Decision making in beach volleyball defense: Crucial factors derived from interviews with top-level experts

Objectives: In fast ball sports like beach volleyball, decision-making skills are a determining factor for excellent performance. The current investigation aimed to identify factors that influence the decisionmaking process in top-level beach volleyball defense in order to find relevant aspects for further research. For this reason, focused interviews with top players in international beach volleyball were conducted and analyzed with respect to decision-making characteristics. Design: Nineteen world-tour beach volleyball defense players, including seven Olympic or world champions, were interviewed, focusing on decision-making factors, gaze behavior, and interactions between the two. Methods: Verbal data were analyzed by inductive content analysis according to Mayring (2008). This approach allows categories to emerge from the interview material itself instead of forcing data into preset classifications and theoretical concepts. Results: The data analysis showed that, for top-level beach volleyball defense, decision making depends on opponent specifics, external context, situational context, opponent's movements, and intuition. Information on gaze patterns and visual cues revealed general tendencies indicating optimal gaze strategies that support excellent decision making. Furthermore, the analysis highlighted interactions between gaze behavior, visual information, and domain-specific knowledge. Conclusions: The present findings provide information on visual perception, domain-specific knowledge, and interactions between the two that are relevant for decision making in top-level beach volleyball defense. The results can be used to inform sports practice and to further untangle relevant mechanisms underlying decision making in complex game situations.

The Beach in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures: Reading Littoral Space

From early colonial encounters to the ecological disasters of the twenty-first century, the performativity of contact has been a crucial element in the political significance of the beach. Conceptualising the beach as a creative trope and as a socio-cultural site, as well as an aesthetically productive topography, this collection examines its multiplicity of meanings and functions as a natural environment engendering both desire and fear in the human imagination from the Victorian period to the present. The contributors examine literature, film, and art, in addition to moments of encounter and environmental crisis, to highlight the beach as a social space inspiring particular codes of behaviour and specific discourses, as a geographical frontier between land and water, as an historical site of contact and conflict, and as a vacationscape promising regeneration and withdrawal from everyday life. The diversity of the beach is reflected in the geographical range, with essays on locales and texts from Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, South Africa, the United States, Polynesia, and New Zealand. Focusing on the changed function of the beach as a result of processes of industrialisation and the rise of a modern leisure and health culture, this interdisciplinary volume theorises the beach as a demarcater of the precarious boundary between land and the sea, as well as between nature and culture.

Effectiveness of the Call in Beach Volleyball Attacking Play

In beach volleyball the setter has the opportunity to give her or his hitter a “call”. The call intends that the setter suggests to her or his partner where to place the attack in the opponent’s court. The effectiveness of a call is still unknown. We investigated the women’s and men’s Swiss National Beach Volleyball Championships in 2011 and analyzed 2185 attacks. We found large differences between female and male players. While men called in only 38.4% of attacks, women used calls in 85.5% of attacks. If the male players followed a given call, 63% of the attacks were successful. The success rate of attacks without any call was 55.8% and 47.6% when the call was ignored. These differences were not significant (χ2(2) = 4.55, p = 0.103). In women’s beach volleyball, the rate of successful attacks was 61.5% when a call was followed, 35% for attacks without a call, and 42.6% when a call was ignored. The differences were highly significant (χ2(2) = 23.42, p < 0.0005). Taking into account the findings of the present study, we suggested that the call was effective in women’s beach volleyball, while its effect in men’s game was unclear. Considering the quality of calls we indicate that there is a significant potential to increase the effectiveness of a call.

Perceptual Training in Beach Volleyball Defence: Different Effects of Gaze-Path Cueing on Gaze and Decision-Making

For perceptual-cognitive skill training, a variety of intervention methods has been proposed, including the so-called “color-cueing method” which aims on superior gaze-path learning by applying visual markers. However, recent findings challenge this method, especially, with regards to its actual effects on gaze behavior. Consequently, after a preparatory study on the identification of appropriate visual cues for life-size displays, a perceptual-training experiment on decision-making in beach volleyball was conducted, contrasting two cueing interventions (functional vs. dysfunctional gaze path) with a conservative control condition (anticipation-related instructions). Gaze analyses revealed learning effects for the dysfunctional group only. Regarding decision-making, all groups showed enhanced performance with largest improvements for the control group followed by the functional and the dysfunctional group. Hence, the results confirm cueing effects on gaze behavior, but they also question its benefit for enhancing decision-making. However, before completely denying the method’s value, optimisations should be checked regarding, for instance, cueing-pattern characteristics and gaze-related feedback.

New Myths of OZ: The Australian Beach and the Negotiation of National Belonging by Refugee Background Youth

In this article we consider the Australian beach as a material, imaginary and social arena in which different versions of national belonging are performed and contested. Focusing on two short films produced by young people from refugee backgrounds, we explore the negotiation of national belonging on the beach by people who occupy identity categories that are typically excluded from idealising Australian beach mythologies. We argue that both the production and distribution of these films contribute to a reimagining of the Australian beach that creates new opportunities for people from migrant backgrounds to engage in the co-production of Australian identities in their own terms.

