"Home advantage is well documented for professional baseball, basketball and ice hockey in North America. One of the possible causes of this advantage is familiarity with the local playing facility. This was investigated and quantified in an analysis of 37 teams moving to new stadiums, but in the same city, from 1987 to 2001. Home advantage during the first season in a new stadium after the move was significantly less than home advantage in the final season in the old stadium (P= 0.011). The reduction was evident in all three sports. Possible confounding factors, such as crowd size and crowd density, were considered but did not appear to have an effect. It is estimated that about 24% of the advantage of playing at home maybe lost when a team relocates to a new facility."

"The home advantage is a robust phenomenon that occurs in the world of amateur and professional sport. Athletic teams have been shown to win significantly more games in their home venue as compared to their opponents' venue. Studies have suggested that the home advantage may be related to familiarity with the facility, increased crowd density and even pre-competition hormonal levels. The present study investigated pre-competition physiological and psychological states of elite hockey players in the home and away venues. Physiological measures included salivary cortisol and testosterone, which were assessed using enzyme immunoassays. In addition, pre-competition psychological states were assessed using the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2. Physiological measures indicated that the players had significantly higher pre-game testosterone when playing in their home venue as compared to their opponents' venue (t(13)=2.29, p=0.04); however, this difference was not due to a pre-game rise in testosterone while competing at home. Furthermore, players showed a trend toward higher pre-game cortisol when playing in their home venue (t(13)=1.96, p=0.07). Psychological measures indicated that players were more self-confident when playing in their home venue (t(13)=2.8, p=0.008) and also had higher somatic (t(13)=2.3, p=0.02) and cognitive anxiety (t(13)=1.87, p=0.04) when playing in their opponents' venue. The present study supports the notion that there are differences in pre-competition hormonal and psychological states that may play a key role in the "home advantage"."

"Home advantage is quantitatively defined and calculated for each season since the start of the main professional sports in North America and England. Over 400,000 games are analysed. The leagues represented are the National League (1876-2002) and American League (1901-2002) for baseball, the National Hockey League (1917-2003) for ice hockey, the National Football League (1933-2002) for American football, the National Basketball Association (1946-2003) for basketball, and the four levels of professional football, formerly called the Football League, in England (1888-2003). Problems caused by unbalanced playing schedules are considered. The results are presented graphically to show long-term trends and sudden changes. The highest levels of home advantage for all sports were in their early years of existence. Home advantage in ice hockey, basketball and football in England has declined over the last two decades. In baseball there has been very little change over the last 100 years, with home advantage consistently lower than in other sports. There was a large drop in home advantage in football in England following the 7-year suspension of the league during the Second World War. The trends and changes provide some evidence that travel and familiarity contribute to home advantage, but little in support of crowd effects."

"There have been many examples of contentious points decisions in boxing. Professional boxing is scored subjectively by judges and referees scoring each round of the contest. We assessed whether the probability of a home win (and therefore home advantage) increased when bouts were decided by points decisions rather than knockouts. Overall, we found that bouts ending in points decisions had a significantly higher proportion of home wins than those decided by a knockout, though this effect varied across time, and controlling for relative quality of boxers was only effective when using more recent data. Focusing on these data, again the probability of a home win was higher with a points decision and this effect was consistent as “relative quality” varied. For equally matched boxers (“relative quality” = 0), expected probability of a home win was 0.57 for knockouts, 0.66 for technical knockouts and 0.74 for points decisions. The results of the present study lend general support to the notion that home advant..."

"Two studies were performed to determine the influence of game location on the strategic decisions of ice hockey coaches. In study 1, coaches from the National (n = 23) and Ontario Hockey Leagues (n = 17) indicated the degree to which they had their teams forecheck assertively at home versus away. In study 2, video analysis of 62 National Hockey League games was used to verify the extent to which teams in this league use an assertive forechecking strategy at home versus away. In study 1, coaches reported that they implemented a more assertive forechecking style at home versus away (P < 0.001). The results of the video analysis in study 2 were consistent with the coaches' reports: teams used a more assertive forechecking style at home versus away (P < 0.03). The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the home advantage in the National Hockey League."

"We report a child who sustained commotio cordis after being struck by a baseball, and offer documentation of the advantages of having readily available access to bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and an automated external defibrillator (AED). We suggest that communities and school districts reexamine the need for accessible AEDs and CPR-trained coaches at organized sporting events for children."

