance, which can be subsequently rectified using targeted interventions. Supplementing interventions with predictive modelling also permits the identification of students who are at-risk of failing the course and encourages their participation. LA findings suggested that a targeted intervention for our course should focus on improving student short answer question (SAQ) performance, which we attempted to achieve by improving their understanding of features pertaining to various SAQ answer standards and how to achieve them using examples of varying scores. Every student was invited to the intervention via a course-wide announcement through the course learning management system. At-risk students identified using predictive models were given an additional invitation in the form of a personalised email. Results suggest that intervention improved student understanding of SAQ performance criteria. The intervention also enhanced student end-of-semester SAQ performance by 12% and 11% for at-risk and no-risk students respectively. Course failure rate was also lower by 26% and 9% among at-risk and no-risk intervention participants. Student perception of the intervention was also positive where an overwhelming majority of participants (96%) found the interventional activity to be useful for their learning and exam preparations.

The Editor-in-Chief and Executive Editors of the Journal of Sports Sciences11 The Editorial Board is comprised of the Editor-in-Chief and five Executive Editors. all identify as male and white.22 A...

There has been growing research interest in the effects that motivation plays in motor learning, and specifically how autonomy, competence, and social relatedness may directly benefit the learning process. Here, we present a preregistered manipulation of autonomy-support by providing learners with choice during the practice of a speed cup-stacking task. One group was given control over when a video demonstration was provided and the viewing speed. A yoked control group received an identical demonstration schedule, but without choice (as their schedule was matched to a participant with choice). Critically, we addressed a gap in the literature by adding a yoked group who was explicitly told that they were being denied choice and that their schedule was chosen by another participant. We found no statistically significant learning differences between groups, despite finding evidence that providing choice increased perceived autonomy. Equivalence tests further showed that although the groups were not statistically equivalent, the effect size is likely too small to practically study the effects of autonomy-support through choice in most motor learning labs. These findings add to a growing body of research that questions a causal role of autonomy-support on motor learning, and the robustness of the so-called self-controlled learning advantage.

Previous research shows that job satisfaction often increases sharply upon initial entry into the new job and gradually falls back to the baseline level over time. In this study we propose that this ‘honeymoon-hangover’ pattern is affected by both the direction of occupational mobility and the individual’s personality in terms of extraversion and neuroticism. Drawing on the British Household Panel Survey which followed 10,000 individuals annually for eighteen years, this study shows that only those who move up the occupational class ladder experience significant ‘honeymoon’ effects, while those who move downwards experience dissatisfaction that lasts for several years after the transition. While the positive effect of upward mobility is not amplified by extraversion, the negative effect of downward mobility is exacerbated by neuroticism. This study highlights the importance of taking into account both situational and dispositional factors for understanding the long-term impact of career change on subjective well-being.

This article explores perceptions of Jansenism in Britain and Ireland in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Grounded in the theology of Cornelius Jansen, the Catholic bishop of Ypres, the wider Jansenist ‘movement’ was a controversial group of theologians, philosophers, clergy and nuns whose disputes with the papacy and French monarchy endured well into the eighteenth century. These centred on questions of divine grace, papal fallibility and even political dissent. In exploring the translation and reception of these ideas, this article foregrounds a moment in the late 1670s when the natural philosopher Robert Boyle and a group of like-minded Protestants attempted to incorporate Jansenist writings into a translation of the Bible into Irish. Enthusiasm for this was based on widely held perceptions that the Jansenists represented a more rational strain of Catholicism which anticipated a broader reform of Catholic Europe. The ensuing ‘Jansenist Preface’ was intended to help unify Christendom by bringing about a more rational religion among Ireland’s Catholics. The shock felt by Boyle and his collaborators upon actually reading Jansenist works, and the reappraisal this engendered, provides the foundation for a wider exploration of how ideas and representations of the Jansenist controversy moved, were translated, and subsequently engaged with across these confessional spaces. In doing so, this article sets British and Irish interests in Jansenism against wider questions of interconfessional dialogue and European reformation, and explores the place of mobility and translation in the framing of the reformation process.

