Team Coordination Dynamics of Winning NBA Teams

Predicting sports games outcomes is an endless pursuit shared by stakeholders ranging from fans to coaches to data scientists. We have begun investigating the value of positional data recorded during basketball gameplay with the goal of predicting outcomes from team dynamics as they emerge. We approached this problem by analyzing the “shape” of team movements on the court and investigated whether team dynamics in NBA games mimicked long-range correlated patterns observed in other team contexts. We analyzed 622 NBA games from an archival data set, including all area time series obtained for each of the four quarters. We fit a linear mixed-effects model with normalized α or percent determinism, as the outcome variable, and a fixed effect of win/loss and random team effects (i.e., random intercepts). These preliminary results suggest that analyzing positional data using time series data may provide meaningful information relating to game outcomes and team coordination dynamics

Changes in human walking dynamics induced by uneven terrain are reduced with ongoing exposure, but a higher variability persists

During walking, uneven terrain alters the action of the ground reaction force from stride to stride. The extent to which such environmental inconsistencies are withstood may be revealed by the regulation of whole-body angular momentum (L) during walking. L quantifies the balance of momenta of the body segments (thigh, trunk, etc.) about their combined center of mass, and remains close to zero during level walking. A failure to constrain L has been linked to falls. The aim of this study was to explore the ability of young adults to orchestrate their movement on uneven terrain, illustrated by the range of L (LR) and its variability (vLR). In eleven male adults, we observed significant increases in sagittal plane LR, and vLR in all three planes of motion during walking on an uneven in comparison to a flat surface. No reductions in these measures were observed within a 12-minute familiarisation period, suggesting that unimpaired adults either are unable to, or do not need to eliminate the effects of uneven terrain. Transverse plane LR, in contrast, was lower on immediate exposure, and then increased, pointing to the development of a less restrictive movement pattern, and would support the latter hypothesis

Locomotor patterns change over time during walking on an uneven surface

During walking, uneven surfaces impose new demands for controlling balance and forward progression at each step. It is unknown to what extent walking may be refined given an amount of stride-to-stride unpredictability at the distal level. Here, we explored the effects of an uneven terrain surface on whole-body locomotor dynamics immediately following exposure and after a familiarization period. Eleven young, unimpaired adults walked for 12 min on flat and uneven terrain treadmills. The whole-body center of mass excursion range (COMexc) and peak velocity (COMvel), step length and width were estimated. On first exposure to uneven terrain, we saw significant increases in medial–lateral COMexc and lateral COMvel, and in the variability of COMexc, COMvel and foot placement in both anterior–posterior and medial–lateral directions. Increases in step width and decreases in step length supported the immediate adoption of a cautious, restrictive solution on uneven terrain. After familiarization, step length increased and the variability of anterior–posterior COMvel and step length reduced, while step width and lateral COMvel reduced, alluding to a refinement of movement and a reduction of conservative strategies over time. However, the variability of medial–lateral COMexc and lateral COMvel increased, consistent with the release of previously constrained degrees of freedom. Despite this increase in variability, a strong relationship between step width and medial–lateral center of mass movement was maintained. Our results indicate that movement strategies of unimpaired adults when walking on uneven terrain can evolve over time with longer exposure to the surface

Integrated monitoring of mola mola behaviour in space and time

Over the last decade, ocean sunfish movements have been monitored worldwide using various satellite tracking methods. This study reports the near-real time monitoring of finescale (< 10 m) behaviour of sunfish. The study was conducted in southern Portugal in May 2014 and involved satellite tags and underwater and surface robotic vehicles to measure both the movements and the contextual environment of the fish. A total of four individuals were tracked using custom-made GPS satellite tags providing geolocation estimates of fine-scale resolution. These accurate positions further informed sunfish areas of restricted search (ARS), which were directly correlated to steep thermal frontal zones. Simultaneously, and for two different occasions, an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) videorecorded the path of the tracked fish and detected buoyant particles in the water column. Importantly, the densities of these particles were also directly correlated to steep thermal gradients. Thus, both sunfish foraging behaviour (ARS) and possibly prey densities, were found to be influenced by analogous environmental conditions. In addition, the dynamic structure of the water transited by the tracked individuals was described by a Lagrangian modelling approach. The model informed the distribution of zooplankton in the region, both horizontally and in the water column, and the resultant simulated densities positively correlated with sunfish ARS behaviour estimator (r(s) = 0.184, p < 0.001). The model also revealed that tracked fish opportunistically displace with respect to subsurface current flow. Thus, we show how physical forcing and current structure provide a rationale for a predator's finescale behaviour observed over a two weeks in May 2014

