Networks as a novel tool for studying team ball sports as complex social systems

This paper describes and evaluates the novel utility of network methods for understanding human interpersonal interactions within social neurobiological systems such as sports teams. We show how collective system networks are supported by the sum of interpersonal interactions that emerge from the activity of system agents (such as players in a sports team). To test this idea we trialled the methodology in analyses of intra-team collective behaviours in the team sport of water polo. We observed that the number of interactions between team members resulted in varied intra-team coordination patterns of play, differentiating between successful and unsuccessful performance outcomes. Future research on small-world networks methodologies needs to formalize measures of node connections in analyses of collective behaviours in sports teams, to verify whether a high frequency of interactions is needed between players in order to achieve competitive performance outcomes.

Multi-modal summarization of key events and top players in sports tournament videos

To detect and annotate the key events of live sports videos, we need to tackle the semantic gaps of audio-visual information. Previous work has successfully extracted semantic from the time-stamped web match reports, which are synchronized with the video contents. However, web and social media articles with no time-stamps have not been fully leveraged, despite they are increasingly used to complement the coverage of major sporting tournaments. This paper aims to address this limitation using a novel multimodal summarization framework that is based on sentiment analysis and players' popularity. It uses audiovisual contents, web articles, blogs, and commentators' speech to automatically annotate and visualize the key events and key players in a sports tournament coverage. The experimental results demonstrate that the automatically generated video summaries are aligned with the events identified from the official website match reports.

Content-based video indexing for sports applications using integrated multi-modal approach

To sustain an ongoing rapid growth of video information, there is an emerging demand for a sophisticated content-based video indexing system. However, current video indexing solutions are still immature and lack of any standard. This doctoral consists of a research work based on an integrated multi-modal approach for sports video indexing and retrieval. By combining specific features extractable from multiple audio-visual modalities, generic structure and specific events can be detected and classified. During browsing and retrieval, users will benefit from the integration of high-level semantic and some descriptive mid-level features such as whistle and close-up view of player(s).

Commentaries and Responses to "The Driver Behaviour Questionnaire as a predictor of accidents: A meta-analysis" [Commentaries lead by Anders af Wahlberg; Responses lead by J.C.F. de Winter]

The following discussion is in response to a 2010 article published in the Journal of Safety Research by J.C.F. de Winter and D. Dodou entitled “The Driver Behaviour Questionnaire as a predictor of accidents: A meta-analysis” (Volume 41, Number 6, pp. 463-470, available on sciencedirect.com). The editors are pleased to provide a forum for this exchange and welcome further comments.

SeqSLAM : visual route-based navigation for sunny summer days and stormy winter nights

Learning and then recognizing a route, whether travelled during the day or at night, in clear or inclement weather, and in summer or winter is a challenging task for state of the art algorithms in computer vision and robotics. In this paper, we present a new approach to visual navigation under changing conditions dubbed SeqSLAM. Instead of calculating the single location most likely given a current image, our approach calculates the best candidate matching location within every local navigation sequence. Localization is then achieved by recognizing coherent sequences of these “local best matches”. This approach removes the need for global matching performance by the vision front-end - instead it must only pick the best match within any short sequence of images. The approach is applicable over environment changes that render traditional feature-based techniques ineffective. Using two car-mounted camera datasets we demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm and compare it to one of the most successful feature-based SLAM algorithms, FAB-MAP. The perceptual change in the datasets is extreme; repeated traverses through environments during the day and then in the middle of the night, at times separated by months or years and in opposite seasons, and in clear weather and extremely heavy rain. While the feature-based method fails, the sequence-based algorithm is able to match trajectory segments at 100% precision with recall rates of up to 60%.

Winter Harmonica

Poem

Origins of Australian Football: Victoria's Early History. Volume 1 Amateur Heroes and the Rise of the Clubs, 1858 to 1876

This is volume 1 in a series of four volumes about the origins of Australian football as it evolved in Victoria between 1858 and 1896. This volume addresses its very beginnings as an amateur sport and the rise of the first clubs. Invented by a group of Melbourne cricketers and sports enthusiasts, Australian Rules football was developed through games played on Melbourne's park lands and was originally known as "Melbourne Football Club Rules". This formative period of the game saw the birth of the first 'amateur heroes' of the game. Players such as T.W. Wills, H.C.A. Harrison, Jack Conway, George O'Mullane and Robert Murray Smith emerged as warriors engaged in individual rugby-type scrimmages. The introduction of Challenge Cups was an important spur for this burgeoning sport. Intense competition and growing rivalries between clubs such as Melbourne, South Yarra, Royal Park, and Geelong began to flourish and the game developed as a result. By the 1870s the game "Victorian Rules" had become the most popular outdoor winter sport across the state. In subsequent decades, rapid growth in club football occurred and the game attracted increasing media attention.

The red mist? red shirts, success and team sports

Baron von Richthofen (the Red Baron) arguably the most famous fighter pilot of all time painted his plane the vividest of red hues, making it visible and identifiable at great distance, showing an aggressive pronouncement of dominance to other pilots. Can colour affect aggression and performance and if so is it observable within team sports? This study explores the effect of red on sporting performances within a team sports arena, through empirical analysis of match results from the Australian Rugby League spanning a period of 30 years. Both the descriptive analysis and the multivariate analysis report a positive relationship. Nevertheless, more evidence is required to better understand whether teams in red do enjoy greater success controlling explicitly in a multivariate analysis for many factors that simultaneously affect performance.

The asthmatic athlete, inhaled beta agonists, and performance

INTRODUCTION: The large increase in the number of athletes who apply to use inhaled beta agonists (IBAs) at the Olympic Games is a concern to the medical community. This review will examine the use of IBAs in the asthmatic athlete, the variability that exists between countries and sport, and outline a plan to justify the use of these medications. DATA SOURCES: Much of this article is a result of an International Olympic Committee (IOC) Medical Commission-sponsored meeting that took place in May 2001. Records of the use of IBAs at previous Olympics were reviewed. MEDLINE Searches (PubMed interface) were performed using key words to locate published work relating to asthma, elite athletes, performance, treatment, and ergogenic aids. MAIN RESULTS: Since 1984 there have been significant increases in the use of IBAs at the Olympic Games as well as marked geographical differences in the percentage of athletes requesting the use of IBAs. There are large differences in the incidence of IBA use between sports with a trend towards increased use in endurance sports. There are no ergogenic effects of any IOC-approved IBA given in a therapeutic dose. CONCLUSIONS: In many cases, the prescription of IBAs to this population has been made on empirical grounds. Beginning with the 2002 Winter Games, athletes will be required to submit to the IOC Medical Commission clinical and laboratory evidence that justifies the use of this medication. The eucapnic voluntary hyperpnea test will be used to assess individuals who have not satisfied an independent medical panel of the need to use an IBA.

Extreme sports are good for your health : a phenomenological understanding of fear and anxiety in extreme sport

Extreme sports are traditionally explored from a risk-taking perspective which often assumes that participants do not experience fear. In this paper we explore participants’ experience of fear associated with participation in extreme sports. An interpretive phenomenological method was used with 15 participants. Four themes emerged: experience of fear, relationship to fear, management of fear, and fear and self transformation. Participant’s experience of extreme sports was revealed in terms of intense fear but this fear was integrated and experienced as a potentially meaningful and constructive event in their lives. The findings have implications for understanding fear as a potentially transformative process.