Effect of recovery modality on 4-hour repeated treadmill running performance and changes in physiological variables

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of three different recovery modalities - active (ACT), passive (PAS) and contrast temperature water immersion (CTW) - on the performance of repeated treadmill running, lactate concentration and pH. Fourteen males performed two pairs of treadmill runs to exhaustion at 120% and 90% of peak running speed (PRS) over a 4-hour period. ACT, PAS or CTW was performed for 15-min after the first pair of treadmill runs. ACT consisted of running at 40% PRS, PAS consisted of standing stationary and CTW consisted of alternating between 60-s cold (10°C) and 120-s hot (42°C) water immersion. Run times were converted to time to cover set distance using critical power. Type of recovery modality did not have a significant effect on change in time to cover 400 m (Mean±SD; ACT 2.7±3.6 s, PAS 2.9±4.2 s, CTW 4.2±6.9 s), 1000 m (ACT 2.2±4.0 s, PAS 4.8±8.6 s, CTW 2.1±7.2 s) or 5000 m (ACT 1.4±29.0 s, PAS 16.7±58.5 s, CTW 11.7±33.0 s). Post exercise blood lactate concentration was lower in ACT and CTW compared with PAS. Participants reported an increased perception of recovery in the CTW compared with ACT and PAS. Blood pH was not significantly influenced by recovery modality. Data suggest both ACT and CTW reduce lactate accumulation after high intensity running, but high intensity treadmill running performance is returned to baseline 4-hours after the initial exercise bout regardless of the recovery strategy employed.

Acquisition of expertise in cricket fast bowling : perceptions of expert players and coaches

Objectives: Experiential knowledge of elite athletes and coaches was investigated to reveal insights on expertise acquisition in cricket fast bowling. Design: Twenty-one past or present elite cricket fast bowlers and coaches of national or international level were interviewed using an in-depth, open-ended, semi-structured approach. Methods: Participants were asked about specific factors which they believed were markers of fast bowling expertise potential. Of specific interest was the relative importance of each potential component of fast bowling expertise and how components interacted or developed over time. Results: The importance of intrinsic motivation early in development was highlighted, along with physical, psychological and technical attributes. Results supported a multiplicative and interactive complex systems model of talent development in fast bowling, in which component weightings were varied due to individual differences in potential experts. Dropout rates in potential experts were attributed to misconceived current talent identification programmes and coaching practices, early maturation and physical attributes, injuries and lack of key psychological attributes and skills. Conclusions: Data are consistent with a dynamical systems model of expertise acquisition in fast bowling, with numerous trajectories available for talent development. Further work is needed to relate experiential and theoretical knowledge on expertise in other sports.

Biobanking of blood and bone marrow : emerging challenges for custodians of public resources

The Australian Bone Marrow Donor Registry (ABMDR) is a publicly funded company that is part of an international network that facilitates unrelated bone marrow transplantation. This role means that the ABMDR has access to a large biospecimen repository, therefore making it a highly valuable research resource. Recognising the potential value of these biospecimens for research purposes, the ABMDR is in the process of determining whether, and how, to share its biospecimens with other biobanks. While this would undoubtedly be of value to the scientific community, and ultimately to the wider community, it would also inevitably transform the role of an institution whose primary role is therapeutic, and would compromise the degree of control that a custodian has over donated material. This article describe the challenges confronting the ABMDR, and organisations like it, in balancing their duties to donors, patients, researchers and the general public. These problems have led inevitably to the use of "property" rights language in the discussion of these issues but notions of gift, ownership, trusteeship and transfer might also be considered.

Governing young people’s drug use: Crime, harm and contemporary drug use practices

Since the nineteenth century, drug use has been variously understood as a problem of epidemiology, psychiatry, physiology, and criminality. Consequently drug research tends to be underpinned by assumptions of inevitable harm, and is often directed towards preventing drug use or solving problems. These constructions of the drug problem have generated a range of law enforcement responses, drug treatment technologies and rehabilitative programs that are intended to prevent drug related harm and resituate drug users in the realm of neo-liberal functional citizenship. This paper is based on empirical research of young people’s illicit drug use in Brisbane. The research rejects the idea of a pre-given drug problem, and seeks to understand how drugs have come to be defined as a problem. Using Michel Foucault’s conceptual framework of governmentality, the paper explores how the governance of illicit drugs, through law, public health and medicine, intersects with self-governance to shape young people’s drug use practices. It is argued that constructions of the drug problem shape what drug users believe about themselves and the ways in which they use drugs. From this perspective, drug use practices are ‘practices of the self’, formed through an interaction of the government of illicit drugs and the drug users own subjectivity.