"As a truly surface analytical tool, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) was developed in recent ten years, and in this paper, fundamental theory, instrumentation and it's applications in material science are reviewed in detail. Application progress of elemental distribution and depth profile analysis are mainly discussed in the field of metallurgy, semiconductor and electronical materials at home and abroad. It is pointed out that the pulse energy, ambient gas and it's pressure, and energy distribution of laser beam strongly influence spatial and depth resolution, and meanwhile a approach to improving resolution considering analytical sensitivity is provided. Compared with traditional surface analytical methods, the advantage of LIBS is very large scanning area, high analytical speed, and that conducting materials or non-conducting materials both can be analyzed. It becomes a powerful complement of traditional surface analytical tool."

"Background: Return to sport and to pre-injury level represents an important outcome after both primary and revision anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstructions.

Purpose: The aim of the present meta-analysis was to determine the return to sport rate after revision ACL reconstruction.

Material And Methods: A systematic search was performed of the MEDLINE, Embase and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials Databases. All the studies that reported return to sport, return to pre-injury sport level and return to high level/competitive sport was considered for the meta-analysis. The overall pooled mean of post-operative knee laxity and pooled rate of positive pivot-shift and objective International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) categories was calculated as well.

Results: Overall, 472 abstracts were identified and screened for inclusion and only 16 studies reported the rate of return to any level of sport activity at the final follow-up of 4.7 years (range 1.0-13.2 years), showing a pooled rate of 85.3% (CI 79.7 to 90.2). The return to pre-injury sport level was achieved in 53.4% (CI 37.8 to 68.7) of cases. Normal or quasi-normal objective IKDC, less than 5 mm of side-to-side difference at arthrometric evaluations and grade I-II pivot-shift test were reported in 84%, 88% and 93% patients, respectively.

Conclusions: In spite of almost 8 patients out of 10 returning to sport after revision ACL reconstruction and showing good stability, only half of the patients returned to the same pre-injury sport level.

"

"Objective: To examine patterns of adolescent sports and energy drink (SED) consumption and identify behavioral correlates.

Design: Data were drawn from Eating and Activity in Teens, a population-based study.

Setting: Adolescents from 20 middle and high schools in Minneapolis/St Paul, MN completed classroom-administered surveys.

Participants: A total of 2,793 adolescents (53.2% girls) in grades 6-12.

Variables Measured: Beverage patterns; breakfast frequency; moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA); media use; sleep; and cigarette smoking.

Analysis: Linear and logistic regression models were used to estimate associations between health behaviors and SED consumption, adjusting for demographics.

Results: Over a third of adolescents consumed sports drinks and 14.7% consumed energy drinks at least once a week. Among boys and girls, both sports and energy drink consumption were related to higher video game use; sugar-sweetened beverage and fruit juice intake; and smoking (P < .05). Sports drink consumption was also significantly related to higher MVPA and organized sport participation for both genders (P < .01).

Conclusions And Implications: Although sports drink consumption was associated with higher MVPA, adolescents should be reminded of recommendations to consume these beverages only after vigorous, prolonged activity. There is also a need for future interventions designed to reduce SED consumption, to address the clustering of unhealthy behaviors.

"

"Objectives: After reading this article, readers should 1. Appreciate that exertional heatstroke is the leading cause of preventable death in youth sports.2. Know the importance of progressive acclimatization to minimize the risk of exertional heat illness in youth sports.3. Be able to identify other contributing risk factors and effective ways to improve exercise-heat tolerance and reduce exertional heat illness risk in youth sports.4. Be prepared to educate others on their roles and responsibilities in improving safety and well-being of youth participating in outdoor sports in the heat.

"

"Background: Athletes suffering from any injuries want to know when they will be able to return sports activity. The period of return-to-sport after the arthroscopic meniscectomy is still unknown. The aim of this study is to investigate the period of the return-to-sport from surgery and the clinical symptoms after the meniscectomy on stable knees.

Methods: Fifty-six athletes who underwent the arthroscopic meniscectomy were evaluated. The patients with an average age of 26.7 years (range, 13-67) comprised 45 men and 11 women, 16 medial meniscus and 40 lateral meniscus injuries. The average of the follow-up period was 9.2 months. The parameter examined were age, the injured side of meniscus (medial or lateral), articular cartilage status, amount of resection, and sports activity level.

