Effect of altitude on physiological performance: a statistical analysis using results of international football games.

Science.gov (United States)

McSharry, Patrick E

2007-12-22

To assess the effect of altitude on match results and physiological performance of a large and diverse population of professional athletes. Statistical analysis of international football (soccer) scores and results. FIFA extensive database of 1460 football matches in 10 countries spanning over 100 years. Altitude had a significant (Pnegative impact on physiological performance as revealed through the overall underperformance of low altitude teams when playing against high altitude teams in South America. High altitude teams score more and concede fewer goals with increasing altitude difference. Each additional 1000 m of altitude difference increases the goal difference by about half of a goal. The probability of the home team winning for two teams from the same altitude is 0.537, whereas this rises to 0.825 for a home team with an altitude difference of 3695 m (such as Bolivia v Brazil) and falls to 0.213 when the altitude difference is -3695 m (such as Brazil v Bolivia). Altitude provides a significant advantage for high altitude teams when playing international football games at both low and high altitudes. Lowland teams are unable to acclimatise to high altitude, reducing physiological performance. As physiological performance does not protect against the effect of altitude, better predictors of individual susceptibility to altitude illness would facilitate team selection.

Women's football: Player characteristics and demands of the game

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Vanessa Martínez-Lagunas

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The number of scientific investigations on women's football specific to the topics of player characteristics and demands of the game has considerably increased in recent years due to the increased popularity of the women's game worldwide, although they are not yet as numerous as in the case of men's football. To date, only two scientific publications have attempted to review the main findings of studies published in this area. However, one of them was published about 20 years ago, when women's football was still in its infancy and there were only a few studies to report on. The other review was more recent. Nonetheless, its main focus was on the game and training demands of senior elite female players. Thus, information on female footballers of lower competitive levels and younger age groups was not included. Consequently, an updated review is needed in this area. The present article therefore aims to provide an overview of a series of studies that have been published so far on the specific characteristics of female football players and the demands of match-play. Mean values reported in the literature for age (12–27 years, body height (155–174 cm, body mass (48–72 kg, percent body fat (13%–29%, maximal oxygen uptake (45.1–55.5 mL/kg/min, Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test Level 1 (780–1379 m, maximum heart rate (189–202 bpm, 30 m sprint times (4.34–4.96 s, and counter-movement jump or vertical jump (28–50 cm vary mostly according to the players' competitive level and positional role. There are also some special considerations that coaches and other practitioners should be aware of when working with female athletes such as the menstrual cycle, potential pregnancy and lactation, common injury risks (particularly knee and head injuries and health concerns (e.g., female athlete triad, iron deficiency, and anemia that may affect players' football performance, health or return to play. Reported mean values for total distance

FOOTBALL PLAYERS’ LEGS BIOMECHANICS DURING THE GAME AND THE REQUIREMENTS FOR FOOTBALL SHOES

OpenAIRE

Cornelia Ionescu Luca; Cristina Secan

2013-01-01

Football players, during the game, find themselves in both static and dynamic positions. Movement may be accomplished through walking, marching, running and jumping. While walking, the step may be simple, if referred to a single leg or double when talking about both legs. The simple steps have different phases for the bare-foot, the impact phase, supported foot and oscillating shank-bone and propulsion. Football shoes for walking make contact with the support surface through cleats. The back...

ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENT FORMS OF SHOTS IN FOOTBALL

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Miroslav Radoman

2010-09-01

Full Text Available The area of technical-tactical activities is very interesting and unexplored, especially because the game from year to year changes faster. The aim of this research is to perform analysis of different forms of shots in football (in the official statistics and their association with outcomes of football matches at the World Cup 2006. in Germany (FIFA World Cup Germany 2006.. The sample consists of observations of 64 games played at the World Cup 2006. in Germany. Sample characteristics are elements of games that are leading the official statistics, which is promoted for all FIFA competitions that take place under its auspices, including the World Championships. Of five elements for analysis was selected four. Based on the analysis set forth can be concluded that the team winning the game stands out significantly in all analyzed characteristics in relation to the game the team with a score draw or a defeat where the difference is less. All teams that have achieved the victory had offensive tactics or were technically dominant in relation to the opponent.

Modelling relationships between match events and match outcome in elite football.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Hongyou; Hopkins, Will G; Gómez, Miguel-Angel

2016-08-01

Identifying match events that are related to match outcome is an important task in football match analysis. Here we have used generalised mixed linear modelling to determine relationships of 16 football match events and 1 contextual variable (game location: home/away) with the match outcome. Statistics of 320 close matches (goal difference ≤ 2) of season 2012-2013 in the Spanish First Division Professional Football League were analysed. Relationships were evaluated with magnitude-based inferences and were expressed as extra matches won or lost per 10 close matches for an increase of two within-team or between-team standard deviations (SD) of the match event (representing effects of changes in team values from match to match and of differences between average team values, respectively). There was a moderate positive within-team effect from shots on target (3.4 extra wins per 10 matches; 99% confidence limits ±1.0), and a small positive within-team effect from total shots (1.7 extra wins; ±1.0). Effects of most other match events were related to ball possession, which had a small negative within-team effect (1.2 extra losses; ±1.0) but a small positive between-team effect (1.7 extra wins; ±1.4). Game location showed a small positive within-team effect (1.9 extra wins; ±0.9). In analyses of nine combinations of team and opposition end-of-season rank (classified as high, medium, low), almost all between-team effects were unclear, while within-team effects varied depending on the strength of team and opposition. Some of these findings will be useful to coaches and performance analysts when planning training sessions and match tactics.

Blood (Breath) Alcohol Concentration Rates of College Football Fans on Game Day

Science.gov (United States)

Glassman, Tavis; Braun, Robert; Reindl, Diana M.; Whewell, Aubrey

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the Blood (breath) Alcohol Concentration (BrAC) rates of college football fans on game day. Researchers employed a time-series study design, collecting data at home football games at a large university in the Midwest. Participants included 536 individuals (64.4% male) ages 18-83 (M = 28.44, SD = 12.32).…

IMPACT OF SHOTS ON FINAL SCORE OF A FOOTBALL MATCH

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Miroslav Radoman

2008-08-01

Full Text Available The research has been done on a sample of 64 played games on the World championship FIFA, World Cup Germany 2006 and 128 results of the games divided in three integrals according to the score (win, defeat and unresolved score . The analysis is done according to the total number of shots during the game. Considering the results that are got and their interpretations, we could conclude that the results of data analysis in which is used the multi-method of MANOVA analysis and discriminative analysis, has shown that there are significant difference in frequency of the games result (win, defeat or unresolved score in shots element during the game. Even thou the noticed difference in frequency are not equally expressed, the results that are got have insinuated that there are significant differences in followed elements of the football game. Implemented analysis (royev test i T-test have confirmed that in every analyzed elements of the shot there are statistically significant differences in the result of the game (win, defeat, unresolved score and that the differences in shot’s elements are consequence different selection of the tactics and techniques also the ability of their realization in the stage of at tack and defense.

Post-Game High Protein Intake May Improve Recovery of Football-Specific Performance during a Congested Game Fixture

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Poulios, Athanasios; Fatouros, Ioannis G; Mohr, Magni

2018-01-01

The effects of protein supplementation on performance recovery and inflammatory responses during a simulated one-week in-season microcycle with two games (G1, G2) performed three days apart were examined. Twenty football players participated in two trials, receiving either milk protein concentrat...... short-lived reduction after G2 in PRO compared to PLA. In summary, these results provide evidence that protein feeding may more efficiently restore football-specific performance and strength and provide antioxidant protection during a congested game fixture....

College Students' Perceptions of University Identification and Football Game Day Attire

Science.gov (United States)

Crosby, Melanie; Kim, Soyoung; Hathcote, Jan

2006-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the rationale behind football game day attire and to establish whether organizational identification, perceived organizational prestige, and game day participation influenced clothing choice. By identifying the game day clothing habits of female college students attending Division I-A schools throughout…

The Epidemiology of Injuries in Football at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

Science.gov (United States)

Webborn, Nick; Cushman, Daniel; Blauwet, Cheri A; Emery, Carolyn; Derman, Wayne; Schwellnus, Martin; Stomphorst, Jaap; Van de Vliet, Peter; Willick, Stuart E

2016-06-01

The epidemiology of injury in Paralympic football has received little attention. A study of all sports at the London 2012 Paralympic Games identified football 5-a-side as the sport with the highest injury rate, meriting further detailed analysis, which may facilitate the development of strategies to prevent injuries. To examine the injury rates and risk factors associated with injury in Paralympic football. Secondary analysis of a prospective cohort study of injuries to football 5-a-side and football 7-a-side athletes. London 2012 Paralympic Games. Participants included 70 football 5-a-side athletes and 96 football 7-a-side athletes. Athletes from all but one country chose to participate in this study. The Paralympic Injury and Illness Surveillance System was used to track injuries during the Games, with data entered by medical staff. Injury incidence rate (IR) and injury incidence proportion (IP). The overall IR for football 5-a-side was 22.4 injuries/1000 athlete-days (95% confidence interval [CI], 14.1-33.8) with an IP of 31.4 injuries per 100 athletes (95% CI, 20.9-43.6). In 5-a-side competition, 62.5% of injuries were associated with foul play. The overall IR for football 7-a-side was 10.4 injuries/1000 athlete-days (95% CI, 5.4-15.5), with an IP of 14.6 injuries per 100 athletes (95% CI, 7.5-21.6). The most commonly injured body region in both sports was the lower extremity. To our knowledge, this study is the first to examine IR and risk factors associated with injury in Paralympic football. Future studies are needed to determine mechanisms of injury and independent risk factors for injury, thus informing prevention strategies. Copyright © 2016 American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Does Game Participation Impact Cognition and Symptoms in Elite Football Players?

Science.gov (United States)

Mrazik, Martin; Naidu, Dhiren; Manning, David E; Brooks, Brian L

2016-09-01

To measure neurocognitive functioning in college and professional football players after game participation. Retrospective, cross-sectional cohort design. Ninety-four male university and professional football players. All participants completed Immediate Postconcussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT) testing at baseline, and either at postconcussion (group 1) or postgame (group 2) participation. Results from the 5 ImPACT composite scores (Verbal Memory, Visual Memory, Visual Motor Speed, Reaction Time and Impulse Control) and Total Symptom Score. Repeated-measures analysis of variance demonstrated a significant main effect for time (improvements) in 3 of 5 domains for the postconcussion group, but no improvements in the postgame group. The postconcussion group presented with significantly improved results on 4 of 5 ImPACT domains compared with the postgame group at the follow-up time interval. Participation in a football game with potential cumulative head contacts did not yield increased symptoms or cognitive impairment. However, the absence of improvement in cognitive functioning in noninjured football players, which was found in those players who were returned to play after an injury, may suggest that there is a measureable impact as a result of playing football.

Possession Zone as a Performance Indicator in Football. The Game of the Best Teams

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Claudio A. Casal

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Possession time in football has been widely discussed in research but few studies have analyzed the importance of the field area in which possession occurs. The objective of this study was to identify the existence of significant differences in the field zone of ball possession between successful and unsuccessful teams and to acknowledge if the match status modulates the possession model. To this end, 2,284 attacks were analyzed corresponding to the matches in the final phase of the UEFA Euro 2016 France, recording possession time and field zone in which possession occurred. Video recordings of matches were analyzed and coded post-event using notational analysis. We have found that successful offensive game patterns are different from unsuccessful ones. Specifically, field zone in which major possession occurs changes significantly between successful and unsuccessful teams (x2 = 15.72, p < 0.05 and through Welch’s T significant differences were detected in possession time between successful and unsuccessful teams (H = 24.289, p < 0.001. The former are characterized by longer possession times, preferably in the middle offensive zone, on the other hand, unsuccessful teams have shorter possession times and preferably on the middle defensive zone. Logistic regression also allowed us to identify that greater possession in the middle offensive zone is a good indicator of success in the offensive game, allowing us to predict a greater chance of victory in the match. Specifically, every time the teams achieve possession in the middle offensive zone, the chance of winning the match will increase 1.72 times and, the probability of winning the match making longer possessions in the middle offensive zone is 44.25%. Applying the Kruskal–Wallis test we have also been able to verify how match status modulates the teams possession time, specifically, when teams are winning they have longer possessions x2 = 92.628, p = 0.011. Results obtained are expected to

A BALANCED TEAM WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS: 66 YEARS OF DATA FROM THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION AND THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE.

Science.gov (United States)

Otten, Mark P; Miller, Travis J

2015-12-01

Explicitly monitoring one's own actions has been noted as detrimental to the performance of fine motor skills under duress. Offensive skills rather than defensive skills are typically studied in this context. Defensive techniques typically require skills such as footwork and continuous movement, as opposed to more precise, hand-eye coordinated action. Explicit monitoring theory may be less relevant for defensive skills than offensive skills when playing under pressure. Archival data (66 years) for teams and for individual players was compiled from the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Football League (NFL). For basketball (n=778) and football (n=515) teams, regular season offensive and defensive statistics similarly predicted success in the postseason, which was assumed to create more pressure. For individual basketball players (n=5,132), nine indices of offensive (FG, free throw and three-point shooting, offensive win shares, points, and assists) and defensive (defensive win shares, steals, and blocks) production were compared; among these, three-point shooting percentage was least correlated from season to postseason, suggesting it is especially variable under pressure. A balanced basketball or football team that focuses on both offense and defense may be most successful.

Big men playing football: Money, politics and foul play in the African game

OpenAIRE

Pannenborg, A.R.C.

2012-01-01

While the skills of players can be observed on pitches throughout Africa, the actions of those who run the game's administrative side are less visible. Based on anthropological fieldwork in Ghana and Cameroon, this study's main characters are rich and powerful men who take up positions within clubs and football associations. Through their involvement in football, these African "Big Men" convert symbolic, social and economic capital. In other words, they transform the game's popularity into st...

Game Related Statistics Which Discriminate Between Winning and Losing Under-16 Male Basketball Games

Science.gov (United States)

Lorenzo, Alberto; Gómez, Miguel Ángel; Ortega, Enrique; Ibáñez, Sergio José; Sampaio, Jaime

2010-01-01

The aim of the present study was to identify the game-related statistics which discriminate between winning and losing teams in under-16 years old male basketball games. The sample gathered all 122 games in the 2004 and 2005 Under-16 European Championships. The game-related statistics analysed were the free-throws (both successful and unsuccessful), 2- and 3-points field-goals (both successful and unsuccessful) offensive and defensive rebounds, blocks, assists, fouls, turnovers and steals. The winning teams exhibited lower ball possessions per game and better offensive and defensive efficacy coefficients than the losing teams. Results from discriminant analysis were statistically significant and allowed to emphasize several structure coefficients (SC). In close games (final score differences below 9 points), the discriminant variables were the turnovers (SC = -0.47) and the assists (SC = 0.33). In balanced games (final score differences between 10 and 29 points), the variables that discriminated between the groups were the successful 2-point field-goals (SC = -0.34) and defensive rebounds (SC = -0. 36); and in unbalanced games (final score differences above 30 points) the variables that best discriminated both groups were the successful 2-point field-goals (SC = 0.37). These results allowed understanding that these players' specific characteristics result in a different game-related statistical profile and helped to point out the importance of the perceptive and decision making process in practice and in competition. Key points The players' game-related statistical profile varied according to game type, game outcome and in formative categories in basketball. The results of this work help to point out the different player's performance described in U-16 men's basketball teams compared with senior and professional men's basketball teams. The results obtained enhance the importance of the perceptive and decision making process in practice and in competition. PMID

Exécution de penalties et de tirs au but au football : maîtrise ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Mots clés : Penalty, émotion, habileté technique, tireur, gardien de but. English Abstract Football games sometimes end by penalty shoot-out sessions. During these faces to faces between penalty takers and goalkeepers each of the protagonists attempts to guess the intentions of the other to defeat him and win the duel.

The Genesis of Romanian Football. Social Factors and Processes behind the Game

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PÉTER, László

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The present article deals with those social and economic factors that contributed to the genesis of Romanian soccer at the turn of the previous century. The author argues that football was imported from abroad via peregrination and schools, but certain social processes, such as urbanization, capitalization and the appearance of massive working classes, are the reasons why this beautiful game became socially embedded in the local environments. The different circumstances in Banat and Transylvania and in the old Romanian Kingdom marked the social history and trajectory “travelled” by the ball. While in the western part of the country, football arrived in a fertile ground because of the already existing bourgeois sport associations and the rapidly emerging local working classes, the role of foreign companies and expats in implementing football was more significant in the southern regions. This difference in the genesis of the game produced two distinct styles of playing football. These two styles clearly reflect the historical and social background specific to the different regions.

Quantification of Competitive Game Demands of NCAA Division I College Football Players Using Global Positioning Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Wellman, Aaron D; Coad, Sam C; Goulet, Grant C; McLellan, Christopher P

2016-01-01

The aim of the present study was to examine the competitive physiological movement demands of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college football players using portable global positioning system (GPS) technology during games and to examine positional groups within offensive and defensive teams, to determine if a player's physiological requirements during games are influenced by playing position. Thirty-three NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision football players were monitored using GPS receivers with integrated accelerometers (GPSports) during 12 regular season games throughout the 2014 season. Individual data sets (n = 295) from players were divided into offensive and defensive teams and subsequent position groups. Movement profile characteristics, including total, low-intensity, moderate-intensity, high-intensity, and sprint running distances (m), sprint counts, and acceleration and deceleration efforts, were assessed during games. A one-way ANOVA and post-hoc Bonferroni statistical analysis were used to determine differences in movement profiles between each position group within offensive and defensive teams. For both offensive and defensive teams, significant (p ≤ 0.05) differences exist between positional groups for game physical performance requirements. The results of the present study identified that wide receivers and defensive backs completed significantly (p ≤ 0.05) greater total distance, high-intensity running, sprint distance, and high-intensity acceleration and deceleration efforts than their respective offensive and defensive positional groups. Data from the present study provide novel quantification of position-specific physical demands of college football games and support the use of position-specific training in the preparation of NCAA Division I college football players for competition.

Post-Game High Protein Intake May Improve Recovery of Football-Specific Performance during a Congested Game Fixture: Results from the PRO-FOOTBALL Study

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Athanasios Poulios

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The effects of protein supplementation on performance recovery and inflammatory responses during a simulated one-week in-season microcycle with two games (G1, G2 performed three days apart were examined. Twenty football players participated in two trials, receiving either milk protein concentrate (1.15 and 0.26 g/kg on game and training days, respectively (PRO or an energy-matched placebo (1.37 and 0.31 g/kg of carbohydrate on game and training days, respectively (PLA according to a randomized, repeated-measures, crossover, double-blind design. Each trial included two games and four daily practices. Speed, jump height, isokinetic peak torque, and muscle soreness of knee flexors (KF and extensors (KE were measured before G1 and daily thereafter for six days. Blood was drawn before G1 and daily thereafter. Football-specific locomotor activity and heart rate were monitored using GPS technology during games and practices. The two games resulted in reduced speed (by 3–17%, strength of knee flexors (by 12–23%, and jumping performance (by 3–10% throughout recovery, in both trials. Average heart rate and total distance covered during games remained unchanged in PRO but not in PLA. Moreover, PRO resulted in a change of smaller magnitude in high-intensity running at the end of G2 (75–90 min vs. 0–15 min compared to PLA (P = 0.012. KE concentric strength demonstrated a more prolonged decline in PLA (days 1 and 2 after G1, P = 0.014–0.018; days 1, 2 and 3 after G2, P = 0.016–0.037 compared to PRO (days 1 after G1, P = 0.013; days 1 and 2 after G2, P = 0.014–0.033 following both games. KF eccentric strength decreased throughout recovery after G1 (PLA: P=0.001–0.047—PRO: P =0.004–0.22 in both trials, whereas after G2 it declined throughout recovery in PLA (P = 0.000–0.013 but only during the first two days (P = 0.000–0.014 in PRO. No treatment effect was observed for delayed onset of muscle soreness, leukocyte counts, and creatine

Club football in Denmark - a game between state policy and the DFA

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bennike, Søren; Storm, Rasmus K.; Wikman, Johan Michael

2018-01-01

Football in Denmark stands as a very popular game engaging men and women of all ages. Most of them are playing under the wings of the Danish Football Association (DFA). This paper provides a description and understanding of the organisation of football, with a specific focus on the DFA. We ask; how...... is club based football organised in Denmark and how does it reflect state policy? Our study is grounded in an analysis of 21 documents selected due to their importance to the organisation of football. Moreover, an online questionnaire survey was sent to the chairpersons of 1247 grassroots football clubs...... (N:475). To deeper understand the development of and organisations involved in Danish football we include the understanding of society formed by four basic social orders viewed upon as ideal types; civil society, market, state and associations (Pestoff). Our findings show that the organisation...