Higher managerial and professional occupations are now the most incentivized occupational class in Britain. It is not yet known whether the rise in pay for performance (PFP) signifies an erosion or enhancement in the ‘service relationship’ that purportedly characterizes these occupations. Taking an occupational class perspective, this article investigates the implications of the rise in PFP for the employment relationship and conditions of work across the occupational structure using two nationally representative datasets. In fixed-effects estimates, PFP is found to heavily substitute base earnings in non-service class occupations, but not in service class occupations. PFP jobs generally have no worse conditions relative to non-PFP jobs within occupational classes. The article concludes the rise in PFP should be conceptualized more as a form of ‘rent sharing’ for service class occupations, enhancing the service relationship, and as a form of ‘risk sharing’ for non-service class occupations.

A substantial number of medical errors in radiology are attributed to failures of perception or decision making, although it is believed that experience (or expertise) might buffer diagnosticians from some types of perceptual-cognitive bias. We examined how the quality of contextual information influences decision making and how underlying perceptual-cognitive processes change as a function of experience and diagnostic accuracy. Twenty-one radiologists dictated their findings on 16 deidentified musculoskeletal radiographic cases while wearing a mobile-eye tracking system. Patient histories were mismatched on a subset of cases to be miscued relative to the correct diagnosis. Experienced radiologists outperformed less-experienced participants, but no systematic differences in gaze behaviors emerged between groups. Miscued case notes increased perceptual-cognitive bias in both groups, resulting in an approximate 40% decrease in diagnostic accuracy. Most errors were judgment errors, meaning participants visually fixated on the abnormality for longer than a second yet still failed to make the correct diagnosis. Findings suggest a physician's confidence in their diagnosis might be misplaced after spending insufficient time extracting relevant information from key areas of the visual display, or when decisions are based primarily on a priori expectations derived from patient histories. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Subjective and objective assessments may be used congruently when making decisions regarding player recruitment in soccer, yet there have been few attempts to examine the level of agreement between these methods. Therefore, we compare levels of agreement between subjective and objective assessments of physical qualities associated with youth soccer performance. In total, 80 male youth soccer players (13.2 ± 1.9 years), and 12 professional coaches volunteered to participate. Players were objectively assessed using five fitness measures: Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test Level 1; Countermovement vertical jump; Functional Movement Screen™; 5/20 m sprint; alongside anthropometric measures. Additionally, coaches subjectively rated each player on the same five physical qualities using 5-point Likert scales. Inter-rater agreement between ratings from lead and assistant coaches was established for each age group. Moreover, Bayesian regression models were fitted to determine how well coach ratings were able to predict fitness test performance. Although inter-rater agreement between lead and assistant coaches was moderate-to-substantial (ω = 0.48-0.68), relationships between coaches subjective rating's and corresponding fitness test performance were only highly related for the highest and lowest performing players. We suggest that while ratings derived from objective and subjective assessment methods may be related when attempting to differentiate between distinct populations, concerns exist when evaluating homogeneous samples using these methods. Our data highlight the benefits of using both types of measures in the talent identification process.

Skilled anticipation is underpinned by the use of kinematic and contextual information. However, few researchers have examined what happens when contextual information suggests an outcome that is different from the event that occurs. We predicted that when contextual information is congruent with the eventual outcome then anticipation would be facilitated, particularly in skilled performers. In contrast, when contextual information is incongruent with the following event, we hypothesised this leads to a confirmation bias on kinematic information and results in decreased anticipation accuracy. We expected the effect to be larger in skilled performers who are more able to utilize context. Altogether, 18 skilled and 18 less-skilled cricket batters anticipated deliveries from bowlers using a temporally occluded video-based task. A consistent level of contextual information was presented across all trials, however, by manipulating event outcome, we created conditions whereby contextual information and event outcome were either congruent or incongruent with one another. There was a significant skill by condition interaction (p < 0.05). The skilled group anticipated significantly more accurately than the less-skilled group on the congruent trials. Both groups anticipated less accurately on incongruent trials but the skilled participants were more negatively affected than the less-skilled group. When event outcome is incongruent with the contextual information that precedes it, the ability of skilled performers to anticipate is negatively affected. Skilled performers place greater emphasis on contextual information and confirmation bias potentially negates the use of the kinematic information that emerges later. Findings enhance understanding of anticipation and suggest that all sources of contextual and kinematic information should be included in training environments.