Results: The mean period was 54 days in young group, and was 89 days in old group (p = 0.0013). The period was 79 days in medial meniscus (MM) injured group, and was 61 days in lateral meniscus (LM) group (p = 0.017). There was a significant difference among the groups in activity levels and in amount of resection. Pain and/or effusion in the knee after the return-to-sport were found 22% of the MM group and 53% in the LM group.

Conclusions: The period of the return-to-sport was shorter in young age, high activity and large amount of resection group. Although athletes in LM group can return to sports earlier than those in MM group, more than half of athletes have pain or effusion at the time of return-to sport.

"

"Summay.-Occurrence of the home field advantage in high school basketball was examined for percentages of games won at home and away for four male varsity basketball teams from 1968-1988. Statistically significant home advantage for three of the four teams extends previous findings that the difference in che size of the home advantage between sport levels, i.e., college and professional levels within the same sport, is minimal. Results are consistent with the contention that the effects of travel on the size of the home advantage are minimal. In a recent review of the home advantage in sport competitions, Cour-neya and Carron (1992) concluded that ddferences in the home advantage between college and professional teams within the same sport are minimal. The finding raises questions of whether the home advantage exists for high school teams and whether the advantage is similar in magnitude to those of college and professional teams. These questions bear upon the reasons the home advantage is observed in sports. Specifically, fatigue and disruption of routine associated with trav-el would be more hkely to operate in the college and professional teams as they spend considerably more time away from home, travel longer distances on road trips, and experience greater disruption of famhar routines such as eating and sleeping. Such influence would be less for high school teams, and, even if such factors are significant for the home advantage, the magni-tude should be smaller for high school teams. Courneya and Carron (1992) reported one study in which the home ad-vantage was examined at the high school level. McCutcheon (1984) noted that high school football teams won 54% of 218 games, basketball teams won 51% of 302 games, and cross-country track teams 54% of 100 meets and concluded that the home advantage in high school sports is relatively weaker than with college and professional sports. These percentages are con-siderably lower than the over-all home winning percentages of 64.4% for"

"This review identifies the most likely causes of home advantage. The results of previous studies have identified 4 factors thought to be responsible for the home advantage. These can be categorised under the general headings of crowd, learning, travel and rule factors. From the accumulated evidence, rule factors were found to play only a minor role (in a limited number of sports) in contributing to home advantage. Studies investigating the effect of learning factors found that little benefit was to be gained from being familiar with the local conditions when playing at home. There was evidence to suggest that travel factors were responsible for part of the home advantage, provided the journey involved crossing a number of time zones. However, since high levels of home advantage are observed within countries where travel distances are not great, travel factors were not thought to be a major cause of home advantage. The evidence from studies investigating crowd factors appeared to provide the most dominant causes of home advantage. A number of studies provide strong evidence that home advantage increases with crowd size, until the crowd reaches a certain size or consistency (a more balanced number of home and away supporters), after which a peak in home advantage is observed. Two possible mechanisms were proposed to explain these observations: either (i) the crowd is able to raise the performance of the home competitors relative to the away competitors; or (ii) the crowd is able to influence the officials to subconsciously favour the home team. The literature supports the latter to be the most important and dominant explanation. Clearly, it only takes 2 or 3 crucial decisions to go against the away team or in favour of the home team to give the side playing at home the 'edge'."

"The rules of baseball have an intriguing quirk that other major-league sports do not have, namely, the sequential order of play which always affords the last at-bat to the home team. We became interested in exploring the strategic effects of this quirk. If there is a significant strategic advantage (or disadvantage) to having the last at-bat, it may show up as a difference in win percentage of the home team in close games, where strategy is more important, compared to the win percentage of home teams in games which are blowouts. Our paper is motivated by attempting to exploit the "natural experiment" of comparing close games to blowouts.

In previous literature, the possibility that strategic effects might come into play because of the sequential nature of the play is only partially recognized. For example, Carmichael and Thomas state as their third reason for home field advantage, "rules factors that may extend special privileges explicitly favoring the home team, such as the home team in baseball and softball always having the last 'bat.'"1 These authors only recognize the possibility that the last at-bat might give the home team the advantage when there is reason to believe that it is the visitors who actually have the advantage. Indeed, among baseball, basketball, hockey, football, and soccer, the strategic effect due to sequential play is only operative in baseball, yet baseball has the lowest home-field advantage of these five major sports.

The difference between the home winning percentage and the away winning percentage is statistically significantly positive for all major sports, but differs from sport to sport. In baseball, from 1901–2002, the average difference per team per year was 0.082, which for a .500 team in a 162 game season would lead approximately to records of 44-37 at home and 37-44 on the road."