Small-sided games in football as a method to improve high school students’ instep passing skills

Science.gov (United States)

Ridwan, M.; Darmawan, G.; Fuadi, Z.

2018-01-01

This study analyzed the influence of small sided games application toward increasing the learning result of instep passing in football. The research used one group pretest-posttest design. The data were obtained once a week for 135 minutes of small sided games and this activity had been held for four weeks with a final test in the final meeting. According to descriptive data result, there were increases of the mean. The data showed the increase of the application of small sided games resulted in not only the mean of the descriptive data but also the result of T-test. The significant of T-test is 0,000. It means less than 0,05 then the hypothesis Ha received and Ho rejected automatically. The presentation showed that 48,15% data is increasing by small-sided games application. The small-sided games were proven to be the right tool to increase instep passing football technique. We suggested to the apply that kind of games of football learning on physical education subject, especially for pre-university students.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FOOTBALL PLAYERS OF DIFFERENT GAMING POSITIONS BASED ON SOME BASIC AND SPECIFIC MOTOR ABILITIES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bogdan Tomić

2011-09-01

Full Text Available Based on the structure competition activities, and its character can be defined as a hypothetical model of the anthropological characteristics of football players of different gaming positions. Based on hypothetical models of different football players' position can make a division into two groups of players based on game systems that are commonly used in modern football, which is 4-4-2, and the common anthropological characteristics, structure and nature of activities carried out by during the game, so the first group consists of players with smaller volumes of engagement in the game (goalkeeper, two central defenders and two strikers and the second group 190 CRNOGORSKA SPORTSKA AKADEMIJA, „Sport Mont“ časopis br. 31,32,33. consists of players with greater scope to engage in the game (two foreign players and four defensive midfielder (midfielder . The aim is to determine the difference between players of different players' positions on the basis of some basic and specific motor abilities. The sample of 206 football players aged 18 ± 0.5 years is divided into 5 subsamples according to examinees gaming position: forwarders (45, midfield players (47, defenders (41, central defenders (44 and goalkeepers (29. The battery of 16 tests (in which the results are expressed in distance and time - metric. It can be concluded that there are differences between players of different players' positions on the team in relation to the basic and specific motor skills.

Incidence of Concussion During Practice and Games in Youth, High School, and Collegiate American Football Players.

Science.gov (United States)

Dompier, Thomas P; Kerr, Zachary Y; Marshall, Stephen W; Hainline, Brian; Snook, Erin M; Hayden, Ross; Simon, Janet E

2015-07-01

A report by the Institute of Medicine called for comprehensive nationwide concussion incidence data across the spectrum of athletes aged 5 to 23 years. To describe the incidence of concussion in athletes participating in youth, high school, and collegiate American football. Data were collected by athletic trainers at youth, high school, and collegiate football practices and games to create multiple prospective observational cohorts during the 2012 and 2013 football seasons. Data were collected from July 1, 2012, through January 31, 2013, for the 2012 season and from July 1, 2013, through January 31, 2014, for the 2013 season. The Youth Football Surveillance System included 118 youth football teams, providing 4092 athlete-seasons. The National Athletic Treatment, Injury and Outcomes Network program included 96 secondary school football programs, providing 11 957 athlete-seasons. The National Collegiate Athletic Association Injury Surveillance Program included 24 member institutions, providing 4305 athlete-seasons. All injuries regardless of severity, including concussions, and athlete exposure information were documented by athletic trainers during practices and games. Injury rates, injury rate ratios, risks, risk ratios, and 95% CIs were calculated. Concussions comprised 9.6%, 4.0%, and 8.0% of all injuries reported in the Youth Football Surveillance System; National Athletic Treatment, Injury and Outcomes Network; and National Collegiate Athletic Association Injury Surveillance Program, respectively. The game concussion rate was higher than the practice concussion rate across all 3 competitive levels. The game concussion rate for college athletes (3.74 per 1000 athlete exposures) was higher than those for high school athletes (injury rate ratio, 1.86; 95% CI, 1.50-2.31) and youth athletes (injury rate ratio, 1.57; 95% CI, 1.17-2.10). The practice concussion rate in college (0.53 per 1000 athlete exposures) was lower than that in high school (injury rate ratio, 0

Distance matters in away games: Evidence from the German football league

OpenAIRE

Oberhofer, Harald; Philippovich, Tassilo; Winner, Hannes

2009-01-01

This paper assesses the role of distance in professional team sports, taking the example of football (soccer). We argue that a team’s performance in terms of scored and conceded goals decreases with the distance to the foreign playing venue. To test this hypothesis empirically, we investigate 6,389 away games from the German Football Premier League (’Erste Deutsche Bundesliga’) between the playing seasons 1986-87 and 2006-07. We find that distance increases a guest team’s propensity to conced...

Is Hosting the Games Enough to Win? A predictive economic model of medal wins at 2014 Winter Olympics

OpenAIRE

Wladimir Andreff

2012-01-01

An econometric model which has first been estimated on medal wins at Summer Olympics and has predicted 88% of medal distribution at Beijing Games 2008, is revisited for Winter Olympics. After changing some variables to take into account the winter sports specificity, the model is estimated again on all Winter Games since 1964.Then it is used to predict (forecast) the medal distribution per country at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

DIFFERENCES IN GAME STATISTICS BETWEEN WINNING AND LOSING RUGBY TEAMS IN THE SIX NATIONS TOURNAMENT

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José M. Palao

2009-12-01

Full Text Available The objective of the present study was to analyze the differences in rugby game statistics between winning and losing teams. The data from 58 games of round robin play from the Six Nations tournament from the 2003-2006 seasons were analyzed. The groups of variables studied were: number of points scored, way in which the points were scored; way teams obtained the ball and how the team used it; and technical and tactical aspects of the game. A univariate (t-test and multivariate (discriminant analysis of data was done. Winning teams had average values that were significantly higher in points scored, conversions, successful drops, mauls won, line breaks, possessions kicked, tackles completed, and turnovers won. Losing teams had significantly higher averages for the variables scrums lost and line-outs lost. The results showed that: a in the phases of obtaining the ball and more specifically in scrummage and line-out, winning teams lose fewer balls than losing teams (winning teams have an efficacy of 90% in both actions; b the winning team tends to play more with their feet when they obtain the ball, to utilize the maul as a way of attacking, and to break the defensive line more often than the losing team does; and c On defence, winning teams recovered more balls and completed more tackles than losing teams, and the percentage of tackles completed by winning teams was 94%. The value presented could be used as a reference for practice and competition in peak performance teams

Effect of National Football League games on small animal emergency room caseload.

Science.gov (United States)

Rozanski, Elizabeth A; Rondeau, Mark P; Shaw, Scott P; Rush, John E

2009-07-01

To evaluate whether games of popular professional football teams have an effect on small animal emergency room caseload and percentage of dogs and cats that subsequently are hospitalized, are euthanatized, or die following admission to veterinary emergency rooms located within a dedicated fan base. Prospective study. 818 dogs and cats admitted to the emergency room. During the 2007 New England Patriots (NEP) football season, small animal emergency room caseload was recorded for Sunday (4-hour blocks, 8:00 AM until 12:00 midnight) and Monday night (7:00 PM to 11:00 PM). Number of dogs and cats that subsequently were hospitalized, died, or were euthanatized was recorded. Mean game importance rating (GIR) was determined for NEP games (scale, 1 [mild] to 3 [great]). Percentage of dogs and cats admitted from 12:00 noon to 4:00 PM on Sundays during NEP games (mean GIR, 1.7) versus non-NEP games was not different. Mean +/- SD percentage of dogs and cats admitted from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM on Sundays during NEP games (mean GIR, 2.4) versus non-NEP games was significantly different (18 +/- 5% and 25 +/- 7% of daily caseload, respectively). Percentage of dogs and cats admitted from 8:00 PM to 12:00 midnight on Sundays during NEP games (mean GIR, 2.1) versus non-NEP games was not different. Game type (NEP vs non-NEP) during emergency room admission did not influence whether dogs and cats subsequently were hospitalized, died, or were euthanatized. Professional sporting events may influence veterinary emergency room caseloads.

Win-stay-lose-learn promotes cooperation in the spatial prisoner's dilemma game.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yongkui Liu

Full Text Available Holding on to one's strategy is natural and common if the later warrants success and satisfaction. This goes against widespread simulation practices of evolutionary games, where players frequently consider changing their strategy even though their payoffs may be marginally different than those of the other players. Inspired by this observation, we introduce an aspiration-based win-stay-lose-learn strategy updating rule into the spatial prisoner's dilemma game. The rule is simple and intuitive, foreseeing strategy changes only by dissatisfied players, who then attempt to adopt the strategy of one of their nearest neighbors, while the strategies of satisfied players are not subject to change. We find that the proposed win-stay-lose-learn rule promotes the evolution of cooperation, and it does so very robustly and independently of the initial conditions. In fact, we show that even a minute initial fraction of cooperators may be sufficient to eventually secure a highly cooperative final state. In addition to extensive simulation results that support our conclusions, we also present results obtained by means of the pair approximation of the studied game. Our findings continue the success story of related win-stay strategy updating rules, and by doing so reveal new ways of resolving the prisoner's dilemma.

Use of mobile and educational games in the sports training of young football players

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Volodymyr Naumchuk

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Purpose: determine the content and sequence of the use of mobile and educational games in the process of sports training for young football players. Material & Methods: analysis, synthesis and generalization of scientific information on the problem of research, educational and methodological literature and Internet sources, pedagogical observations. Results: it is established that the effectiveness of the use of mobile and educational games should be ensured not only through their appropriate selection in accordance with the pedagogical conditions and due organizational and methodical decision, but also by determining the optimal sequence of their implementation in the training process, adapting their content and structure to the contingent students and a specific pedagogical situation. The generalized sequence of application of these games in the process of sports training of young football players is considered, on a specific example their approximate content is revealed. Conclusion: the content and sequence of the use of mobile and educational games are determined by methodological provisions that provide for the primary solution of the tasks of the individual side of the training of young football players with the subsequent resolution of interrelations in its limits. After that, those tasks of a certain side of sports training that can be solved by means of another are realized. In the future, the relationship and integration of two or more parties of long-term training is carried out in control games and official competitions.

RELATION BETWEEN BASIC PHYSICAL CAPABILITIES AND THE THEORETIC KNOWLEDGE LAWS OF THE GAME WITH THE SUCCESS OF REFREEING OF FOOTBALL REFEREES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rusmir Mrković

2011-03-01

Full Text Available The aim of this research is to establish a relation in-between the basic physical capabilities and the theoretic knowledge laws of the game with the success in refereeing of football referees of the Sarajevo Canton. The population from which samples were taken are football referees of the Sarajevo Canton, 90 of them, age span from 18- 45 years of age and who have met the criteria for getting a license to be referees in football matches in the next season at all levels of competition in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The sample of variables in this research covers areas of basic motorics (18, theoretic knowledge laws of the games (17 and the estimate of success in refereeing in football games (7 variables. The results of the final analysis show that the whole system of variables which in this research represent basic physical capabilities and the knowledge Laws of the game by the football referees of the Sarajevo Canton has a statistical connection with the system of variables which in this research makes the success of refereeing of football referees. Since football is an activity that has almost the most complexity (referees are a part of football, we can say that the selected system of variables has a relatively good connection for success and that these variables are very important in order for one referee to perform his task as good as possible at one match.. Of course during the training process attention should be given on the development of all basic physical capabilities, and not only one dimension of the physical area because in general we have to be physically and cognitively be present in order to finish the game at a high rhythm but making mistakes the least as possible

Child Welfare in Football:An Exploration of Children's Welfare in the Modern Game

OpenAIRE

Brackenridge, Celia; Pitchford, Andy; Russell, Kate; Nutt, Gareth

2007-01-01

This text presents an evidence-based account of contemporary youth soccer from a wide range of perspectives and discusses key themes such as child protection, children and the role of family, children and the 'football family', ethical dilemmas and the changing culture of football. The book presents unique research into the experience of a range of stakeholders in the contemporary youth game including children, parents, teachers, doctors, coaches, managers and scouts, child protection officer...

The Bamberg Trucking Game: A Paradigm for Assessing the Detection of Win-Win Solutions in a Potential Conflict Scenario.

Science.gov (United States)

Nalis, Dario; Schütz, Astrid; Pastukhov, Alexander

2018-01-01

In win-win solutions, all parties benefit more from the solution than they would if they each pursued their own individual goals. Such solutions are beneficial at individual and collective levels and thus represent optimal solutions. Win-win solutions are desirable but often difficult to find. To allow the study of individual differences and situational factors that help or hinder the detection of win-win solutions, we created a paradigm that fills a gap in the repertoire of psychological instruments used to assess collaboration, cooperation, negotiation, and prosocial behavior. The new paradigm differs from previous ones in two aspects: (a) In existing paradigms that focus on social motivation, possible strategies are evident, whereas we focused here on the question of whether people can detect the solution and thus disentangle ability from motivation, (b) Paradigms that focus on cooperation typically entail a risk associated with the partner's defection, whereas cooperation in our paradigm is not associated with risk. We adjusted the Trucking Game-a method for assessing bargaining-to include a situation in which two parties can help each other achieve their respective goals and thus benefit over and above the pursuit of individual goals or compromising. We tested scenario-based and interaction-based versions with samples of 154 and 112 participants, respectively. Almost one third of the participants or dyads found the win-win solution. General mental abilities were not related to detecting the win-win solution in either version. The paradigm provides a way to extend research on cooperation and conflict and can thus be useful for research and training.

The Long-Term Game: An Analysis of the Life Expectancy of National Football League Players

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Ruud Koning

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The National Football League (NFL has recently received significant negative media attention surrounding the safety of its players, revolving largely around the long term health risks of playing the sport. Recent premature deaths and instances of suicide associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy and other football related injuries have brought the sport under increased scrutiny. By comparing mortality rates of the general population to mortality rates of players using publically available data from the 1970 and 1994 NFL seasons, we test whether participation in football is significantly harmful to the longevity of the players. We conclude that, in total, players in the NFL have lower mortality rates than the general population. However, there is evidence that line players have higher mortality rates than other players and that those who played more games have higher mortality rates than those who played fewer games.

Predicting Football Matches Results using Bayesian Networks for English Premier League (EPL)

Science.gov (United States)

Razali, Nazim; Mustapha, Aida; Yatim, Faiz Ahmad; Aziz, Ruhaya Ab

2017-08-01

The issues of modeling asscoiation football prediction model has become increasingly popular in the last few years and many different approaches of prediction models have been proposed with the point of evaluating the attributes that lead a football team to lose, draw or win the match. There are three types of approaches has been considered for predicting football matches results which include statistical approaches, machine learning approaches and Bayesian approaches. Lately, many studies regarding football prediction models has been produced using Bayesian approaches. This paper proposes a Bayesian Networks (BNs) to predict the results of football matches in term of home win (H), away win (A) and draw (D). The English Premier League (EPL) for three seasons of 2010-2011, 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 has been selected and reviewed. K-fold cross validation has been used for testing the accuracy of prediction model. The required information about the football data is sourced from a legitimate site at http://www.football-data.co.uk. BNs achieved predictive accuracy of 75.09% in average across three seasons. It is hoped that the results could be used as the benchmark output for future research in predicting football matches results.

The language of football

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rossing, Niels Nygaard; Skrubbeltrang, Lotte Stausgaard

2014-01-01

levels (Schein, 2004) in which each player and his actions can be considered an artefact - a concrete symbol in motion embedded in espoused values and basic assumptions. Therefore, the actions of each dialect are strongly connected to the underlying understanding of football. By document and video......The language of football: A cultural analysis of selected World Cup nations. This essay describes how actions on the football field relate to the nations’ different cultural understanding of football and how these actions become spoken dialects within a language of football. Saussure reasoned...... language to have two components: a language system and language users (Danesi, 2003). Consequently, football can be characterized as a language containing a system with specific rules of the game and users with actual choices and actions within the game. All football players can be considered language...

Analysis of Decision Making Process in Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

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Mochamad Sandy Triady

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Billy Beanes’s success in using data-driven decision making in baseball industry is wonderfully written by Michael Lewis in Moneyball. As a general manager in baseball team that were in the bottom position of the league from the financial side to acquire the players, Beane, along with his partner, explored the use of data in choosing the team’s player. They figured out how to determine the worth of every player.The process was not smooth, due to the condition of baseball industry that was not common with using advanced statistic in acquiring   players. Many teams still use the old paradigm that rely on experts’ judgments, intuition, or experience in decision making process. Moneyball approached that using data-driven decision making gave excellent result for Beane’s team. The team won 20 gamessequently in the 2002 season and also spent the lowest cost per win than other teams.This paper attempts to review the principles of Moneyball – The Art of Winning an Unfair Game as a process of decision making and gives what we can learn from the story in order to win the games, the unfair games.

Analysis of the one-dimensional Yut-Nori game: Winning strategy and avalanche-size distribution

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Hye Jin; Sim, Hasung; Jo, Hang-Hyun; Kim, Beom Jun

2013-10-01

In the Korean traditional board game Yut-Nori, teams compete by moving their pieces on a two-dimensional game board, and the team whose all pieces complete a round trip on the board wins. In every round, teams throw four wooden sticks of the shape of half-cut cylinders and the number of sticks that show belly sides, i.e., the flat sides, determines the number of steps the team's piece can advance on the board. It is possible to pile up one team's pieces if their sites are identical so that pieces as a group can move together afterwards (piling). If a team's piece(s) arrives at a site occupied by an opponent's piece(s), it is caught and removed from the board, and the team is given one more chance to throw the sticks and proceed (catching). For simplicity, we simulate this game on a one-dimensional board with the same number of sites as the original game and show that catching is a more advantageous strategy than piling to win. We also study the avalanche-size distribution in the thermodynamic limit and find that it follows an exponential form.

Managed Play: The Media’s Impact on Play in the Australian Football League

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Duncan Samuel Keith

2018-03-01

Full Text Available No industry has influenced the transformation of the Australian Football League (AFL into a professional, commercial business more than the media. Today, the AFL players are paid more than ever and are used as marketing tools to promote and sell the game, often to new fans in new markets of Australia - namely New South Wales and Queensland - who haven’t traditionally played Australian Football, preferring the rugby codes instead. But perhaps the biggest change in the AFL is that the play element is now used as function of business. Put simply, winning leads to more money. As such, the play element is now manipulated more than ever. The game has more coaches implementing more tactics, strategies, game plans and set plays than ever before. These changes can be linked back to the media’s influence on the game. This paper utilises the combined observations and theories of Johan Huizinga and Pierre Bourdieu to create a theoretical lens through which we can understand the media’s growing influence in sport and its impact on play’s transformation. The theory will then be expounded through an extensive analysis of the media’s influence in the AFL, particularly its play element. This analysis will be supported with insights and views from AFL fans, members, commentators and theorists.

