Can clinicians and scientists explain and prevent unexplained underperformance syndrome in elite athletes: an interdisciplinary perspective and 2016 update

The coach and interdisciplinary sports science and medicine team strive to continually progress the athlete's performance year on year. In structuring training programmes, coaches and scientists plan distinct periods of progressive overload coupled with recovery for anticipated performances to be delivered on fixed dates of competition in the calendar year. Peaking at major championships is a challenge, and training capacity highly individualised, with fine margins between the training dose necessary for adaptation and that which elicits maladaptation at the elite level. As such, optimising adaptation is key to effective preparation. Notably, however, many factors (eg, health, nutrition, sleep, training experience, psychosocial factors) play an essential part in moderating the processes of adaptation to exercise and environmental stressors, for example, heat, altitude; processes which can often fail or be limited. In the UK, the term unexplained underperformance syndrome (UUPS) has been adopted, in contrast to the more commonly referenced term overtraining syndrome, to describe a significant episode of underperformance with persistent fatigue, that is, maladaptation. This construct, UUPS, reflects the complexity of the syndrome, the multifactorial aetiology, and that ‘overtraining’ or an imbalance between training load and recovery may not be the primary cause for underperformance. UUPS draws on the distinction that a decline in performance represents the universal feature. In our review, we provide a practitioner-focused perspective, proposing that causative factors can be identified and UUPS explained, through an interdisciplinary approach (ie, medicine, nutrition, physiology, psychology) to sports science and medicine delivery, monitoring, and data interpretation and analysis

It’s What Happens on the Front Lines of Civic Education Policy that Matters: Reflections on a Natural Experiment on Youth Turnout in Ontario

In the last decade there has developed a new level of coordination among those working in the fields of citizenship education and political participation. The paper puts this link to an empirical test, using a natural experiment of youth turnout in the 2004 and 2006 federal election to investigate what, if any, effect can be found of Ontario’s introduction of a compulsory Grade 10 Civics course in 2000. We find that changing the curriculum in itself does not appear to have the desired results, concluding that, in practice, any lasting effect of civic education upon youth political participation rests on the effectiveness of front-line implementation

The 2020 Provincial Election in New Brunswick: The First Canadian COVID-19 Election

AbstractNew Brunswick’s 2020 election was Canada’s first election during the COVID-19 pandemic. It produced a slim majority government for the Progressive Conservatives under Premier Blaine Higgs after all-party talks to create a quasi-coalition arrangement failed. The major parties continued to decline in voter support, and two newer parties, the Green Party and the People’s Alliance, still have a presence in the Legislative Assembly. The Liberal Party failed to win seats in Anglophone New Brunswick, reducing their support to just the francophone areas of the province. Higgs is left to govern a province polarized along linguistic lines with French-speaking New Brunswickers distrustful and unsupportive of the premier.RésuméL’élection provinciale au Nouveau-Brunswick en 2020 a été la première élection provinciale au Canada pendant la pandémie du COVID-19. Elle a mené à l'élection d'un gouvernement avec une faible majorité pour le Parti progressiste-conservateur sous le premier ministre Blaine Higgs après l'échec des pourparlers entre tous les partis pour la création d'un arrangement de quasi-coalition. Les partis traditionnels continuent de voir leur soutien s'effriter au sein de l’électorat, et deux nouveaux partis, le Parti vert et l’Alliance des gens, ont toujours des représentantes à l’Assemblée législative. Le Parti libéral n'a pas réussi à remporter des sièges dans les régions anglophones de la province, réduisant son soutien aux seules régions francophones de la province. Les considérations linguistiques jouent un rôle de premier plan dans la polarisation politique dans la province. Higgs doit ainsi gouverner en tenant compte des citoyennes francophones qui sont méfiantes et peu favorables au premier ministre.Key words: New Brunswick, Election, Election campaigns, polls, Majority government, BilingualismMots-clés : Nouveau-Brunswick, Élections, Campagnes électorales, Sondages, Gouvernement majorité, Bilinguism

Fast and Accurate Algorithm for Eye Localization for Gaze Tracking in Low Resolution Images

Iris centre localization in low-resolution visible images is a challenging problem in computer vision community due to noise, shadows, occlusions, pose variations, eye blinks, etc. This paper proposes an efficient method for determining iris centre in low-resolution images in the visible spectrum. Even low-cost consumer-grade webcams can be used for gaze tracking without any additional hardware. A two-stage algorithm is proposed for iris centre localization. The proposed method uses geometrical characteristics of the eye. In the first stage, a fast convolution based approach is used for obtaining the coarse location of iris centre (IC). The IC location is further refined in the second stage using boundary tracing and ellipse fitting. The algorithm has been evaluated in public databases like BioID, Gi4E and is found to outperform the state of the art methods.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, IET Computer Vision, 201

Illustrative components of the geological environment

In this chapter we provide an account of the contribution made by the Geosphere, in particular bedrock geological materials (part of the lithosphere), groundwater and hydrochemistry to the development of a GDF. In order to put this in context we provide a brief account of the general requirements of these attributes, particularly in respect of the post closure safety and, to a lesser extent, the construction phase of the GDF. We also provide a brief summary of the international approach to using bedrock geological materials and go on to describe the summary properties from a range of bedrock geological materials (lithologies and formations) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, illustrated from well-documented examples