Systematic evaluation of GoSoapBox in tertiary education : a student response system for improving learning experiences and outcomes

There is currently a wide range of research into the recent introduction of student response systems in higher education and tertiary settings (Banks 2006; Kay and Le Sange, 2009; Beatty and Gerace 2009; Lantz 2010; Sprague and Dahl 2009). However, most of this pedagogical literature has generated ‘how to’ approaches regarding the use of ‘clickers’, keypads, and similar response technologies. There are currently no systematic reviews on the effectiveness of ‘GoSoapBox’ – a more recent, and increasingly popular student response system – for its capacity to enhance critical thinking, and achieve sustained learning outcomes. With rapid developments in teaching and learning technologies across all undergraduate disciplines, there is a need to obtain comprehensive, evidence-based advice on these types of technologies, their uses, and overall efficacy. This paper addresses this current gap in knowledge. Our teaching team, in an undergraduate Sociology and Public Health unit at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), introduced GoSoapBox as a mechanism for discussing controversial topics, such as sexuality, gender, economics, religion, and politics during lectures, and to take opinion polls on social and cultural issues affecting human health. We also used this new teaching technology to allow students to interact with each other during class – both on both social and academic topics – and to generate discussions and debates during lectures. The paper reports on a data-driven study into how this interactive online tool worked to improve engagement and the quality of academic work produced by students. This paper will firstly, cover the recent literature reviewing student response systems in tertiary settings. Secondly, it will outline the theoretical framework used to generate this pedagogical research. In keeping with the social and collaborative features of Web 2.0 technologies, Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT) will be applied here to investigate the effectiveness of GoSoapBox as an online tool for improving learning experiences and the quality of academic output by students. Bandura has emphasised the Internet as a tool for ‘self-controlled learning’ (Bandura 2001), as it provides the education sector with an opportunity to reconceptualise the relationship between learning and thinking (Glassman & Kang 2011). Thirdly, we describe the methods used to implement the use of GoSoapBox in our lectures and tutorials, and which aspects of the technology we drew on for learning purposes, as well as the methods for obtaining feedback from the students about the effectiveness or otherwise of this tool. Fourthly, we report cover findings from an examination of all student/staff activity on GoSoapBox as well as reports from students about the benefits and limitations of it as a learning aid. We then display a theoretical model that is produced via an iterative analytical process between SLT and our data analysis for use by academics and teachers across the undergraduate curriculum. The model has implications for all teachers considering the use of student response systems to improve the learning experiences of their students. Finally, we consider some of the negative aspects of GoSoapBox as a learning aid.

Editorial : Law and ethics for the bioeconomy and beyond

The convergence of biological, technological and economic realms of life has fostered the development of the bioeconomy as a new feature of contemporary society. As the meaning of life and the human body is redefined in the context of the bioeconomy, new challenges have emerged for ethics and law In the face of these challenges, it is imperative that the currency of regulatory frameworks is maintained through the processes of regular review and update. The National Health and Medical Research Council has recently released the new National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research to provide guidance for health research in Australia. The new National Statement will play an important part in supporting innovation and the development of the knowledge economy.

Swine flu, doctors and pandemics : Is there a duty to treat during a pandemic?

The swine influenza (H1N1) outbreak in 2009 highlighted the ethical and legal pressures facing general practitioners and health workers in emergency departments in determining the nature and limits of their obligations to their patients and the public. Health workers require guidance on the multiple, overlapping, and at times conflicting legal and ethical duties owed to patients and prospective patients, employers and fellow health workers, and their families. Existing sources of advice on these issues in Australia, by way of statements of medical ethics and other sources of advice, are shown to be in need of further amplification if health workers are to be provided with the certainty and guidance required. Given the complexity of the issues, Australia would therefore benefit from more extensive consultation with the variety of stakeholders involved in these questions if pandemic plans are to smoothly deal with future crises in an ethically and legally sound manner.