Football Hooliganism

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Spaaij, R.; Testa, A.; Hughson, J.; Moore, K.; Spaaij, R.; Maguire, J.

2017-01-01

Introduction Hooliganism has been among the most popular topics in football studies for decades. To some observers, the issue is well and truly over-researched (Moorhouse, 2000) and has ‘unreasonably biased research into football, so that issues such as the administration of the game and its

Caught between passion for the game and the need for education: a study of elite-level female football players in Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brandt-Hansen, Marianne; Ottesen, Laila

2018-01-01

This article focuses on the passion of Danish elite-level female football players for the game and the challenges they face. How do they manage to combine the tough demands of a football life with the need for education? A quantitative survey (2010) was sent out to female players in the Danish 3F...... by Victor Pestoff, we may be operating with a different form of elite in women’s football in Denmark. Future focal points for clubs and the Danish Football Association are to continue supporting the players’ passion for the game and Team Denmark’s focus on ‘the whole human being’ in athletes....... Ligaen and Danish national team players. The findings indicate challenges faced by players in pursuing their passion, as they struggle to combine everyday life, education and work with a football career, either as amateurs or on a playing contract. In the light of the Scandinavian sport model inspired...

Football Fitness - a new version of football?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bennike, Søren; Ottesen, Laila Susanne

2014-01-01

organised as small-sided games is highly beneficial for enhancing overall fitness. In addition, studies indicate that team sports such as football may have an advantage over individual sports when it comes to personal development and the development of social capital. The aim of this paper is to explore...... a new Danish football-based activity for health called Football Fitness (FF), with a specific focus on organisational issues. In doing so, we would like to contribute to the discussion of how to organise sports as a means for promoting health within sporting organisations. The theoretical framework...... in a Danish context. Key words: Football Fitness, Health, Sports clubs, Sports Organisations, Path dependency...

Football and exchange rates: empirical support for behavioral economics.

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Eker, Gulin; Berument, Hakan; Dogan, Burak

2007-10-01

Recently, economic theory has been expanded to incorporate emotions, which have been assumed to play an important role in financial decisions. The present study illustrates this by showing a connection between the sports performance of popular national football teams (Besiktas, Fenerbahce, and Galatasaray) and performance of the Turkish economy. Specifically, a significant positive association was found between the success of three major professional Turkish football teams and the exchange rate of the Turkish lira against the U.S. dollar. The effect of the football success of several Turkish football teams on the exchange rate of the Turkish lira was examined using the simultaneous multiple regression model with predictor measures of wins, losses, and ties for different combinations of teams to predict the depreciation rate of the Turkish lira between the years 1987 and 2003. Wins by Turkish football teams against foreign (non-Turkish) rivals increased with exchange rate depreciation of the Turkish lira against the U.S. dollar.

Football in Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Møller, Peter Mindegaard

2007-01-01

A brief story of Danish football has been attempted, describing new patterns of time and location. The examples that have been chosen aim to show that football, as body culture, must be understood in connection with societal changes. Yet what do we learn by analysing these tendencies? Football...... of European sports culture. Such writing reduces football to a different concept: "soccer", that is, a hierarchical and competitive sport. This soccer paradigm does not recognise the diversity and pluralism of football as it exists today and as it has always existed. Football is a multiplicity...... of configurations, including not just elite and professional soccer, but also a game of the people, "grassroots football"....

A History of College Football.

Science.gov (United States)

Rokosz, Francis M.

The history of football is traced as it evolved from the English game of rugby. The game as it is known today was conceived only after a long series of changes. Three prominent reasons for the change were: to make football more interesting to the spectator; to balance the competition between offense and defense; and to modify the dangerous…

Women’s football migration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Agergaard, Sine

What is intriguing about women’s football as a cultural phenomenon is that unlike men’s football the finances and media interest for the game are sparse. Nevertheless we have found that migration of female football players is growing steadily and women’s football is becoming global in nature....... The question is then what drives this globalization process? According to our study of women’s football migration into Scandinavia, one of the centers of women’s football, transnational networks play a crucial role in mobilizing global migratory moves. Using the concept of friends-of-friends networks from Bale...

Selling College: A Longitudinal Study of American College Football Bowl Game Public Service Announcements

Science.gov (United States)

Tobolowsky, Barbara F.; Lowery, John Wesley

2014-01-01

Using ideological analysis as a frame, researchers analyzed institutionally created commercials (PSAs) that appeared in 28 U.S. college football bowl games over a seven-year period (2003-2009) to better understand the universities' brands as represented in these advertisements. They found many common elements such as showing traditional…

Game Schedules and Rate of Concussions in the National Football League.

Science.gov (United States)

Teramoto, Masaru; Cushman, Daniel M; Cross, Chad L; Curtiss, Heather M; Willick, Stuart E

2017-11-01

Concussion prevention in the National Football League (NFL) is an important priority for player safety. The NFL now has modified game schedules, and one concern is that unconventional game schedules, such as a shortened rest period due to playing on a Thursday rather than during the weekend, may lead to an increased risk of injuries. Unconventional game schedules in the NFL are associated with an increased rate of concussion. Descriptive epidemiological study. This study analyzed concussions and game schedules over the NFL regular seasons from 2012 to 2015 (4 years). Documented numbers of concussions, identified by use of the online database PBS Frontline Concussion Watch, were summarized by regular-season weeks. Association of days of rest and game location (home, away, or overseas) with the rate of concussion was examined by use of the χ 2 test. Logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the relationships of days of rest and home/away games to the risk of repeated concussions, with adjustment for player position. A total of 582 concussions were analyzed in this study. A significantly greater number of concussions occurred in the second half of the season ( P game location, or timing of the bye week by the team or the opponent ( P > .05). Game schedules were not significantly associated with the occurrence of repeat concussions ( P > .05). Unconventional game schedules in the NFL, including playing on Thursday and playing overseas, do not seem to put players at increased risk of concussions.

The birth of a community, the death of the win: Player production of the Middle-earth Collectible Card Game [symposium

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joe Bisz

2009-03-01

Full Text Available Collectible card games (CCGs are at the midpoint of the spectrum of gameplaying: half game, half story. An examination of a CCG based on Tolkien's Middle-earth illustrates the ways in which fans of the story have changed the game, especially in removing the focus on winning.

Quantification of Accelerometer Derived Impacts Associated With Competitive Games in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I College Football Players.

Science.gov (United States)

Wellman, Aaron D; Coad, Sam C; Goulet, Grant C; McLellan, Christopher P

2017-02-01

Wellman, AD, Coad, SC, Goulet, GC, and McLellan, CP. Quantification of accelerometer derived impacts associated with competitive games in National Collegiate Athletic Association division I college football players. J Strength Cond Res 31(2): 330-338, 2017-The aims of the present study were to (a) examine positional impact profiles of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) division I college football players using global positioning system (GPS) and integrated accelerometry (IA) technology and (b) determine if positional differences in impact profiles during competition exist within offensive and defensive teams. Thirty-three NCAA division I Football Bowl Subdivision players were monitored using GPS and IA (GPSports) during 12 regular season games throughout the 2014 season. Individual player data sets (n = 294) were divided into offensive and defensive teams, and positional subgroups. The intensity, number, and distribution of impact forces experienced by players during competition were recorded. Positional differences were found for the distribution of impacts within offensive and defensive teams. Wide receivers sustained more very light and light to moderate (5-6.5 G force) impacts than other position groups, whereas the running backs were involved in more severe (>10 G force) impacts than all offensive position groups, with the exception of the quarterbacks (p ≤ 0.05). The defensive back and linebacker groups were subject to more very light (5.0-6.0 G force) impacts, and the defensive tackle group sustained more heavy and very heavy (7.1-10 G force) impacts than other defensive positions (p ≤ 0.05). Data from the present study provide novel quantification of positional impact profiles related to the physical demands of college football games and highlight the need for position-specific monitoring and training in the preparation for the impact loads experienced during NCAA division I football competition.

Executive summary: the health and fitness benefits of regular participation in small-sided football games.

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Krustrup, P; Dvorak, J; Junge, A; Bangsbo, J

2010-04-01

The present special issue of Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports deals with health and fitness benefits of regular participation in small-sided football games. One review article and 13 original articles were the result of a 2-year multi-center study in Copenhagen and Zurich and include studies of different age groups analyzed from a physiological, medical, social and psychological perspective. The main groups investigated were middle-aged, former untrained, healthy men and women who were followed for up to 16 months. In addition, elderly, children and hypertensive patients were studied. A summary and interpretations of the main findings divided into an analysis of the physical demands during training of various groups and the effect of a period of training on performance, muscle adaptations and health profile follow. In addition, social and psychological effects on participation in recreational football are considered, the comparison of football training and endurance running is summarized and the effects of football practice on the elderly and children and youngsters are presented.

The Anthropology of Football

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Ivan Kovačević

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Anthropological interest in football has been on the rise since the beginning of the century, which can be attested to by the rising number of studies, papers, collective publications and scientific conferences on the topic. Seeing as anthropology is no longer the study of the culturally bizarre and exotic, it is clear that the first anthropological studies of football as a cultural phenomenon are linked to those environments in which football figures as an important cultural trait, which is the reason why this sub discipline thrived in Europe or in places where football was treated as an esoteric phenomenon and where there as a longer tradition of anthropological study of native cultures. From the first analogies between the game of football and its rules with rituals of so called primitive cultures, the anthropological study of football developed into a relatively encompassing approach which includes interest in all the actors who establish the game as a public, cultural good – players, experts, supporters, journalists, organizers etc. – as well as its various cultural manifestations, in the form of a tool for the construction of identity and cultural symbol, a leisure activity with ties to economy, to a specific apotheosis of the concepts of globalization and commodification of culture. Anthropological studies of football are present in Serbia as well, and their subject matter corresponds to the role and position held by football, as a cultural artefact, in Serbian society and other countries in the region.

Creating a winning team: lessons from football.

Science.gov (United States)

Simons, Sherri Lee

2005-01-01

There are tasks best done on an individual basis when caring for a neonate, but the ultimate outcome for infants and their families results from a team effort. Incorporating ten strategies drawn from football can help the NICU manager create and foster effective teamwork.

RELATION BETWEEN BASIC PHYSICAL CAPABILITIES AND THE THEORETIC KNOWLEDGE LAWS OF THE GAME WITH THE SUCCESS OF REFREEING OF FOOTBALL REFEREES

OpenAIRE

Rusmir Mrković; Munir Talović; Midhat Mekić; Eldin Jelešković; Haris Alić

2011-01-01

The aim of this research is to establish a relation in-between the basic physical capabilities and the theoretic knowledge laws of the game with the success in refereeing of football referees of the Sarajevo Canton. The population from which samples were taken are football referees of the Sarajevo Canton, 90 of them, age span from 18- 45 years of age and who have met the criteria for getting a license to be referees in football matches in the next season at all levels of competition in Bosnia...

Quantifying the Chasm: Exploring the Impact of the BCS on Total Football Revenues for Division One Football Programs from 2002-2012

Science.gov (United States)

Caro, Cary A.

2014-01-01

The Bowl Championship Series served as a collection of bowl games that were designed to crown the national champion in Division One football. The BCS created two classifications of institutions in Division football, those that were granted automatic access (AQ) to the post-season games, and those that were not (non-AQ). The BCS also generated…

Application of four different football match analysis systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Randers, Morten B; Mujika, Inigo; Hewitt, Adam

2010-01-01

Using a video-based time-motion analysis system, a semi-automatic multiple-camera system, and two commercially available GPS systems (GPS-1; 5 Hz and GPS-2; 1 Hz), we compared activity pattern and fatigue development in the same football match. Twenty football players competing in the Spanish...... a football game and can be used to study game-induced fatigue. Rather large between-system differences were present in the determination of the absolute distances covered, meaning that any comparisons of results between different match analysis systems should be done with caution....

The language of football

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rossing, Niels Nygaard; Skrubbeltrang, Lotte Stausgaard

2017-01-01

This essay aims to describe how actions in the football field relate to the different national teams’ and countries’ cultural understanding of football and how these actions become spoken dialects within a language of football. Inspired by Edgar Schein’s framework of culture, the Brazilian...... and Italian national team football cultures were examined. The basis of the analysis was both document and video analysis. The documents were mostly research studies and popular books on the national football cultures, while the video analysis included all matches including Italy and Brazil from the World Cup...... in 2010 and 2014. The cultural analysis showed some coherence between the national football cultures and the national teams, which suggested a national dialect with the language of the game. Each national dialect seemed to be based on different basic assumptions and to some extent specific symbolic...

Problem gamblers are hyposensitive to wins: an analysis of skin conductance responses during actual gambling on electronic gaming machines.

Science.gov (United States)

Lole, Lisa; Gonsalvez, Craig J; Barry, Robert J; Blaszczynski, Alex

2014-06-01

Physiological arousal is purportedly a key determinant in the development and maintenance of gambling behaviors, with problem gambling conceptualized in terms of abnormal autonomic responses. Theoretical conceptualizations of problem gambling are discordant regarding the nature of deficit in this disorder; some accounts posit that problem gamblers are hypersensitive to reward, and others that they are hyposensitive to reward and/or punishment. Previous research examining phasic electrodermal responses in gamblers has been limited to laboratory settings, and reactions to real gaming situations need to be examined. Skin conductance responses (SCRs) to losses, wins, and losses disguised as wins (LDWs) were recorded from 15 problem gamblers (PGs) and 15 nonproblem gamblers (NPGs) while they wagered their own money during electronic gaming machine play. PGs demonstrated significantly reduced SCRs to reward. SCRs to losses and LDWs did not differ for either PGs or NPGs. This hyposensitivity to wins may reflect abnormalities in incentive processing, and may represent a potential biological marker for problem gambling. Copyright © 2014 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Betting, Forex Trading, and Fantasy Gaming Sponsorships-a Responsible Marketing Inquiry into the 'Gamblification' of English Football.

Science.gov (United States)

Lopez-Gonzalez, Hibai; Griffiths, Mark D

2018-01-01

Environmental stimuli in the form of marketing inducements to gamble money on sports have increased in recent years. The purpose of the present paper is to tackle the extended definition of the gamblification of sport using sponsorship and partnership deals of gambling, forex trading, and fantasy gaming as a proxy for assessing its environmental impact. Using data about sponsorship deals from English Football Premier League, the paper builds on the evidence of English football's gamblification process to discuss the impact that the volume, penetration, and marketing strategies of sports betting might have on public health and well-being. Findings demonstrate that gambling marketing has become firmly embedded in the financial practices of many Premiership football clubs. It is argued that such associations are not trivial, and that the symbolic linkage of sport and newer gambling forms can become an issue of public health, especially affecting vulnerable groups such as minors and problem gamblers. The present study is the first to explore in-depth the relationship and potential consequences and psychosocial impacts of sports-related marketing, particularly in relation to football.

An analysis of home advantage in Iranian football super league

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rasool Hemayat TALAB

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate home advantage in Iranian Football Super League. Methods: The information regarding wins, losses, goals for, goals against, yellow cards, red cards and gained points in matches at home and away of Super League teams of Iran was obtained using the internet website www.Soccerway.com and was analyzed. Results: The results showed that the mean of wins, goals for and points gained from matches in the home have been more than matches away, but in matches away, the mean of losses, yellow cards, red cards and goals against have been higher. Also, the percentage of home advantage in Iranian Football Super League was close to international norms.  Conclusion: According to the results, sport psychologist, coaches and people who are involved in football are recommended to pay more attention to this advantage and make short and long term plans to do psychological readiness and competitive performance.

Contrasting human- and computer-generated english: the case of football match report

OpenAIRE

Viluckas, Paulius

2017-01-01

This paper aims to compare two kinds of football reports: written by football reporters and automatically generated by a video game. The corpus of real reports consists of match reports from the BBC website, while the corpus of computer-generated language has been compiled from video game Football Manager 2017. The aim of the study is to compare two varieties of football discourse by applying the lexical bundle approach (Biber et al. 2004). More specifically, the analysis involves a compariso...

Nutrition and Gaelic football: review, recommendations, and future considerations.

Science.gov (United States)

Beasley, Kevin J

2015-02-01

Gaelic football is the second most popular team sport in Ireland in terms of participation. However, very little research exists on the nutritional considerations for elite male Gaelic footballers. Gaelic football is an intermittent type field game played by two teams of fifteen players. Although amateurs, elite players may train and compete 4-5 times per week and may play for several teams. Research suggests that elite footballers are similar anthropometrically and in fitness to professional soccer players. Work-rate analysis shows that footballers experience longer durations of high-intensity (HI) activity (5-7s) and shorter rest durations than soccer players. Recent data suggests that half-forward/backs perform a greater amount of HI work during games than players in other positions. Fatigue is apparent between the first and second halves and the first and fourth quarters. The limited amount of nutritional studies conducted implies that footballers may be deficient in energy intake and may be at the lower end of recommended carbohydrate intakes to support training. A wide variety of sweat rates have been measured during training, demonstrating the importance of individual hydration strategies. Ergogenic aids such as creatine and caffeine may prove beneficial to performance, although data are extrapolated from other sports. Due to the lack of research in Gaelic football, further population specific studies are required. Future areas of research on the impact of nutrition on Gaelic football performance are examined. In particular, the creation of a test protocol mimicking the activity patterns and intensity of a Gaelic football game is warranted.

Gamble While You Gamble: Electronic Games in Ontario Charitable Gaming Centres.

Science.gov (United States)

Harrigan, Kevin; Brown, Dan; MacLaren, Vance

Electronic Bingo games have recently appeared in Ontario Charitable Gaming Centres. Here we summarize the characteristics of this novel form of electronic gambling, and give a detailed characterization of one game. We contend that these games have structural characteristics that make them similar to modern Electronic Gaming Machines (EGMs) that feature multiline slots games. These features include a fast and continuous gaming experience, with player adjustable win size and reinforcement rate, a high frequency of losses disguised as wins, and highly salient near misses. Some of these games also have bonus rounds and provide players with a list of recent wins. We conclude that provincial and state gaming authorities should be aware that the placement of Bingo EGMs in existing Bingo facilities may increase problem gambling among an already well-established community of Bingo enthusiasts.

The club development of american football in the Czech Republic

OpenAIRE

Dundáček, Jan

2015-01-01

Title: The club development of american football in the Czech Republic In the first part of this thesis American football is introduced, explaining basic game principles and describing the game so that the reader can imagine what the sport is all about. The second part then focuses on examining the emergence of particular American football clubs in the Czech Republic. The whole period is divided into several stages, with a strong focus on finding a common denominator of individual events. The...

The construction of identities in football: An analysis of a game between Grêmio and Flamengo

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jorge Francisco Puente Arnao Galarreta

2013-09-01

Full Text Available This work is about the construction of identities in football from the textual analysis of a game between Grêmio x Flamengo, for the Brazilian championship in 2011. It shows how a sporting event, through the television support, can contribute to modify and legitimate structured identities and reflect on the intentions of the issuer to make this happen.

Muscle damage, inflammatory, immune and performance responses to three football games in 1 week in competitive male players

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mohr, Magni; Draganidis, Dimitrios; Chatzinikolaou, Athanasios

2016-01-01

PURPOSE: We examined effects of a three-game, 1-week microcycle (G1, G2, G3) on recovery of performance and inflammatory responses in professional male footballers. METHODS: Players were randomized into an experimental (EXP; N = 20) and a control group (CON; N = 20). Blood was drawn and repeated....... In EXP, game play increased muscle soreness (~sevenfold) compared to CON with G2 inducing the greatest rise, while KJRM was attenuated post-game in EXP compared to CON (5-7 %) and recovered slower post G2 and G3 than G1. CK, CRP, sVCAM-1, sP-Selectin and cortisol peaked 48 h post-games with G2 eliciting...

