FEPSAC newsletter (July 2016)

July 2016 edition of the European Federation of Sport Psychology (FEPSAC) Newsletter

Investigating the perceived effectiveness of digital technology for elite athlete support in golf

Digital technologies have enabled vast and varied amounts of data to be captured on elite athletes. The data is intended for use by athletes, coaches and support team e.g. physiotherapists, sports scientists for many purposes including performance development or injury prevention. However, the usefulness of such digital technologies and the information gathered is only beneficial if deemed effective by all those involved. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of digital technology for elite athletes’ development and support from athlete, coach and support team perspective in golf. Interviews were conducted with athletes, coaches and support team for a sport where digital technologies were used to facilitate training. The results of the study uncovered four categories that helped to understand how effectiveness was perceived which were “The Influence on Psychological Well-being and Proprioception”, “Measurement Uncertainty”, “Environment” and “Type, Ease and Frequency of Use”. Exploring these categories provided insight into the best practices for digital technology integration into elite athlete support and ultimately can help shape future developments of digital technologies.</div

Distributed crowd-based annotation of soccer games using mobile devices

Soccer is one of the most loved sports in the world. Millions of people either follow the sport or are actually involved in its practice. Soccer also moves huge financial amounts every year and therefore teams always thrive to be better than the competition. New technologies have become a common place both in the preparation of the games and on the analysis of the games after they are concluded. In this paper, the authors will present a developed system, based on the usage of distributed mobile devices, that will enable the annotation of soccer matches, either in real time or after the matched is concluded (through the observation of other media). The capture of relevant events in the game can be used to better analyse the game and the performance of individual players fostering improvements and better decisions in the future. The application is implemented in the Android platform so that it can be easily installed by typical soccer fans empowering them as match annotators. This crowd of annotators, although not experts, can collectively provide a robust and rich annotation for soccer matches.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Métrica de dissimilaridade semântica baseada na wikipédia

Não obstante a vasta quantidade de informações disponibilizadas nem sempre é fácil obter o conhecimento que se almeja alcançar, devido à dificuldade de catalogar a informação. Os sistemas de “descoberta de conhecimento” atuais centram-se na procura de palavras idênticas, podendo aqui observar-se variadas limitações, entre elas a falta de capacidade de interpretação. A compreensão do significado semântico do conjunto de expressões é uma característica do ser humano, sendo difícil de replicar em sistemas computacionais. O objetivo principal deste trabalho consiste na criação de um sistema de cálculo de semelhança semântica entre classes abstratas, sistema esse que deve possuir por base uma ontologia de conhecimento. Para atingirmos o objetivo proposto começou-se por identificar e analisar a necessidade de uma máquina conseguir simular ou melhorar a apreciação do ser humano relativamente à interpretação semântica. Apôs a definição e enquadramento do problema na área de conhecimento respetiva partiu-se para a criação do sistema capacitado de calcular uma medida de semelhança entre entidades, tendo em consideração a importância que o desempenho apresenta neste tipo de sistema

The use of physical activity trackers in Portuguese adolescents and adults

Both authors were supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under Grants DTP/04045/2013; POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006969 and UID/DTP/00617/2013; and by NORTE 2020 under Grant NanoSTIMA: Macro-to-Nano Human Sensing: Towards Integrated Multimodal Health Monitoring and Analytics, NORTE-01-0145- FEDER-000016.The pandemic of physical inactivity is associated with a range of chronic diseases and early deaths (Ding et al., 2016). Estimates from 2012 indicated that not meeting physical activity recommendations is responsible for more than 5 million deaths globally each year (Lee et al., 2012). Nowadays, sedentary behaviours are highly prevalent, and data from adults in high-income countries suggest the majority of time awake is spent being sedentary (Matthews et al., 2008). This study aimed to investigate the use of physical activity trackers in Portugal, in particular how often people use it and how they use it to monitor exercise/physical activity.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The elusive features of success in soccer passes: A machine learning perspective

Machine learning has in recent years been increasingly used in the soccer realm. This paper focuses on investigating the factors influencing pass success, a chief element in team performance. Decision tree techniques are used aiming to identify which features are the most important in pass success. This process is applied to a data set of 13 matches of the men’s French “Ligue 1”. Two experiments are conducted using different feature sets: one containing the positional data and Voronoi area off all players, the second considering only the ball carrier and closest teammates and opponents. The results obtained with the first feature set indicate that the relative importance of features is match dependent and somehow related to teams’ formation and players’ tactical mission. The second feature set, being more directly related to the passing process, provided a more consistent ranking of features. Features related to the interaction with the opponent standout. Low precision and recall val ues show that the features and factors leading to pass success are in fact elusive.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Hemodynamics monitoring in sport: Using hemodynamic monitor for sport training planning

The study stresses the meaning of the physiological measures that are obtained with the functional diagnostics devices and how these values can be used in coaching sportsmen. Methods: Hemodynamic monitor was used for monitoring hemodynamics and heart function of athletes (n=305) with different fitness levels. Active orthoclinostatic tests and antiorthostatic tests with passive body position changing were carried out with hemodynamics measurements recorded. Results: The most informative indicators and indices of heart function for high performance sport and their values at rest were detected. Along with common hemodynamics indicators (HR, SV, CO, EDV, blood pressure, etc.) the possibility of using correlation rhythmogram in coaching was studied. The correlation rhythmogram "cloud" dependence on athletes' fitness level was revealed in transient during active orthoclinostatic test

Athletes preparation based on a complex assessment of functional state

Modern training of middle distance runners is characterized by significant increase in loading intensity owing to strengthening of the sports competition. Absence of the athletes' functional state complex diagnostics complicates the process of training and competitive loadings planning which can lead to failure in adaptation. Middle distance runners functional state assessment is considered in the article. Methods of functional diagnostics: polymyography, HR variability with active orthostatic test, research of physical working capacity (PWC170 test), the express-diagnostics of a functional state by Dushanin's method and the "Reaction to Moving Object" (RMO test). Research material. Physical working capacity is estimated by means of the PWC170 test, a psychofunctional state by the "RMO" test, an assessment of neuromuscular system by "Rehabilitation and diagnostic RDK-2 complex", an assessment of HR variability was done with active orthostatic test. Results. Complex diagnostics of the runners' functional state and its further complex assessment by means of the received indices were carried out. The runners' functional state improvement in the experimental group from the 1st to the 3rd investigation phase is observed. The correlation and factorial analysis of the indices is carried out, the model scale of a functional state assessment is developed. Copyright © 2015 by SCITEPRESS-Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved