Talent Identification and Development in Tennis

Accurately identifying individuals at a young age who are most likely to excel in a given sport remains a pursuit for coaches, parents and national governing bodies worldwide. In a sport such as tennis, the financial investment needed to support a player’s development is substantial, although this is offset by the vast sums of money that are on offer for those few elite players who reach the very top of the game. As such, tennis can be considered to represent a high risk, high reward venture, where the value of being able to better identify those who are likely to ‘make it’ takes on extra emphasis. The debate surrounding the timeless ‘nature versus nurture’ conundrum rumbles on and shows no sign of abating. The relative contribution that deliberate practice (Starkes & Ericsson, 2003) as opposed to genetics (Tucker & Collins, 2011) play in the development of champions remains a contentious issue. Popular texts such as ‘Bounce’ (Syed, 2010) and communications intended specifically for tennis coaches (Roetert, Kovacs & Crespo, 2009) have served to engage a wider community in the debate. It is the intention of this short article to summarize the key points emerging from this body of work and to offer some guidance to coaches moving forward.

Playing immersive games on the REVERIE platform

REVERIE (REal and Virtual Engagement in Realistic Immersive Environments) [1] is a multimedia and multimodal framework, which supports the creation of immersive games. The framework supports the creation of games integrating technologies such as 3D spatial audio, detection of the player’s body movement using Kinect and WIMO sensors, NPCs (Non-Playable Characters) with advanced AI capabilities featuring various levels of representation and gameplay into an immersive 3D environment. A demonstration game was developed for REVERIE, which is an adapted version of the popular Simon Says game. In the REVERIE version, a player tries to follow physical instructions issued by two autonomous agents with different degrees of realism. If a player follows a physical instruction correctly, they are awarded one point. If not, they are deducted one point. This paper presents a technical overview of the game technologies integrated in the Simon Says demo and its evaluation by players with variable computer literacy skills. Finally the potential of REVERIE as an immersive framework for gaming is discussed, followed by recommendations for improvements in future versions of the framework.

Preparing for disaster: a comparative analysis of education for critical infrastructure collapse

This article explores policy approaches to educating populations for potential critical infrastructure collapse in five different countries: the UK, the US, Germany, Japan and New Zealand. ‘Critical infrastructure’ is not always easy to define, and indeed is defined slightly differently across countries – it includes entities vital to life, such as utilities (water, energy), transportation systems and communications, and may also include social and cultural infrastructure. The article is a mapping exercise of different approaches to critical infrastructure protection and preparedness education by the five countries. The exercise facilitates a comparison of the countries and enables us to identify distinctive characteristics of each country’s approach. We argue that contrary to what most scholars of security have argued, these national approaches diverge greatly, suggesting that they are shaped more by internal politics and culture than by global approaches.