Using Case-Based Reasoning to Predict Marathon Performance and Recommend Tailored Training Plans

The 28th International Conference on Case-Based Reasoning (ICCP 2020), Salamanca, Spain (held online due to coronavirus outbreak), 8-12 June 2020Training for the marathon, especially a first marathon, is always a challenge. Many runners struggle to find the right balance between their workouts and their recovery, often leading to sub-optimal performance on race-day or even injury during training. We describe and evaluate a novel case-based reasoning system to help marathon runners as they train in two ways. First, it uses a case-base of training/workouts and race histories to predict future marathon times for a target runner, throughout their training program, helping runners to calibrate their progress and, ultimately, plan their race-day pacing. Second, the system recommends tailored training plans to runners, adapted for their current goal-time target, and based on the training plans of similar runners who have achieved this time. We evaluate the system using a dataset of more than 21,000 unique runners and 1.5 million training/workout sessions.Science Foundation IrelandInsight Research Centre2020-10-06 JG: PDF replaced with correct versio

How accurate are runners’ prospective predictions of their race times?

Three authors of the study have received financial support during the preparation of this manuscript. Kate McIntosh received summer internship funding from the University of St Andrews (funded internally by the University of St Andrews where Kate was an undergraduate student) to conduct analyses and visualise the data. Konstantinos Liverakos is in receipt of a PhD studentship from the AD Links Trust (funding external to the University of St Andrews where Konstantinos is a PhD student) and has conducted analyses, visualised data, and helped to prepared the manuscript during the period of his PhD. Christopher J.A. Moulin is a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France.Metacognition is a domain which has illuminated our understanding of the regulation of cognition, but has yet to be applied in detail to more physical activities. We used half marathon finish time predictions from 7211 runners to investigate the factors that influence running performance metacognitive accuracy. In particular, we were concerned with the effects of experience, gender, and age on calibration. We expected more experienced runners to be better calibrated than less experienced ones. Given analogous findings in the domain of metacognition, we expected women to be less overconfident in their predictions, and better calibrated than male runners. Based on the metacognition literature, we expected that if older runners have effectively learned from previous experience, they would be as well-calibrated as younger runners. In contrast, uninformed inferences not based on performance feedback would lead to overestimating performance for older compared to younger runners. As expected, experience in terms of both club membership and previous race completion improved calibration. Unexpectedly though, females were more overconfident than males, overestimating their performance and demonstrating poorer calibration. A positive relationship was observed between age and prediction accuracy, with older runners showing better calibration. The present study demonstrates that data, collected before a test of physical activity, can inform our understanding of how participants anticipate their performance, and how this ability is affected by a number of demographic and situational variables. Athletes and coaches alike should be aware of these variables to better understand, organise, plan, and predict running performance, potentially leading to more appropriate training sessions and faster race finish times.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The Effect of Periodized Strength Training and Periodized Concurrent Training on Running Performance

The objective of this dissertation was to evaluate the changes in preparedness over the course of training for a marathon in two well-trained runners. The athletes completed periodized strength training or a periodized concurrent training. This dissertation consisted of two separate investigations: Study 1 – The purpose of this study was to monitor changes in force production ability and running performance in one sub-elite marathon runner before, during, and after undertaking a short-term block periodized strength training program. The athlete ceased strength training during the off-seasons and resumed testing after 10. The athlete experienced likely true, meaningful changes in force production characteristics during the taper after the training program. Improvements in force production characteristics coincided with improvements in running economy. Both force production characteristics and running economy reversed after the withdraw from strength training. However, both measures remained improved from initial baseline. The improvement in running economy and force production likely coincided with a cardiovascular de-training period, due to a reduction in aerobic training during the off-season. Therefore, strength training may have independent effects on running economy and running performance. These results indicate that endurance runners may better optimize performance by improving force production characteristics via periodized strength training program, and should avoid prolonged periods without strength training. Study 2 – The purpose of this study was to monitor the concurrent and divergent changes in athlete preparedness and performance over a competitive training cycle in two marathon athletes. One athlete added a block periodized strength training program to a non-periodized endurance training program (NBP Athlete). The other athlete (BP Athlete) completed an integrated, concurrent block periodized program using HIT over-reach endurance training. Both athlete displayed improvements in running performance and running economy over the duration of the monitoring program. The BP Athlete displayed earlier and greater magnitudes of performance improvements. These results indicate that strength training can enhance running economy in marathon athletes, performance may be better optimized through periodized integration of strength and endurance training, and the use of HIT over-reach blocks may improve marathon relevant fitness characteristic within the ecologically valid context of an athlete’s training cycle

The role of congruecy within the participant sport involvement and loyalty process.

