Investigating Player Selection within UK Academy Soccer: The Application of Objective and Subjective Assessments in Detecting Talent

Talent selection and development in academy soccer is highly dependent on coach intuition. Given such reliance upon subjective inputs, a greater understanding towards the utility of coach intuition may prove invaluable. The present study investigated coach agreement, the associations between subjective and objective outcomes and prominent traits highlighted within player (de)selection. Academy players (n = 45, age = 14 ± 2yrs) and coaches (n = 10, age = 31 ± 5yrs) were recruited from a professional soccer academy. Objective assessments included tactical and psychological surveys, physical assessments (linear sprints, change of direction and jumping tasks) and performance analysis (performance assessment for team sports). Coach subjective player gradings were collected using a visual analogue scale aligned to the objective assessments. Lead and assistant coaches demonstrated poor-to-moderate agreements in perceived player skills (ICC = 0.48 to 0.76) and fair to almost perfect agreement in player (de)selection (ICC= 0.23-1.00, P <.001 to .26). However, coach agreement reduced as players aged. Likewise, a maturation related bias was present whereby biologically older players were selected over their lesser mature players. Moreover, coach intuition demonstrated a strong predictive capability to select players, whilst the study was incapable of distinguishing exclusive traits related to selection outcome

Direct observations of the atomic-molecular phase transition in the Milky Way's nuclear wind

Hundreds of high-velocity atomic gas clouds exist above and below the Galactic Centre, with some containing a molecular component. However, the origin of these clouds in the Milky Way's wind is unclear. This paper presents new high-resolution MeerKAT observations of three atomic gas clouds and studies the relationship between the atomic and molecular phases at $\sim 1$ pc scales. The clouds' atomic hydrogen column densities, $N_{\mathrm{HI}}$, are less than a \mbox{few}\times 10^{20} cm$^{-2}$, but the two clouds closest to the Galactic Centre nonetheless have detectable CO emission. This implies the presence of H$_{2}$ at levels of $N_{\mathrm{HI}}$ at least a factor of ten lower than in the typical Galactic interstellar medium. For the cloud closest to the Galactic Centre, there is little correlation between the $N_{\mathrm{HI}}$ and the probability that it will harbour detectable CO emissions. In contrast, for the intermediate cloud, detectable CO is heavily biased toward the highest values of $N_{\mathrm{HI}}$. The cloud most distant from the Galactic Centre has no detectable CO at similar $N_{\mathrm{HI}}$ values. Moreover, we find that the two clouds with detectable CO are too molecule-rich to be in chemical equilibrium, given the depths of their atomic shielding layers, which suggests a scenario whereby these clouds consist of pre-existing molecular gas from the disc that the Galactic wind has swept up, and that is dissociating into atomic hydrogen as it flows away from the Galaxy. We estimate that entrained molecular material of this type has a $\sim \mathrm{few}-10$ Myr lifetime before photodissociating.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. Submitted to MNRA

Utilizing multi-objective decision support tools for protected area selection

Establishing and maintaining protected areas (PAs) is a key action in delivering post-2020 biodiversity targets. PAs often need to meet multiple objectives, ranging from biodiversity protection to ecosystem service provision and climate change mitigation, but available land and conservation funding is limited. Therefore, optimizing resources by selecting the most beneficial PAs is vital. Here, we advocate for a flexible and transparent approach to selecting PAs based on multiple objectives, and illustrate this with a decision support tool on a global scale. The tool allows weighting and prioritization of different conservation objectives according to user-specified preferences as well as real-time comparison of the outcome. Applying the tool across 1,346 terrestrial PAs, we demonstrate that decision makers frequently face trade-offs among conflicting objectives, e.g., between species protection and ecosystem integrity. Nevertheless, we show that transparent decision support tools can reveal synergies and trade-offs associated with PA selection, thereby helping to illuminate and resolve land-use conflicts embedded in divergent societal and political demands and values.publishedVersio

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Influence of LVAD cannula outflow tract location on hemodynamics in the ascending aorta: a patient-specific computational fluid dynamics approach

To develop a better understanding of the hemodynamic alterations in the ascending aorta, induced by variation of the cannula outflow position of the left ventricular assist device (LVAD) device based on patient-specific geometries, transient computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations using the realizable k-ε turbulent model were conducted for two of the most common LVAD outflow geometries. Thoracic aortic flow patterns, pressures, wall shear stresses (WSSs), turbulent dissipation, and energy were quantified in the ascending aorta at the location of the cannula outflow. Streamlines for the lateral geometry showed a large region of disturbed flow surrounding the LVAD outflow with an impingement zone at the contralateral wall exhibiting increased WSSs and pressures. Flow disturbance was reduced for the anterior geometries with clearly reduced pressures and WSSs. Turbulent dissipation was higher for the lateral geometry and turbulent energy was lower. Variation in the position of the cannula outflow clearly affects hemodynamics in the ascending aorta favoring an anterior geometry for a more ordered flow pattern. The new patient-specific approach used in this study for LVAD patients emphasizes the potential use of CFD as a truly translational technique

How to resolve conflicting conservation objectives: A decision support tool for the global selection of multi-purpose protected areas

The establishment and maintenance of protected areas(PAs) is viewed as a key action in delivering post-2020 biodiversity targets. PAs often need to meet a multitude of objectives, ranging from biodiversity protection to ecosystem service provision and climate change mitigation. As available land and conservation funding are limited, optimizing resources by selecting the most beneficial PAs is vital. Here we present a decision support tool that enables a flexible approach to PA selection on a global scale, allowing different conservation objectives to be weighted and prioritized according to user-specified preferences. We apply the tool across 1347 terrestrial PAs and highlight frequent trade-offs among different objectives, e.g., between biodiversity protection and ecosystem integrity. These results indicate that decision makers must usually decide among conflicting objectives. To assist this our decision support tool provides an explicitly value-based approach that can help resolve such conflicts by considering divergent societal and political demands and values