Substantial evidence supports an association between ambient air pollution, especially particulate matter (PM*) and ozone (O3), and acute cardiovascular and respiratory morbidity. There is increasing interest in accountability research to evaluate whether actions taken to reduce air pollution will result in reduced morbidity. This study capitalized on a unique opportunity to evaluate the impact...

Major international hallmark events, especially the Olympic Games, represent a significant opportunity for marketing tourism to the host country. Due to the scale and importance of the event, the coordination between the Olympic organizing committee and the destination marketing organization of the host country becomes a knowledge-intensive and exceptionally complicated task. Analyzing on-site ...

Beijing attempted to host both the 2000 and 2008 Olympic Games, being unsuccessful in 2000 and successful in 2008. This paper analyzes the influences the Olympic host announcements on Chinese stock market indices. Olympic host announcements may impact the bidding countries’ investors’ sentiments (mood effect) and their rational economic expectations (economic effect); thus, the bidding countrie...

BACKGROUND Since 2001 the International Olympic Committee-Medical Commission (IOC-MC) has required athletes using inhaled beta2 agonists to provide clinical evidence of their asthmatic condition. The aim of this study was to compare the reported prevalence of asthma at the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games in the Great British Olympic team (Team GB). METHODS Following local ethics committee approva...

The aims of the present study were to investigate the changes in the age and in swimming performance of finalists in World Championships (1994-2013) and Olympic Games (1992-2012) competing in all events/races (stroke and distance). Data of 3,295 performances from 1,615 women and 1,680 men were analysed using correlation analyses and magnitudes of effect sizes. In the World Championships, the ag...

Saturday July 22nd. Brussels airport, hot, not enough head wind, and our DC-10 just stood there on the runway, waiting for that little breeze that would allow us to go up into the sky (it seemed the plane was too heavy to have enough velocity at the end of the runway to safely take off). We saw all those other planes fly off and our pilot must have thought, after half an hour or so, that what t...

The 2002 Olympic Winter Games were held in Utah from February 8 to March 16, 2002. Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and the anthrax release in October 2001, the need for bioterrorism surveillance during the Games was paramount. A team of informaticists and public health specialists from Utah and Pittsburgh implemented the Real-time Outbreak and Disease Surveillance (RODS) ...

Preparing a national team for success at major sporting competitions such as the Olympic Games has become a systematic and multi-faceted activity. Sports nutrition contributes to this success via strategic nutritional interventions that optimize the outcomes from both the training process and the competitive event. This review summarizes the National Nutrition Programs involved with the 2012 Lo...

In light of the exceptional circumstances that arose from hosting the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004 and from recent terrorist events internationally, Greece attributes the highest priority to security issues. According to its statutory role, the Greek Atomic Energy Commission is responsible for emergency preparedness and response in case of nuclear and radiological events, and advises the Gov...