When sports rules go awry

Wright (Wright, M. OR analysis of sporting rules - A survey. European Journal of Operational Research, 232(1):1-8, 2014) recently presented a survey of sporting rules from an Operational Research (OR) perspective. He surveyed 21 sports, which consider the rules of sports and tournaments and whether changes have led to unintended consequences. The paper concludes: "Overall, it would seem that this is just a taster and there may be plenty more such studies to come". In this paper we present one such study. This is an interdisciplinary paper, which cuts across economics, sport and operational research (OR). We recognize that the paper could have been published in any of these disciplines but for the sake of continuity with the paper that motivated this study, we wanted to publish this paper in an OR journal. We look at specific examples where the rules of sports have led to unforeseen and/or unwanted consequences. We hope that the paper will be especially useful to sports administrators, helping them to review what has not previously worked and also encouraging them to engage with the scientific community when considering making changes. We believe that this is the first time that such a comprehensive review of sporting rules, which have led to unexpected consequences, has been published in the scientific literature

Considering the role of cognitive control in expert performance

© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. Dreyfus and Dreyfus’ (1986) influential phenomenological analysis of skill acquisition proposes that expert performance is guided by non-cognitive responses which are fast, effortless and apparently intuitive in nature. Although this model has been criticised (e.g., by Breivik Journal of Philosophy of Sport, 34, 116–134 2007, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 40, 85–106 2013; Eriksen 2010; Montero Inquiry:An interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, 53, 105–122 2010; Montero and Evans 2011) for over-emphasising the role that intuition plays in facilitating skilled performance, it does recognise that on occasions (e.g., when performance goes awry for some reason) a form of ‘detached deliberative rationality’ may be used by experts to improve their performance. However, Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986) see no role for calculative problem solving or deliberation (i.e., drawing on rules or mental representations) when performance is going well. In the current paper, we draw on empirical evidence, insights from athletes, and phenomenological description to argue that ‘continuous improvement’ (i.e., the phenomenon whereby certain skilled performers appear to be capable of increasing their proficiency even though they are already experts; Toner and Moran 2014) among experts is mediated by cognitive (or executive) control in three distinct sporting situations (i.e., in training, during pre-performance routines, and while engaged in on-line skill execution). We conclude by arguing that Sutton et al. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 42, 78–103 (2011) ‘applying intelligence to the reflexes’ (AIR) approach may help to elucidate the process by which expert performers achieve continuous improvement through analytical/mindful behaviour during training and competition

The unruly rules of the game : writing game and writing practice in George Gissing's New Grub Street

In The Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes likens the reader-writer relationship to a game, the play of which is made possible by the writer's imaginative seeking out of his reader, and the reader's openness to being found. If each does his or her part—if neither bores the other—‘there can still be a game’. This model of writing and reading as exploratory, amorous gamesmanship is troubled by the literary equivalent of spectator sports, literature for a mass audience. According to this new model, described by Marshall McLuhan, ‘Without the audience, there is no game. It would be a practice’, a rehearsal without a play. Within mass culture, then, the game is determined not by the players' mutual efforts to defer the rules, but by the presence of an anonymous public, well-versed in rule and convention before first pitch is thrown or first sentence is read. How one writes, or fails to write, in the context of this new configuration of the game is the main question posed in George Gissing's New Grub Street (1891). I contend that, while the novel’s successful writers play to audience demand, their counterparts yearn for a proper writing practice. Boredom marks the latters’ refusal of the new rules of the game, flagging the novel’s construction and allocation of artistic authenticity.peer-reviewe

Spartan Daily, December 1, 1939

Volume 28, Issue 50https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/2996/thumbnail.jp

Was Zidane honest or well-informed? How UEFA barely avoided a serious scandal

UEFA European Championship 1996 qualification is known to violate strategy-proofness. It has been proved recently that a team could be better off by exerting a lower effort: it might be optimal to concede some goals in order to achieve a better position among runners-up, and hence avoid a hazardous play-off. We show that it is not only an irrelevant scenario with a marginal probability since France had an incentive to kick two own goals on its last match against Israel.Comment: 6 page

Spartan Daily, November 6, 1958

Volume 46, Issue 32https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/12661/thumbnail.jp