Systematic Study of Electron Localization in an Amorphous Semiconductor

We investigate the electronic structure of gap and band tail states in amorphous silicon. Starting with two 216-atom models of amorphous silicon with defect concentration close to the experiments, we systematically study the dependence of electron localization on basis set, density functional and spin polarization using the first principles density functional code Siesta. We briefly compare three different schemes for characterizing localization: information entropy, inverse participation ratio and spatial variance. Our results show that to accurately describe defect structures within self consistent density functional theory, a rich basis set is necessary. Our study revealed that the localization of the wave function associated with the defect states decreases with larger basis sets and there is some enhancement of localization from GGA relative to LDA. Spin localization results obtained via LSDA calculations, are in reasonable agreement with experiment and with previous LSDA calculations on a-Si:H models.Comment: 16 pages, 11 Postscript figures, To appear in Phys. Rev.

Characterising variations in the salinity of deep groundwater systems: A case study from Great Britain (GB)

Study region The study region is Great Britain (GB), a small non-continental island landmass in North West Europe Study focus Data for Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) from groundwater samples can be used to characterise regional-scale variations in the quality of deep groundwater systems. Combined with information about typical well-depths, TDS data can be used to identify the presence of currently undeveloped fresh or brackish groundwater at depth that may require protection. This study considers the distribution of TDS with depth relative to sea level in the main GB aquifers and selected other key hydrogeological units, and demonstrates how useful insights can be obtained from data-led analyses of depth variations in groundwater chemistry if the regional context of hydrogeological systems is taken into account. New hydrogeological insights In GB, TDS varies over about five orders of magnitude, up to about 330,000 mg/L, with a general increase in mineralisation with depth. Overall, there is a transition from fresh 10,000 mg/L groundwater at about 700 m. Given that the 95 %tile depth of water wells is about 200 m, it is evident that there is currently undeveloped fresh groundwater at depth across large parts of the study area that may require protection, although it is inferred that TDS is not the only factor limiting exploitation and use of these deeper resources. As in this study, previous data-led analyses of fresh groundwater at depth have typically analysed TDS as depth below surface. However, if TDS data is analysed relative to sea level and in the context of regional hydrogeological information or models, additional insights can be gained on the distribution and controls on fresh groundwater at depth. Projecting TDS data into a 3D hydrogeological model of the study area shows that fresh groundwater at depth exhibits spatial coherence and is generally associated with relatively dee

Fast k-NN classifier for documents based on a graph structure

In this paper, a fast k nearest neighbors (k-NN) classifier for documents is presented. Documents are usually represented in a high-dimensional feature space, where terms appeared on it are treated as features and the weight of each term reflects its importance in the document. There are many approaches to find the vicinity of an object, but their performance drastically decreases as the number of dimensions grows. This problem prevents its application for documents. The proposed method is based on a graph index structure with a fast search algorithm. It’s high selectivity permits to obtain a similar classification quality than exhaustive classifier, with a few number of computed distances. Our experimental results show that it is feasible the use of the proposed method in problems of very high dimensionality, such as Text Mining

Diffusion of Pt dimers on Pt(111)

We report the results of a density-functional study of the diffusion of Pt dimers on the (111) surface of Pt. The calculated activation energy of 0.37 eV is in {\em exact} agreement with the recent experiment of Kyuno {\em et al.} \protect{[}Surf. Sci. {\bf 397}, 191 (1998)\protect{]}. Our calculations establish that the dimers are mobile at temperatures of interest for adatom diffusion, and thus contribute to mass transport. They also indicate that the diffusion path for dimers consists of a sequence of one-atom and (concerted) two-atom jumps.Comment: Pour pages postscript formatted, including one figure; submitted to Physical Review B; other papers of interest can be found at url http://www.centrcn.umontreal.ca/~lewi

The 2014 Provincial Election in New Brunswick

In the 2006 and 2010 New Brunswick provincial elections, power changed hands as control of the government went from Progressive Conservative to Liberal (2006) and back to Progressive Conservative (2010). The 2014 election found Premier David Alward attempting to return an incumbent party to the government benches for the first time since Bernard Lord in 2003. Alward faced three new party leaders in Liberal Brian Gallant, New Democrat Dominic Cardy and the Green’s David Coon. Early polls predicted a Liberal landslide but the margin would close as Election Day approached with the Liberal earning a small 27 to 21 seat majority over the PC Party with Coon winning the first Green seat in the province and Cardy’s NDP being shutout. With the results, New Brunswick would find itself with another under-forty premier, Gallant was 32 years old when sworn-in, and a vacancy in the Progressive Conservative leadership as Alward swiftly stepped down after his party’s defeat. The election reflected another example of New Brunswick’s current turnstile party system with the two major parties differing on few issues and struggling to find electoral momentum in a stubborn provincial economy stymied by structural demographic challenges