The endurance event industry has been experiencing a recent popularity boom, where number of events produced and event participants continue to reach record levels. Running USA (2013a; 2013b) has reported the number of finishers in the largest 100 timed running events has grown 77 percent in the last 14 years. A major factor in this current boom is the emerging number of non-traditional running events. Nonexistent a decade ago, non-traditional endurance events, such as obstacle-course races and a variety of themed runs, have flooded the market. For example, Tough Mudder, founded in 2009 (Branch, 2010), has grown to over 3.5 million participants worldwide in just its first five years (Widdicombe, 2014). The variety of offerings available in the endurance event market has not only assisted with growth with the endurance event segment of participatory leisure sport, but it has also spurred cross-category competition. Interestingly, while endurance events have never been more popular or more accessible, health behaviors in the United States are at an all-time low (Healthy People, 2013). American society has been plagued with an overabundance of sedentary behavior and other poor health habits resulting in dire consequences. However, mass participatory endurance events, such as marathons and obstacle course events, and their supporting services represent a potential population-based intervention that may have the capacity to offer positive influence on both healthy and unhealthy populations (Funk, Jordan, Ridinger, & Kaplanidou, 2011; Murphy & Bauman, 2007). These events have not only been shown to possess the ability to increase physical activity (Murphy & Bauman, 2007), they also have the potential to promote positive attitudes towards exercise from individuals across a range of fitness levels (Funk, et al., 2011). To further investigate this recent growth and the potential endurance events have to act as a positive health intervention, by attracting and retaining participants, the purpose of this study was to investigate the process individuals undergo while becoming involved in a leisure endurance sport activity and the role self-congruity between individuals and their functional and symbolic associations perceived with the activity plays in this process. Specifically, this study was designed to investigate the associations individuals have toward endurance events and the role these associations have in the process of involvement by developing increased attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. Additionally, constructs of self-congruity with endurance event functional and symbolic associations perceived by non-endurance event participants and participants were analyzed as to how they were associated with different levels of involvement. Data were collected from current members of endurance running groups and undergraduate students in the United States. Results revealed both non-endurance event participants and endurance event participants considered both types of endurance events, traditional and non-traditional, to share obstacles for participation. Additionally, both event types required their participants to demonstrate an array of physical and mental demands, while still finding sources of enjoyment for participation. However, unique obstacles for participation, such as potentially dangerous and unpredictable, in non-traditional endurance events were considered by traditional event participants. Another area where the two event types differed was in the perceived rewards for participation. Both groups considered traditional endurance event participation to be rewarding, but the non-endurance event participant group did not recall any rewards for non-traditional event participation. Results also indicated significant differences were present in each of the four types of congruity (functional congruity, stereotypical user congruity with ideal self, stereotypical congruity with actual self, and brand personality congruity) based on level of endurance event involvement. Overall, scores of congruity grew in coordination with the Psychological Continuum Model level of the individual. Specifically, those within the highest involvement level, allegiance, displayed significant differences between all other levels along each congruity score. No significant differences existed between those occupying the attraction and attachment levels within each congruity measure. Implications of this study are useful for individuals interested in further understanding the process an individual undergoes while becoming involved in a physical leisure activity such as endurance event participation. First, a segmentation strategy utilizing involvement level produced valuable and descriptive points of differentiation which may be used to generate effective marketing strategies. Second, constraints to activity participation should be minimized through marketing efforts to encourage involvement level elevation. Third, highlighting the benefits of activity participation should be used to encourage involvement level elevation. Finally, efforts to increase the overlap of how an individual perceives the activity with their own self-image and the benefits of activity participation should assist with increased involvement