The ability to disguise and deceive action outcomes was examined by manipulating sports garments. In Experiment 1, those with higher and lower skill levels in anticipation predicted the throw direction of an opponent who wore a garment designed to disguise kinetic-chain information. Higher skill anticipators were more adversely affected by the disguise garment than the lower skill anticipators, demonstrating that disguise removed the anticipation advantage. In Experiment 2, using the same occlusion methodology, the effect of deception was examined using 2 garments designed to create visual illusions of motion across the proximal-to-distal sequence of the thrower's action and compared with a white-garment control. Performances for the deceptive garments were reduced relative to the control garment at the earliest occlusion points for the rightmost targets, but this effect was reversed for the leftmost targets at the earliest occlusion point, suggesting that the visual illusion garments were deceiving participants about motion information from the proximal-to-distal sequence of the action.

Objectives We examined the importance of perceptual-cognitive skills in association football referees. Design and method Using a novel approach, elite (n = 22) and sub-elite referees (n = 21) completed an extended test battery of perceptual-cognitive measures. Participants were assessed using both domain-generic (e.g., sustained attention; working memory) and domain-specific (e.g., pattern recognition) perceptual-cognitive measures within the domain of refereeing. Results A multivariate analysis of variance revealed significant differences between groups on the following domain-specific perceptual-cognitive skill measures, with elite referees performing significantly better than their sub-elite counterparts: overall decision-making performance; anticipation; and recall capacity. No significant differences were reported between the elite and sub-elite referees on domain-generic perceptual-cognitive skill measures. A stepwise discriminant analysis highlighted that a combination of five predictor variables, including four domain-specific and one domain-generic perceptual-cognitive skill measure, significantly discriminated elite and sub-elite referees, with 90.7% of referees being classified correctly. Conclusions Our findings shed light on the skills underpinning perceptual-cognitive expertise in referees and are consistent with the existing findings on expert outfield players. Implications are discussed with regard to testing and training programs for referees and across other professional domains.

Although technical skills are a prerequisite for success in basketball, little is known about how they develop over time. In this study, we model the trajectories of technical skill development in young basketball players and investigate the effects of training experience, training volume, body composition, maturity status, physical performance, and club characteristics on skill development. A total of 264 male basketballers from five age-cohorts (11 to 15 years of age) were followed consecutively over three years using a mixed-longitudinal design. Technical skills, training experience and volume, basic anthropometrics, body composition, biological maturation and physical performance were assessed bi-annually. A multilevel hierarchical linear model was used for trajectory analysis. Non-linear trends (p< 0.01) were observed in speed shot shooting, control dribble, defensive movement, slalom sprint, and slalom dribble. Being more experienced and physically fitter had a significant (p< 0.05) positive effect on technical skill development; greater fat-free mass negatively affected skills demanding quick running and rapid changes of direction with or without the ball (p< 0.05). Training volume and biological age did not explain differences in technical skill development (p> 0.05). Moreover, belonging to different clubs had no significant influence on the technical skills trajectories of players. Our findings highlight the important role that individual differences play, over and beyond club structure, in developing skills. Findings improve our understanding on how technical skills develop during adolescence through training, growth, and biological maturation.

