Combining internal- and external-training-load measures in professional rugby league

Purpose: This study investigated the effect of training mode on the relationships between measures of training load in professional rugby league players. Methods: Five measures of training load (internal: individualized training impulse, session rating of perceived exertion; external—body load, high-speed distance, total impacts) were collected from 17 professional male rugby league players over the course of two 12-week pre-season periods. Training was categorized by mode (small-sided games, conditioning, skills, speed, strongman, and wrestle) and subsequently subjected to a principal component analysis. Extraction criteria were set at an eigenvalue of greater than one. Modes that extracted more than one principal component were subjected to a varimax rotation. Results: Small-sided games and conditioning extracted one principal component, explaining 68% and 52% of the variance, respectively. Skills, wrestle, strongman, and speed extracted two principal components explaining 68%, 71%, 72%, and 67% of the variance respectively. Conclusions: In certain training modes the inclusion of both internal and external training load measures explained a greater proportion of the variance than any one individual measure. This would suggest that in those training modes where two principal components were identified, the use of only a single internal or external training load measure could potentially lead to an underestimation of the training dose. Consequently, a combination of internal and external load measures is required during certain training modes

Sport Isn’t Sacred and Analytics Isn’t New: Challenging Common Notions About Sports Analytics

The authors add to the debate about whether sport and numbers can cohabitate in modern day athletics, three areas are explored (albeit briefly) in the present paper. The first area focuses on the newness (or lack thereof) of analytics. The second area focuses the objectivity of analytics. The third area focuses on the idea that athletic competition is somehow sacred and should not be soiled by applying various statistical methods to practical sport performance problems

Quantifying Assessment Of Undergraduate Critical Thinking

Enhancing students' critical thinking capabilities stands as the top goal of undergraduate education, according to faculty from many universities. We assessed the change in critical thinking skills with a sample of 176 students enrolled at either the University of Colorado Boulder (UCB) or Colorado College (CC) by employing the Critical-thinking Assessment Test (CAT) developed with collaboration and support from the National Science Foundation. Students' critical thinking progress was compared by assaying skills during the first and last weeks of the term in classes that expressly emphasized: (1) critical thinking, or (2) civic engagement, or (3) where, according to the class instructors, neither was a point of major emphasis. CAT scores improved significantly for students at both institutions, in different categories of class types, and over the dramatically different lengths of terms (3.5 weeks at CC vs 15 weeks at UCB). Our research contributes to an understanding of changes in critical thinking as part of the undergraduate experience. We demonstrate that the CAT instrument can be an effective tool for assessing critical thinking skills across very different institutions of higher education

Imaging X-ray spectrometer

An X-ray spectrometer for providing imaging and energy resolution of an X-ray source is described. This spectrometer is comprised of a thick silicon wafer having an embedded matrix or grid of aluminum completely through the wafer fabricated, for example, by thermal migration. The aluminum matrix defines the walls of a rectangular array of silicon X-ray detector cells or pixels. A thermally diffused aluminum electrode is also formed centrally through each of the silicon cells with biasing means being connected to the aluminum cell walls and causes lateral charge carrier depletion between the cell walls so that incident X-ray energy causes a photoelectric reaction within the silicon producing collectible charge carriers in the form of electrons which are collected and used for imaging

Modelling and Refinement in CODA

This paper provides an overview of the CODA framework for modelling and refinement of component-based embedded systems. CODA is an extension of Event-B and UML-B and is supported by a plug-in for the Rodin toolset. CODA augments Event-B with constructs for component-based modelling including components, communications ports, port connectors, timed communications and timing triggers. Component behaviour is specified through a combination of UML-B state machines and Event-B. CODA communications and timing are given an Event-B semantics through translation rules. Refinement is based on Event-B refinement and allows layered construction of CODA models in a consistent way.Comment: In Proceedings Refine 2013, arXiv:1305.563

A stochastic vortex structure method for interacting particles in turbulent shear flows

In a recent study, we have proposed a new synthetic turbulence method based on stochastic vortex structures (SVSs), and we have demonstrated that this method can accurately predict particle transport, collision, and agglomeration in homogeneous, isotropic turbulence in comparison to direct numerical simulation results. The current paper extends the SVS method to non-homogeneous, anisotropic turbulence. The key element of this extension is a new inversion procedure, by which the vortex initial orientation can be set so as to generate a prescribed Reynolds stress field. After validating this inversion procedure for simple problems, we apply the SVS method to the problem of interacting particle transport by a turbulent planar jet. Measures of the turbulent flow and of particle dispersion, clustering, and collision obtained by the new SVS simulations are shown to compare well with direct numerical simulation results. The influence of different numerical parameters, such as number of vortices and vortex lifetime, on the accuracy of the SVS predictions is also examined