Investigating the experience of flow in European Tour golfers

Objectives: This study explored how flow (commonly known as “the zone”) is experienced in elite golf, a sport which may be different to those studied previously due to its slower paced, stop-start nature. Design: In-depth, semi-structured interviews were employed to gain rich insight into the flow experiences of these participants. Method: The participants were 10 male professional golfers (Mean age = 37) who had competed on the European Tour for, on average, 10 full seasons. Five of these had won on the European Tour and two had Ryder Cup experience. The players were asked a range of questions relating to what the experience of flow is like within golf, and the interviews lasted, on average, 53 minutes. Results: Inductive thematic analysis was employed and 14 themes describing flow emerged, of which 11 displayed similarities to Csikszentmihalyi’s dimensions. Notably, however, these golfers reported an additional awareness of being in flow as it occurred, and even attempted to maximise the experience. Two other themes did not clearly fit with the original dimensions either: altered cognitive and kinaesthetic perceptions, and feeling calm and/or relaxed during the experience. Finally, the participants also perceived that they could observe others in flow, e.g., through changes in behaviour. Conclusions: These findings suggest possible revisions to the existing framework to more clearly describe the flow experience within elite golf and possibly other sporting contexts. The seemingly observable nature of flow may also be useful for researchers and, for example, within coaching

The Synthesis of 4-Ethyl-2-propyl-3-substitutedpyrrolo[ 3,4-b]quinoline-1,9-dione Derivatives from 3,3-Dichloro-4-ethyl-thieno[3,4-b]quinoline-1,9-dione and Propylamine

The preparation, spectral properties and structure elucidations of the hitherto undocumented 3-oxo-,  3-thioxo-, 3-propylimino-, 3-imino-, and 3-propylamino- derivatives of 4-ethyl-2-propyl-2,3-dihydro-pyrrolo[3,4-b]quinoline-1,9-dione are described. Mechanistic aspects relating particularly to the formation of the latter two unprecedented products are considered. Magnetic anisotropic effects (deshielding/line broadening of signals) are exhibited by the α-methylene protons of the 4-ethyl moiety in the 1H NMR spectra of the first four of the above, and in several 3,3-dichloro-thieno[3,4-b]quinoline-1,9-diones and intramolecular H-bonded, 1,2-dialkyl-4-oxo-3-quinolinecarboxylic acid precursor substrates.KEYWORDS: 3-Imino-, 3-propylamino-, 3-propylimino-, 3-oxo-, 3-thioxo-substituted 4-ethyl-2-propyl- 2,3-dihydro-pyrrolo[3,4-b]quinoline- 1,9-diones, 4-methyl-, 4-propyl-substituted-3,3-dichloro-thieno[3,4-b]quinoline-1,9-diones, intramolecular H-bonding, magnetic anisotropic effects

Staling in two canned lager beers stored at different temperatures from sensory analyses and consumer ranking

Two canned lagers, lager A (5% abv with late hop character) and lager B (4% abv) stored for 0, 7, 14, 21 and 28 days at 4, 12, 30 and 37°C were scored by trained sensory assessors (10) for liking and stale and related attributes of: cabbagy, cardboard, catty, grainy, honey, leathery, metallic, musty, skunky, and sour. Principal component analysis explained 80% data variance in 3 significant (p < 0.05) and 75% in 4 significant factors for A and B, respectively. In both lagers, aging correlated significantly with stale, cabbagy and musty and in A with metallic and sour and in B with catty and skunky. Partial least squares regression (PLS1) models showed good explanations: stale had regression coefficients of 0.88 (calibration) and 0.84 (validation) for A, and 0.96 and 0.91 respectively, for B; for liking 0.92 and 0.90 for A and 0.96 and 0.93 for B. For both lagers, liking was positively correlated with honey and grainy, and inversely with staling attributes. Lagers from 30°C were ranked for liking by 40 consumers against fresh as a hidden reference. Significant (p = 0.05) ranking of A, but not B, correlated with that of trained assessors

Relationships of overall estery aroma character in lagers with volatile headspace congener concentrations

In lager beers the intensity of “estery” aroma character is re-garded as an important component of sensory quality, but its origins are somewhat uncertain. Overall “estery” aroma intensity was predicted from capillary gas chromatographic (GC) data following solid phase micro extraction (SPME) of headspaces. Estery character was scored in 23 commercial lagers using rank-rating, allowing assessors (13) constant access to a range of appropriate standards. From univariate data analysis, all asses-sors behaved similarly and lagers fell into three significantly different groups: low (1), high (1) and intermediate (21). The quantification of 36 flavour volatiles by SPME of headspaces was reproducible and principal component analysis explained 91% total variance. Multiple linear regression could utilise only a restricted (26) set of flavour volatiles, whereas partial least square regression, that considered all flavour components, showed significant differences and improved prediction. How-ever, an artificial neural network that could compensate for non-linearities and interactions in ester perception gave the most robust prediction at R2 = 0.88