We explore developmental pathways to excellence in sub-elite adolescent alpine ski racing by exploring athletes' engagement in practice activities that characterize sport specialization and/or diversification. Moreover, we extend previous research by using more refined linear mixed-effects models to examine changes in practice and performance data over time rather than relying on the less sensitive repeated measures ANOVAs typically used in previous research. Altogether, 174 individuals (M = 15.9 yrs, women = 91) from professional development academies in the United States completed a sport-specific Practice History Questionnaire (PHQ). We recorded national rankings in technical events to assess performance. Mixed-effects models indicated that hours in ski-related activities generally increased over time (linear β = 1.38, p's

Since 2009, the Working Group on the ‘Anthropocene’ (or, commonly, AWG for Anthropocene Working Group), has been critically analysing the case for formalization of this proposed but still informal geological time unit. The study to date has mainly involved establishing the overall nature of the Anthropocene as a potential chronostratigraphic/geochronologic unit, and exploring the stratigraphic proxies, including several that are novel in geology, that might be applied to its characterization and definition. A preliminary summary of evidence and interim recommendations was presented by the Working Group at the 35th International Geological Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, in August 2016, together with results of voting by members of the AWG indicating the current balance of opinion on major questions surrounding the Anthropocene. The majority opinion within the AWG holds the Anthropocene to be stratigraphically real, and recommends formalization at epoch/series rank based on a mid-20th century boundary. Work is proceeding towards a formal proposal based upon selection of an appropriate Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP), as well as auxiliary stratotypes. Among the array of proxies that might be used as a primary marker, anthropogenic radionuclides associated with nuclear arms testing are the most promising; potential secondary markers include plastic, carbon isotope patterns and industrial fly ash. All these proxies have excellent global or near-global correlation potential in a wide variety of sedimentary bodies, both marine and non-marine.

Organisations are increasingly taking an interest in personality as certain traits purportedly predict desirable attitudes and behaviours. We examine the relationship between one increasingly popular construct—core self-evaluations (CSEs)—and earnings. We argue that if high levels of CSEs really are valuable traits, then high CSE individuals should be observed to earn more than those with moderate or low levels of CSEs. Using the nationally representative British Household Panel Survey, we find little evidence that individuals with very high CSEs earn more than those with only moderate levels. However, we do find the existence of a pay penalty for individuals very low in CSEs. Similar patterns emerge for the Big Five model of traits. Although the exact mechanisms remain unclear, our findings imply that organisations should play a greater role in the career development of employees scoring lowly in “desirable” traits—especially in a context of increasing career fluidity.

Occupations traditionally played a central role in stratification accounts. In the wake of the Great Recession, debates regarding the extent and nature of occupational stratification have been reinvigorated. An exploration of occupational wage stratification patterns defined by both detailed occupational unit groups and the broader occupational class categories of the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) reveals the proportion of wage inequality between occupations and occupational classes has remained broadly stable 1997 to 2015. No compelling evidence is found for growing wage inequalities between detailed occupations within NS-SEC categories. This article underlines the continued utility of occupations and particularly the NS-SEC grouping of them in describing the structure of stratification in contemporary Britain.

We examined whether anticipation is underpinned by perceiving structured patterns or postural cues and whether the relative importance of these processes varied as a function of task constraints. Skilled and less-skilled soccer players completed anticipation paradigms in video-film and point light display (PLD) format. Skilled players anticipated more accurately regardless of display condition, indicating that both perception of structured patterns between players and postural cues contribute to anticipation. However, the Skill×Display interaction showed skilled players' advantage was enhanced in the video-film condition, suggesting that they make better use of postural cues when available during anticipation. We also examined anticipation as a function of proximity to the ball. When participants were near the ball, anticipation was more accurate for video-film than PLD clips, whereas when the ball was far away there was no difference between viewing conditions. Perceiving advance postural cues appears more important than structured patterns when the ball is closer to the observer, whereas the reverse is true when the ball is far away. Various perceptual-cognitive skills contribute to anticipation with the relative importance of perceiving structured patterns and advance postural cues being determined by task constraints and the availability of perceptual information.

In 1995 I Taught a Course in New Zealand Literature at Tokyo University. The Students Were Attentive, and Curious About New Zealand, but they found my Kiwi English hard to follow, being accustomed to American or British varieties. I wondered about their seeming tolerance recently while teaching a similar course to undergraduates back home, at Victoria University, in Wellington, when one of the Maori students complimented a Pākehā (New Zealand European) colleague for her Maori pronunciation. Like most Pākehā, I have a rudimentary grasp of Māori, enough to be familiar with the words and phrases that have entered everyday speech and those in the poetry and fiction I teach. But I cannot conduct a conversation in Māori or read a Māori text, and I am as embarrassed by the irritation that my pronunciation of te reo (the Māori language) causes Māori speakers as I was by the difficulty my rising terminals and strange accent posed for competent English speakers in Japan.

