Study Regarding the Order of Psychological Processes and the Importance of the Psychological Factors of High Performance for the Sports Branch Karate

AbstractThis paper constitutes an observational study conducted between February and March, 2011, on 20 coaches from various Romanian clubs. The study aimed to observe the importance of psychological factors for the karate training. We used as a research method a questionnaire with 10 questions, on which each coach had to choose one answer. The answers were analyzed and presented as charts. The analysis of the results we obtained from the questionnaire has emphasized multiple aspects showi ng the opinion of the karate coaches regarding one of the components of the training process, namely the psychological training

Psychometric Assessment of the Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale with Professional Romanian Athletes

Background: Although athletes’ experiences of autonomy, competence, and relatedness play in key role in their motivation, performance-related outcomes, and wellness, there is no evidence to date on measures of autonomy, competence, and relatedness in the Romanian sport context. Building upon self-determination theory, the objective of this research was to adapt the Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale and analyze its psychometric properties in the Romanian sport context. Methods: The participants were 642 professional athletes (354 males and 288 females; Mage = 22.81, SD = 5.78) who competed at the international and/or national level. Results: The results from confirmatory factor analyses psychometrically supported a six-factor correlated model, which was invariant across gender, age, and sport. Convergent validity was met by average variance extracted values between 0.60 and 0.74. Discriminant validity was underpinned by values from −0.72 to 0.72 for a heterotrait–monotrait ratio of correlations among the six factors. Reliability was endorsed by Cronbach’s alpha scores between 0.75 and 0.89, and between 0.76 and 0.89 for Raykov’s composite reliability coefficient. Criterion validity was supported by positive relationships of autonomy, competence, and relatedness satisfaction to autonomous motivation, and positive associations of autonomy, competence, and relatedness frustration with controlled motivation and amotivation. Conclusions: The Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale is shown to be a valid and reliable measure of need satisfaction and frustration in professional Romanian athletes

Effective Rheology of Bubbles Moving in a Capillary Tube

We calculate the average volumetric flux versus pressure drop of bubbles moving in a single capillary tube with varying diameter, finding a square-root relation from mapping the flow equations onto that of a driven overdamped pendulum. The calculation is based on a derivation of the equation of motion of a bubble train from considering the capillary forces and the entropy production associated with the viscous flow. We also calculate the configurational probability of the positions of the bubbles.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Alignment of the ALICE Inner Tracking System with cosmic-ray tracks

37 pages, 15 figures, revised version, accepted by JINSTALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) experiment devoted to investigating the strongly interacting matter created in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC energies. The ALICE ITS, Inner Tracking System, consists of six cylindrical layers of silicon detectors with three different technologies; in the outward direction: two layers of pixel detectors, two layers each of drift, and strip detectors. The number of parameters to be determined in the spatial alignment of the 2198 sensor modules of the ITS is about 13,000. The target alignment precision is well below 10 micron in some cases (pixels). The sources of alignment information include survey measurements, and the reconstructed tracks from cosmic rays and from proton-proton collisions. The main track-based alignment method uses the Millepede global approach. An iterative local method was developed and used as well. We present the results obtained for the ITS alignment using about 10^5 charged tracks from cosmic rays that have been collected during summer 2008, with the ALICE solenoidal magnet switched off.Peer reviewe

Higher harmonic anisotropic flow measurements of charged particles in Pb-Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV

We report on the first measurement of the triangular $v_3$, quadrangular $v_4$, and pentagonal $v_5$ charged particle flow in Pb-Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV measured with the ALICE detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. We show that the triangular flow can be described in terms of the initial spatial anisotropy and its fluctuations, which provides strong constraints on its origin. In the most central events, where the elliptic flow $v_2$ and $v_3$ have similar magnitude, a double peaked structure in the two-particle azimuthal correlations is observed, which is often interpreted as a Mach cone response to fast partons. We show that this structure can be naturally explained from the measured anisotropic flow Fourier coefficients.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/387

Solar Signature in Climate Indices

The influence of solar/geomagnetic activity on climate variables still remains a fully unclarified problem, although many scientific efforts have been made to better understand it. In order to bring more information to this open problem, in the present study, we analyze the connection between solar/geomagnetic activity (predictors) and climate variables (predictands) by applying elements from information theory and wavelet transform analysis. The solar activity was highlighted by the Wolf number and geomagnetic activity was quantified by the aa index. For the climate variables, we considered seven Climate Indices (CIs) that influence atmospheric circulation on regional or global scales, such as the Greenland-Balkan Oscillation Index (GBOI), North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAOI), Arctic Oscillation (AO), Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), Bivariate ENSO Timeseries (BEST) and Trans-Niño Index (TNI). By using the difference between synergy and redundancy, a few cases were found where the two predictors can be considered together for CIs’ estimation. Coherence analysis through the wavelet transform for three variables, both through multiple and partial analysis, provides the time intervals and bands of periods, where the two considered predictors can be used together or separately. The results differ depending on the predictand, the season and the considered lags. Significant information is brought out by using the two predictors together, namely the summer season, for GBOI and NAOI, when the predictors were taken 2 years before, and the winter season, as AMO responds to the variations of both solar and geomagnetic activity after 4 years