Comparison of Indiana High School Football Injury Rates by Inclusion of the USA Football "Heads Up Football" Player Safety Coach.

Science.gov (United States)

Kerr, Zachary Y; Dalton, Sara L; Roos, Karen G; Djoko, Aristarque; Phelps, Jennifer; Dompier, Thomas P

2016-05-01

In Indiana, high school football coaches are required to complete a coaching education course with material related to concussion awareness, equipment fitting, heat emergency preparedness, and proper technique. Some high schools have also opted to implement a player safety coach (PSC). The PSC, an integral component of USA Football's Heads Up Football (HUF) program, is a coach whose primary responsibility is to ensure that other coaches are implementing proper tackling and blocking techniques alongside other components of the HUF program. To compare injury rates in Indiana high school football teams by their usage of a PSC or online coaching education only. Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2. Athletic trainers (ATs) evaluated and tracked injuries at each practice and game during the 2015 high school football season. Players were drawn from 6 teams in Indiana. The PSC group, which used the PSC component, was comprised of 204 players from 3 teams. The "education only" group (EDU), which utilized coaching education only, was composed of 186 players from 3 teams. Injury rates and injury rate ratios (IRRs) were reported with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). During 25,938 athlete-exposures (AEs), a total of 149 injuries were reported, of which 54 (36.2%) and 95 (63.8%) originated from the PSC and EDU groups, respectively. The practice injury rate was lower in the PSC group than the EDU group (2.99 vs 4.83/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.40-0.95). The game injury rate was also lower in the PSC group than the EDU group (11.37 vs 26.37/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.25-0.74). When restricted to concussions only, the rate was lower in the PSC group (0.09 vs 0.73/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.01-0.94), although only 1 concussion was reported in the PSC group. No differences were found in game concussion rates (0.60 vs 4.39/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.14; 95% CI, 0.02-1.11). Findings support the PSC as an effective method of injury mitigation in high school football. Future research

Should School Boards Discontinue Support for High School Football?

Science.gov (United States)

Margolis, Lewis H; Canty, Greg; Halstead, Mark; Lantos, John D

2017-01-01

A pediatrician is asked by her local school board to help them decide whether to discontinue their high school football program. She reviews the available evidence on the risks of football and finds it hopelessly contradictory. Some scholars claim that football is clearly more dangerous than other sports. Others suggest that the risks of football are comparable to other sports, such as lacrosse, ice hockey, or soccer. She finds very little data on the long-term sequelae of concussions. She sees claims that good coaching and a school culture that prioritizes the health of athletes over winning can reduce morbidity from sports injuries. In this paper, 3 experts also review the evidence about sports risks and discuss what is known and not known about the science and the ethics of high school football. Copyright © 2017 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

CANONIC RELATION BASICO-MOTORICAL ABILITIES ON SITUATION SUCCESSFUL CHILDREN IN SMALL FOOTBALL

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Izudin Tanović

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Football appertain to group polystructual sports, which characterize very big number different not standardize motorical abilities and technics which footballplayers execute in variable situations, begin intention or accidently during the game( Elsner,B.1985..For the difference of the big football,small football or Futsall presents game which is condition with very considerable space and time-limitation which are manifestate with very fast transformation of game from the phase of attack to phase of defence.Dinamic of game, difference of not-standaardize abilities, and application situation individual technic for successful deduction of actions request from player and very big level of psychocondition readiness. The aim of this exploration was to realize the level of influence basico-motorical abilities on situation successful in small football (Futsall game. Exploration is done on the children from the 12-14 years,at the school of small football in SFC “OT of MOSTAR”(OLD TOWN OF MOSTAR from the Mostar. Take into consideration strature characteristics and magnitude choosen pattern of children, and the target of exploration,processing the results are done with metod canonic-coleration analise. Final results of this exploration are characteristic for exploring strature,but also the same confirmation that exist statisticly very important binded between exploration spaces

THE IMPORTANCE OF PHYSICAL ABILITY AND TECHNICAL PREPARATION FOR THE GROWTH OF YOUNG FOOTBALLERS

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Niko Raičković

2006-06-01

Full Text Available Physical preparation of young footballers significantly difers from that of adult footballers. Young footballers,while growing and maturing,go through sensitive phases,namely periods, when it is the most convenient to influence on the development of certain characteristics and abilities. Physical abilities include motor and functional abilities. Motor abilities are:strength, speed, endurance, elacticity and coordination. Functional abilities include aerobic and anaerobic organism capacity. Football technique is the basic instrument of organising the football game. Technique has individual character. Technical preparation mainly covers training and improvement of basic football game techniques, namely, moving with and without ball and bringing technique to perfection

The globalization of football: a study in the glocalization of the 'serious life'.

Science.gov (United States)

Giulianotti, Richard; Robertson, Roland

2004-12-01

Sport, in particular football, constitutes one of the most dynamic, sociologically illuminating domains of globalization. This paper examines the globalization of football with particular reference to Robertson's theorizations of global processes. We examine football's cultural globalization through the concept of 'glocalization', which highlights the interdependence of local and global processes within the game's identities and institutions. We address economic globalization in football by considering the world's leading clubs as 'glocal' transnational corporations. We assess the political globalization of football with reference to the possible enhancement of democracy within the game's international governance. We conclude by affirming the utility of sport in advancing our empirical and theoretical understanding of globalization processes.

Football business: how markets are breaking the beautiful game

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Burg, Tsjalle

2014-01-01

In Football business Tsjalle van der Burg shows how the economics of football have developed and been corrupted. In a series of engaging stories he uncovers the mysteries of football finance. Van der Burg explains why if the 2013 English Premiership champions, Manchester United, had played their

Quantifying movement demands of AFL football using GPS tracking.

Science.gov (United States)

Wisbey, Ben; Montgomery, Paul G; Pyne, David B; Rattray, Ben

2010-09-01

Global positioning system (GPS) monitoring of movement patterns is widespread in elite football including the Australian Football League (AFL). However documented analysis of this activity is lacking. We quantified the movement patterns of AFL football and differences between nomadic (midfield), forward and defender playing positions, and determined whether the physical demands have increased over a four season period. Selected premiership games were monitored during the 2005 (n=80 game files), 2006 (n=244), 2007 (n=632) and 2008 (n=793) AFL seasons. Players were fitted with a shoulder harness containing a GPS unit. GPS data were downloaded after games and the following measures extracted: total distance (km), time in various speed zones, maximum speed, number of surges, accelerations, longest continuous efforts and a derived exertion index representing playing intensity. In 2008 nomadic players covered per game 3.4% more total distance (km), had 4.8% less playing time (min), a 17% higher exertion index (per min), and 23% more time running >18kmh(-1) than forwards and defenders (all p<0.05). Physical demands were substantially higher in the 2008 season compared with 2005: an 8.4% increase in mean speed, a 14% increase in intensity (exertion index) and a 9.0% decrease in playing time (all p<0.05). Nomadic players in AFL work substantially harder than forwards and defenders in covering more ground and at higher running intensities. Increases in the physical demands of AFL football were evident between 2005 and 2008. The increasing speed of the game has implications for game authorities, players and coaching staff.

ACCURACY IN FOOTBALL: SCORING A GOAL AS THE ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE OF FOOTBALL GAME

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Dejan Milenković

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The study included 60 young football players aged 10 and 11 years with the aim to examine the influence of motor skills on a specific accuracy in football. The following tests for assessment of motoric abilities were used: Coordination: jumping over the horizontal rope, envelope test, figure „8“ with bending; Flexibility: forward bend-standing upper-body rotation-touch, the splits, side-stepping with a baton; Balance: standing on one leg along the balance bench, standing on one leg with eyes closed, flamingo test. Tests for specific accuracy in football included: elevational accuracy by foot - vertical target, elevational accuracy by foot - horizontal target, linear accuracy by foot - vertical target, the hits of ball by foot on the wall after it rebounces from the surface, elevational accuracy by head - vertical target and elevational accuracy by head - horizontal target. Results obtained by processing the data applying canonical correlation and regression analysis indicated the indisputable influence of motor abilities of young football players on the majority of specific accuracy tests.

Win the game of Googleopoly unlocking the secret strategy of search engines

CERN Document Server

Bradley, Sean V

2015-01-01

Rank higher in search results with this guide to SEO and content building supremacy Google is not only the number one search engine in the world, it is also the number one website in the world. Only 5 percent of site visitors search past the first page of Google, so if you're not in those top ten results, you are essentially invisible. Winning the Game of Googleopoly is the ultimate roadmap to Page One Domination. The POD strategy is what gets you on that super-critical first page of Google results by increasing your page views. You'll learn how to shape your online presence for Search Engine

Stability of internal response and external load during 4-a-side football game in an indoor environment

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Karel Hůlka

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Background: Small-sided games (SSG are spontaneous forms of specific training where exercise intensity can be manipulated mainly by modifying external factors. When using the SSG, there is a risk that the variability of intensity between players and on repetition of SSG may lead to some players training at inappropriate exercise intensities. Objective: The purpose of this study is to determine intra-individual repeatability and inter-individual variability in exercise intensity in small-sided 4on4 football games. Methods: Twenty five highly trained junior football players (age 17.68 ± 1.52 years; BMI 23.8 ± 1.92 kg . m-2 participated in the study. Distance covered (software package Video Manual Motion Tracker 1.0 and heart rate (HR, expressed as a percentage of peak heart rate were measured. All participants completed three measurements of 4-a-side games for three consecutive weeks. Results: The high intraclass correlation coefficient value (Heart rate [HR]: ICC = .88, 95% CI [.65, .94]; Distance covered [DC]: ICC = .76, 95% CI [.66, .96] implies a very high level of intra-individual repeatability. The Pearson's correlation coefficient value (HR: r = .93; DC: r = .85 indicates a high correlation between the results of any measurement. Bland and Altman's 95% limits of agreement were ± 10.32 beats . min-1 and ± 65.46 m of distance covered. Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrated that measured SSG elicit consistent heart rate responses and external load of the players.

Video lottery: winning expectancies and arousal.

Science.gov (United States)

Ladouceur, Robert; Sévigny, Serge; Blaszczynski, Alexander; O'Connor, Kieron; Lavoie, Marc E

2003-06-01

This study investigates the effects of video lottery players' expectancies of winning on physiological and subjective arousal. Participants were assigned randomly to one of two experimental conditions: high and low winning expectancies. Participants played 100 video lottery games in a laboratory setting while physiological measures were recorded. Level of risk-taking was controlled. Participants were 34 occasional or regular video lottery players. They were assigned randomly into two groups of 17, with nine men and eight women in each group. The low-expectancy group played for fun, therefore expecting to win worthless credits, while the high-expectancy group played for real money. Players' experience, demographic variables and subjective arousal were assessed. Severity of problem gambling was measured with the South Oaks Gambling Screen. In order to measure arousal, the average heart rate was recorded across eight periods. Participants exposed to high as compared to low expectations experienced faster heart rate prior to and during the gambling session. According to self-reports, it is the expectancy of winning money that is exciting, not playing the game. Regardless of the level of risk-taking, expectancy of winning is a cognitive factor influencing levels of arousal. When playing for fun, gambling becomes significantly less stimulating than when playing for money.

OPINIONS OF YOUNG FOOTBALL PLAYERS ABOUT THE COACH, TEAM-MATES AND FOOTBALL

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Arben Osmani

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Introduction: In this research the authors used a questionnaire of 8 questions of closed type, and 2 questions of open type. The basic aim of the research is to understand what young football players feel about their coach, team-mates and football as a sports game. Methods: The research involved 54 male football players who have active trainings in football clubs FC “2 korrik” in Prishtina. They are at the age between 14 and 16 and have active training experience of 2 years at least. After explaining the point of the research to the respondents, the inquiry that was of an anonymous type began. Answers to the questions in the questionnaire are presented basic statistic indexes: central and dominant value. Opinions of the respondents are represented through frequencies by chi-square test. Results: The results of the answers are represented in 2 tables and for better exposition they are presented in 8 graphics. The received answers indicate that it is the positive feeling that prevails among the football players with regard to their coach, team-mates and the football game. Particularly interesting answers are given to the two questions of open type. Discussion: On the base of the obtained answers, the results of this research show that the inquired football players have a positive opinion about the coach – his regularity, professional work and proper treatment of the players. Their opinion is positive towards their team-mates as well (coming on time for training, collaboration and friendship. In addition, the football players have a positive attitude towards football – desire for training, contests and expectation for a high success. References: Creswell JW (2009. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Method Approaches. Sage. Miller TI, Miller KM (2000. Ankete za gra¬đa¬ne: Kako anketirati građane, kako se služiti anketama i što one znače. ICMA, Wash¬ing¬ton. Murphy-Black T (2000. Questionnaire. The Research Process

The Language in British and Slovene Football Anthems

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Agata Križan

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Football is probably the world’s most popular game, with a huge number of fans. There are numerous ways in which football fans express dedication to their club and the feelings they have for their team, for example, wearing certain colours, waving banners and flags, and singing. Football anthems are nothing new for football fans, and many clubs have a long-established tradition of them. In this paper, I will address and compare the language in some popular British and Slovene football anthems, and attempt to explain its contribution to the creation of fan identity, to the fans’ sense of belonging, unity, and motivation. The linguistic analysis identities the linguistic resources used in football anthems to express attitudes, form bonds and create identities.

Descriptive Characteristics of Concussions in National Football League Games, 2010-2011 to 2013-2014.

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, Michael D; Asken, Breton M; Marshall, Stephen W; Guskiewicz, Kevin M

2017-03-01

Despite a high reported incidence rate of concussion, little is known about the on-field characteristics of injurious head impacts in National Football League (NFL) games. To characterize on-field features (location, player position, and time during game) and biomechanical features (anticipation status, closing distance, impact location and type) associated with concussions in NFL games over a 4-season period (2010-2011 to 2013-2014). Descriptive epidemiology study. We analyzed video of a subset of reported, in-game concussions for the 2010-2011 to 2013-2014 seasons. These videos represented a sample of injuries that were diagnosed and reported on the same day and that could be clearly associated with an in-game collision as captured on video. We determined anticipation status, closing distance, impact location on the injured player's helmet, and impact type (helmet-to-helmet, helmet-to-body, or helmet-to-ground). Associations between these variables were analyzed by use of descriptive statistics and tests of association. A total of 871 diagnosed concussions were reported as occurring during NFL preseason, regular season, and postseason games for the 2010-2011, 2011-2012, 2012-2013, and 2013-2014 seasons. A total of 1324 games were played during this period, giving a concussion incidence rate of 0.658 per game (95% CI, 0.61-0.70). From the video-reviewed subset (n = 429; 49.3%), the majority of injurious impacts occurred with good anticipation (57.3%) and concussions in the NFL occurred through a diverse variety of mechanisms, surprisingly tended to be well-anticipated, and, also surprisingly, occurred with concussion were broadly distributed over the helmet. More concussions occurred during the second half of game play, but we do not have evidence to explain this finding.

High-risk versus low-risk football game weekends: differences in problem drinking and alcohol-related consequences on college campuses in the United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Champion, Heather; Blocker, Jill N; Buettner, Cynthia K; Martin, Barbara A; Parries, Maria; Mccoy, Thomas P; Mitra, Ananda; Andrews, David W; Rhodes, Scott D

2009-01-01

Collegiate football games provide multiple social opportunities for alcohol use by students over the course of the weekend. The goal of this study was to examine alcohol use and alcohol-related consequences on football game weekends to determine differences based on characteristics of the game. A random sample of students from two large, public universities in the United States completed a survey on the Sunday-Friday following a high-risk weekend (HRW, important, home game) and low-risk weekend (LRW, no home game or game of importance) (N = 3,238 total). The survey measured the number of days students drank (0-3) and got drunk (0-3) over the weekend and whether 1+ consequences were experienced due to one's own drinking (yes/no) and due to others' drinking (yes/no). Ordinal logistic regression analyses revealed greater odds of drinking alcohol (OR = 1.70, CI = 1.46-1.97) and getting drunk (OR = 1.49, CI = 1.27-1.76) on HRW versus LRW. Logistic regression analyses revealed greater odds of experiencing 1+ consequences as a result of one's own drinking (OR = 1.38, CI = 1.16-1.63) and experiencing 1+ consequences as a result of others' drinking (OR = 1.52, CI = 1.30-1.78) on HRW versus LRW. These findings suggest that additional prevention efforts aimed at reducing risky drinking are needed over HRW and have implications for campus administrators, law enforcement, and substance abuse program coordinators.

‘Re-branding’ women’s football by means of a new sports product

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cortsen, Kenneth

2017-01-01

Women’s football (soccer in the US) does not reach the same overall popularity levels as men’s football measured on a variety of factors, i.e. league attendances, participants, media attention, fan engagement or strength of business models as it translates into brand equity and revenue generation....... This article investigates how a new sports product, i.e. a new football (soccer ball) labelled ‘Sensational 1’, and its interaction with positive participation numbers concerning women’s football in Denmark can enhance the brand equity of women’s football in Denmark and exploit the associated commercial...... opportunities. In doing so, the article discusses how this development relates to factors like winning and success, passion and the business of sports, accountability and role models, brand articulation and marketability in the context of women’s football in Denmark....

Practice type effects on head impact in collegiate football.

Science.gov (United States)

Reynolds, Bryson B; Patrie, James; Henry, Erich J; Goodkin, Howard P; Broshek, Donna K; Wintermark, Max; Druzgal, T Jason

2016-02-01

OBJECT IVE: This study directly compares the number and severity of subconcussive head impacts sustained during helmet-only practices, shell practices, full-pad practices, and competitive games in a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I-A football team. The goal of the study was to determine whether subconcussive head impact in collegiate athletes varies with practice type, which is currently unregulated by the NCAA. Over an entire season, a cohort of 20 collegiate football players wore impact-sensing mastoid patches that measured the linear and rotational acceleration of all head impacts during a total of 890 athletic exposures. Data were analyzed to compare the number of head impacts, head impact burden, and average impact severity during helmet-only, shell, and full-pad practices, and games. Helmet-only, shell, and full-pad practices and games all significantly differed from each other (p ≤ 0.05) in the mean number of impacts for each event, with the number of impacts being greatest for games, then full-pad practices, then shell practices, and then helmet-only practices. The cumulative distributions for both linear and rotational acceleration differed between all event types (p football players.

Women’s Football: Still in the Hands of Men

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

John Schulz

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This article focuses on the experiences of a group of women footballers growing up in England. It specifically looks at their similarities and differences in relation to how they entered the world of football and whether gender relations continue to impact on both their access to and opportunities in sport. The discussion draws on information from nine semi structured interviews with women of varying ages and mixed abilities who have grown up and played football in England. The interview data highlights the prevalence of early male influence within the game and what effect the school education system has on young girls. What emerges from the interviews is that male figures tend to be the most influential in encouraging girls to play football. Developments seem to be being made at primary school level as girls’ access to football is improving. However, whatever strides are gained becomes lost as soon as the girls commence secondary school, due to the absence of football from the curriculum. As the girls reach adulthood the traditional feminine values are more highly sort after, so ‘tomboyish’ behaviours are considered unsuitable and unnatural. There are entrenched cultural attitudes towards the women’s game, which are proving hard to break down. These along with the physical barriers make women’s involvement in sport very difficult, even more so with football.

Football injury: a literature review *

Science.gov (United States)

Kos, John J.