In Celtic Studies—short on literary monographs in comparison with related fields—the Festschrift has often been the vehicle for major, seminal research articles. In this valuable volume, offered in...

The fear of falling, or mobility-related anxiety, profoundly affects gait, but is challenging to study without risk to participants.To determine the efficacy of using virtual reality (VR) to manipulate illusions of height and consequently, elevated mobility-related anxiety when turning. Moreover, we examined if mobility-related anxiety effects decline across time in VR environments as participants habituate.Altogether, 10 healthy participants (five women, mean (standard deviation) age = 28.5 (8.5) years) turned at self-selected and fast speeds on a 2.2 m walkway under two simulated environments: (1) ground elevation; and (2) high elevation (15 m above ground). Peak turning velocity was recorded using inertial sensors and participants rated their cognitive (i.e., worry) and somatic (i.e., tension) anxiety, confidence, and mental effort.A significant Height × Speed × Trial interaction (p = 0.013) was detected for peak turning velocity. On average, the virtual height illusion decreased peak turning velocity, especially at fast speeds. At low elevation, participants decreased speed across trials, but not significantly (p = 0.381), but at high elevation, they significantly increased speed across trials (p = 0.001). At self-selected speeds, no effects were revealed (all p 0.188) and only effects for Height were observed for fast speeds (p 0.001). After turning at high elevation, participants reported greater cognitive (p = 0.008) and somatic anxiety (p = 0.007), reduced confidence (p = 0.021), and greater mental effort (p 0.001) compared to the low elevation.VR can safely induce mobility-related anxiety during dynamic motor tasks, and habituation effects from repeated exposure should be carefully considered in experimental designs and analysis.

Objectives\ud Our aim was to assess the developmental activities that best define elite players in female soccer in one of the top nations for female soccer in the world. In addition to measurement of career practice hours in soccer and other sports, we quantified hours engaged in activities judged high in challenge.\ud \ud Design\ud and methods: Adult National-team (n = 21) and lesser-skilled Varsity (n = 24) female soccer players in Canada provided career estimates of hours in soccer and other sports during childhood and adolescence. Subjective ratings of challenge were provided for each activity across development, providing an indication of practice quality.\ud \ud Results\ud Both groups engaged in more coach-led soccer activities (practice, competition) than soccer play and spent the majority of their time in childhood in soccer compared to other sports. National players participated in more play that was more challenging and engaged in more moderate to high challenge practice, when compared to Varsity players.\ud \ud Conclusions\ud The importance of early engagement in soccer specific developmental activities for elite female soccer players in Canada was highlighted, as previously reported in male players. However, hours in soccer play during childhood were low in both groups and were lower than estimates from male players. Although the data do not fit squarely with any one pathway, they are mostly consistent with an early specialization route.

This chapter outlines the role of performance analysis within the coaching process. It highlights how video feedback is used as a tool to develop self-reflection and game intelligence. The chapter discusses the theoretical and conceptual underpinning to these interventions by reviewing research on meta-cognition and perceptual-cognitive adaptations that support the use and effectiveness of performance analysis in developing anticipation and decision making. It presents some suggestions for future research, so that can enhance scientific understanding of the role and effectiveness of performance analysis in developing perceptual-cognitive skills. Performance analysis in sport is more accessible to coaches, clubs, and organisations due to rapid growth in technology and the development of enhanced analysis software. Coaches perceive video-based performance analysis to be beneficial to the coaching process as a support tool that facilitates learning and develops a mutual understanding between the coach and player.