“Active” and “Passive” Coach Pathways: Elite Athletes’ Entry Routes Into High-Performance Coaching Roles

This study sought to analyse the lived experiences of so-called “fast-tracked” coaches from men’s association football and rugby union by seeking to understand how these individuals prepared for and then transitioned into a post-athletic coaching career. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 male coaches. All participants were former elite athletes and had followed a fast-tracked pathway into their current post-athletic coaching roles. Participants were based in England and had retired from an athletic career within 12 months of being interviewed. Two general categories of “active” and “passive” coach pathways were identified for the career trajectory. Active coaches purposefully prepared for a coaching career during their athletic careers, whereas passive coaches did not. Passive coaches’ decisions to become a coach were often reactive and made after retiring from a competitive athletic career. Results indicate that only the career trajectory of passive coaches reflects a fast-track pathway. None of the active or passive coaches negotiated any formalised recruitment processes into their first post-athletic coaching roles. The suggestion is that prejudicial recruitment practices are enacted by senior club management which creates a homogenous coaching workforce. This furthers the need for greater governance of high-performance coach recruitment within England for these sports

An inductive exploration into the flow experiences of European Tour golfers

© 2014 Taylor & Francis. This study explored perceptions regarding the experience of flow in elite golf; a sport which is different to those studied previously due to its self-paced, stop-start nature. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 European Tour golfers. Whereas the majority of previous studies have deductively coded data into Csikszentmihalyi’s dimensions, the data in this study were analysed inductively. Thirteen categories were generated which described the flow experiences of these golfers, and these were compared with the original flow dimensions after analysis. In contrast to previous understanding, these golfers reported being aware that they were in flow as it occurred, and seemingly were able to manage their flow experiences. A category describing altered cognitive and kinaesthetic perceptions was also generated which was not accounted for in the existing flow framework, while the participants also suggested that flow was observable (e.g. through changes in behaviour). Findings are discussed in relation to the existing literature, and recommendations made for future research including possible revisions to the flow framework to better describe this experience within golf and other sporting contexts

Numerical simulation of scour below pipelines using flexible mesh methods

Evaluating bed morphological structure and evolution (specifically the scoured bed level) accurately using numerical models is critical for analyses of the stability of many marine structures. This paper discusses the performance of an implementation within Fluidity, an open source, general purpose, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, capable of handling arbitrary multi-scale unstructured tetrahedral meshes and including algorithms to perform dynamic anisotropic mesh adaptivity. The flexibility over mesh structure and resolution that these capabilities provide makes it potentially highly suitable for coupling the structural scale with larger scale ocean dynamics. In this very preliminary study the solver approach is demonstrated for an idealised scenario. Discontinuous Galerkin finite-element (DG-FEM) based discretisation methods have been used for the hydrodynamics and morphological calculations, and automatic mesh deformation has been utilised to account for bed evolution changes while preserving the validity and quality of the mesh. In future work, the solver will be used in three-dimensional impinging jet and other industrial and environmental scour studies

Political Economy of the Indonesian Sugar Market

The objective of this study was to develop a political economy framework to explain policies in the Indonesian sugar market. The study investigated government intervention in the sugar market and made an attempt to explain why the policies were in place. The method was traced from the economic theory of regulation and special emphasis was given to the Political Preference Function (PPF) framework. The PPF acted as a governing function or a criterion for government policy decision making. With regard to this framework, the participants in the sugar market were disaggregated into three main players, producers, consumers and government. The study focused on the analysis of political weights embodied in the PPF framework. The PPF framework in the study was applied by developing an empirical model capturing political and economic markets. The policies were evaluated in terms of their efficiency. Following the political economy framework, this study investigated policy efficiency in both political markets (demand side) and economic markets (supply side). This approach was also used 10 show that reform in agricultural policy can only be evaluated with the existence of the PPF. Results of maximising the objective function revealed that the policymakers give the highest weight to the government itself. This implied that there was government self interest in the policy decision making. The analysis showed that the policy objective of supporting producers was achieved at a cost to consumers, while at the same time the government took revenue from the policy. With regard to the optimal policy, the study revealed that producer price and consumer price policy was found to be guile efficient; on average it was 0.9 during the period of the study. This means only 10 per cent of wealth are wasted for every unit of wealth transferred between the groups. In regard to the alternative policy, the study showed that setting producer price and consumer price was more efficient than applying import quota. It confirmed the claim made by Bulog that it treated import as a residual, only to till the gap between domestic production and consumption