1979-01-01

A great deal of concern is recently being expressed relative to the playing of tackle football by adolescent Canadians. The purpose of this literature review is to try to summarize the important data from the available world literature. Very few Canadian statistics are available. Most of the data comes from United States experience. Tackle football injury is examined from various perspectives: 1. Equipment 2. Mechanisms of injury 3. Types of injury, with some emphasis on epiphyseal injury 4. Prevention 5. Comparison with other sports Although no “hard and fast” conclusion is drawn, the paper tends to show that: 1. Football is dangerous 2. Football is damaging to many body systems 3. Prevention of injury is difficult under present conditions 4. Alternate games, such as soccer and rugby seem to provide the same benefits with less catastrophic injuries

Recognizing team formation in american football

KAUST Repository

Atmosukarto, Indriyati

2014-01-01

Most existing software packages for sports video analysis require manual annotation of important events in the video. Despite being the most popular sport in the United States, most American football game analysis is still done manually. Line of scrimmage and offensive team formation recognition are two statistics that must be tagged by American Football coaches when watching and evaluating past play video clips, a process which takesmanyman hours per week. These two statistics are the building blocks for more high-level analysis such as play strategy inference and automatic statistic generation. In this chapter, we propose a novel framework where given an American football play clip, we automatically identify the video frame in which the offensive team lines in formation (formation frame), the line of scrimmage for that play, and the type of player formation the offensive team takes on. The proposed framework achieves 95% accuracy in detecting the formation frame, 98% accuracy in detecting the line of scrimmage, and up to 67%accuracy in classifying the offensive team’s formation. To validate our framework, we compiled a large dataset comprising more than 800 play-clips of standard and high definition resolution from real-world football games. This dataset will be made publicly available for future comparison.

Can a near win kindle motivation? The impact of nearly winning on motivation for unrelated rewards.

Science.gov (United States)

Wadhwa, Monica; Kim, JeeHye Christine

2015-06-01

Common intuition and research suggest that winning is more motivating than losing. However, we propose that just failing to obtain a reward (i.e., nearly winning it) in one task leads to broader, positive motivational effects on subsequent unrelated tasks relative to clearly losing or actually obtaining the reward. We manipulated a near-win experience using a game app in Experiments 1 through 3 and a lottery in Experiment 4. Our findings showed that nearly winning in one task subsequently led participants to walk faster to get to a chocolate bar (Experiment 1), salivate more for money (Experiment 2), and increase their effort to earn money in a card-sorting task (Experiment 3). A field study (Experiment 4) demonstrated that nearly winning led people to subsequently spend more money on desirable consumer products. Finally, our findings showed that when the activated motivational state was dampened in an intervening task, the nearly-winning effect was attenuated. © The Author(s) 2015.

Using video analysis for concussion surveillance in Australian football.

Science.gov (United States)

Makdissi, Michael; Davis, Gavin

2016-12-01

The objectives of the study were to assess the relationship between various player and game factors and risk of concussion; and to assess the reliability of video analysis for mechanistic assessment of concussion in Australian football. Prospective cohort study. All impacts and collisions resulting in concussion were identified during the 2011 Australian Football League season. An extensive list of factors for assessment was created based upon previous analysis of concussion in Australian Football League and expert opinions. The authors independently reviewed the video clips and correlation for each factor was examined. A total of 82 concussions were reported in 194 games (rate: 8.7 concussions per 1000 match hours; 95% confidence interval: 6.9-10.5). Player demographics and game variables such as venue, timing of the game (day, night or twilight), quarter, travel status (home or interstate) or score margin did not demonstrate a significant relationship with risk of concussion; although a higher percentage of concussions occurred in the first 5min of game time of the quarter (36.6%), when compared to the last 5min (20.7%). Variables with good inter-rater agreement included position on the ground, circumstances of the injury and cause of the impact. The remainder of the variables assessed had fair-poor inter-rater agreement. Common problems included insufficient or poor quality video and interpretation issues related to the definitions used. Clear definitions and good quality video from multiple camera angles are required to improve the utility of video analysis for concussion surveillance in Australian football. Copyright © 2016 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TECHNICAL IDICATORS AND TACTICAL UTILITY OF THEIR APPLICATION IN FOOTBALL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peko Vujović

2010-09-01

Full Text Available The aim of the research is to ascertain the manifested differences in the inner structure of the game and to establish and notify the tendencies of football game development movement by a comparative analysis, according to the manifested differences that examined according to the technical and tactics characteristics. The specimen is representative, thus the research includes the most successful national teams (semi-final and final on XVI, XVII and XVIII World Football Championship. The analysis includes offensive playing, movements of certain players during the game, the way in which the ball is passed, the goalkeeper’s performance... This research has once again proved the presence of permanent further tendencies of movement of the contemporary top-level football.

Match score affects activity profile and skill performance in professional Australian Football players.

Science.gov (United States)

Sullivan, Courtney; Bilsborough, Johann C; Cianciosi, Michael; Hocking, Joel; Cordy, Justin; Coutts, Aaron J

2014-05-01

To examine the influence of quarter outcome and the margin of the score differential on both the physical activity profile and skill performance of players during professional Australian Football matches. Prospective, longitudinal. Physical activity profiles were assessed via microtechnology (Global Positioning System and accelerometer) from 40 professional AF players from the same team during 15 Australian Football League games. Skill performance measures (involvement and effectiveness) and player rank scores (Champion Data(©) Rank) were provided by a commercial statistical provider. The physical performance variables, skill involvements and individual player performance scores were expressed relative to playing time for each quarter. The influence of the quarter result (i.e. win vs. loss) and score margin (i.e. small: 19 points) on activity profile and skill involvements and skill efficiency performance of players were examined. Skill involvements (total disposals/min, long kicks/min, marks/min, running bounces/min and player rank/min) were greater in quarters won (all p14.5 km h(-1), HSR/min), sprints/min and peak speed were higher in losing quarters (all pProfessional AF players are likely to have an increased physical activity profile and decreased skill involvement and proficiency when their team is less successful. Copyright © 2013 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Drill-specific head impact exposure in youth football practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Campolettano, Eamon T; Rowson, Steven; Duma, Stefan M

2016-11-01

OBJECTIVE Although 70% of football players in the United States are youth players (6-14 years old), most research on head impacts in football has focused on high school, collegiate, or professional populations. The objective of this study was to identify the specific activities associated with high-magnitude (acceleration > 40g) head impacts in youth football practices. METHODS A total of 34 players (mean age 9.9 ± 0.6 years) on 2 youth teams were equipped with helmet-mounted accelerometer arrays that recorded head accelerations associated with impacts in practices and games. Videos of practices and games were used to verify all head impacts and identify specific drills associated with each head impact. RESULTS A total of 6813 impacts were recorded, of which 408 had accelerations exceeding 40g (6.0%). For each type of practice drill, impact rates were computed that accounted for the length of time that teams spent on each drill. The tackling drill King of the Circle had the highest impact rate (95% CI 25.6-68.3 impacts/hr). Impact rates for tackling drills (those conducted without a blocker [95% CI 14.7-21.9 impacts/hr] and those with a blocker [95% CI 10.5-23.1 impacts/hr]) did not differ from game impact rates (95% CI 14.2-21.6 impacts/hr). Tackling drills were observed to have a greater proportion (between 40% and 50%) of impacts exceeding 60g than games (25%). The teams in this study participated in tackling or blocking drills for only 22% of their overall practice times, but these drills were responsible for 86% of all practice impacts exceeding 40g. CONCLUSIONS In youth football, high-magnitude impacts occur more often in practices than games, and some practice drills are associated with higher impact rates and accelerations than others. To mitigate high-magnitude head impact exposure in youth football, practices should be modified to decrease the time spent in drills with high impact rates, potentially eliminating a drill such as King of the Circle

Examining Play Counts and Measurements of Injury Incidence in Youth Football.

Science.gov (United States)

Kerr, Zachary Y; Yeargin, Susan W; Djoko, Aristarque; Dalton, Sara L; Baker, Melissa M; Dompier, Thomas P

2017-10-01

  Whereas researchers have provided estimates for the number of head impacts sustained within a youth football season, less is known about the number of plays across which such impact exposure occurs.   To estimate the number of plays in which youth football players participated during the 2013 season and to estimate injury incidence through play-based injury rates.   Descriptive epidemiology study.   Youth football.   Youth football players (N = 2098; age range, 5-15 years) from 105 teams in 12 recreational leagues across 6 states.   We calculated the average number of athlete-plays per season and per game using independent-samples t tests to compare age groups (5-10 years old versus 11-15 years old) and squad sizes (football players participated in 333.9 ± 178.5 plays per season and 43.9 ± 24.0 plays per game. Age groups (5- to 10-year-olds versus 11- to 15-year-olds) did not differ in the average number of plays per season (335.8 versus 332.3, respectively; t 2086.4 = 0.45, P = .65) or per game (44.1 versus 43.7, respectively; t 2092.3 = 0.38, P = .71). However, players from smaller teams participated in more plays per season (373.7 versus 308.0; t 1611.4 = 8.15, P football squad sizes may help reduce head-impact exposure for individual players. The AE-based injury rates yielded effect estimates similar to those of play-based injury rates.

Golden Games

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

LI XIAO

2010-01-01

@@ China is not expected to sweep the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games the way it dominated the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.However,it has made Chinese Olympic history after winning three gold medals when the Games passed the halfway point of scheduled competition on February 20.On that day,18-year-old Zhou Yang overcame three South Korean rivals to win the women's short-track speed skating 1,500-meter final.

The first prospective injury audit of League of Ireland footballers

Science.gov (United States)

Fitzharris, Nigel; Jones, Ashley; Francis, Peter

2017-01-01

Objectives Football has the highest sports participation (10.6%) in Ireland ahead of its Gaelic counterpart (3.9%). Research into injury incidence and patterns in Irish football is non-existent. The aim of this study was to conduct a prospective injury audit of League of Ireland (semiprofessional) footballers during the 2014 season (8 months, 28 games). Methods A total of 140 semiprofessional League of Ireland footballers were prospectively followed between March and November 2014. Data were collected in accordance with the international consensus on football injury epidemiology. Results The injury rate was 9.2/1000 hour exposure to football (95% CI 6.2 to 12.9, pLeague of Ireland football is similar to that of European professional football, although the incidence of injury is higher. The incidence of injury is in line with that of Dutch amateur football. PMID:29071112

Sport Education as a Curriculum Approach to Student Learning of Invasion Games: Effects on Game Performance and Game Involvement.

Science.gov (United States)

Farias, Cláudio; Valério, Carla; Mesquita, Isabel

2018-03-01

The teaching and learning of games and sport-based activities has historically been the dominant form of the physical education curricula. With an interest in providing to students meaningful and culturally situated sporting experiences, Sport Education is probably the most implemented and researched pedagogical model worldwide. However, although there is considerable evidence that the model as a curriculum approach can benefit the development of social goals and healthy sport behaviors, not a single study as to date examined students' game-play development beyond participation in single and isolated teaching units. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine students' development of Game Performance and Game Involvement during participation in three consecutive Sport Education seasons of invasion games. The participants were an experienced physical education teacher and one seventh-grade class totaling 26 students (10 girls and 16 boys). Using the Game Performance Assessment Instrument (Oslin et al., 1998), pre-test to post-tests measures of students' Game Performance and Game Involvement were collected during their participation in basketball (20 lessons), handball (16 lessons), and football (18 lessons) units. Inter-group differences and pre-test to post-test improvements within each season were analyzed through 2 (time) x group (sport) repeated measures ANOVA tests. There were found significant pre-test to post-test improvements in Game Performance and Game Involvement in the second (handball) and third (football) seasons, but not in the first season (basketball). Students' Game Performance and Involvement scores of handball and football were significantly higher than their scores while playing basketball. The opportunity for an extended engagement in game-play activities and prolonged membership of students in the same teams throughout three consecutive seasons of Sport Education were key to the outcomes found. The specific configurations of the game

An analytical framework for a political economy of football

OpenAIRE

Grant, Wyn

2007-01-01

A political economy of football has become more essential as the game has been colonized by elements of the business class. There is a tension between its profit maximizing understanding of football and a more community oriented, democratic vision that seeks to pursue government policy goals. The insights of economics and politics are both necessary to understand the political economy of football, but they should not be hybridized. Economics allows us to understand the distinctive characteris...

Football Physics

Science.gov (United States)

Gay, Timothy

2006-05-01

This talk discusses a series of one-minute physics lectures given to the ˜ 8 x 10^4 fans that attend the University of Nebraska home football games. The lecture topics range from gyroscopic motion to ionizing collisions between linebackers and I-backs. The problem of simultaneous edification and amusement of the fan in the stands is considered. Several physics tips for the Vols will be proffered.

Exploring the effects of playing formations on tactical behaviour and external workload during football small-sided games.

Science.gov (United States)

Baptista, Jorge; Travassos, Bruno; Gonçalves, Bruno; Mourão, Paulo; Viana, João L; Sampaio, Jaime

2018-01-04

This study aimed to identify the effects of playing formations on tactical behaviour and external workload during football small-sided games. Twenty-three semi-professional footballers integrated three different playing formations in a 7-a-side small-sided game, according to their specific player positions: team 4:3:0 (4 defenders, 3 midfielders); team 4:1:2 (4 defenders, 1 midfielder, 2 forwards); and team 0:4:3 (4 midfielders, 3 forwards). Based on players' movement trajectories, the following individual and collective tactical variables were calculated: total distance covered and distance covered while walking, jogging, running and sprinting, distance from each player to both own and opponent's team centroid (Dist CG and Dist OPP CG, respectively), individual area, team length, team width and surface area. Approximate entropy (ApEn) was computed to identify the regularity of each variable. The team 4:3:0 promoted players' space exploration with moderate physical efforts. The team 4:1:2 promoted compactness and regularity of the team with increase in the physical efforts. The team 0:4:3 promoted team balance and adaptability on space coverage with increase in physical efforts. Concluding, different playing formations support different game dynamics, and variations on external load were directly linked with the variations on tactical behaviour. The analysis tactical behaviour through quantification of variability of patterns of play and quantification of distance covered at different velocities were the most useful information for the analysis of the effects of practice task manipulations. Therefore, in a practical sense, strength and conditioning coaches should plan and monitor these tasks in interaction with the head coaches.

Sleep patterns and injury occurrence in elite Australian footballers.

Science.gov (United States)

Dennis, Jackson; Dawson, Brian; Heasman, Jarryd; Rogalski, Brent; Robey, Elisa

2016-02-01

To examine the potential relationship between sleep duration and efficiency and injury incidence in elite Australian footballers. Prospective cohort study. Australian footballers (n=22) from one AFL club were studied across the 2013 competitive season. In each week sleep duration and efficiency were recorded via actigraphy for 5 nights (the 3 nights preceding a game, the night of the game and the night after the game). Injury incidence was monitored and matched with sleep data: n=9 players suffered an injury that caused them to miss a game. Sleep in the week of the injury (T2) was compared to the average of the previous 2 weeks (T1). A two-way repeated measures ANOVA was used to determine any effect of sleep duration and efficiency on injury. Significance was accepted at psleep duration, sleep efficiency or a combination of these factors. Analysis of individual nights for T2 versus T1 also showed no differences in sleep quality or efficiency. However, a main effect for time was found for sleep duration and efficiency, with these being slightly, but significantly greater (psleep duration and efficiency on injury occurrence was found in elite Australian footballers. Copyright © 2015 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

"White shoes to a football match!": Female experiences of football's golden age in England

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stacey Pope

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Although many British historians claim that English football in the post–World War II period was substantially the passion of working-class men, oral history accounts also reveal a largely hidden history of active female sports fans, women who keenly followed football. These female fans often faced opposition from fellow supporters and from other women. In many ways, academic research on sports fandom has worked to omit serious discussion of the role of women. Taken from a wider project aimed at making more visible the historical experiences of female spectators in sport in Britain, this paper draws on interviews with 16 older female fans of the Leicester City football club based in the East Midlands in England. It explores their experiences in the so-called golden age of the game with regard to the football stadium, styles of female support, and relationships with and perceptions of football players. Via oral history research, the paper offers a wider context for understanding the sporting experiences of female fans. But it also analyzes and explicates the meaning of sport in the lives of female fans during a period when football players were paradoxically glamorous and unobtainable local figures, but also, in some contexts, still accessible, ordinary members of local communities.

Futsal World Cup: Differences Created by Winning, Losing and Drawing Variables in Scored Goals and Offensive Variations

Science.gov (United States)

Balyan, Melih; Vural, Faik

2018-01-01

Futsal, which can be defined as a new sports branch compared to football, has some shortcomings in comparison with football as well according to the studies carried out. Studies have rather focused on the movement characteristics of futsal players during the game and the physiological effects of games. On the other hand, there are only a limited…

Teaching Australian Football in Physical Education: Constraints Theory in Practice

Science.gov (United States)

Pill, Shane

2013-01-01

This article outlines a constraints-led process of exploring, modifying, experimenting, adapting, and developing game appreciation known as Game Sense (Australian Sports Commission, 1997; den Duyn, 1996, 1997) for the teaching of Australian football. The game acts as teacher in this constraints-led process. Rather than a linear system that…

Football Coaches' Practical Sense of Talent. A Qualitative Study of Talent Identification in Danish National Youth Team Football

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Mette Krogh

This study explores the practical sense of talent among top-level football coaches in Denmark, and aims to identify specific structures of the coaches' expert knowledge related to talent identification. The theoretical foundation of the study is Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical framework......, in particular the concept of practical sense. The data compile from eight biographical, in-depth interviews with Danish national youth team football coaches. The interviews are analyzed through a process of coding and recoding. Thematic cross-case analyses as well as purposeful selected single-case analyses......' classificatory schemes. Conclusively, the study supports the theory that talent identification in top-level football is strongly connected to the coach's practical sense of the game and taste for football talents. Furthermore, the study points at the importance of being aware of the person "behind" the coach...

Australian football players' Achilles tendons respond to game loads within 2 days: an ultrasound tissue characterisation (UTC) study.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosengarten, Samuel D; Cook, Jill L; Bryant, Adam L; Cordy, Justin T; Daffy, John; Docking, Sean I

2015-02-01

The Achilles tendon is a tissue that responds to mechanical loads at a molecular and cellular level. In vitro and in vivo studies have shown that the expression of anabolic and/or catabolic proteins can change within hours of loading and return to baseline levels within 72 h. These biochemical changes have not been correlated with changes in whole tendon structure on imaging. We examined the nature and temporal sequence of changes in Achilles tendon structure in response to competitive game loads in elite Australian football players. Elite male Australian football players with no history of Achilles tendinopathy were recruited. Achilles tendon structure was quantified using ultrasound tissue characterisation (UTC) imaging, a valid and reliable measure of intratendinous structure, the day prior to the match (day 0), and then reimaged on days 1, 2 and 4 postgame. Of the 18 participants eligible for this study, 12 had no history of tendinopathy (NORM) and 6 had a history of patellar or hamstring tendinopathy (TEN). Differences in baseline UTC echopattern were observed between the NORM and TEN groups, with the Achilles of the TEN group exhibiting altered UTC echopattern, consistent with a slightly disorganised tendon structure. In the NORM group, a significant reduction in echo-type I (normal tendon structure) was seen on day 2 (p=0.012) that returned to baseline on day 4. There was a transient change in UTC echopattern in the Achilles tendon as a result of an Australian football game in individuals without a history of lower limb tendinopathy. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

A PROBABILITY BASED APPROACH FOR THE ALLOCATION OF PLAYER DRAFT SELECTIONS IN AUSTRALIAN RULES FOOTBALL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anthony Bedford

2006-12-01

Full Text Available Australian Rules Football, governed by the Australian Football League (AFL is the most popular winter sport played in Australia. Like North American team based leagues such as the NFL, NBA and NHL, the AFL uses a draft system for rookie players to join a team's list. The existing method of allocating draft selections in the AFL is simply based on the reverse order of each team's finishing position for that season, with teams winning less than or equal to 5 regular season matches obtaining an additional early round priority draft pick. Much criticism has been levelled at the existing system since it rewards losing teams and does not encourage poorly performing teams to win matches once their season is effectively over. We propose a probability-based system that allocates a score based on teams that win 'unimportant' matches (akin to Carl Morris' definition of importance. We base the calculation of 'unimportance' on the likelihood of a team making the final eight following each round of the season. We then investigate a variety of approaches based on the 'unimportance' measure to derive a score for 'unimportant' and unlikely wins. We explore derivatives of this system, compare past draft picks with those obtained under our system, and discuss the attractiveness of teams knowing the draft reward for winning each match in a season

Improving the technical preparation of football players on the basis of the control of discriminative characteristics when performing combinations of techniques during a game

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mitova Olena

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The paper examines the issue of improving the technical preparation of football players during initial basic training. A special attention is paid to the development and experimental substantiation of the methods of technical preparation of young football players in an annual cycle at the stage of initial basic training on the basis of the control of discriminative characteristics when performing inseparable combinations of techniques during a game. An attempt was made to uncover the underlying causes of a low technical preparedness of football players at different stages of multi-year training and to implement an integrated scientific approach to improvement of the process of technical preparation of 10-11 years old football players in an annual cycle at the stage of initial basic training on the basis of the control of discriminative characteristics when performing inseparable combinations of techniques during competitive activity, along with the peculiarities of psychophysical condition and a level of development of physical qualities. This approach in teaching technical skills will be of interest to specialists and coaches in football, since the pedagogical experiment has determined the effectiveness of the developed methodology.

