The Influence of Military Specific Physical Activity on Physical and Cognitive Performance Relevant to Military Operations: Future Directions

Background: The challenging and stochastic nature of military operations require combatants to operate at a high level whilst coping with numerous physical (e.g. load carriage) and cognitive challenges (e.g. decision making). Purpose: To investigate the effect of military specific physical activity (MSPA) on relevant parameters of physical and cognitive performance.Research Design: 1) Developing a representative MSPA protocol and physical and cognitive performance measures. 2) Quantifying the physical demands of the MSPA protocol. 3) Establishing the reliability and validity of the cognitive performance measures. 4) Quantifying the MSPA protocol’s effect on the physical and cognitive performance. Research Progress: A combined load carriage and fire and manoeuvre task was selected as the representative MSPA based on criticality and frequency of completion during military operations. Three physical performance measures well correlated military performance were selected 1) medicine ball throw, 2) weighted counter-movement jump 3) maximal isometric voluntary contraction. To assess cognitive performance a shoot/don’t shoot task and auditory n-back task were chosen based on the importance of working memory during military operations.Military Relevance: The proposed research design should increase the understanding of physical and cognitive function pre-, during-, and post-MSPA and for the development and assessment of mitigation strategies.Background: The challenging and stochastic nature of military operations require combatants to operate at a high level whilst coping with numerous physical (e.g. load carriage) and cognitive challenges (e.g. decision making). Purpose: To investigate the effect of military specific physical activity (MSPA) on relevant parameters of physical and cognitive performance.Research Design: 1) Developing a representative MSPA protocol and physical and cognitive performance measures. 2) Quantifying the physical demands of the MSPA protocol. 3) Establishing the reliability and validity of the cognitive performance measures. 4) Quantifying the MSPA protocol’s effect on the physical and cognitive performance. Research Progress: A combined load carriage and fire and manoeuvre task was selected as the representative MSPA based on criticality and frequency of completion during military operations. Three physical performance measures well correlated military performance were selected 1) medicine ball throw, 2) weighted counter-movement jump 3) maximal isometric voluntary contraction. To assess cognitive performance a shoot/don’t shoot task and auditory n-back task were chosen based on the importance of working memory during military operations.Military Relevance: The proposed research design should increase the understanding of physical and cognitive function pre-, during-, and post-MSPA and for the development and assessment of mitigation strategies

Random Indexing K-tree

Random Indexing (RI) K-tree is the combination of two algorithms for clustering. Many large scale problems exist in document clustering. RI K-tree scales well with large inputs due to its low complexity. It also exhibits features that are useful for managing a changing collection. Furthermore, it solves previous issues with sparse document vectors when using K-tree. The algorithms and data structures are defined, explained and motivated. Specific modifications to K-tree are made for use with RI. Experiments have been executed to measure quality. The results indicate that RI K-tree improves document cluster quality over the original K-tree algorithm.Comment: 8 pages, ADCS 2009; Hyperref and cleveref LaTeX packages conflicted. Removed clevere

Aquarius Radiometer RFI Detection, Mitigation, and Impact Assessment

The Aquarius/SAC-D satellite was launched on 10 June 2011 into a sun-synchronous polar orbit and the Aquarius microwave radiometers [1] became operational on 25 August 2011. Since that time, it has been measuring brightness temperatures at 1.4 GHz with vertical, horizontal and 3rd Stokes polarizations . Beginning well before the launch, there has been the concern that Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) could have an appreciable presence. This concern was initiated by, among other things, its prevalence in both early [2] and more recent [3,4] aircraft field experiments using 1.4 GHz radiometers, as well as by the strong RFI environment encountered during the recent ESA SMOS mission, also at 1.4 GHz [5]. As a result, a number of methods for RFI detection and mitigation have been developed and tested. One in particular, "glitch detection" and "pulse blanking" mitigation has been adapted for use by Aquarius [6, 7]. The early on-orbit performance of the Aquarius RFI detection and mitigation algorithm is presented here, together with an assessment of the global RFI environment at 1.4 GHz which can be derived from the Aquarius results

Food for thought: Dietary nootropics for the optimisation of military operators cognitive performance

Nootropics are compounds that enhance cognitive performance and have been highlighted as a medium-term human augmentation technology that could support soldier performance. Given the differing ethical, safety, and legal considerations associated with the pharmaceutical subset of nootropics, this analysis focuses on dietary supplementation which may enhance cognition during training and operations. Numerous supplements have been investigated as possible nootropics, however research is often not context specific or of high quality, leading to questions regarding efficacy. There are many other complex cofactors that may affect the efficacy of any dietary nootropic supplement which is designed to improve cognition, such as external stressors (e.g., sleep deprivation, high physical workloads), task specifics (e.g., cognitive processes required), and other psychological constructs (e.g., placebo/nocebo effect). Moreover, military population considerations, such as prior nutritional knowledge and current supplement consumption (e.g., caffeine), along with other issues such as supplement contamination should be evaluated when considering dietary nootropic use within military populations. However, given the increasing requirement for cognitive capabilities by military personnel to complete role-related tasks, dietary nootropics could be highly beneficial in specific contexts. Whilst current evidence is broadly weak, nutritional nootropic supplements may be of most use to the military end user, during periods of high military specific stress. Currently, caffeine and L-tyrosine are the leading nootropic supplements candidates within the military context. Future military specific research on nootropics should be of high quality and use externally valid methodologies to maximise the translation of research to practice

Quiet eye training expedites motor learning and aids performance under heightened anxiety: The roles of response programming and external attention

Quiet eye training expedites skill learning and facilitates anxiety-resistant performance. Changes in response programming and external focus of attention may explain such benefits. We examined the effects of quiet eye training on golf-putting performance, quiet eye duration, kinematics (clubhead acceleration), and physiological (heart rate, muscle activity) responses. Forty participants were assigned to a quiet eye or technical trained group and completed 420 baseline, training, retention, and pressure putts. The quiet eye group performed more accurately and displayed more effective gaze control, lower clubhead acceleration, greater heart rate deceleration, and reduced muscle activity than the technical trained group during retention and pressure tests. Thus, quiet eye training was linked to indirect measures of improved response programming and an external focus. Mediation analyses partially endorsed a response programming explanation

Transferability of Military-Specific Cognitive Research to Military Training and Operations

The influence of acute aerobic exercise on cognitive function is well documented (e.g., Lambourne and Tomporowski, 2010; Chang et al., 2012). However, the influence of military specific exercise on aspects of cognitive function relevant to military operations is less well understood. With the increasing physical and cognitive loads placed on military personnel (Mahoney et al., 2007), this interaction is fundamental to understanding operational performance (Russo et al., 2005). As such, ensuring the transferability of military-specific cognitive research to military training and operations, is of great importance, particularly for the development of both mitigation and enhancement strategies (see Brunyé et al., 2020). Despite this, studies have not always considered whether meaningful translations can be made. We suggest that researchers should endeavor to strike the balance between external validity and experimental control (Figure 1), and consider the concept of representative design (Pinder et al., 2011). External validity refers to the transferability of research findings from the research to the target population, whilst representative design refers to methodological approaches chosen to ensure that the experimental task constraints characterize those experienced during performance (i.e., the training or operational environment) (Pinder et al., 2011). Herein, we will focus on representative design during load carriage investigations, due to its mission criticality (Knapik and Reynolds, 2012), and it being the primary physical activity choice during military specific exercise-cognition research. Specifically, we discuss the inclusion of dual-/multi-tasking, implications of study population, cognitive task selection, and the data collection environment