Proceedings of Mathsport international 2017 conference

Proceedings of MathSport International 2017 Conference, held in the Botanical Garden of the University of Padua, June 26-28, 2017. MathSport International organizes biennial conferences dedicated to all topics where mathematics and sport meet. Topics include: performance measures, optimization of sports performance, statistics and probability models, mathematical and physical models in sports, competitive strategies, statistics and probability match outcome models, optimal tournament design and scheduling, decision support systems, analysis of rules and adjudication, econometrics in sport, analysis of sporting technologies, financial valuation in sport, e-sports (gaming), betting and sports

A time-motion analysis of elite women's hockey - implications for fitness assessment and training

To-date no large scale studies have been published that have used player tracking technology to investigate continuous time-motion analysis in the modern era of Women’s field hockey during Elite level International\ud competition to investigate positional differences and inform fitness training and testing. A new computerised time-motion analysis method, Trak Performance was used to analyse individual player movement (n = 54) from\ud 18 International Women’s hockey matches (18 defenders, 18 midfielders, 18 forwards). Overall analysis identified distance covered 9.1 ± 1.6 km, of which 74.7 ± 9.0% was covered in low intensity activity of stationary, walking and\ud jogging, 3.9 ± 2.4% match time was spent stationary. Mean sprint distance of 12.7 ± 1.7 m, with an average of 26.7 ± 11.5 s between each sprint. Positional differences were identified for the mean percentage of time spent, distances\ud covered in locomotion activity, the mean duration of rest between sprint bouts, the frequency of sprints and work to rest ratios. The majority of contrasts in movement characteristics occur between the defensive players and other outfield positions. Analysis of repeated-sprint ability revealed forwards undertake a significantly greater amount of 16 ± 9. Modern hockey dispels traditional positional roles with tactics and the more fluid nature of attacking plays requiring a more versatile player. Fitness assessment/training should therefore resemble the intermittent nature of the game with sprint recovery\ud periods reflecting the different positional demands

High school boys\u27 basketball and the social structure of suburban, rural, and urban high school communities : a comparative case study.

This study examined the relationship between high school boys\u27 basketball and the social structure of a suburban, rural, and urban high school in the lower Midwest. These schools surround a metropolitan area of approximately one million people. The researcher used interviews, observations, and mining of documents to collect data. The study answered four research questions. The first question addressed the social structure of the three schools. Each school contained a group associated with sport participation called jock or athlete. The second research question examined how boys\u27 basketball participation affected social group membership and the associated positive and negative aspects. At each school, boys\u27 basketball assisted in jock or athlete group membership. Boys\u27 basketball players, however, had dual membership in two social groups at each school. The third research question examined how boys\u27 basketball participation offered opportunities or limited upward mobility within the school and beyond. All three schools showed boys\u27 basketball as an overall positive in this regard, but questions of how much occurred at the rural and urban school. Research question four served as a cross-case analysis regarding the role of boys\u27 basketball within the social structure of each school. The influence of socio-economics was a primary finding of research question four and ultimately the study. The findings contributed to the knowledge base that will allow high school basketball coaches and school administrators address social issues pertaining to the students who participate. The findings, furthermore, moved research forward concerning high school sport benefits and limitations and the social implications of high school sport

Eye quietness and quiet eye in expert and novice golf performance: an electrooculographic analysis

Quiet eye (QE) is the final ocular fixation on the target of an action (e.g., the ball in golf putting). Camerabased eye-tracking studies have consistently found longer QE durations in experts than novices; however, mechanisms underlying QE are not known. To offer a new perspective we examined the feasibility of measuring the QE using electrooculography (EOG) and developed an index to assess ocular activity across time: eye quietness (EQ). Ten expert and ten novice golfers putted 60 balls to a 2.4 m distant hole. Horizontal EOG (2ms resolution) was recorded from two electrodes placed on the outer sides of the eyes. QE duration was measured using a EOG voltage threshold and comprised the sum of the pre-movement and post-movement initiation components. EQ was computed as the standard deviation of the EOG in 0.5 s bins from –4 to +2 s, relative to backswing initiation: lower values indicate less movement of the eyes, hence greater quietness. Finally, we measured club-ball address and swing durations. T-tests showed that total QE did not differ between groups (p = .31); however, experts had marginally shorter pre-movement QE (p = .08) and longer post-movement QE (p < .001) than novices. A group × time ANOVA revealed that experts had less EQ before backswing initiation and greater EQ after backswing initiation (p = .002). QE durations were inversely correlated with EQ from –1.5 to 1 s (rs = –.48 - –.90, ps = .03 - .001). Experts had longer swing durations than novices (p = .01) and, importantly, swing durations correlated positively with post-movement QE (r = .52, p = .02) and negatively with EQ from 0.5 to 1s (r = –.63, p = .003). This study demonstrates the feasibility of measuring ocular activity using EOG and validates EQ as an index of ocular activity. Its findings challenge the dominant perspective on QE and provide new evidence that expert-novice differences in ocular activity may reflect differences in the kinematics of how experts and novices execute skills