Optimal Bounds in Parametric LTL Games

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martin Zimmermann

2011-06-01

Full Text Available We consider graph games of infinite duration with winning conditions in parameterized linear temporal logic, where the temporal operators are equipped with variables for time bounds. In model checking such specifications were introduced as "PLTL" by Alur et al. and (in a different version called "PROMPT-LTL" by Kupferman et al.. We present an algorithm to determine optimal variable valuations that allow a player to win a game. Furthermore, we show how to determine whether a player wins a game with respect to some, infinitely many, or all valuations. All our algorithms run in doubly-exponential time; so, adding bounded temporal operators does not increase the complexity compared to solving plain LTL games.

Recognizing team formation in american football

KAUST Repository

Atmosukarto, Indriyati; Ghanem, Bernard; Nasef Saadalla, Mohamed Magdy Mohamed; Ahuja, Narendra

2014-01-01

Most existing software packages for sports video analysis require manual annotation of important events in the video. Despite being the most popular sport in the United States, most American football game analysis is still done manually. Line

Recreational football as a health promoting activity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Krustrup, Peter; Aagaard, Per; Nybo, L

2010-01-01

The present review addresses the physiological demands during recreational football training and the effects on central health variables that influence the risk of life-style diseases of young and middle-aged men. Recent studies have established that recreational football, carried out as small......-sided games can be characterized as having a high aerobic component with mean heart rates of 80-85% of maximum heart rate, which is similar to values observed for elite football players. In addition, the training includes multiple high-speed runs, sprints, turns, jumps and tackles, which provide a high impact...... on muscles and bones. Recreational football training in untrained men results in marked improvements in maximum aerobic power, blood pressure, muscle capillarization and intermittent exercise performance, and those effects are similar to interval training and more pronounced than moderate...

Winning Strategies: A Case Study of Oyo State Lottery, Nigeria

African Journals Online (AJOL)

PROF. OLIVER OSUAGWA

2014-06-01

Jun 1, 2014 ... Keywords: Tickets, Lottery strategy, Winning numbers, Hypothesis testing, Historical ... Among all the games of ... different kinds of games are organized by ..... [1] Bradley, R.E. (2001), “Euler and the Genoese lottery”, [Online; ...

The Open Sore of Football: Aggressive Violent Behavior and Hooliganism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gumusgul Osman

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Aggression and violence have been a customary part of life that mankind has had to live with from the beginning of time; it has been accepted by society even though it expresses endless negativity. Aggression and violence can find a place in sports events and football games because of the social problems of the audience watching the competitions or games, which sometimes fall into the category of hooliganism. Turkey is one of the countries that should consider this problem to be a serious social problem. Even during 2014 and 2015, a relatively short period of time, there were significant hazardous acts committed by hooligans. In February 2014, one supporter was killed after a game between Liverpool and Arsenal in England; in March 2014, a game between Trabzonspor and Fenerbahce was left half-finished because of violent acts in the stadium that caused players in the pitch to believe that they could not leave stadium alive, although they finally left after a few hours; in another incident in March 2014, one supporter was killed after a game between Helsingborg and Djugarden in Sweden; in November 2014, one supporter was killed and 14 supporters were injured before the game between Atletico Madrid and Deportivo in Spain. These are all examples of aggression, violence, and hooliganism in football. This paper aims to discuss aggression, violence, and hooliganism in football, especially in recent years, and investigate what can be done to prevent these acts from occurring again in the future by examining them in hindsight.

Head Impact Exposure and Neurologic Function of Youth Football Players.

Science.gov (United States)

Munce, Thayne A; Dorman, Jason C; Thompson, Paul A; Valentine, Verle D; Bergeron, Michael F

2015-08-01

Football players are subjected to repetitive impacts that may lead to brain injury and neurologic dysfunction. Knowledge about head impact exposure (HIE) and consequent neurologic function among youth football players is limited. This study aimed to measure and characterize HIE of youth football players throughout one season and explore associations between HIE and changes in selected clinical measures of neurologic function. Twenty-two youth football players (11-13 yr) wore helmets outfitted with a head impact telemetry (HIT) system to quantify head impact frequency, magnitude, duration, and location. Impact data were collected for each practice (27) and game (9) in a single season. Selected clinical measures of balance, oculomotor performance, reaction time, and self-reported symptoms were assessed before and after the season. The median individual head impacts per practice, per game, and throughout the entire season were 9, 12, and 252, respectively. Approximately 50% of all head impacts (6183) had a linear acceleration between 10g and 20g, but nearly 2% were greater than 80g. Overall, the head impact frequency distributions in this study population were similar in magnitude and location as in high school and collegiate football, but total impact frequency was lower. Individual changes in neurologic function were not associated with cumulative HIE. This study provides a novel examination of HIE and associations with short-term neurologic function in youth football and notably contributes to the limited HIE data currently available for this population. Whereas youth football players can experience remarkably similar head impact forces as high school players, cumulative subconcussive HIE throughout one youth football season may not be detrimental to short-term clinical measures of neurologic function.

The allure of multi-line games in modern slot machines.

Science.gov (United States)

Dixon, Mike J; Graydon, Candice; Harrigan, Kevin A; Wojtowicz, Lisa; Siu, Vivian; Fugelsang, Jonathan A

2014-11-01

In multi-line slot machines, players can wager on more than one line per spin. We sought to show that players preferred multi-line over single-line games, and that certain game features could cause multi-line game play to feel more rewarding. Reward was measured using post-reinforcement pauses (PRPs) following each outcome (the time between outcome delivery and the next spin). Gamblers (n = 102) played 250 spins on a 20-line game and 250 spins on a one-line game (answering questions about game experiences following each session). Playing one-line, a small credit gain (e.g. 2 cents) was a net win. In the 20-line game it was a net loss of 18 credits but was still accompanied by 'winning' sights and sounds. Most players (94%) preferred the 20-line game. PRPs for small credit gains (net losses) in the 20-line game were equivalent, or larger than in the one-line game where such gains were wins. The largest increase in PRP size was between the 0 and 2 credit conditions for both games. Thus 20-line players reacted as though these net losses of 18 credits were rewarding. Players' estimates of the number of true wins were accurate in the one-line game, but they significantly over-estimated the number of true wins in the 20-line game (P game play. Multi-line games appear to be more appealing to gaming machine ('slots') players than single-line games. These games may be particularly absorbing for those with gambling problems. © 2014 Society for the Study of Addiction.

Discriminatory power of water polo game-related statistics at the 2008 Olympic Games.

Science.gov (United States)

Escalante, Yolanda; Saavedra, Jose M; Mansilla, Mirella; Tella, Victor

2011-02-01

The aims of this study were (1) to compare water polo game-related statistics by context (winning and losing teams) and sex (men and women), and (2) to identify characteristics discriminating the performances for each sex. The game-related statistics of the 64 matches (44 men's and 20 women's) played in the final phase of the Olympic Games held in Beijing in 2008 were analysed. Unpaired t-tests compared winners and losers and men and women, and confidence intervals and effect sizes of the differences were calculated. The results were subjected to a discriminant analysis to identify the differentiating game-related statistics of the winning and losing teams. The results showed the differences between winning and losing men's teams to be in both defence and offence, whereas in women's teams they were only in offence. In men's games, passing (assists), aggressive play (exclusions), centre position effectiveness (centre shots), and goalkeeper defence (goalkeeper-blocked 5-m shots) predominated, whereas in women's games the play was more dynamic (possessions). The variable that most discriminated performance in men was goalkeeper-blocked shots, and in women shooting effectiveness (shots). These results should help coaches when planning training and competition.

Finacial Expertise, Authority and Power in the European Football 'Industry'

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hertbert F. Moorhouse

2007-12-01

Full Text Available The paper aims to provoke discussion about two issues. Firstly, how do economic ideas, concepts, theories, principles and information enter into the discourse of the owners and controllers of Europe’s most popular sport – football – and into political discussion about the game? It stresses the role management consultants have created for themselves in the new football 'industry'. Secondly, as a specific example of the general concern, the paper considers the role of the Deloitte company in European football. Its publications – especially the Annual Reviews of Football Finance – have been very influential and the company has acted as consultants for UEFA on many of the key issues in contemporary football. The paper critically assesses the approach Deloitte has adopted to the commercialisation of football, and explores difficulties in the way it has analysed some of the key issues in European football. It suggests that some countervailing forces need to be created to limit the authority and influence Deloitte currently exercise.

Expertise and decision-making in American football

Science.gov (United States)

Woods, Adam J.; Kranjec, Alexander; Lehet, Matt; Chatterjee, Anjan

2015-01-01

In American football, pass interference calls can be difficult to make, especially when the timing of contact between players is ambiguous. American football history contains many examples of controversial pass interference decisions, often with fans, players, and officials interpreting the same event differently. The current study sought to evaluate the influence of experience with concepts important for officiating decisions in American football on the probability (i.e., response criteria) of pass interference calls. We further investigated the extent to which such experience modulates perceptual biases that might influence the interpretation of such events. We hypothesized that observers with less experience with the American football concepts important for pass interference would make progressively more pass interference calls than more experienced observers, even when given an explicit description of the necessary criteria for a pass interference call. In a go/no-go experiment using photographs from American football games, three groups of participants with different levels of experience with American football (Football Naïve, Football Player, and Football Official) made pass interference calls for pictures depicting left-moving and right-moving events. More experience was associated with progressively and significantly fewer pass interference calls [F(2,48) = 10.4, p Football Naïve participants making the most pass interference calls, and Football Officials the least. In addition, our data replicated a prior finding of spatial biases for interpreting left-moving images more harshly than identical right-moving images, but only in Football Players. These data suggest that experience with the concepts important for making a decision may influence the rate of decision-making, and may also play a role in susceptibility to spatial biases. PMID:26217294

Expertise and Decision-making in American Football

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adam J Woods

2015-07-01

Full Text Available In American football, pass interference calls can be difficult to make, especially when the timing of contact between players is ambiguous. American football history contains many examples of controversial pass interference decisions, often with fans, players, and officials interpreting the same event differently. The current study sought to evaluate the influence of experience with concepts important for officiating decisions in American football on the probability (i.e., response criteria of pass interference calls. We further investigated the extent to which such experience modulates perceptual biases that might influence the interpretation of such events. We hypothesized that observers with less experience with the American football concepts important for pass interference would make progressively more pass interference calls than more experienced observers, even when given an explicit description of the necessary criteria for a pass interference call. In a go/no-go experiment using photographs from American football games, three groups of participants with different levels of experience with American football (Football Naïve, Football Player, & Football Official made pass interference calls for pictures depicting left-moving and right-moving events. More experience was associated with progressively and significantly fewer pass interference calls (F (2, 48 = 10.4, p < .001, with Football Naïve participants making the most pass interference calls, and Football Officials the least. In addition, our data replicated a prior finding of spatial biases for interpreting left-moving images more harshly than identical right-moving images, but only in Football Players. These data suggest that experience with the concepts important for making a decision may influence the rate of decision-making, and may also play a role in susceptibility to spatial biases.

Expertise and decision-making in American football.

Science.gov (United States)

Woods, Adam J; Kranjec, Alexander; Lehet, Matt; Chatterjee, Anjan

2015-01-01

In American football, pass interference calls can be difficult to make, especially when the timing of contact between players is ambiguous. American football history contains many examples of controversial pass interference decisions, often with fans, players, and officials interpreting the same event differently. The current study sought to evaluate the influence of experience with concepts important for officiating decisions in American football on the probability (i.e., response criteria) of pass interference calls. We further investigated the extent to which such experience modulates perceptual biases that might influence the interpretation of such events. We hypothesized that observers with less experience with the American football concepts important for pass interference would make progressively more pass interference calls than more experienced observers, even when given an explicit description of the necessary criteria for a pass interference call. In a go/no-go experiment using photographs from American football games, three groups of participants with different levels of experience with American football (Football Naïve, Football Player, and Football Official) made pass interference calls for pictures depicting left-moving and right-moving events. More experience was associated with progressively and significantly fewer pass interference calls [F (2,48) = 10.4, p Football Naïve participants making the most pass interference calls, and Football Officials the least. In addition, our data replicated a prior finding of spatial biases for interpreting left-moving images more harshly than identical right-moving images, but only in Football Players. These data suggest that experience with the concepts important for making a decision may influence the rate of decision-making, and may also play a role in susceptibility to spatial biases.

Physiological response and activity profile in recreational small-sided football

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Randers, Morten Bredsgaard; Nielsen, Jens Jung; Bangsbo, Jens

2014-01-01

We examined the effect of the number of players on the activity profile and physiological response to small-sided recreational football games with fixed relative pitch size. Twelve untrained men (age: 33.0 ± 6.4 (± standard deviation) years, fat%: 22.4 ± 6.1%, VO2 max: 43.3 ± 5.2 mL/min/kg) compl......We examined the effect of the number of players on the activity profile and physiological response to small-sided recreational football games with fixed relative pitch size. Twelve untrained men (age: 33.0 ± 6.4 (± standard deviation) years, fat%: 22.4 ± 6.1%, VO2 max: 43.3 ± 5.2 m......L/min/kg) completed three football sessions of 4 times 12 min with 3v3, 5v5, or 7v7 in a randomized order. Pitch sizes were 80 m(2) per player. Activity profile (10 Hz global positioning system), heart rate (HR), and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were measured, and blood samples were collected before and during...... accelerations (500 ± 139 vs 459 ± 143 and 396 ± 144) were higher (P football games, with similar physiological responses for 6-14 players when pitch size is adapted, providing further evidence...

Analysis of real-time head accelerations in collegiate football players.

Science.gov (United States)

Duma, Stefan M; Manoogian, Sarah J; Bussone, William R; Brolinson, P Gunnar; Goforth, Mike W; Donnenwerth, Jesse J; Greenwald, Richard M; Chu, Jeffrey J; Crisco, Joseph J

2005-01-01

To measure and analyze head accelerations during American collegiate football practices and games. A newly developed in-helmet 6-accelerometer system that transmits data via radio frequency to a sideline receiver and laptop computer system was implemented. From the data transfer of these accelerometer traces, the sideline staff has real-time data including the head acceleration, the head injury criteria value, the severity index value, and the impact location. Data are presented for instrumented players for the entire 2003 football season, including practices and games. American collegiate football. Thirty-eight players from Virginia Tech's varsity football team. Accelerations and pathomechanics of head impacts. : A total of 3312 impacts were recorded over 35 practices and 10 games for 38 players. The average peak head acceleration, Gadd Severity Index, and Head Injury Criteria were 32 g +/- 25 g, 36 g +/- 91 g, and 26 g +/- 64 g, respectively. One concussive event was observed with a peak acceleration of 81 g, a 267 Gadd Severity Index, and 200 Head Injury Criteria. Because the concussion was not reported until the day after of the event, a retrospective diagnosis based on his history and clinical evaluation suggested a mild concussion. The primary finding of this study is that the helmet-mounted accelerometer system proved effective at collecting thousands of head impact events and providing contemporaneous head impact parameters that can be integrated with existing clinical evaluation techniques.

Athletics, Applications, & Yields: The Relationship between Successful College Football and Institutional Attractiveness

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Willis A.

2009-01-01

This study examines the impact of fielding a successful college football team on institutional popularity using a dependent variable (admissions yield) and an independent variable (bowl game television rating) which have been unexamined in previous research on this topic. The findings suggest that college football success is correlated with a…

Australian Football League concussion guidelines: what do community players think?

Science.gov (United States)

White, Peta E; Donaldson, Alex; Sullivan, S John; Newton, Joshua

2016-01-01

Background Preventing concussion in sport is a global challenge. To assess community-level adult male Australian Football players’ views on following the Australian Football League's (AFL) concussion guidelines. Methods 3 focus groups, each comprising 6 players from 1 regional league, were conducted until saturation of issues raised. Discussions followed a semistructured script and were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was conducted by 2 coders independently. Results Identified advantages of the guidelines included highlighting the seriousness of concussion; changing the culture around playing with concussion and shifting return-to-play decision responsibility from players to others. Disadvantages included players being removed from play unnecessarily; removal of players’ rights to decide if they are fit to play and players changing their behaviours to avoid being removed from play. Identified facilitators to guideline use included local league enforcement; broad information dissemination and impartial medically trained staff to assess concussion. Identified barriers to guideline use included players’ desire to play at all costs; external pressure that encouraged players to return to play prematurely; and inconvenience and cost. Conclusions Players generally understand that the AFL concussion guidelines protect their long-term welfare. However, their desire to play at all costs and help their team win is a common barrier to reporting concussion and adhering to guidelines. Leagues should take a lead role by mandating and enforcing the use of the guidelines and educating coaches, game day medical providers and players. The return-to-play component of the guidelines is complex and needs further consideration in the context of community sport. PMID:28890801

Muscle variables of importance for physiological performance in competitive football

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mohr, Magni; Thomassen, Martin; Girard, Olivier

2016-01-01

PURPOSE: To examine how match performance parameters in trained footballers relate to skeletal muscle parameters, sprint ability and intermittent exercise performance. METHODS: 19 male elite football players completed an experimental game with physical performance determined by video analysis...... and exercise capacity assessed by intermittent Yo-Yo IR1 and IR2 tests, and a repeated sprint test (RST). Muscle tissue was obtained for analysis of metabolic enzyme maximal activity and key muscle protein expression. RESULTS: Total game distance, distance deficit from first to second half and high......-intensity running in the final 15 min of the game were all correlated to the players' Yo-Yo IR1 performance (r = 0.55-0.87) and beta-hydroxyacyl-CoA-dehydrogenase (HAD) maximal activity (r = 0.55-0.65). Furthermore, platelet/endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1 (PECAM1) protein expression was weakly (r = 0...

Networks and centroid metrics for understanding football

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Gonçalo Dias

games. However, it seems that the centroid metric, supported only by the position of players in the field ...... the strategy adopted by the coach (Gama et al., 2014). ... centroid distance as measures of team's tactical performance in youth football.

