A comparison of maximal squat strength and 5-, 10-, and 20-meter sprint times, in athletes and recreationally trained men

The purpose of this study was to identify whether there was a relationship between relative strength during a 1 repetition maximum (1RM) back squat and 5-, 10-, and 20-m sprint performances in both trained athletes and recreationally trained individuals. Professional rugby league players (n = 24) and recreationally trained individuals (n = 20) participated in this investigation. Twenty-meter sprint time and 1RM back squat strength, using free weights, were assessed on different days. There were no significant (p ≥ 0.05) differences between the well-trained and recreationally trained groups for 5-m sprint times. In contrast, the well-trained group's 10- and 20-m sprint times were significantly quicker (p = 0.004; p = 0.002) (1.78 + 0.06 seconds; 3.03 + 0.09 seconds) compared with the recreationally trained group (1.84 + 0.07 seconds; 3.13 + 0.11 seconds). The athletes were significantly stronger (170.63 + 21.43 kg) than the recreationally trained individuals (135.45 + 30.07 kg) (p = 0.01); however, there were no significant differences (p > 0.05) in relative strength between groups (1.78 + 0.27 kg/kg; 1.78 + 0.33 kg/kg, respectively). Significant negative correlations were found between 5-m sprint time and relative squat strength (r = -0.613, power = 0.96, p = 0.004) and between relative squat strength and 10- and 20-m sprint times in the recreationally trained group (r = -0.621, power = 0.51, p = 0.003; r = -0.604, power = 0.53, p = 0.005, respectively). These results, indicating that relative strength, are important for initial sprint acceleration in all athletes but more strongly related to sprint performance over greater distances in recreationally trained individuals.     

Relationships between soil bulk electrical conductivity and the principal component analysis of topography and soil fertility values

Measures of soil electrical conductivity (EC) and elevation are relatively inexpensive to collect and result in dense data sets which allow for mapping with limited interpolation. Conversely, soil fertility information is expensive to collect so that relatively few samples are taken and mapping requires extensive interpolation with large estimation errors, resulting in limited usefulness for site-specific applications in precision agriculture. Principal component (PC) analysis and cokriging can be applied to create meaningful field scale summaries of groups of attributes and to decrease the estimation error of maps of the summarized attributes. Deep (0–90 cm) and shallow (0–30 cm) EC, elevation, and soil fertility attributes were measured in fields under corn (Zea mays L.) and soybean (Glycine max L.) rotations, at two sites in Illinois (IL) and two sites in Missouri (MO). Soil fertility and topography attributes were summarized by PC analysis. The first topography PC (TopoPC1) contrasted flow accumulation against elevation and curvature, to describe the main topographic pattern of the fields. The first soil fertility PC (SoilPC1) consistently grouped together cation exchange capacity (CEC), Ca, Mg, and organic matter (OM). SoilPC1 was well correlated to soil EC for all sites and cokriging with EC had higher r ² in the crossvariogram models compared to ordinary kriging. The second and third soil fertility PCs (SoilPC2 and SoilPC3) were concerned with soil pH and P, and reflected historic land use patterns. Maps of SoilPC2 and SoilPC3 had little relationship to soil EC or topography and so could not be improved by cokriging.     

Environment quality predicts parental provisioning decisions

Although avian parents appear to exhibit a variety of feeding strategies in nature, there currently exist no models or theories that account for this range of diversity. Here we present the results of a computer simulation designed to model inter-dependent parental decisions, where investment is meted out in small doses, and must be distributed over time to maximize return on investment at the end of the parental-care period. With this technique we show that the success of various simple, observed, parental rules of thumb varies with environmental resource level, and that increasing the complexity of parental decision rules does not necessarily result in increased fitness.