Towards Commentary-Driven Soccer Player Analytics

Open information extraction (open IE) has been shown to be useful in a number of NLP Tasks, such as question answering, relation extraction, and information retrieval. Soccer is the most watched sport in the world. The dynamic nature of the game corresponds to the team strategy and individual contribution, which are the deciding factors for a team’s success. Generally, companies collect sports event data manually and very rarely they allow free-access to these data by third parties. However, a large amount of data is available freely on various social media platforms where different types of users discuss these very events. To rely on expert data, we are currently using the live-match commentary as our rich and unexplored data-source. Our aim out of this commentary analysis is to initially extract key events from each game and eventually key entities like players involved, player action and other player related attributes from these key events. We propose an end-to-end application to extract commentaries and extract player attributes from it. The study will primarily depend on an extensive crowd labelling of data involving precautionary periodical checks to prevent incorrectly tagged data. This research will contribute significantly towards analysis of commentary and acts as a cheap tool providing player performance analysis for smaller to intermediate budget soccer club

Effective talent development environments: bridging the theory-practice gap within a UK context

Performance sport has become a high priority for many Nations. For example, the UK distributes approximately £25 million per year through their World Class Performance programmes in order to aid effective identification, development and performance of our best athletes. Not surprisingly, in line with a more professional and scientific approach, the standards of sporting performance at an elite level are constantly improving. In order to remain competitive on the international stage, the processes and support mechanisms within our talent development environments (TDEs) must be effective in order to maintain a consistent stream of talent, capable of success at the highest level.Unfortunately, the structure and evidence base for talent development (TD) processes within the UK is weak and lacking in evidence -based guidance for those working `on the ground'. This is compounded by an apparent procedural bias towards the identification of talent as opposed to its development, a focus which is contrary to much of the research in this area. Against this backdrop, the objectives of this thesis are as follows:1) To identify the `needs' within current TD practice and provide clear direction and methodological guidance for the required programme of research,2) To identify guidelines through a triangulation of evidence that enables the application of effective TD procedures,3) To develop a tool to help bridge the theory -practice divide and enable practitioners and researchers to examine TDEs within applied settings, and4) To provide preliminary validation of the tool to assess the extent to which it has discriminant function

Players\u27 and coaches\u27 perceptions of soccer coaches\u27 specific leadership behaviours

This research has examined players\u27 and coaches\u27 perceptions of the specific leadership behaviours of soccer coaches. The research was comprised two studies, the first a quantitative study and the second a qualitative study. Both studies focused on researching Yuki\u27s (1989, 1994) 14 specific leadership behaviours. These are: (a) team building and conflict management, (b) developing, (c) supporting, (d) rewarding, (e) recognising, (I) motivating and inspiring, {g) delegating. (h) consulting, (i) problem solving, (j) planning, (k) monitoring, (1) clarifying, (m) informing, and (n) networking. Subjects for Study I were 400 randomly selected soccer players and 40 randomly selected soccer coaches. The ratio between the players and the coaches was 10:1. Results of the MANOVA revealed significant multivariate differences between players\u27 and coaches’ perceptions of coaches\u27 behaviours. The univariate ANOVAs revealed that Coaches\u27 and players\u27 perceptions differed significantly on ten of the 14 specific behaviours. The MANOVA results showed significant multivariate difference between players\u27 perceptions and the coaches\u27 years of experience. The univariate ANOVAs test revealed that players\u27 perceptions differed significantly on eight specific behaviours. The results of Bonferroni adjusted t tests indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between players\u27 perceptions of their coaches\u27 behaviours. Results of the MANOVA revealed significant multivariate difference in players\u27 perceptions of their coaches\u27 behaviours and the level of competition. The univariate ANOVAs test revealed that 13 specific behaviours were statistically significant. Results of the MANOVA showed significant multivariate difference between male and female players. The univariate ANOVAs test indicates that players\u27 perceptions differ significantly on six specific behaviours. Results oft he MANOVA revealed significant multivariate difference between junior and senior players. The univariate ANOVAs test indicated that only delegating is significant at the 0.001 level