"This review identifies the most likely causes of home advantage. The results of previous studies have identified 4 factors thought to be responsible for the home advantage. These can be categorised under the general headings of crowd, learning, travel and rule factors. From the accumulated evidence, rule factors were found to play only a minor role (in a limited number of sports) in contributing to home advantage. Studies investigating the effect of learning factors found that little benefit was to be gained from being familiar with the local conditions when playing at home. There was evidence to suggest that travel factors were responsible for part of the home advantage, provided the journey involved crossing a number of time zones. However, since high levels of home advantage are observed within countries where travel distances are not great, travel factors were not thought to be a major cause of home advantage. The evidence from studies investigating crowd factors appeared to provide the most dominant causes of home advantage.A number of studies provide strong evidence that home advantage increases with crowd size, until the crowd reaches a certain size or consistency (a more balanced number of home and away supporters), after which a peak in home advantage is observed. Two possible mechanisms were proposed to explain these observations: either (i) the crowd is able to raise the performance of the home competitors relative to the away competitors; or (ii) the crowd is able to influence the officials to subconsciously favour the home team. The literature supports the latter to be the most important and dominant explanation. Clearly, it only takes 2 or 3 crucial decisions to go against the away team or in favour of the home team to give the side playing at home the ‘edge’."

"A behavioral economist and a veteran Sports Illustrated writer analyze hidden influences and subtle biases that shape sports plays, covering such topics as performance pressures, the "home field advantage" and the overpayment of athletic talent. Reprint."

"Home advantage is smaller in baseball than in other major professional sports for men, specifically football, basketball, or soccer. This paper advances an explanation. It begins by reviewing the main observations to support the view that there is little or no home advantage in individual sports. It then presents the case that home advantage originates in impaired teamwork among the away players. The need for teamwork and the extent of it vary from sport to sport. To the extent that a sport requires little teamwork it is more like an individual sport, and the home team would be expected to enjoy only a small advantage. Interactions among players on the same side (teamwork) are much less common in baseball than in the other sports considered."

"Home advantage is a pervasive phenomenon in sport. It has been established in team sports such as basketball, baseball, American football, and European soccer. Attention to home advantage in individual sports has so far been limited. The aim of this study was to examine home advantage in professional tennis. Match-level data are used to measure home advantage. The test used is based on logit models, and consistent specification is addressed explicitly. Depending on the interpretation of home advantage, restrictions on the specification of the model need to be imposed. We find that although significant home advantage exists for men, the performance of women tennis players appears to be unaffected by home advantage."

"Objectives: Is the home advantage in individual sports comparable in magnitude and consistency to that in team sports? If not, is it nevertheless a major factor? The present paper reviews the literature to date with respect to these questions and augments it with original analyses where appropriate. Design: The review is framed and dominated by a design consideration, namely, that all major team sports play balanced home-and-away schedules, whereas individual sports rarely, if ever, do. As a result, it is necessary to take player quality into account in assessing home advantage in an individual sport. Method/approach: The paper begins with three individual sports (tennis, golf, and boxing) in which home advantage has been studied using available controls for player quality. It moves on to individual and team sports in the Olympics, where home advantage has also been studied with credible controls on player (country) quality. Studies are then reviewed in which player quality has not been controlled. Finally, data are presented for two individual efforts embedded in team sports (free throws in basketball and shootouts in ice hockey). Results: Subjectively evaluated sports such as diving, gymnastics, or figure skating usually show sizable and significant home advantages. Otherwise, occasional findings have been reported but they are not consistent within a sport, are generally weak, and often statistically unreliable. Conclusions: Except for subjectively evaluated sports, home advantage is not a major factor in individual sports, much less does it play a role in individual sports comparable to its role in team sports. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd."

"© Perceptual & Motor Skills 2015.Home advantage is smaller in baseball than in other major professional sports for men, specifically football, basketball, or soccer. This paper advances an explanation. It begins by reviewing the main observations to support the view that there is little or no home advantage in individual sports.

It then presents the case that home advantage originates in impaired teamwork among the away players. The need for teamwork and the extent of it vary from sport to sport. To the extent that a sport requires little teamwork it is more like an individual sport, and the home team would be expected to enjoy only a small advantage.

Interactions among players on the same side (teamwork) are much less common in baseball than in the other sports considered."