A new national women's health policy : legal, ethical and policy initiatives to support women's health

In 1989 the first National Women's Health Policy was launched in Australia. Now, 20 years later, the Federal Government has announced plans for the development of a new National Women's Health Policy to address the health needs of Australian women. The Policy will be based on five principles: gender equity; health equity between women; a focus on prevention; an evidence base for interventions; and a life course approach. This editorial examines the role for law in the development of a new National Women's Health Policy. It considers the relevance of regulatory frameworks for health research in supporting an evidence base for health interventions and analyses the requirement in the National Health and Medical Research Council's National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research for "fair inclusion" of research participants. The editorial argues for a holistic approach to women's health that includes regulatory frameworks for research, identification of funding priorities for research, and the need for a dedicated government department or agency to promote women's health.

Written in code : diversity and the new genetics

Modern genetic research holds out the promise of a bold new future in which humanity has identified and conquered the genetic roots of many diseases. Genetic science also promises to shed light on who we are, what it is that makes us tick, what it is that makes us the way we are — in short, what it is that makes us human. Yet while genetics are a potential saviour (saving us from disease), it also appears as a threat that at the extremes appears to be the stuff of our worst nightmares, such as the prospect, probably more imagined than real, of rows of cloned individuals. The new genetics hold out the promise that through genetics we will be able to determine what we are, a promise that is simultaneously appealing and terrifying. This chapter discusses the cloning of people and parts, the law’s response to cloning, genetics and diversity, a framework for law reform.

The human embryo as property? Cryopreservation and the challenges for law

The development of the new reproductive technologies has presented significant challenges for policy makers and law reformers. This article focuses on the particular challenges posed by cryopreservation of embryos. These issues are analysed through discussion of relevant Australian statutory provisions and United States case law. The article concludes with a consideration of whether the property model provides an appropriate framework for reproductive material.

Review: "Controversies in Health Law" by In Freckelton and Kerry Peterson

During the past couple of decades health law has been transformed. Within that period we have been confronted with advances in medical science, particularly in genetics, reproductive technology and life-sustaining treatments. Health care has become more expensive, more consumer oriented and more litigious. In addition, the ethical implications of these developments, and the role for law, both as a regulator of health care and in its responses to emerging challenges, have occupied policy-makers, law reformers, health professionals, ethicists and the broader community in Australia and overseas. While many issues have emerged from these developments, there have been few easy solutions...

Guest editorial : the body and the law

This issue of the Journal of Law and Medicine seeks to explore the law's relationship with the human body within a broad context of social, cultural and technological considerations. It does this both in terms of the ways in which the law constitutes the body (for example, by labelling it as property or otherwise), and in terms of the legal rules which regulate rights to bodies and body parts.

Genetic technologies and the regulation of reproductive decision-making in Australia

This article provides a critical analysis of the current Australian regulatory landscape at the interface between genetics and reproductive decision- making. The authors argue that a comparative analysis with other countries and international law and a contextual examination of the way law regulates concepts such as disease and health, abnormality and normality is necessary before we can develop appropriate policy and legislative responses in this area. Specific genetic testing technologies are considered including prenatal genetic testing, preimplantation genetic diagnosis and inheritable genetic modification. An increasing number of members of the Australian community are using genetic testing technologies when they decide to have a baby. The authors argue that as concepts of disease and health vary among members of the community and the potential to test for traits other than illness increases, a new tension arises between an ethic of individual choice and a role for government in regulating reproductive decision-making.

Regulating small things : genes, gametes and nanotechnology

Biotechnology and nanotechnology both intersect with other technologies in ways that open new possibilities for further technological progress. The potential for increased convergence between technological fields highlights the need for regulatory frameworks to be integrated, flexible and responsive. Within a federal legal system such as Australia’s, there is a need to ensure that we adopt a coordinated national approach to the crafting of regulatory solutions. In addition, there is a need for global cooperation in the development of international standards and regulatory harmonisation. Finally, this article considers the role that law plays in negotiating risk in relation to new technologies.

Rewriting the future? Biomedical advances and legal dilemmas

Developments in medical science have sparked public debate about the legal and ethical implications of new technologies. Within these debates a number of distinct discourses are evident, including discourses about the positive and negative implications of technological advances, the influence of globalisation on regulatory choice, and the challenges of articulating common values in a pluralistic society. This article argues that an understanding of these discourses is an essential part of understanding the nature of contemporary regulatory dilemmas.