This chapter examines how best to structure multiple trials during anticipation and decision making training programmes to facilitate improvements in retention and transfer. It focuses on structure of practice for variations of the same skill, specifically addressing the variability of practice hypothesis and constant vs. variable practice. The chapter discusses the notion of specificity in practice structure with reference to research highlighting the importance of contextual information during practice. The typical perceptual-cognitive training programme involves multiple trials in which participants respond to sport-specific actions. The chapter reviews research demonstrating the effect of practice structure on the acquisition of perceptual-cognitive skills when multiple skills are presented during the intervention. In the perceptual-cognitive training literature the retention test and, if included, the transfer test are typically structured in a similar manner to the practice conditions. The review of the literature demonstrates the potential benefit of perceptual-cognitive skills training through the use of laboratory- and field-based protocols.

This chapter considers whether the ability to perceive and recognise patterns may facilitate anticipation in sport. It reviews empirical research that has attempted to uncover the specific processes and mechanisms that underpin the perceptual-cognitive skill of pattern recognition or familiarity detection. The chapter examines contemporary research that highlights the dynamic nature of perceptual-cognitive expertise in sport and identifies the specific contexts and situations in which pattern recognition is likely to be an important component of expert perception. It outlines some challenges and highlights recommendations for future research. Scientists have suggested that experts develop highly specialised knowledge structures through extended practice in the domain that enable them to identify structure and familiarity. The perception of relative motion is important for detecting familiarity and recognising patterns; however, in sporting contexts the global pattern of play at any given point in time is comprised of a number of smaller localised patterns.

The capacity to perceive color in the peripheral field has attracted research interest for more than a decade. There is evidence that sensitivity to red-green color variations is lower than for yellow-blue in peripheral vision. Whether, and to what extent, color vision affects the visual focus of attention, which is normally much smaller than the visual field, has not yet been examined. We used a sport-specific decision-making task to assess whether the color of the jersey worn by players appearing in the periphery influences decision making by affecting the attentional and perceptual capabilities. Pairs of players wearing chromatic (blue, yellow, red, and green) and achromatic (black, white) colored jerseys were briefly presented across a range of visual angles on a 6 m concave immersive screen. Participants were required to decide to whom to pass and recall relevant information. Findings indicate that color perception changes vary with increasing visual angle, but that the focus of attention is too small to be influenced by jersey color sensitivity. Decision-making performance decreases with increasing visual angle, but is not influenced by color. The implications for decision-making processes in sport and other professional domains are discussed.

The notion of job quality has been at the forefront of academic and policy-debates, best crystallized in the pursuit to create more but also better jobs as a route to economic prosperity. Motivated by the need to better understand how occupational-level structures shape job quality, we derive predictions from the occupational closure literature to explore how occupational licensing – the strongest and fastest growing form of closure – shapes job quality in Britain. Using nationally-representative data over several decades, we find that the effects of licensing tend to be confined to jobs in the most stringently-licensed occupations, with such jobs having higher pay, lower job insecurity, greater opportunities for skill-use, and higher continuous learning requirements – relative to jobs in similarly-skilled unlicensed occupations. Of particular concern, however, is the finding that jobs in stringently-licensed occupations are also characterized by significantly lower task discretion and significantly higher job demands. Overall, our study adds a new dimension to job quality debates by highlighting the role of emergent occupational-level institutional structures in shaping job quality, and further, that despite the overall positive effects closure strategies have, they may come at a cost to certain critical intrinsic dimensions of job quality.

ISSUES ADDRESSED To establish the views of clinicians on the feasibility and effectiveness of using a novel lifestyle prescription form (LRx) which requires co-signing by clinician and patient and is uniquely based on the design of the standard drug prescription form, in the primary and secondary health care settings. METHODS Thirty-six participants were issued with a "prescription" pad, of 20 LRx scripts, for 1 month and requested to issue an LRx prescription to patients they deemed suitable during their consultation, recording their reason for use of the LRx. Each clinician was then asked to complete a comprehensive feedback questionnaire. RESULTS Feedback of the LRx was overwhelmingly positive. The script was viewed as a more effective way to convey and support cardiovascular lifestyle advice, than usual care. Forty per cent (196 of 480) of the LRx scripts that were provided to primary and secondary care clinicians during the study period were issued. In most consultations, the LRx script was issued to reaffirm dietary advice. Nurses and health care assistants were more likely than doctors to use the LRx in response to a request for lifestyle advice from a patient. CONCLUSIONS The LRx may be a useful addition to the clinician's communication toolkit to stimulate lifestyle behaviour changes in their patients. The main barrier to use in the study was lack of consultation time. SO WHAT?: Issuing the LRx is a method of solidifying lifestyle advice that clinicians could utilise, providing them with another tool in their behaviour change arsenal, particularly with familiarity with the tool.