"Purpose: There is a paucity of home advantage research set in the context of para-sport events. It is this gap in the knowledge that this paper addresses by investigating the prevalence and size of home advantage in the Summer Paralympic Games.

Methods: Using a standardised measure of success, we compared the performances of nations when competing at home with their own performances away from home in the competition between 1960 and 2016. Both country-level and individual sport-level analyses were conducted for this time frame. A Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to determine whether there was a genuine difference in nations' performance under host and non-host conditions. Spearman's rank-order correlation was run to assess the relationship between nation quality and home advantage.

Results: Strong evidence of a home advantage effect in the Summer Paralympic Games was found at country level (

Conclusion: While our results confirm that home advantage is prevalent in the Summer Paralympic Games at an overall country level and within specific sports, they do not explain fully why such an effect does exist. Future studies should investigate the causes of home advantage in the competition and also draw comparisons with the Summer Olympic Games to explore any differences between para-sport events and able-bodied events.

"

"Description of the patterns of ground reaction force is a standard method in areas such as medicine, biomechanics and robotics. The fundamental parameter is the time course of the force, which is classified visually in particular in the field of clinical diagnostics. Here, the knowledge and experience of the diagnostician is relevant for its assessment. For an objective and valid discrimination of the ground reaction force pattern, a generic method, especially in the medical field, is absolutely necessary to describe the qualities of the time-course. The aim of the presented method was to combine the approaches of two existing procedures from the fields of machine learning and the Gauss approximation in order to take advantages of both methods for the classification of ground reaction force patterns. The current limitations of both methods could be eliminated by an overarching method. Twenty-nine male athletes from different sports were examined. Each participant was given the task of performing a one-legged stopping maneuver on a force plate from the maximum possible starting speed. The individual time course of the ground reaction force of each subject was registered and approximated on the basis of eight Gaussian distributions. The descriptive coefficients were then classified using Bayesian regulated neural networks. The different sports served as the distinguishing feature. Although the athletes were all given the same task, all sports referred to a different quality in the time course of ground reaction force. Meanwhile within each sport, the athletes were homogeneous. With an overall prediction (R = 0.938) all subjects/sports were classified correctly with 94.29% accuracy. The combination of the two methods: the mathematical description of the time course of ground reaction forces on the basis of Gaussian distributions and their classification by means of Bayesian regulated neural networks, seems an adequate and promising method to discriminate the ground reaction forces without any loss of information."

"Introduction And Aims: This paper considers the assumptions underpinning the current drugs-in-sport policy arrangements.

Design And Methods: We examine the assumptions and contradictions inherent in the policy approach, paying particular attention to the evidence that supports different policy arrangements.

Results: We find that the current anti-doping policy of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) contains inconsistencies and ambiguities. WADA's policy position is predicated upon four fundamental principles; first, the need for sport to set a good example; secondly, the necessity of ensuring a level playing field; thirdly, the responsibility to protect the health of athletes; and fourthly, the importance of preserving the integrity of sport. A review of the evidence, however, suggests that sport is a problematic institution when it comes to setting a good example for the rest of society. Neither is it clear that sport has an inherent or essential integrity that can only be sustained through regulation. Furthermore, it is doubtful that WADA's anti-doping policy is effective in maintaining a level playing field, or is the best means of protecting the health of athletes.

Discussion And Conclusions: The WADA anti-doping policy is based too heavily on principals of minimising drug use, and gives insufficient weight to the minimisation of drug-related harms. As a result drug-related harms are being poorly managed in sport. We argue that anti-doping policy in sport would benefit from placing greater emphasis on a harm minimisation model.

"

"Objectives: The following contribution analyses the socio-structural context of sport as well as the relationship between sport/physical activity and health among older people (> or = 60 years).

Methods: The data are part of a telephone-survey by random sample with 436 realised cases in the independent cities of the Western Ruhr-District and thus represent a situation in highly urbanised areas.

Results: In the cardinal question concerning the meaning of sport and physical activity for health a positive relationship was found, in particular between sport intensity and health measured by Advanced Activities of Daily Living (AADL) as well as for sport as hobby, which showed a highly significant relationship with subjective health. With regard to socio-demographic variables results show that sport and physical activity vary with gender and age. Apart from that attitudes like low external control for one's health as well as the value of appearance show strong relationships with sport participation. Stratification variables with the exception of income only show weak effects.

Conclusions: The results, which are partly not congruent, indicate that further research is needed in the field of sport and health among the aged.

"