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Purpose: To investigate the relationship between prescribed (preDI), perceived (perDI), and actual delivery intensity (actDI) in cricket pace bowling. Methods: Fourteen male club-standard pace bowlers (mean [SD]: age 24.2 [3.2] y) completed 1 bowling session comprising 45 deliveries. The first 15 deliveries composed the warm-up, where participants bowled 3 deliveries each at a preDI of 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, and 95%. Bowlers reported the perDI after each delivery. The fastest delivery in the session was used as a reference to calculate relative ball-release speed for the warm-up deliveries, with this measure representing the actDI. Ball-release speed was captured by a radar gun. Results: For perDI, there was a very large relationship with preDI (rs =.90, P <.001). Similarly, for actDI, there was a large relationship with preDI (rs =.52, P <.001). Higher concordance was observed between perDI and preDI from 60% to 80% preDI. A plateau was observed for actDI from 70% to 95% preDI. Conclusions: The relationship between perDI and actDI was very large and large with respect to preDI, indicating that both variables can be used to monitor delivery intensity against the planned intensity and thus ensure healthy training adaptation. The optimal preDI that allowed pace bowlers to operate at submaximal perDI but still achieve close to maximal ball-release speeds was 70%. Bowling at the optimal preDI may significantly reduce the psychophysiological load per delivery in exchange for a trivial loss in ball-release speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing body of evidence suggesting a link between sport participation and violent behavior outside of the sporting context. However, there have been few studies that have investigated the basis of this relationship. The current study examined longitudinal relationships between sport participation, problem alcohol use, and various violent behaviors, and whether sport participation moderates relationships between problem alcohol use and violence. The sample comprised 2,262 young adults (55% female, age range at Time 1 = 17-24 years) from Victoria, Australia, surveyed in 2010 and 2012. When controlling for common risk factors, substance use, and past violence, sport participation was not associated with any violent behaviors 2 years later. However, sport participation moderated the relationship between problem alcohol use and fighting, whereby problem alcohol use was associated with engaging in fights 2 years later for sport participants, but not for nonparticipants. These findings suggest that it is not sport participation per se that influences later violence but the drinking norms or culture embedded within certain sporting contexts. Prevention approaches that address the drinking culture and social approval of excessive alcohol consumption within sporting contexts may reduce the incidence of violent behavior in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a pressing need in Australia and other countries to develop systems for monitoring secular trends in childhood obesity and related behavioural and environmental determinants. Energy from foods and beverages consumed at school is an accessible indicator of children's eating patterns and we have developed a school food checklist (SFC) to measure this. The SFC records the number of serves and source (home, canteen, vending machine) of 20 food and beverage categories. This study aims to assess the accuracy and to calibrate the SFC by comparing it to a weighed record (WR) and to evaluate inter-recorder reliability. Participants were 910 primary school children aged 5 to 12 years from a rural township in Victoria, Australia. WR were collected from a nonrandom sub-sample of 106 and a second sub-sample (n=46) had intake measured twice using the SFC to assess inter-recorder reliability. Mean energy values were 2992 kJ ± 924 and 3008 kJ ± 952 for the SFC and WR respectively and the correlation coefficient was strong (Pearson r = 0.77). The mean difference between the WR and SFC methods was 15 kJ (95% CI, -107 kJ to 138 kJ) and the limits of agreement (+2 standard deviations) were ± 1270 kJ. The SFC overestimated the energy/serve of breads and fruit drinks and under-estimated energy/serve from fat spreads, biscuits/crackers, muesli/fruit bars and fruit. Inter-recorder reliability was good (kappa 0.51). The SFC was designed to measure energy from food and beverages in schools. It has good accuracy and reliability and the revised version should further improve accuracy of the instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limited research has addressed factors associated with psychological distress following disasters among non-Western populations. The 2004 tsunami affected 1.7 million people across South Asia and Africa, with considerable variations in trauma-related outcomes. Pretraumatic and peritraumatic conditions associated with trauma-related symptoms in 305 Sri Lankan adult survivors (28% male, aged 18-83 years; mean = 39.9 years; standard deviation = 15.3), clinically assessed 1 month posttsunami, were evaluated retrospectively. Outcome measures were total scores on 11 trauma-related symptoms. Multivariate linear regression analyses tested for associations between pretraumatic and peritraumatic conditions and symptom scores, with peritraumatic conditions adjusted for pretraumatic variables. Pretraumatic conditions of female gender, employment, prior health and social issues, and substance use and peritraumatic conditions of loss of family, witnessing the tsunami, or suffering an injury were associated with trauma-related symptoms. The findings facilitate understanding cultural contexts that define risk factors associated with trauma-related symptoms in Sri Lankans, which are critical for developing culturally appropriate interventions., (© 2013 APJPH.)