Sport Education as a Curriculum Approach to Student Learning of Invasion Games: Effects on Game Performance and Game Involvement

Science.gov (United States)

Farias, Cláudio; Valério, Carla; Mesquita, Isabel

2018-01-01

The teaching and learning of games and sport-based activities has historically been the dominant form of the physical education curricula. With an interest in providing to students meaningful and culturally situated sporting experiences, Sport Education is probably the most implemented and researched pedagogical model worldwide. However, although there is considerable evidence that the model as a curriculum approach can benefit the development of social goals and healthy sport behaviors, not a single study as to date examined students’ game-play development beyond participation in single and isolated teaching units. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine students’ development of Game Performance and Game Involvement during participation in three consecutive Sport Education seasons of invasion games. The participants were an experienced physical education teacher and one seventh-grade class totaling 26 students (10 girls and 16 boys). Using the Game Performance Assessment Instrument (Oslin et al., 1998), pre-test to post-tests measures of students’ Game Performance and Game Involvement were collected during their participation in basketball (20 lessons), handball (16 lessons), and football (18 lessons) units. Inter-group differences and pre-test to post-test improvements within each season were analyzed through 2 (time) x group (sport) repeated measures ANOVA tests. There were found significant pre-test to post-test improvements in Game Performance and Game Involvement in the second (handball) and third (football) seasons, but not in the first season (basketball). Students’ Game Performance and Involvement scores of handball and football were significantly higher than their scores while playing basketball. The opportunity for an extended engagement in game-play activities and prolonged membership of students in the same teams throughout three consecutive seasons of Sport Education were key to the outcomes found. The specific configurations of

Online Strategy Games.

Science.gov (United States)

Dye, Bryan

2002-01-01

A strategy game is an online interactive game that requires thinking in order to be played at its best and whose winning strategy is not obvious. Provides information on strategy games that are written in Java or JavaScript and freely available on the web. (KHR)

Differences in strength and speed demands between 4v4 and 8v8 small-sided football games

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rebelo, António Natal Campos; Silva, Pedro; Rago, Vincenzo

2016-01-01

The aims of this study were (i) to characterise the acceleration demands of two different formats of small-sided game (SSG), i.e., 4v4 + goalkeepers (4v4 + GK) and 8v8 + goalkeepers (8v8 + GK); (ii) to analyse the correlation between performance in power-based tests and acceleration-based physica...... to repetitions and fatigue development of muscle power-based actions than 8v8 + GK. It may therefore be logical to use the former type of SSG to target development of power-related football actions....

The Fixpoint-Iteration Algorithm for Parity Games

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Florian Bruse

2014-08-01

Full Text Available It is known that the model checking problem for the modal mu-calculus reduces to the problem of solving a parity game and vice-versa. The latter is realised by the Walukiewicz formulas which are satisfied by a node in a parity game iff player 0 wins the game from this node. Thus, they define her winning region, and any model checking algorithm for the modal mu-calculus, suitably specialised to the Walukiewicz formulas, yields an algorithm for solving parity games. In this paper we study the effect of employing the most straight-forward mu-calculus model checking algorithm: fixpoint iteration. This is also one of the few algorithms, if not the only one, that were not originally devised for parity game solving already. While an empirical study quickly shows that this does not yield an algorithm that works well in practice, it is interesting from a theoretical point for two reasons: first, it is exponential on virtually all families of games that were designed as lower bounds for very particular algorithms suggesting that fixpoint iteration is connected to all those. Second, fixpoint iteration does not compute positional winning strategies. Note that the Walukiewicz formulas only define winning regions; some additional work is needed in order to make this algorithm compute winning strategies. We show that these are particular exponential-space strategies which we call eventually-positional, and we show how positional ones can be extracted from them.

A Topic Model Approach to Representing and Classifying Football Plays

KAUST Repository

Varadarajan, Jagannadan

2013-09-09

We address the problem of modeling and classifying American Football offense teams’ plays in video, a challenging example of group activity analysis. Automatic play classification will allow coaches to infer patterns and tendencies of opponents more ef- ficiently, resulting in better strategy planning in a game. We define a football play as a unique combination of player trajectories. To this end, we develop a framework that uses player trajectories as inputs to MedLDA, a supervised topic model. The joint maximiza- tion of both likelihood and inter-class margins of MedLDA in learning the topics allows us to learn semantically meaningful play type templates, as well as, classify different play types with 70% average accuracy. Furthermore, this method is extended to analyze individual player roles in classifying each play type. We validate our method on a large dataset comprising 271 play clips from real-world football games, which will be made publicly available for future comparisons.

HIFK soccer the game book : - guidelines for junior coaching

OpenAIRE

Laurila, Eero

2010-01-01

This thesis is based on the fact that HIFK (Idrottsförening Kamraterna i Helsingfors) Soccer has not had any guidelines or a manual on how the club wants to develop the players. The basic idea and aim of the game book is to collect all the important information about coaching and football in one book. Today there is a huge mass of information around football which makes it difficult for a football coach to find essential know-how from that flood of informa-tion. The game book is a practical t...

Effects of Consecutive Basketball Games on the Game-Related Statistics that Discriminate Winner and Losing Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Ibáñez, Sergio J.; García, Javier; Feu, Sebastian; Lorenzo, Alberto; Sampaio, Jaime

2009-01-01

The aim of the present study was to identify the game-related statistics that discriminated basketball winning and losing teams in each of the three consecutive games played in a condensed tournament format. The data were obtained from the Spanish Basketball Federation and included game-related statistics from the Under-20 league (2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons). A total of 223 games were analyzed with the following game-related statistics: two and three-point field goal (made and missed), free-throws (made and missed), offensive and defensive rebounds, assists, steals, turnovers, blocks (made and received), fouls committed, ball possessions and offensive rating. Results showed that winning teams in this competition had better values in all game-related statistics, with the exception of three point field goals made, free-throws missed and turnovers (p ≥ 0.05). The main effect of game number was only identified in turnovers, with a statistical significant decrease between the second and third game. No interaction was found in the analysed variables. A discriminant analysis allowed identifying the two-point field goals made, the defensive rebounds and the assists as discriminators between winning and losing teams in all three games. Additionally to these, only the three-point field goals made contributed to discriminate teams in game three, suggesting a moderate effect of fatigue. Coaches may benefit from being aware of this variation in game determinant related statistics and, also, from using offensive and defensive strategies in the third game, allowing to explore or hide the three point field-goals performance. Key points Overall team performances along the three consecutive games were very similar, not confirming an accumulated fatigue effect. The results from the three-point field goals in the third game suggested that winning teams were able to shoot better from longer distances and this could be the result of exhibiting higher conditioning status and

The impact of a cervical spine diagnosis on the careers of National Football League athletes.

Science.gov (United States)

Schroeder, Gregory D; Lynch, T Sean; Gibbs, Daniel B; Chow, Ian; LaBelle, Mark W; Patel, Alpesh A; Savage, Jason W; Nuber, Gordon W; Hsu, Wellington K

2014-05-20

Cohort study. To determine the effect of cervical spine pathology on athletes entering the National Football League. The association of symptomatic cervical spine pathology with American football athletes has been described; however, it is unknown how preexisting cervical spine pathology affects career performance of a National Football League player. The medical evaluations and imaging reports of American football athletes from 2003 to 2011 during the combine were evaluated. Athletes with a cervical spine diagnosis were matched to controls and career statistics were compiled. Of a total of 2965 evaluated athletes, 143 players met the inclusion criteria. Athletes who attended the National Football League combine without a cervical spine diagnosis were more likely to be drafted than those with a diagnosis (P = 0.001). Players with a cervical spine diagnosis had a decreased total games played (P = 0.01). There was no difference in the number of games started (P = 0.08) or performance score (P = 0.38). In 10 athletes with a sagittal canal diameter of less than 10 mm, there was no difference in years, games played, games started, or performance score (P > 0.24). No neurological injury occurred during their careers. In 7 players who were drafted with a history of cervical spine surgery (4 anterior cervical discectomy and fusion, 2 foraminotomy, and 1 suboccipital craniectomy with a C1 laminectomy), there was no difference in career longevity or performance when compared with matched controls. This study suggests that athletes with preexisting cervical spine pathology were less likely to be drafted than controls. Players with preexisting cervical spine pathology demonstrated a shorter career than those without; however, statistically based performance and numbers of games started were not different. Players with cervical spinal stenosis and those with a history of previous surgery demonstrated no difference in performance-based outcomes and no reports of neurological

Fan relationship management in football - going beyond traditional product offerings to win the hearts of fans

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cortsen, Kenneth

2015-01-01

The management and control of fan relations should go beyond a football club’s traditional product and service offerings and touch the important experiential side of the football economy. This will create a stronger platform to optimize ROI, ROE and ROO relating to different fan segments....

30 Years Trend of Competitive Balance in Turkish Football Super League

Science.gov (United States)

Inan, Tugbay

2018-01-01

We must point out that the results of football games affect the competitive balance degree. In other words, the calculations we made in the score table at the end of the season give us a degree of competitive balance. The degree on which the concept of competitiveness is based is cited as competitive balance in football. Sports economics can be…

COMPARING ANALYSIS OF ANTHROPOMETRICS CHARACTERISTICS AND FUNCTIONAL ABILITIES OF TOP FEMALE FOOTBALL PLAYERS AND OF FEMALE WHO DOESN'T TRAIN ANY SPORT ACTIVELY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivana Mladenovic

2003-10-01

Full Text Available Football is very popular game all over the world and in SCG as well.Every year in Yugoslavia girls and women are from 7 to 40 years take part in the game of football as a sport as well as a sort of recreation. Technically and tactically this game more and more resembles the male football. The process of training is close to the very edge of female abilities, so we have dynamic game full of duel, long shots and spectacular goals.The aim of this research is to confirm differences of developing characteristics and functional abilities female football players and women who don't train any sport actively.The research encircled 20 female football players members of football club Masinac (winner of 2003 competition. The control group consisted of 20 female students who didn't go in for any sport actively.The results show that the average height of female football players is 166.85 ± 5.47 cm and average height of control group is 166.11 ± 5.6 cm. Relative values of maximal oxygen up take is 63.14 ± 8.11 ml/min/kg and 55.43 ± 7.25 for control group. This result show that bought group have aerobic abilities higher than one of average women (30-40 ml/min/kg.

Expressing gambling-related cognitive biases in motor behaviour: rolling dice to win prizes.

Science.gov (United States)

Lim, Matthew S M; Bowden-Jones, Henrietta; Rogers, Robert D

2014-09-01

Cognitive perspectives on gambling propose that biased thinking plays a significant role in sustaining gambling participation and, in vulnerable individuals, gambling problems. One prominent set of cognitive biases include illusions of control involving beliefs that it is possible to influence random gaming events. Sociologists have reported that (some) gamblers believe that it is possible to throw dice in different ways to achieve gaming outcomes (e.g., 'dice-setting' in craps). However, experimental demonstrations of these phenomena are lacking. Here, we asked regular gamblers to roll a computer-simulated, but fair, 6 sided die for monetary prizes. Gamblers allowed the die to roll for longer when attempting to win higher value bets, and when attempting to hit high winning numbers. This behaviour was exaggerated in gamblers motivated to keep gambling following the experience of almost-winning in gambling games. These results suggest that gambling cognitive biases find expression in the motor behaviour of rolling dice for monetary prizes, possibly reflecting embodied substrates.

How to win a football match in Cameroon : an anthropological study of Africa's most popular sport

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pannenborg, A.

2008-01-01

Footballers Essomba and Ashu, team manager Kalla and spiritual adviser Zé are the key characters in this anthropological study of football in Cameroon, which is based on research carried out in 2003. It might seem that a well-organized club with professional executives, a team of talented players

DIFFERENCES IN EXPLOSIVE STRENGTH OF LEGS OF FOOTBALLERS OF CADET CATEGORIES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nebojša Nedeljkov

2011-09-01

Full Text Available In structure football is very complicated and complex activity. Today's level of development of football game requires of players a high level and rhythm of the game, excellent physical condition, high technical standards in motion that depend on many motor skills. Various beginnings of movement, acceleration, stopping at high speed, changing direction, jumping, ball hitting are the most common movings in which explosive power of players is exhibited. Observing the activities of the game, players need most, the form of power, which is reflected in the shortest possible interval, ie. explosive strength. The study aims to determine the difference in explosive strength of legs of footballers of cadet category. The sample consisted of 60 players, divided into two groups of 30 subjects, aged 15 ± 1 years. One group was composed of Serbian national team and the other football players of FC ‘Vojvodina’ from Novi Sad. Sample tests consisted of six tests, as follows: running speed of 10 meters from a standing start, running speed 20 meters from a standing start, running speed 30 meters from a standing start, a jump up from the spot, standing long jump and triple jump. To examine whether statistically significant differences between groups of players we used t-test for two independent groups. Generally it can be concluded that there was a statistically significant difference between the two treatment groups of respondents in favor of the representatives of Serbi

Comparison of Injuries in American Collegiate Football and Club Rugby: A Prospective Cohort Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Willigenburg, Nienke W; Borchers, James R; Quincy, Richard; Kaeding, Christopher C; Hewett, Timothy E

2016-03-01

American football and rugby players are at substantial risk of injury because of the full-contact nature of these sports. Methodological differences between previous epidemiological studies hamper an accurate comparison of injury rates between American football and rugby. To directly compare injury rates in American collegiate football and rugby, specified by location, type, mechanism, and severity of injury, as reported by licensed medical professionals. Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2. Licensed medical professionals (athletic trainer or physician) associated with the football and rugby teams of a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I university reported attendance and injury details over 3 autumn seasons. Injuries were categorized by the location, type, mechanism, and severity of injury, and the injury rate was calculated per 1000 athlete-exposures (AEs). Injury rate ratios (IRRs) were calculated to compare overall, game, and practice injury rates within and between sports. The overall injury rate was 4.9/1000 AEs in football versus 15.2/1000 AEs in rugby: IRR = 3.1 (95% CI, 2.3-4.2). Game injury rates were higher than practice injury rates: IRR = 6.5 (95% CI, 4.5-9.3) in football and IRR = 5.1 (95% CI, 3.0-8.6) in rugby. Injury rates for the shoulder, wrist/hand, and lower leg and for sprains, fractures, and contusions in rugby were >4 times as high as those in football (all P ≤ 0.006). Concussion rates were 1.0/1000 AEs in football versus 2.5/1000 AEs in rugby. Most injuries occurred via direct player contact, especially during games. The rate of season-ending injuries (>3 months of time loss) was 0.8/1000 AEs in football versus 1.0/1000 AEs in rugby: IRR = 1.3 (95% CI, 0.4-3.4). Overall injury rates were substantially higher in collegiate rugby compared with football. Similarities between sports were observed in the most common injury types (sprains and concussions), locations (lower extremity and head), and mechanisms (direct player contact

High-magnitude head impact exposure in youth football

Science.gov (United States)

Campolettano, Eamon T.; Gellner, Ryan A.; Rowson, Steven

2018-01-01

OBJECTIVE Even in the absence of a clinically diagnosed concussion, research suggests that neurocognitive changes may develop in football players as a result of frequent head impacts that occur during football games and practices. The objectives of this study were to determine the specific situations in which high-magnitude impacts (accelerations exceeding 40g) occur in youth football games and practices and to assess how representative practice activities are of games with regard to high-magnitude head impact exposure. METHODS A total of 45 players (mean age 10.7 ± 1.1 years) on 2 youth teams (Juniors [mean age 9.9 ± 0.6 years; mean body mass 38.9 ± 9.9 kg] and Seniors [mean age 11.9 ± 0.6 years; mean body mass 51.4 ± 11.8 kg]) wore helmets instrumented with accelerometer arrays to record head impact accelerations for all practices and games. Video recordings from practices and games were used to verify all high-magnitude head impacts, identify specific impact characteristics, and determine the amount of time spent in each activity. RESULTS A total of 7590 impacts were recorded, of which 571 resulted in high-magnitude head impact accelerations exceeding 40g (8%). Impacts were characterized based on the position played by the team member who received the impact, the part of the field where the impact occurred, whether the impact occurred during a game or practice play, and the cause of the impact. High-magnitude impacts occurred most frequently in the open field in both games (59.4%) and practices (67.5%). “Back” position players experienced a greater proportion of high-magnitude head impacts than players at other positions. The 2 teams in this study structured their practice sessions similarly with respect to time spent in each drill, but impact rates differed for each drill between the teams. CONCLUSIONS High-magnitude head impact exposure in games and practice drills was quantified and used as the basis for comparison of exposure in the 2 settings. In

Development and validation of a notational system to study the offensive process in football.

Science.gov (United States)

Sarmento, Hugo; Anguera, Teresa; Campaniço, Jorge; Leitão, José

2010-01-01

The most striking change within football development is the application of science to its problems and in particular the use of increasingly sophisticated technology that, supported by scientific data, allows us to establish a "code of reading" the reality of the game. Therefore, this study describes the process of the development and validation of an ad hoc system of categorization, which allows the different methods of offensive game in football and the interaction to be analyzed. Therefore, through an exploratory phase of the study, we identified 10 vertebrate criteria and the respective behaviors observed for each of these criteria. We heard a panel of five experts with the purpose of a content validation. The resulting instrument is characterized by a combination of field formats and systems of categories. The reliability of the instrument was calculated by the intraobserver agreement, and values above 0.95 for all criteria were achieved. Two FC Barcelona games were coded and analyzed, which allowed the detection of various T-patterns. The results show that the instrument serves the purpose for which it was developed and can provide important information for the understanding of game interaction in football.

Correlating cumulative sub-concussive head impacts in football with player performance - biomed 2009.

Science.gov (United States)

Rowson, Steven; Goforth, Mike W; Dietter, Dave; Brolinson, P Gunnar; Duma, Stefanan M

2009-01-01

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of cumulative sub-concussive head impacts on football player performance. The helmets of three Virginia Tech football players were instrumented with a six accelerometer sensor capable of measuring head acceleration. Helmets were instrumented for every game during the 2006 and 2007 football seasons. Each time the head was impacted during a game, the sensor recorded the impact and wirelessly transmitted the data to a sideline computer. Furthermore, the coaching staff at Virginia Tech reviewed post-game film and evaluated each player's performance based on strict criteria. Players were awarded positive points for good plays and negative points for bad plays. Their performance scores were then normalized to a per play basis. Correlations of player performance with cumulative peak linear acceleration and cumulative head injury criterion (HIC) were evaluated. No consistent head acceleration-based measure showed a strong correlation with significance. In addition, relationship trends varied on a position basis. There are many factors other than head impacts that can affect a player's performance and more research is needed to further quantify such effects.

Leadership off the pitch:the role of the manager in semi-professional football

OpenAIRE

Molan, Conor; Matthews, James; Arnold, Rachel

2016-01-01

Research question: The first-team manager’s position in semi-professional or professional football clubs can be viewed as the de-facto leadership role. Although there has been considerable research conducted in relation to leadership on the pitch, in a coaching or in-game context, the football manager’s leadership off the pitch remains an underexplored topic. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to explore the manager’s off the pitch leadership role, utilising semi-professional football ...

Tournaments, oriented graphs and football sequences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pirzada S.

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Consider the result of a soccer league competition where n teams play each other exactly once. A team gets three points for each win and one point for each draw. The total score obtained by each team vi is called the f-score of vi and is denoted by fi. The sequences of all f-scores [fi]i=1n$\\left[ {{\\rm{f}}_{\\rm{i}} } \\right]_{{\\rm{i}} = 1}^{\\rm{n}} $ arranged in non-decreasing order is called the f-score sequence of the competition. We raise the following problem: Which sequences of non-negative integers in non-decreasing order is a football sequence, that is the outcome of a soccer league competition. We model such a competition by an oriented graph with teams represented by vertices in which the teams play each other once, with an arc from team u to team v if and only if u defeats v. We obtain some necessary conditions for football sequences and some characterizations under restrictions.