Bayesian nonparametric models for data exploration

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorMaking sense out of data is one of the biggest challenges of our time. With the emergence of technologies such as the Internet, sensor networks or deep genome sequencing, a true data explosion has been unleashed that affects all fields of science and our everyday life. Recent breakthroughs, such as self-driven cars or champion-level Go player programs, have demonstrated the potential benefits from exploiting data, mostly in well-defined supervised tasks. However, we have barely started to actually explore and truly understand data. In fact, data holds valuable information for answering most important questions for humanity: How does aging impact our physical capabilities? What are the underlying mechanisms of cancer? Which factors make countries wealthier than others? Most of these questions cannot be stated as well-defined supervised problems, and might benefit enormously from multidisciplinary research efforts involving easy-to-interpret models and rigorous data exploratory analyses. Efficient data exploration might lead to life-changing scientific discoveries, which can later be turned into a more impactful exploitation phase, to put forward more informed policy recommendations, decision-making systems, medical protocols or improved models for highly accurate predictions. This thesis proposes tailored Bayesian nonparametric (BNP) models to solve specific data exploratory tasks across different scientific areas including sport sciences, cancer research, and economics. We resort to BNP approaches to facilitate the discovery of unexpected hidden patterns within data. BNP models place a prior distribution over an infinite-dimensional parameter space, which makes them particularly useful in probabilistic models where the number of hidden parameters is unknown a priori. Under this prior distribution, the posterior distribution of the hidden parameters given the data will assign high probability mass to those configurations that best explain the observations. Hence, inference over the hidden variables can be performed using standard Bayesian inference techniques, therefore avoiding expensive model selection steps. This thesis is application-focused and highly multidisciplinary. More precisely, we propose an automatic grading system for sportive competitions to compare athletic performance regardless of age, gender and environmental aspects; we develop BNP models to perform genetic association and biomarker discovery in cancer research, either using genetic information and Electronic Health Records or clinical trial data; finally, we present a flexible infinite latent factor model of international trade data to understand the underlying economic structure of countries and their evolution over time.Uno de los principales desafíos de nuestro tiempo es encontrar sentido dentro de los datos. Con la aparición de tecnologías como Internet, redes de sensores, o métodos de secuenciación profunda del genoma, una verdadera explosión digital se ha visto desencadenada, afectando todos los campos científicos, así como nuestra vida diaria. Logros recientes como pueden ser los coches auto-dirigidos o programas que ganan a los seres humanos al milenario juego del Go, han demostrado con creces los posibles beneficios que podemos obtener de la explotación de datos, mayoritariamente en tareas supervisadas bien definidas. No obstante, apenas hemos empezado con la exploración de datos y su verdadero entendimiento. En verdad, los datos encierran información muy valiosa para responder a muchas de las preguntas más importantes para la humanidad: ¿Cómo afecta el envejecimiento a nuestras aptitudes físicas? ¿Cuáles son los mecanismos subyacentes del cáncer? ¿Qué factores explican la riqueza de ciertos países frente a otros? Si bien la mayoría de estas preguntas no pueden formularse como problemas supervisados bien definidos, éstas pueden ser abordadas mediante esfuerzos de investigación multidisciplinar que involucren modelos fáciles de interpretar y análisis exploratorios rigurosos. Explorar los datos de manera eficiente abre potencialmente la puerta a un sinnúmero de descubrimientos científicos en diversas áreas con impacto real en nuestras vidas, descubrimientos que a su vez pueden llevarnos a una mejor explotación de los datos, resultando en recomendaciones políticas adecuadas, sistemas precisos de toma de decisión, protocolos médicos optimizados o modelos con mejores capacidades predictivas. Esta tesis propone modelos Bayesianos no-paramétricos (BNP) adecuados para la resolución específica de tareas explorativas de los datos en diversos ámbitos científicos incluyendo ciencias del deporte, investigación contra el cáncer, o economía. Recurrimos a un planteamiento BNP para facilitar el descubrimiento de patrones ocultos inesperados subyacentes en los datos. Los modelos BNP definen una distribución a priori sobre un espacio de parámetros de dimensión infinita, lo cual los hace especialmente atractivos para enfoques probabilísticos donde el número de parámetros latentes es en principio desconocido. Bajo dicha distribución a priori, la distribución a posteriori de los parámetros ocultos dados los datos asignará mayor probabilidad a aquellas configuraciones que mejor explican las observaciones. De esta manera, la inferencia sobre el espacio de variables ocultas puede realizarse mediante técnicas estándar de inferencia Bayesiana, evitando el proceso de selección de modelos. Esta tesis se centra en el ámbito de las aplicaciones, y es de naturaleza multidisciplinar. En concreto, proponemos un sistema de gradación automática para comparar el rendimiento deportivo de atletas independientemente de su edad o género, así como de otros factores del entorno. Desarrollamos modelos BNP para descubrir asociaciones genéticas y biomarcadores dentro de la investigación contra el cáncer, ya sea contrastando información genética con la historia clínica electrónica de los pacientes, o utilizando datos de ensayos clínicos; finalmente, presentamos un modelo flexible de factores latentes infinito para datos de comercio internacional, con el objetivo de entender la estructura económica de los distintos países y su correspondiente evolución a lo largo del tiempo.Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Multimedia y ComunicacionesPresidente: Joaquín Míguez Arenas.- Secretario: Daniel Hernández Lobato.- Vocal: Cédric Archambea