Proceedings of the 3rd Biennial Conference of the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) 2015: advancing efficient methodologies through community partnerships and team science

It is well documented that the majority of adults, children and families in need of evidence-based behavioral health interventionsi do not receive them [1, 2] and that few robust empirically supported methods for implementing evidence-based practices (EBPs) exist. The Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) represents a burgeoning effort to advance the innovation and rigor of implementation research and is uniquely focused on bringing together researchers and stakeholders committed to evaluating the implementation of complex evidence-based behavioral health interventions. Through its diverse activities and membership, SIRC aims to foster the promise of implementation research to better serve the behavioral health needs of the population by identifying rigorous, relevant, and efficient strategies that successfully transfer scientific evidence to clinical knowledge for use in real world settings [3]. SIRC began as a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded conference series in 2010 (previously titled the “Seattle Implementation Research Conference”; $150,000 USD for 3 conferences in 2011, 2013, and 2015) with the recognition that there were multiple researchers and stakeholdersi working in parallel on innovative implementation science projects in behavioral health, but that formal channels for communicating and collaborating with one another were relatively unavailable. There was a significant need for a forum within which implementation researchers and stakeholders could learn from one another, refine approaches to science and practice, and develop an implementation research agenda using common measures, methods, and research principles to improve both the frequency and quality with which behavioral health treatment implementation is evaluated. SIRC’s membership growth is a testament to this identified need with more than 1000 members from 2011 to the present.ii SIRC’s primary objectives are to: (1) foster communication and collaboration across diverse groups, including implementation researchers, intermediariesi, as well as community stakeholders (SIRC uses the term “EBP champions” for these groups) – and to do so across multiple career levels (e.g., students, early career faculty, established investigators); and (2) enhance and disseminate rigorous measures and methodologies for implementing EBPs and evaluating EBP implementation efforts. These objectives are well aligned with Glasgow and colleagues’ [4] five core tenets deemed critical for advancing implementation science: collaboration, efficiency and speed, rigor and relevance, improved capacity, and cumulative knowledge. SIRC advances these objectives and tenets through in-person conferences, which bring together multidisciplinary implementation researchers and those implementing evidence-based behavioral health interventions in the community to share their work and create professional connections and collaborations

Stochastic Resonance Influences Heaviness Perception

Heaviness perception is the use of haptic feedback (i.e., touch) to determine the weight of a wielded object. Heaviness perception entails a perceptual system known as dynamic touch that relies on the use of the muscles as sensory organs. Dynamic touch refers to an effortful form of touch used to sense physical properties of an object without the benefit of vision and provides awareness of our body and its relation to the environment. This study sought to understand if the information received through effortful touch of occluded objects could improve via the stochastic resonance phenomenon. Enhancing this information content has the potential to improve awareness of invariant properties associated with an object. In this experiment, participants wielded an occluded object with varying masses and different noise types with the goal being to determine how many times heavier an object was in relation to a standard object. Major findings of the present study include (1) the interaction between mass and noise has a statistically significant effect on the resulting percent error [χ2(2) = 9.6415, p = 0.0081], and (2) a simple slope analysis was used to understand the interaction and revealed that the relationship between mass and percent error depended on noise. For the no noise and pink noise conditions, percent error decreased with increasing mass (Estimate = -0.227, CI = -0.5271 – 0.0731; Estimate = -0.229, CI = -0.592 – 0.0710, respectively). In contrast, the white noise condition produced a positive relationship (Estimate = 0.347, CI = 0.0468 – 0.6470). As a general summary of the results, we found that percent error decreased as a function of mass in the no noise and pink noise conditions, at nearly identical rates. In contrast, the white noise condition produced qualitatively different results such that the presence of white noise appears to degrade one’s ability to perceive weight, especially at larger masses. In the near future, we aim to replicate the finding concerning white noise while providing insight into the ineffectiveness of pink noise. One possibility for the findings concerning pink noise is that all subjects were young, healthy adults. So, we will include clinical groups that have altered sensitivity to test the generality of our current results. Other next steps involve including a larger range of masses added to the apparatus while varying locations of subthreshold stimulation