title: Sink or swim? Sleep in highly trained adolescent swimmers during the in-season phase of training

authors: Ashby, Claudia Renee Georgia

abstract: Sleep is vital to the physiological and cognitive functioning in humans, however, disruption to sleep is a growing issue. Requirements of training in high performing adolescent athletes is increasing but it is largely unknown what effect this has upon their sleep. Extra-curricular activities such as sport, music, and part-time work are all contributing factors to the sleep disturbances adolescents’ experience. Until now, limited research has been available on high performing adolescent athletes sleep as most research has focused on sleep in elite adult athletes. Research to date has illustrated that elite adult athletes experience disruptions to their sleep due to training and competitions which subsequently impacts their recovery, performance and fatigue. The few studies to investigate adolescent athletes have found that sleep has significant effects on injury occurrence, academic performance, mental health, and obesity, as discussed in the literature review in the first chapter of this thesis. Furthermore, through the limited previous research, it has been found that adolescent athletes sleep is disrupted on nights preceding early morning training sessions. The second chapter of this thesis includes an original study investigating the sleep of highly trained adolescent swimmers. Fifteen adolescent swimmers volunteered to participate in this study, where their sleep was measured via subjective and objective measures over a two-week ‘normal’ in-season training phase. Participants subjectively recorded their total sleep time (TST), sleep latency (SL), and wake episodes (WE) through a daily sleep diary. In conjunction, objective sleep indices (TST, SL, WE, total time in bed (TTB), wake after sleep onset (WASO), sleep efficiency (SE), sleep onset time (SOT), and wake time (WT) were measured through a wrist actigraph device. Analysis revealed that participants significantly overestimated their sleep duration by approximately one hour per night compared to their objective TST. Furthermore, on evenings preceding early morning training (EARLY), participants TST and TTB was significantly less compared to nights preceding day trainings (DAY) and rest days (REST). Finally, the third chapter of this thesis summarises the overall findings of the thesis, as well as highlighting practical applications, and potential future research directions.

text: Sink or swim? Sleep in highly trained adolescent swimmers during the in-season phase of training Sleep is vital to the physiological and cognitive functioning in humans, however, disruption to sleep is a growing issue. Requirements of training in high performing adolescent athletes is increasing but it is largely unknown what effect this has upon their sleep. Extra-curricular activities such as sport, music, and part-time work are all contributing factors to the sleep disturbances adolescents’ experience. Until now, limited research has been available on high performing adolescent athletes sleep as most research has focused on sleep in elite adult athletes. Research to date has illustrated that elite adult athletes experience disruptions to their sleep due to training and competitions which subsequently impacts their recovery, performance and fatigue. The few studies to investigate adolescent athletes have found that sleep has significant effects on injury occurrence, academic performance, mental health, and obesity, as discussed in the literature review in the first chapter of this thesis. Furthermore, through the limited previous research, it has been found that adolescent athletes sleep is disrupted on nights preceding early morning training sessions. The second chapter of this thesis includes an original study investigating the sleep of highly trained adolescent swimmers. Fifteen adolescent swimmers volunteered to participate in this study, where their sleep was measured via subjective and objective measures over a two-week ‘normal’ in-season training phase. Participants subjectively recorded their total sleep time (TST), sleep latency (SL), and wake episodes (WE) through a daily sleep diary. In conjunction, objective sleep indices (TST, SL, WE, total time in bed (TTB), wake after sleep onset (WASO), sleep efficiency (SE), sleep onset time (SOT), and wake time (WT) were measured through a wrist actigraph device. Analysis revealed that participants significantly overestimated their sleep duration by approximately one hour per night compared to their objective TST. Furthermore, on evenings preceding early morning training (EARLY), participants TST and TTB was significantly less compared to nights preceding day trainings (DAY) and rest days (REST). Finally, the third chapter of this thesis summarises the overall findings of the thesis, as well as highlighting practical applications, and potential future research directions.

year: 2021

title: Towards a radiocarbon calibration for oxygen isotope stage 3 using New Zealand kauri (Agathis australis)

authors: Turney, Chris S.M.

subjects: New Zealand kauri

abstract: It is well known that radiocarbon years do not directly equate to calendar time. As a result, considerable effort has been devoted to generating a decadally resolved calibration curve for the Holocene and latter part of the last termination. A calibration curve that can be unambiguously attributed to changes in atmospheric ¹⁴C content has not, however, been generated beyond 26 kyr cal BP, despite the urgent need to rigorously test climatic, environmental, and archaeological models. Here, we discuss the potential of New Zealand kauri (Agathis australis) to define the structure of the ¹⁴C calibration curve using annually resolved tree rings and thereby provide an absolute measure of atmospheric ¹⁴C. We report bidecadally sampled ¹⁴C measurements obtained from a floating 1050-yr chronology, demonstrating repeatable ¹⁴C measurements near the present limits of the dating method. The results indicate that considerable scope exists for a high-resolution ¹⁴C calibration curve back through OIS-3 using subfossil wood from this source.

text: Towards a radiocarbon calibration for oxygen isotope stage 3 using New Zealand kauri (Agathis australis) It is well known that radiocarbon years do not directly equate to calendar time. As a result, considerable effort has been devoted to generating a decadally resolved calibration curve for the Holocene and latter part of the last termination. A calibration curve that can be unambiguously attributed to changes in atmospheric ¹⁴C content has not, however, been generated beyond 26 kyr cal BP, despite the urgent need to rigorously test climatic, environmental, and archaeological models. Here, we discuss the potential of New Zealand kauri (Agathis australis) to define the structure of the ¹⁴C calibration curve using annually resolved tree rings and thereby provide an absolute measure of atmospheric ¹⁴C. We report bidecadally sampled ¹⁴C measurements obtained from a floating 1050-yr chronology, demonstrating repeatable ¹⁴C measurements near the present limits of the dating method. The results indicate that considerable scope exists for a high-resolution ¹⁴C calibration curve back through OIS-3 using subfossil wood from this source.

year: 2007

title: Intra-propositional relations and their signalling: An investigation of authentic Māori texts

authors: Whaanga, Hēmi

subjects: Language & education

abstract: I report here on one part of a research project that involved the investigation of a range of authentic Māori texts in terms of two types of meaning relation – those that operate within propositions (‘intra-propositional relations’) and those that link propositions or groups of propositions (‘inter-propositional relations’). The focus here is on intra-propositional relations (relationships within propositions). On the basis of the comparison of a number of intra-propositional relational models, a new model which draws inspiration from the work of Crombie is proposed and applied to a corpus of texts written in Māori, the emphasis being on the ways in which these relations are signalled in Māori.

text: Intra-propositional relations and their signalling: An investigation of authentic Māori texts I report here on one part of a research project that involved the investigation of a range of authentic Māori texts in terms of two types of meaning relation – those that operate within propositions (‘intra-propositional relations’) and those that link propositions or groups of propositions (‘inter-propositional relations’). The focus here is on intra-propositional relations (relationships within propositions). On the basis of the comparison of a number of intra-propositional relational models, a new model which draws inspiration from the work of Crombie is proposed and applied to a corpus of texts written in Māori, the emphasis being on the ways in which these relations are signalled in Māori.

year: 2010