Teesside University

About: Teesside University is a education organization based out in Middlesbrough, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 2155 authors who have published 5540 publications receiving 118373 citations. The organization is also known as: University of Teesside.

Standards for Ethics in Sport and Exercise Science Research: 2018 Update

Abstract: For publication in the International Journal of Sports Medicine (IJSM), studies involving human participants or animals must have been conducted in accordance with recognised ethical standards and national/international laws. At the very first stage of paper submission, authors are required to adhere to these and all other relevant standards and laws. In the 21st Century, research opportunities, approaches and environments are in a continual state of flux, and this is also the case for the associated ethical issues. In the original 2009 IJSM editorial [2], we described the ethical considerations embedded into national/international laws and provided specific guidance on the ethical issues which commonly arise in Sports Medicine research. In 2011, this information was updated to recognise the ethical principles of other professional associations and treaties when conducting research involving human participants [3]. Additional information was also provided on the use of Laboratory Animals in research, and on the links between sample size and research ethics. In the second update, published in 2013, we elaborated on the ethical issues relating to the investigation of doping agents; the use of animals for answering research questions that appear to be solely focussed on the enhancement of athletic performance; and sample size in the context of the burden to individual research participants [4]. In 2015, we updated some of the guidelines to account for the changes made to the Declaration of Helsinki in 2013, covered the use of social media in research, provided guidance on how researchers can feed back their incidental and pertinent findings to research participants, covered some of the issues relating to studies involving children, and outlined the difference between a full and pilot study in terms of desired number of participants [5]. In this, our new update for 2018 onwards, we provide the following revisions and additions, labelled with the word “Update” in bold text at various points in this paper; ▪ Clarification of the issues surrounding the use of a gatekeeper for accessing personal information on participants. ▪ Clarification of some of the requirements for research with participants who are either too young to give a valid consent (under relevant local Statute) themselves and/or who lack the mental capacity to give an informed consent. ▪ Clarification of the expectations for the presentation and content of information given to facilitate informed consent/ assent. ▪ Highlighting of the obligation to breach confidentiality in certain circumstances and the importance of communicating all relevant process to the potential participant. ▪ Clarification on the use of person identifiable information including a reminder of the upcoming (May 2018) changes to legislation governing how personal data may be accessed and processed in research in the European Union (https://www. eugdpr.org/). ▪ Provision of advice surrounding the increasing calls for open access data, including the resulting data storage issues. ▪ Update on the ethical and legal considerations involved in secondary analysis (retrospective data) studies. ▪ Clarification on the use of placebos in research. ▪ Coverage of the expectations for studies that involve participant deception (i. e. where fully informed consent is not obtained in advance of participation). ▪ Elaboration of the sample size issues relevant to research ethics. Harriss DJ et al. Standards for Ethics in ... Int J Sports Med 2017; 00: 00–00

Optimizing performance by improving core stability and core strength

Abstract: Core stability and core strength have been subject to research since the early 1980s. Research has highlighted benefits of training these processes for people with back pain and for carrying out everyday activities. However, less research has been performed on the benefits of core training for elite athletes and how this training should be carried out to optimize sporting performance. Many elite athletes undertake core stability and core strength training as part of their training programme, despite contradictory findings and conclusions as to their efficacy. This is mainly due to the lack of a gold standard method for measuring core stability and strength when performing everyday tasks and sporting movements. A further confounding factor is that because of the differing demands on the core musculature during everyday activities (low load, slow movements) and sporting activities (high load, resisted, dynamic movements), research performed in the rehabilitation sector cannot be applied to the sporting environment and, subsequently, data regarding core training programmes and their effectiveness on sporting performance are lacking. There are many articles in the literature that promote core training programmes and exercises for performance enhancement without providing a strong scientific rationale of their effectiveness, especially in the sporting sector. In the rehabilitation sector, improvements in lower back injuries have been reported by improving core stability. Few studies have observed any performance enhancement in sporting activities despite observing improvements in core stability and core strength following a core training programme. A clearer understanding of the roles that specific muscles have during core stability and core strength exercises would enable more functional training programmes to be implemented, which may result in a more effective transfer of these skills to actual sporting activities.

Chemical Sensors for Electronic Nose Systems

Abstract: Chemical sensors have been widely used for the analysis of volatile organic compounds. Employing chemical sensors in an array format with pattern recognition provides a higher degree of selectivity and reversibility leading to an extensive range of applications. When such systems are used for odour analysis they are termed ‘electronic noses’. Application of electronic noses ranges from the food industry, medical industry to environmental monitoring and process control. Many types of different gas sensors have been employed in the array. These include conducting polymers, metal oxide semiconductors, piezoelectric, optical fluorescence and amperometric gas sensors The transducer principle of these sensors is varied and is discussed in detail within this review. Examples of the current trends in sensor array technology as well as the applications to which the sensor-based noses have been applied are also discussed.

Personalized ranking metric embedding for next new POI recommendation

Abstract: The rapidly growing of Location-based Social Networks (LBSNs) provides a vast amount of check-in data, which enables many services, e.g., point-of-interest (POI) recommendation. In this paper, we study the next new POI recommendation problem in which new POIs with respect to users' current location are to be recommended. The challenge lies in the difficulty in precisely learning users' sequential information and personalizing the recommendation model. To this end, we resort to the Metric Embedding method for the recommendation, which avoids drawbacks of the Matrix Factorization technique. We propose a personalized ranking metric embedding method (PRME) to model personalized check-in sequences. We further develop a PRME-G model, which integrates sequential information, individual preference, and geographical influence, to improve the recommendation performance. Experiments on two real-world LBSN datasets demonstrate that our new algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art next POI recommendation methods.

An exploration of the use of simple statistics to measure consensus and stability in Delphi studies

Abstract: The criteria for stopping Delphi studies are often subjective. This study aimed to examine whether consensus and stability in the Delphi process can be ascertained by descriptive evaluation of trends in participants' views. A three round email-based Delphi required participants (n = 12) to verify their level of agreement with 8 statements, write comments on each if they considered it necessary and rank the statements for importance. Each statement was analysed quantitatively by the percentage of agreement ratings, importance rankings and the amount of comments made for each statement, and qualitatively using thematic analysis. Importance rankings between rounds were compared by calculating Kappa values to observe trends in how the process impacts on subject's views. Evolution of consensus was shown by increase in agreement percentages, convergence of range with standard deviations of importance ratings, and a decrease in the number of comments made. Stability was demonstrated by a trend of increasing Kappa values. Following the original use of Delphi in social sciences, Delphi is suggested to be an effective way to gain and measure group consensus in healthcare. However, the proposed analytical process should be followed to ensure maximum validity of results in Delphi methodology for improved evidence of consensual decision-making.