University of Lincoln

About: University of Lincoln is a education organization based out in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 2341 authors who have published 7025 publications receiving 124797 citations.

A time-motion analysis of professional basketball to determine the relationship between three activity profiles: high, medium and low intensity and the length of the time spent on court.

Abstract: The aim of this study was to determine an exercise to rest profile for basketball, identifying if a relationship existed between total time spent on court and the intensity levels of the players. Five BBL matches (n =6) were filmed using footage which was captured and observed using the Noldus Observer Pro system. The total time and duration of high, medium and low intensity activity was configured with average time bouts of 1.5 s (± 1) for high intensity, 3.4 s (± 0.3) for medium intensity and 4.4 s (± 0.4) for low intensity exercise. Results indicated an exercise to rest ratio of 1:4:5 between high, medium and low exercise. No significant relationship was evident between the activity profiles high, medium and low intensity exercise and the total time spent on court with correlation values < 0.17 (p<0.05). The results provide evidence which refutes previous findings highlighting the link between medium and low intensity activities and their role in energy provision through oxidative metabolism as opposed to anaerobic energy pathways. These findings have a number of implications for conditioning and tactical considerations of basketball.

Show me your moves! Conveying navigation intention of a mobile robot to humans

Abstract: When humans and mobile robots share the same space, one of their challenges is to navigate around each other and manage their mutual navigational intents. While humans have developed excellent skills in inferring their counterpart's intentions via a number of implicit and non-verbal cues, making navigation also in crowds an ease, this kind of effective and efficient communication often falls short in human-robot encounters. In this paper, two alternative approaches to convey navigational intent of a mobile robot to humans in a shared environment are proposed and analysed. The first is utilising anthropomorphic features of the mobile robot to realise an implicit joint attention using gaze to represent the direction of navigational intent. In the second approach, a more technical design adopting the semantics of car's turn indicators, has been implemented. The paper compares both approaches with each other and against a control behaviour without any communication of intent. Both approaches show statistically significant differences in comparison to the control behaviour. However, the second approach using indicators has shown as being more effective in conveying the intent and also has a higher positive impact on the comfort of the humans encountering the robot.

Professional Governance and Public Control A Comparison of Healthcare in the United Kingdom and Germany

Abstract: Governments across the western world face new demands to achieve greater efficiency and responsiveness in public services. The transformations are most radical and challenging in healthcare where both cost effectiveness and patient safety are major issues. Drawing on the National Health Service in the UK and the corporatist system in Germany, this article compares the dynamics of changing governance and public control in the context of different national and institutional arrangements. The analysis is based on studies carried out by each of the authors and secondary sources. The article addresses three issues: transformations in the governance of physicians who held a dominant position in healthcare; policies to promote the role of service users in defining the ‘public interest’ and influencing the decisions of providers; and the professionalization and regulation of a broader range of health professions. The comparison between the two countries illustrates different institutional pathways to change and different conceptualizations of the ‘public interest’ and how it is represented. This demonstrates that not only the government and service users, but also a variety of professional groups, in advancing their own professional projects, may still fundamentally shape the nature and form of public control and new governance practices.

Association of MTHFR C677T genotype with ischemic stroke is confined to cerebral small vessel disease subtype

Abstract: Background and Purpose— Elevated plasma homocysteine levels are associated with stroke. However, this might be a reflection of bias or confounding because trials have failed to demonstrate an effect from homocysteine lowering in stroke patients, although a possible benefit has been suggested in lacunar stroke. Genetic studies could potentially overcome these issues because genetic variants are inherited randomly and are fixed at conception. Therefore, we tested the homocysteine levels–associated genetic variant MTHFR C677T for association with magnetic resonance imaging–confirmed lacunar stroke and compared this with associations with large artery and cardioembolic stroke subtypes. Methods— We included 1359 magnetic resonance imaging–confirmed lacunar stroke cases, 1824 large artery stroke cases, 1970 cardioembolic stroke cases, and 14 448 controls, all of European ancestry. Furthermore, we studied 3670 ischemic stroke patients in whom white matter hyperintensities volume was measured. We tested MTHFR C677T for association with stroke subtypes and white matter hyperintensities volume. Because of the established association of homocysteine with hypertension, we additionally stratified for hypertension status. Results— MTHFR C677T was associated with lacunar stroke ( P =0.0003) and white matter hyperintensity volume ( P =0.04), but not with the other stroke subtypes. Stratifying the lacunar stroke cases for hypertension status confirmed this association in hypertensive individuals ( P =0.0002), but not in normotensive individuals ( P =0.30). Conclusions— MTHFR C677T was associated with magnetic resonance imaging–confirmed lacunar stroke, but not large artery or cardioembolic stroke. The association may act through increased susceptibility to, or interaction with, high blood pressure. This heterogeneity of association might explain the lack of effect of lowering homocysteine in secondary prevention trials which included all strokes.

The effects of a gamified human resource management system on job satisfaction and engagement

Abstract: The pressures associated with the speed of competition, including the digitalization of workspaces, are increasing the need for modern organizations to drive employee satisfaction and engagement. Integrating gamification into the workplace has been identified as a possible strategy to promote employee participation, engagement, and loyalty. Gamification is defined as the application of game design elements in a non-game context, which, in this case, is the workplace. This article presents a 12-month longitudinal study designed to investigate the role of gamification in fostering job satisfaction and engagement. The findings from a sample of 398 employees, including both treatment and control groups from a large multinational company that introduced a gamified human resource management (HRM) system, revealed the effects of certain gamification experiential outcomes related to driving employee satisfaction and engagement at work. Overall, our study highlights the possibilities of employing gamified HRM systems to influence employee attitudes and behavior at work.