Anniversary Essays - Forty Years of Geography at Maynooth. Volume 1 & 2

The following collection of ‘Anniversar y Essays’ is an odd mix. But yet, looking through it, I find its oddness perfectly appropriate, because isn’t geography – the discipline and the subject matter – precisely that? Space is, as many of these essays explicit ly or implicitly highlight, a crazy mixture of thrown together objects, forces and ideas. And it’s this fact of geography that gives me heart when I flick through the following essays and think of them as representing what scholars and researchers and teachers in Maynooth’s Department of Geography have done over the last four decades. Sure, we’ve done more than what this collection captures, and there’s no doubt we’ll continue to do amazing things, but at this juncture, in our 40 th year, I believe this collection is a wonderful transect through the department’s development and a unique testimony to its intellectual vibrancy. All along the transect, we are exposed to the wide variety of research questions addressed by geographers in Maynooth; questions about colonialism, health, climate, memory, place, migration, water, religion, identity, inward investment, and technology, and much more besides. An odd mix, yes, but a productive one, too. We also get to see developments and changes in the de partment as a place. In the first few chapters, for example, we see signs of the department’s early life as a centre for the study of Ireland’s historical geography, as well as a burgeoning location for the study of climate, medical and economic geography. Then, as the collection progresses, we discern a whole set of new issues tackled, including urban and technological change, adaptation to climate change, identity, planni ng, embodiment, and the politics and economics of Ireland’s changing circumstances. I think it fair to say that the collectio n also offers a unique opportunity to examine the breadth and richness of our discipline. The essays reflect many of the various ways of thinking about and doing geography. We see, for instance, that geography is about physical and social processes, about climate and class, say; and that geography is about using a range of methods, from remote sensing to ethnography. We also see examples of how scholars in the department ha ve engaged theoretically with the discipline by drawing from and seeking to contribute to what we know about physical geography, climate change studies, feminist theory, Marxism, post-structuralism, and the world of policy-makers. From their base in Maynooth, geographers in the Department have helped to develop broader understanding of key issues in the discipline, often by making significant key contributions to geographical knowledge. Long may that continue. The collection lying before you truly is a unique heritage document, which demonstrates what scholarship in one Irish academic department can achieve over a forty-year span. In this sense it has value. But I believe the collection has wider resonance. For students of the history and philosophy of science in general, and geography in particular, the collection is a landmark contribution. There is plenty of scope to imagine how it might be used to learn about the Irish geography community and how it has grown and changed in the last forty years. I also hope the collection might be used by under- and post-graduate students as an entry point into learning to understand this odd discipline, but also this fantastic department. For example, it is striking how, just as the last five years or so have seen huge changes in the department, we also see in the latter chapters of the collection a wide range of new patterns take shape, such as the internationalization of the department’s research foci and publishing venues; the expression of engaged scholarship regarding contemporary issues in Ireland and beyond; new publishing strategies, including the use of blogs; and new strengths in established areas of the department’s research activities such as climate change. There have been important developments in academic geography in the last few years, not just in Ireland; this sort of coll ection should help piece together explanations for what has happened and why. In sum, then, the collection effectively captures geography’s odd mix and some of Maynooth’s role in its creation. It is at once a celebration of Geography in Maynooth and an opportunity to glimpse the department’s richness, its diversity, and breadth. I hope you agree

News and the Public Sphere: The Boston Marathon Bombing in \u3ci\u3eThe New York Times\u3c/i\u3e and \u3ci\u3eLe Figaro\u3c/i\u3e

The current dissertation explores the online mediatization of the Boston Marathon bombing crisis by an American newspaper (The New York Times) and a French one (Le Figaro) and their publics’ reactions to it. The research was conducted along two main analysis axes: (1) the main frames and themes through which the journalists and the publics gave meaning to the event, and (2) the characteristics of the online public spheres therefore created. The comparative perspective on the journalistic frames showed a strong tendency of homogenization, as the same main frames appeared in both analyzed newspapers. However, the online comments analysis revealed that in both cases, while the publics debated the event within those journalistic frames, they also negotiated or assigned new meanings, therefore creating new themes. The comparative perspective on the online public spheres showed that the major normative conditions of a public sphere were achieved. Nevertheless, certain differences were found that could be explained as pertaining to different cultures: the French debates were characterized by more moments of subjective personal involvement and flaming. From a journalistic practice standpoint the findings indicated that both the American and French publics critically scrutinized every piece of news information, addressed precise requests, and expected journalists to reply and fulfill their informational needs