Automatic detection and classification of football players

Color segmentation of images usually requires a manual selection and classification of samples to train the system. This paper presents an automatic system that performs these tasks without the need of a long training, providing a useful tool to detect and identify figures. In real situations, it is necessary to repeat the training process if light conditions change, or if, in the same scenario, the colors of the figures and the background may have changed, being useful a fast training method. A direct application of this method is the detection and identification of football players.

Teenagers born at extremely low birth weight

Adolescence constitutes a major transition for extremely low birth weight (ELBW) teenagers. Recent studies of ELBW teenagers born in the 1980s have provided information about the growth and developmental characteristics of these individuals in adolescence and in early adulthood. ELBW teenagers are shorter and lighter than their full-term peers, and have a smaller head circumference. Cognitive and academic vulnerabilities documented during the school years, particularly difficulties with nonverbal intelligence and arithmetic, persist into late adolescence. Many ELBW children struggle in school and have lower academic achievement levels. The self-concept of ELBW teenagers is generally similar to that of their full-term peers, but their parents perceive them to be more vulnerable over a wide range of behavioural and psychosocial dimensions, particularly depression and attention. ELBW teenagers perceive themselves as needing more assistance in job seeking than do their peers. Physical activity levels and fitness in late adolescence are significantly lower in ELBW teenagers than in their full-term peers, constituting a potential additional health hazard in later life. The outcomes of ELBW teenagers are significantly influenced by socioeconomic, family and parenting factors.

Real-time GPU color-based segmentation of football players

In this paper, we propose a multi-camera application capable of processing high resolution images and extracting features based on colors patterns over graphic processing units (GPU). The goal is to work in real time under the uncontrolled environment of a sport event like a football match. Since football players are composed for diverse and complex color patterns, a Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) is applied as segmentation paradigm, in order to analyze sport live images and video. Optimization techniques have also been applied over the C++ implementation using profiling tools focused on high performance. Time consuming tasks were implemented over NVIDIA's CUDA platform, and later restructured and enhanced, speeding up the whole process significantly. Our resulting code is around 4-11 times faster on a low cost GPU than a highly optimized C++ version on a central processing unit (CPU) over the same data. Real time has been obtained processing until 64 frames per second. An important conclusion derived from our study is the scalability of the application to the number of cores on the GPU. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.

TEENAGERS AND ILLICIT DRUG-USE - EXPANDING THE USER VS NONUSER DICHOTOMY

The present study examines proximal and distal factors associated with the use and non-use of illegal substances within a sample of 860 teenagers in North Wales. Arguing that there is predictive utility in expanding the traditional 'users vs non-users' design dichotomy, four groups are identified-resistant and vulnerable non-users and experimental and repeated users. 'Person' variables (life satisfaction, deviance, hopelessness and drug-related attributions) appeared to primarily differentiate the vulnerable group from their resistant counterparts and identify this, as yet non-using group, with user samples. It is suggested that these variables might represent 'risk' factors for illicit substance use and that the group design employed suggests they precede, rather than follow as a consequence of, illicit drug use. Like their resistant counterparts however, the vulnerable group are differentiated from user samples on some lifestyle and context indices. It is argued that these represent 'protective' influences in an otherwise at-risk group of non-users. Variables associated with an escalation of illicit drug use are discussed in considering the differences between the experimental and repeated user groups. Apart from the more proximal factor of drug-related attributions, 'person' variables appeared less involved here. Repeated users did however, tend to use a greater number of drugs, have a greater proportion of friends who also used illegal substances and significantly fewer had a Welsh cultural identity.

‘Who Ate All the Pride?’:Patriotic Sentiment and English National Football Support.

The growing popularity of English national insignia in international football tournaments has been widely interpreted as evidence of the emergence of a renewed English national consciousness. However, little empirical research has considered how people in England actually understand football support in relation to national identity. Interview data collected around the time of the Euro 2000 and the 2002 World Cup tournaments fail to substantiate the presumption that support for the England football team maps onto claims to patriotic sentiment in any straightforward way. People with far-right political affiliations did generally use national football support to symbolise a general pride in English national identity. However, other people either claimed not to support the England national team precisely because of its associations with nationalism, or else bracketed the domain of football support from more general connotations of English patriotism.

The health profile of football/soccer players in Northern Ireland - a review of the uefa pre-participation medical screening procedure.

BACKGROUND:
It is compulsory that domestic football/soccer teams in UEFA competitions organise players' pre-participation medicals. Although screening guidelines have been established, these remain controversial. The findings of medical examinations can have lasting consequences for athletes and doctors. No previous studies have reported UEFA pre-participation screening results in semi-professional footballers. This study aims to further knowledge regarding 'normal' data in this population.

METHOD:
Retrospective audit and analysis of records of pre-season medicals for all male first-team players at one semi-professional Northern Ireland Premiership team between 2009-2012. Medicals were conducted by the club doctor following the UEFA proforma. Height, weight, blood pressure (BP), full blood count (FBC), dipstick urinalysis and resting electrocardiogram (ECG) were conducted by an independent nurse. Only one ECG must be documented during a player's career; other tests are repeated yearly.