Effects of exposure to physical factors on homeopathic preparations as determined by ultraviolet light spectroscopy

Clinical trials have reported statistically significant and clinically relevant effects of homeopathic preparations. We applied ultraviolet (UV) spectroscopy to investigate the physical properties of homeopathic preparations and to contribute to an understanding of the not-yet-identified mode of action. In previous investigations, homeopathic preparations had significantly lower UV light transmissions than controls. The aim of this study was to explore the possible effects of external factors (UV light and temperature) on the homeopathic preparations. Homeopathic centesimal (c) dilutions, 1c to 30c, of copper sulfate (CuSO(4)), decimal dilutions of sulfur (S(8)), 1x to 30x, and controls (succussed potentization medium) were prepared, randomized, and blinded. UV transmission was measured at six different time points after preparation (from 4 to 256 days). In addition, one series of samples was exposed to UV light of a sterilization lamp for 12 h, one was incubated at 37 degrees Celsius for 24 h, and one was heated to 90 degrees Celsius for 15 min. UV light transmission values from 190 or 220 nm to 340 nm were measured several times and averaged. After each exposure, UV transmission of the homeopathic preparations of CuSO(4) was significantly reduced compared to the controls, particularly after heating to 37 degrees Celsius. Overall, the nonexposed CuSO(4) preparations did not show significantly lower UV transmission compared to controls; however, the pooled subgroup of measurements at days 26, 33, and 110 yielded significant differences. UV light transmission for S(8) preparations did not show any differences compared to controls. Our conclusion is that exposure to external factors, incubation at 37 degrees Celsius in particular, increases the difference in light transmission of homeopathic CuSO(4) preparations compared to controls.

Homeopathic Preparations to Control the Rosy Apple Aphid (Dysaphis plantaginea Pass.)

A laboratory model system with the rosy apple aphid (Dysaphis plantaginea Pass.) on apple seedlings was developed to study the effects of homeopathic preparations on this apple pest. The assessment included the substance Lycopodium clavatum and a nosode of the rosy apple aphid. Each preparation was applied on the substrate surface as aqueous solution of granules (6c, 15c, or 30c). Controls were aqueous solutions of placebo granules or pure water. In eight independent, randomized, and blinded experiments under standardized conditions in growth chambers, the development of aphids on treated and untreated apple seedlings was observed over 17 days, each. Six experiments were determined to assess the effects of a strict therapeutic treatment; two experiments were designed to determine the effects of a combined preventative and therapeutic treatment. After application of the preparations, the number of juvenile offspring and the damage on apple seedlings were assessed after 7 and 17 days, respectively. In addition, after 17 days, the seedling weight was measured. In the final evaluation of the six strictly therapeutic trials after 17 days, the number of juvenile offspring was reduced after application of L. clavatum 15c (-17%, p = 0.002) and nosode 6c (-14%, p = 0.02) compared to the pure water control. No significant effects were observed for leaf damage or fresh weight for any application. In the two experiments with combined preventative and therapeutic treatment, no significant effects were observed in any measured parameter. Homeopathic remedies may be effective in plant-pest systems. The magnitude of observed effects seems to be larger than in models with healthy plants, which renders plant-pest systems promising candidates for homeopathic basic research. For successful application in agriculture, however, the effect is not yet sufficient. This calls for further optimization concerning homeopathic remedy selection, potency level, dosage, and application routes.

Effects of changes in colored light on brain and calf muscle blood concentration and oxygenation

Color light therapy is a therapeutic method in complementary medicine. In color therapy, light of two contrasting colors is often applied in a sequential order. The aim of this study was to investigate possible physiological effects, i.e., changes in the blood volume and oxygenation in the brain and calf muscle of healthy subjects who were exposed to red and blue light in sequential order. The hypothesis was that if a subject is first exposed to blue and then red light, the effect of the red light will be enhanced due to the contrastingly different characteristics of the two colors. The same was expected for blue light, if first exposing a subject to red and then to blue light. Twelve healthy volunteers (six male, six female) were measured twice on two different days by near-infrared spectroscopy during exposure to colored light. Two sequences of colored light were applied in a controlled, randomized, crossover design: first blue, then red, and vice versa. For the brain and muscle, the results showed no significant differences in blood volume and oxygenation between the two sequences, and a high interindividual physiological variability. Thus, the hypothesis had to be rejected. Comparing these data to results from a previous study, where subjects were exposed to blue and red light without sequential color changes, shows that the results of the current study appear to be similar to those of red light exposure. This may indicate that the exposure to red light was preponderant and thus effects of blue light were outweighed.

Changes in hemodynamics and tissue oxygenation saturation in the brain and skeletal muscle induced by speech therapy - a near-infrared spectroscopy study

Arts speech therapy (AST) is a therapeutic method within complementary medicine and has been practiced for decades for various medical conditions. It comprises listening and the recitation of different forms of speech exercises under the guidance of a licensed speech therapist. The aim of our study was to noninvasively investigate whether different types of recitation influence hemodynamics and oxygenation in the brain and skeletal leg muscle using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Seventeen healthy volunteers (eight men and nine women, mean age ± standard deviation 35.6 ± 12.7 years) were enrolled in the study. Each subject was measured three times on different days with the different types of recitation: hexameter, alliteration, and prose verse. Before, during, and after recitation, relative concentration changes of oxyhemoglobin (Δ[O2Hb]), deoxyhemoglobin (Δ[HHb]), total hemoglobin (Δ[tHb]), and tissue oxygenation saturation (StO2) were measured in the brain and skeletal leg muscle using a NIRS device. The study was performed with a randomized crossover design. Significant concentration changes were found during recitation of all verses, with mainly a decrease in Δ[O2Hb] and ΔStO2 in the brain, and an increase in Δ[O2Hb] and Δ[tHb] in the leg muscle during recitation. After the recitations, significant changes were mainly increases of Δ[HHb] and Δ[tHb] in the calf muscle. The Mayer wave spectral power (MWP) was also significantly affected, i.e., mainly the MWP of the Δ[O2Hb] and Δ[tHb] increased in the brain during recitation of hexameter and prose verse. The changes in MWP were also significantly different between hexameter and alliteration, and hexameter and prose. Possible physiological explanations for these changes are discussed. A probable reason is a different effect of recitations on the sympathetic nervous system. In conclusion, these changes show that AST has relevant effects on the hemodynamics and oxygenation of the brain and muscle.