This article explores the relationship between the job characteristics underlying the Goldthorpe model of social class (work monitoring difficulty and human asset specificity) and those underlying theories of technological change (routine and analytical tasks) highlighted as key drivers for growing inequality. Analysis of the 2012 British Skills and Employment Survey demonstrates monitoring difficulty and asset specificity predict National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) membership and employment relations in ways expected by the Goldthorpe model, but the role of asset specificity is partially confounded by analytical tasks. It concludes that while the Goldthorpe model continues to provide a useful descriptive tool of inequality-producing processes and employment relations in the labour market, examining underlying job characteristics directly is a promising avenue for future research in understanding over time dynamics in the evolution of occupational inequalities.

We examined the informational value of biological motion from the arm in predicting the location of a thrown ball. In three experiments, participants were classified as being skilled and less skilled based on their actual performance on the task (i.e., using a within-task criterion). We then presented participants with a range of stick figure representations and required them to predict throw direction. In Experiment 1, we presented stick figure movies of a full body throwing action, right throwing arm plus left shoulder and throwing arm only. Participants were able to anticipate throw direction above chance under all conditions irrespective of perceptual skill level, with the perceptually skilled participants excelling under full body conditions. In Experiment 2, we neutralized dynamical differences in motion to opposing throw directions from the shoulder, elbow and wrist of the throwing arm. Neutralizing the wrist location negatively affected anticipation performance in all participants reducing accuracy to below chance. In Experiment 3, we presented movies of the motion wrist location alone and the upper section of the throwing arm (shoulder-elbow). Participants were able to successfully anticipate above chance in these latter two conditions. Our findings suggest that motion of the throwing arm contains multiple sources of information that can help facilitate the anticipation of goal-directed action. Perceptually skilled participants were superior in extracting informational value from motion at both the local and global levels when compared to less skilled counterparts.

Previously, investigators have sought to clarify the role of psychological factors in the development of expertise across numerous sport domains; however, almost no empirical work exists on winter sport athletes. Using a retrospective design, we examined associations between psychological traits, engagement in practice-related activities, and performance among sub-elite level, youth alpine skiers. A total of 169 skiers (88 women) enrolled at professional development academies in the United States completed a battery of questionnaires assessing practice history profiles and performance milestones, as well as various psychological factors (e.g., mental toughness, grit, perfectionism). Performance was assessed using national ranking across both speed and technical disciplines. In addition to linear models and MANOVA/MANCOVA tests, linear mixed-effect regressions were utilized to assess relationships between psychological factors, practice hours, and ranking over time. Higher scores on perfectionistic strivings (personal standards) were associated with improved performance. Also, grit was associated with increased engagement in individual practice hours. Coach-led one-on-one practice hours were associated with increased perfectionistic concerns (e.g., parental pressure), while indirect exposure (e.g., attending events without competing) was associated with decreased mental toughness. Findings highlight potentially important associations between athletes’ dispositional characteristics, prolonged ski engagement, and performance trajectory.

Occupations are central to the stratification system, including the stratification of wages. One compelling explanation for how occupations relate to the wage structure is through their task content. We consider the relationships between occupational tasks and the wage structure directly using unconditional quantile regression methods, examining a broader range of occupational tasks than normally considered. We find that occupational tasks have varied implications for the wage structure in ways not always consistent with dominant technology-based explanations. We conclude that the task-based approach to conceptualising how occupations determine the wage structure is a promising avenue for future research and outline some recommendations on how to proceed.