RESULTS:
89 medicals from 47 players (6 goalkeepers, 11 defenders, 22 midfielders and 8 attackers; mean age 25.0 years (SD 4.86)) were reviewed. Mean height of the players was 179.3 cm (SD 5.90) with a mean weight of 77.6 kg (SD 10.5). Of 89 urine dipsticks, 7 were positive for protein; all 7 were normal on repeat testing following 48 hours of rest. Of 40 ECGs (mean ventricular rate 61.2 bpm (SD 11.6)), one was referred to cardiology (right bundle branch block; prolonged Q-T interval). No players were excluded from participation.

CONCLUSIONS:
This study provides important information about 'normal' values in a population of semi-professional footballers. Urinalysis showing protein is not uncommon but is likely to be normal on repeat testing.

Traditions and transitions: teenagers’ perceptions of parading in Belfast

The purpose of this article is to explore and illuminate teenagers' experiences of, and attitudes to, parades in Belfast. The research draws on responses from 125 teenagers located in interface areas (areas where Catholics and Protestants live side by side but apart) to government supported attempts to rebrand Orangefest (traditional parade associated with Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist community) and St Patrick's Day (traditional parade associated with Catholic/Nationalist/Republican community) as all-inclusive community events. For the most part, young people access these parades in pre-existing, single identity peer groups and view these parades as either inclusive or exclusive calling into question the extent to which Belfast's city centre can be viewed as shared space.

Young teenagers' experiences of domestic abuse

This article reports on the first findings from the Boys to Men Research Project. In total, 1143 pupils aged 13–14 years completed a questionnaire to assess their experiences of domestic abuse as victims, witnesses and perpetrators. Overall, 45% of pupils who had been in a dating relationship reported having been victimised, 25% having perpetrated it, with the only difference in rates of victimisation and perpetration between boys and girls being in relation to sexual victimisation. Of the whole sample, 34% reported having witnessed it in their own family. There was a relationship between victimisation and perpetration with the vast majority of perpetrators (92%) also reporting experiencing abuse from a boyfriend/girlfriend. There was also a relationship between experiencing abuse and help seeking from adults, with those who have been victimised less likely to say they would seek help if they were hit by a partner than those who had yet to experience any abuse. The relationship between help seeking and experiences of abuse is further complicated by gender, with girls twice as likely to seek help than boys, but with girls who have previously hit a partner among the most reticent group. The paper concludes with highlighting the implications of these findings for those undertaking preventative work in schools.

Look and Tell: Using Photo-Elicitation Methods with Teenagers

This article reflects on the usefulness of photo elicitation in research with young people. As part of an Economic and Social Research Council-funded project exploring conflict and divisions in contested cities, teenagers living or attending schools in segregated areas of Belfast were presented with 11 photographs depicting the city's traditional ethno religious divisions, the new ‘post conflict’ consumerist city and youth subcultures. In response to each photo, the young people produced individual written comments and their opinions were fleshed out during follow-up focus group interviews. Drawing on these responses, the strengths and weaknesses of using photo elicitation in research with young people and its capacity to generate new insights into teenagers' spatial perceptions and experiences are outlined.

Teenagers' Perceptions and Experiences of Belfast as a Divided City

In this ‘research project’ case study, we provide an empirical example of how quantitative and qualitative methods were combined within a single study and discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of our combined methodology which included questionnaires, photo-prompts and focus-group interviews. Our intention in using mixed methods was to enhance understandings of the meanings of space, place and territory on the everyday lives of young people growing up in Belfast. How do young people negotiate space in politically divided cities such as Belfast? Is territory important, and if so, why is it important? How do we construct an appropriate and relevant study design that can not only describe, but explain what place, space and territory mean to young people, and more importantly, how it impacts on their everyday lives? How useful is it to apply a mixed-methods approach to finding answers to these questions? We explain why and how we used a mixed-methods approach and illuminate some of the issues we encountered. We demonstrate how mixed methods can provide not just complementary but also new insights into the topic under investigation. We hope that the case study encourages you to experiment, or at least consider, the potential of using mixed methods.

Understanding the help seeking behaviour of teenagers who experience relationship abuse (dating violence) from a feminist intersectional approach.

This presentation aims to raise issues related to teenage relationship abuse (TRA-dating violence) and help seeking behaviour from an intersectional approach. Even though teenage relationship abuse has been raised as an issue since the 80’s there is still an absence of an intersectional theoretical conceptualization of TRA. Existing conceptualizations are based on incorrect assumptions of sameness of teenagers experiences of TRA which ignore the unique developmental stages of teenagers as well as youth’s diverse lived experiences due to their sexual orientation, ethnicity, class, disability as well as other structural divisions. TRA exists in a social context of inequalities. For the individual survivor, this social context is created not only through romantic relationships, but also through relationships with families, peers, friends, classmates and others. Their experiences are constructed through these relationships which form part of the social context into which TRA needs to be analysed. The analytical framework of intersectionality can provide a framework of understanding how these lived experiences are enacted and negotiated contextually. Emphasis will be given to the help seeking behaviour of diverse youths. This presentation will explore the diverse lived experiences contextually. Methods and Findings: This presentation is based on a research project in Northern Ireland currently underway, thus, it will offer a preliminary conceptualisation of TRA from an intersectional approach. The findings will be contextualized taking into account the high rate of homophobia that exists in Northern Ireland amongst other things. Conclusion/Recommendation: Intersectionality needs to be the analytical framework through which teenagers’ relationship’s experience are analysed since the lived experiences of LGTB, BME and disabled youth cannot be analysed apart from the structural divisions, social location and the context they are experienced. This presentation argues that the intersectional approach of theorizing is congruent and contributes to anti-oppressive social work practice.