Construction of Barrier in a Fishing Game With Point Capture.

Science.gov (United States)

Zha, Wenzhong; Chen, Jie; Peng, Zhihong; Gu, Dongbing

2017-06-01

This paper addresses a particular pursuit-evasion game, called as "fishing game" where a faster evader attempts to pass the gap between two pursuers. We are concerned with the conditions under which the evader or pursuers can win the game. This is a game of kind in which an essential aspect, barrier, separates the state space into disjoint parts associated with each player's winning region. We present a method of explicit policy to construct the barrier. This method divides the fishing game into two subgames related to the included angle and the relative distances between the evader and the pursuers, respectively, and then analyzes the possibility of capture or escape for each subgame to ascertain the analytical forms of the barrier. Furthermore, we fuse the games of kind and degree by solving the optimal control strategies in the minimum time for each player when the initial state lies in their winning regions. Along with the optimal strategies, the trajectories of the players are delineated and the upper bounds of their winning times are also derived.

Positional Match Running Performance in Elite Gaelic Football.

Science.gov (United States)

Malone, Shane; Solan, Barry; Collins, Kieran D; Doran, Dominic A

2016-08-01

Malone, S, Solan, B, Collins, KD, and Doran, DA. Positional match running performance in elite Gaelic football. J Strength Cond Res 30(8): 2292-2298, 2016-There is currently limited information available on match running performance in Gaelic football. The objective of the current study was to report on the match running profile of elite male Gaelic football and assess positional running performance. In this observational study, 50 elite male Gaelic football players wore 4-Hz global positioning systems units (VX Sports) across 30 competitive games with a total of 215 full game data sets collected. Activity was classed according to total distance, high-speed distance (≥17 km·h), sprint distance (≥22 km·h), mean velocity (km·h), peak velocity (km·h), and number of accelerations. The average match distance was 8,160 ± 1,482 m, reflective of a relative distance of 116 ± 21 m·min, with 1,731 ± 659 m covered at high speed, which is reflective of a relative high-speed distance of 25 ± 9 m·min. The observed sprint distance was 445 ± 169 m distributed across 44 sprint actions. The peak velocity was 30.3 ± 1.8 km·h with a mean velocity of 6.5 ± 1.2 km·h. Players completed 184 ± 40 accelerations, which represent 2.6 ± 0.5 accelerations per minute. There were significant differences between positional groups for both total running distance, high-speed running distance, and sprint distance, with midfielders covering more total and high-speed running distance, compared with other positions (p football match play.

What’s in a game? A systems approach to enhancing performance analysis in football

Science.gov (United States)

2017-01-01

Purpose Performance analysis (PA) in football is considered to be an integral component of understanding the requirements for optimal performance. Despite vast amounts of research in this area key gaps remain, including what comprises PA in football, and methods to minimise research-practitioner gaps. The aim of this study was to develop a model of the football match system in order to better describe and understand the components of football performance. Such a model could inform the design of new PA methods. Method Eight elite level football Subject Method Experts (SME’s) participated in two workshops to develop a systems model of the football match system. The model was developed using a first-of-its-kind application of Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) in football. CWA has been used in many other non-sporting domains to analyse and understand complex systems. Result Using CWA, a model of the football match ‘system’ was developed. The model enabled identification of several PA measures not currently utilised, including communication between team members, adaptability of teams, playing at the appropriate tempo, as well as attacking and defending related measures. Conclusion The results indicate that football is characteristic of a complex sociotechnical system, and revealed potential new and unique PA measures regarded as important by SME’s, yet not currently measured. Importantly, these results have identified a gap between the current PA research and the information that is meaningful to football coaches and practitioners. PMID:28212392

The Effect of Losses Disguised as Wins and Near Misses in Electronic Gaming Machines: A Systematic Review.

Science.gov (United States)

Barton, K R; Yazdani, A; Ayer, N; Kalvapalle, S; Brown, S; Stapleton, J; Brown, D G; Harrigan, K A

2017-12-01

Near misses and losses disguised as wins have been of interest to gambling researchers and policymakers for many years (e.g., Griffiths in J Gambl Stud 9(2):101-120, 1993). This systematic literature review describes the behavioural, psychological, and psychobiological effects of near misses and losses disguised as wins (LDWs) in an effort to evaluate their precise influence on the player and to highlight areas requiring further investigation. A systematic search for relevant studies was conducted using Scopus, PubMed, PsycINFO, ProQuest Sociology databases, and the Gambling Research Exchange Ontario Knowledge Repository. A total of 51 (from an initial pool of 802) experimental peer-reviewed studies using human participants were found between 1991 and 2015. The systematic review revealed that near misses motivate continued play, but have varying effects on the emotional state or betting behaviour of the player. Near miss events were also shown to be associated with elevated skin conductance levels and diffuse activity across the brain, most consistently in areas processing reinforcement and reward. Re-examination of the studies of near misses events after classifying the type of game feedback suggested that the effectiveness of near misses is related to the phenomenology of a near miss itself rather than as a response to auditory or visual feedback provided by a slot machine. In contrast to near misses, the presence of LDWs was found to relate to an overestimation of how much a player is actually winning and was consistently viewed as an exciting event. The effect of LDWs appears to be driven by the presence of visuals and sounds most often associated with a true win. Practical implications and directions for future research are also discussed.

Efficiency Determinants in Brazilian Football Clubs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcelo Machado de Freitas

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study is to analyze the efficiency of Brazilian football clubs in generating revenues and the reasons behind it. To achieve this goal, we applied quantitative methods including Data Envelopment Analysis and Tobit regression modeling to data on the best clubs from 2012 to 2014, according to the Brazilian Football Confederation ranking. The results allowed for the inference that the largest Brazilian clubs, such as Grêmio (RS, Palmeiras (SP and Vasco (RJ, were not efficient in any period under analysis. Others, such as Guarani (SP and Guaratinguetá (SP, were efficient in all of years under consideration. With the Tobit regression model, we were able to determine that winning titles and the elite status of a given club are decisive factors in achieving efficiency. Included among the strategies that allow for greater efficiency in Brazilian clubs are the better utilization of stadiums and club assets, maximization of the financial worth of player popularity, and joining these with titles and a place in the A Series. Finally, the results of this study contribute to the strategic development of the football business, highlighting the positive effects that efficiency yields for clubs, thus supporting the growing body of research on sports management in Brazilian academia.

Playing to win over: validating persuasive games

NARCIS (Netherlands)

R.S. Jacobs (Ruud)

2017-01-01

textabstractThis dissertation describes four years of scientific inquiry into persuasive games – digital games designed to persuade – as part of a multidisciplinary research project ‘Persuasive Gaming. From Theory-Based Design to Validation and Back’ funded by the Netherlands Organization for

Europe’s Elite Football: Financial Growth, Sporting Success, Transfer Investment, and Private Majority Investors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marc Rohde

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Europe’s elite football clubs are a small group of about 30 clubs mostly originating from the Big Five leagues in England, Italy, Spain, Germany, and France. These clubs top Deloitte’s Football Money League ranking Europe’s top football clubs by revenues. They also win the vast majority of national and European football competitions, and account for the major share of FIFA World Cup appearances. Nevertheless, empirical analyses studying the antecedents of financial success of this peculiar sample are rare. This paper extends previous research by building an empirical model of financial performance and applying it to a unique, high-quality dataset of the top 30 EU football clubs by club revenues analyzed over ten consecutive seasons from 2004 to 2013. Fixed effects models are performed to account for time trends and club fixed effects. The results show that financial success is driven by national and international sporting success, as well as brand value; sporting success is driven by team investments, and team investments tend to be driven by (foreign private majority investors.

Impact of Increased Football Field Width on Player High-Speed Collision Rate.

Science.gov (United States)

Joseph, Jacob R; Khalsa, Siri S; Smith, Brandon W; Park, Paul

2017-07-01

High-acceleration head impact is a known risk for mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) based on studies using helmet accelerometry. In football, offensive and defensive players are at higher risk of mTBI due to increased speed of play. Other collision sport studies suggest that increased playing surface size may contribute to reductions in high-speed collisions. We hypothesized that wider football fields lead to a decreased rate of high-speed collisions. Computer football game simulation was developed using MATLAB. Four wide receivers were matched against 7 defensive players. Each offensive player was randomized to one of 5 typical routes on each play. The ball was thrown 3 seconds into play; ball flight time was 2 seconds. Defensive players were delayed 0.5 second before reacting to ball release. A high-speed collision was defined as the receiver converging with a defensive player within 0.5 second of catching the ball. The simulation counted high-speed collisions for 1 team/season (65 plays/game for 16 games/season = 1040 plays/season) averaged during 10 seasons, and was validated against existing data using standard field width (53.3 yards). Field width was increased in 1-yard intervals up to 58.3 yards. Using standard field width, 188 ± 4 high-speed collisions were seen per team per season (18% of plays). When field width increased by 3 yards, high-speed collision rate decreased to 135 ± 3 per team per season (28% decrease; P football field width can lead to substantial decline in high-speed collisions, with potential for reducing instances of mTBI in football players. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Local Strategy Improvement for Parity Game Solving

OpenAIRE

Friedmann, Oliver; Lange, Martin

2010-01-01

The problem of solving a parity game is at the core of many problems in model checking, satisfiability checking and program synthesis. Some of the best algorithms for solving parity game are strategy improvement algorithms. These are global in nature since they require the entire parity game to be present at the beginning. This is a distinct disadvantage because in many applications one only needs to know which winning region a particular node belongs to, and a witnessing winning strategy may...

English professional football players concussion knowledge and attitude

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joshua M. Williams

2016-06-01

Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that Championship Level English footballers have moderate concussion knowledge, safe attitudes, and good concussion symptom recognition when assessed with pen and paper questionnaires. However, within the semi-structured interview many respondents reported unsafe concussion behaviors despite accurately identifying the potential risks. Further, multiple barriers to concussion reporting were identified which included perceived severity of the injury, game situations, and the substitution rule. These findings can help form the foundation of educational interventions to potentially improve concussion reporting behaviors amongst professional footballers.

Dynamic and Implications of Football Fans' Club and Fans ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

DrNneka

As spectator in football game for example, human beings are known to fragment into fans groups. ..... since respondents identified performance as the main motivating factor in their selection of supporting teams ... directional. They are supports ...

The Season After: A Football Coach Moves on after 27 Years

Science.gov (United States)

Gerson, Gary D.

2010-01-01

In this article, the author shares his experience of being a football coach for 27 years and describes how he moves on after these years. For the first time in 27 years, he is not on the field with boys for two-a-days and scrimmages. And he is not going to be there for the games. So, there is no more football. This is after four years of walk-on…

VIth World Congress on Science and Football, Book of Abstracts, January 16-20, 2007, Antalya, Turkey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

2007-02-01

Full Text Available Uniting Edson Arantes do Nascimento's (Pele's "the beautiful game" with David Beckham's "bending the ball" (talented players apply the laws of physics to the ball is the major motivation of the 6th.World Congress on Science and Football. From Chinese tsu chu to today's modern football games, science was and will be an important part of this excellent sport (http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0606/feature1/index.html.The congress encourages all scientific aspects of football including soccer (1848 including Australian rules (1866, Rugby (1845, American football (1876, Gaelic football (1884 and Canadian football (1882. Issues such as Biomechanics, Nutrition, Psychology, Academies, Talent identification, Medical aspects, Injuries, Special Population, Coaching, Physiology, Testing, Referee, Fair play, Hooliganism, Management, Economics and Skill learning will be discussed during this congress.Research is as significant as the coach, team and player in competition. Any player can aspire to become a superstar. Encouraging all participants and steak holders will take them to new places where no one has ever dreamt of. Are we close to these dreams? The answer to this question depends on what and how much we sacrifice for science and education. From science and education information should flow into the field. The decisive elements of the game are the referees, trainers, players and supporters. Their approach creates the "climate". They can end or start a war. Football is the sport that leads. It's no miracle but it promotes passion and love. If you are committed, you may even change the world. Football encompasses millions of players, coaches, scientists, administrators, physical education teachers, politicians and inevitably parents of young players. This "simple" game that requires a ball and a goal is not only the game of heroes but also of those who bear a childish enthusiasm that makes dreams come true. Skills include heading, tapping, passing

Risk Factors for Injuries in Professional Football Players.

Science.gov (United States)

Haxhiu, Bekim; Murtezani, Ardiana; Zahiti, Bedri; Shalaj, Ismet; Sllamniku, Sabit

2015-01-01

The aim of this study was to identify risk factors related to the occurrence of injuries in football players. The study included 216 football players from 12 teams in the elite football league. Football-related injury data were collected prospectively during the 2012/2013 competitive season. At baseline the following information was collected for the players: anthropometric measurements (weight, height, BMI, subcutaneous skinfolds), playing experience, injury history, physical fitness performance test (agility run), peak oxygen uptake. The incidence, type and severity of injuries and training and game exposure times were prospectively documented for each player. Most of the players (n = 155, 71.7%) sustained the injures during the study period. The overall injury incidence during the regular season was 6.3 injuries per 1000 athlete-exposures (95% confidence interval, 4.31-9.67). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that playing experience (odds ratio [OR] = 0.44; 95% CI = 0.32-0.61, p football for more than 1 month, with knee injuries (25.42%) being the most severe type. The risk factors that increase injury rates in football players were previous injury, higher age and years of playing. Future research should include adequate rehabilitation program to reduce the risk of injuries.

Finacial Expertise, Authority and Power in the European Football 'Industry'

OpenAIRE

Hertbert F. Moorhouse

2007-01-01

The paper aims to provoke discussion about two issues. Firstly, how do economic ideas, concepts, theories, principles and information enter into the discourse of the owners and controllers of Europe’s most popular sport – football – and into political discussion about the game? It stresses the role management consultants have created for themselves in the new football 'industry'. Secondly, as a specific example of the general concern, the paper considers the role of the Deloitte company in Eu...

The epidemiology of injuries in contact flag football.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaplan, Yonatan; Myklebust, Grethe; Nyska, Meir; Palmanovich, Ezequiel; Victor, Jan; Witvrouw, Erik

2013-01-01

To characterize the epidemiology of injuries in post-high school male and female athletes in the rapidly growing international sport of contact flag football. Prospective injury-observational study. Kraft Stadium, Jerusalem, Israel. A total of 1492 players, consisting of men (n = 1252, mean age, 20.49 ± 5.11) and women (n = 240, mean age, 21.32 ± 8.95 years), participated in 1028 games over a 2-season period (2007-2009). All time-loss injuries sustained in game sessions were recorded by the off-the-field medical personnel and followed up by a more detailed phone injury surveillance questionnaire. One hundred sixty-three injuries were reported, comprising 1 533 776 athletic exposures (AEs). The incidence rate was 0.11 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.09-0.12] per 1000 AEs, and incidence proportion was 10.66% (95% CI, 9.10-12.22). Seventy-six percent of the injuries were extrinsic in nature. Thirty percent of the injuries were to the fingers, thumb, and wrist, 17% to the knee, 17% to the head/face, 13% to the ankle, and 11% to the shoulder. Contact flag football results in a significant amount of moderate to severe injuries. These data may be used in the development of a formal American flag football injury database and in the development and implementation of a high-quality, randomized, prospective injury prevention study. This study should include the enforcement of the no-pocket rule, appropriate headgear, self-fitting mouth guards, the use of ankle braces, and changing the blocking rules of the game.

The health status of retired American football players: Super Bowl III revisited.

Science.gov (United States)

Nicholas, Stephen J; Nicholas, James A; Nicholas, Calvin; Diecchio, Jennifer R; McHugh, Malachy P

2007-10-01

Despite a perception that retired professional football players have poor health, there are little supporting data. Retired football players have poor health compared with age-matched population norms. Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 4. Thirty-six of 41 members of the 1969 Super Bowl winning team were contacted 35 years after that event (3 were deceased, and no contact information was available for 2). Players completed an SF-36 health survey and a medical history and football-specific questionnaire. Each player's football-related injury history before 1969 was documented from medical records. It was estimated that there was 80% power to detect a 10% difference in physical and mental health scores between the retired football players (age, 62 +/- 3 y) and population norms (n = 741) at an alpha level of 0.05. SF-36 scores for physical and mental health were not different from age-matched norms (physical health P = .69; mental health P = .49). The most prevalent medical conditions were arthritis (24 of 36 players), hypertension (13 of 36 players), and chronic low back pain (13 of 36 players). SF-36 physical health scores were 21% lower in players with arthritis (P football for 8.3 +/- 3.8 years, and 33 players (94%) reported having had "very fulfilling" (n = 24) or "somewhat fulfilling" (n = 9) careers. These professional football players had long and fulfilling careers with no apparent long-term detrimental effects on physical or mental health scores despite a high prevalence of arthritis.

Who wins olympic bids?

OpenAIRE

Maennig, Wolfgang; Vierhaus, Christopher

2014-01-01

The prospect of hosting the Olympic Games is attractive to many cities around the world. This article examines 147 variables’ potential to discriminate successful from unsuccessful Olympic bids. Our stepwise, rank-ordered logistic regression model includes 10 determinants supporting the contention that economic, political and sports/Olympic factors are important for winning the host city election. IOC members favor cities if more than 2/3 of the population support the bid, but disfavor biddin...

Game-based verification and synthesis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vester, Steen

and the environment behaves. Synthesis of strategies in games can thus be used for automatic generation of correct-by-construction programs from specifications. We consider verification and synthesis problems for several well-known game-based models. This includes both model-checking problems and satisfiability...... can be extended to solve finitely-branching turn-based games more efficiently. Further, the novel concept of winning cores in parity games is introduced. We use this to develop a new polynomial-time under-approximation algorithm for solving parity games. Experimental results show that this algorithm...... corresponds directly to a program for the corresponding entity of the system. A strategy for a player which ensures that the player wins no matter how the other players behave then corresponds to a program ensuring that the specification of the entity is satisfied no matter how the other entities...

Who Wins the Olympic Games: Economic Development and Medal Totals

OpenAIRE

Andrew B. Bernard; Meghan R. Busse

2000-01-01

This paper examines determinants of Olympic success at the country level. Does the U.S. win its fair share of Olympic medals? Why does China win 6% of the medals even though it has 1/5 of the world's population? We consider the role of population and economic development in determining medal totals from 1960-1996. We also provide out of sample predictions for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

Music as Narrative in American College Football

Science.gov (United States)

McCluskey, John Michael

2016-01-01

American college football features an enormous amount of music woven into the fabric of the event, with selections accompanying approximately two-thirds of a game's plays. Musical selections are controlled by a number of forces, including audio and video technicians, university marketing departments, financial sponsors, and wind bands. These blend…

Girls' Touch Football, Physical Education: 5551.03.

Science.gov (United States)

King, Kathy

This course outline is a guide for teaching basic understanding of fundamental skills and rules of girls' touch football in grades 7-12. The course format includes lectures, demonstrations, practice of basic skills, visual aids, lead-up games, presentation and practice of officiating techniques, tournaments, and written and skills tests. Course…

Three types of transnational players: differing women's football mobility projects in core and developing countries

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nina Clara Tiesler

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Mobile players in men's football are highly skilled professionals who move to a country other than the one where they grew up and started their careers. They are commonly described as migrants or expatriate players. Due to a much less advanced stage of professionalism and production of the game in women's football mobility projects are different. At describing the cases of Brazil, Equatorial Guinea, Mexico, Colombia and Portugal, the aim of this paper is to conceptualise an umbrella category for mobile players that can include current realities in the women's game, namely the transnational player who has gained and displays transnational football experience in different countries and socio-culturally contexts. Furthermore, analyses allow introducing two new subcategories besides the “expatriate”, namely diaspora players and new citizens.

Estimating Contact Exposure in Football Using the Head Impact Exposure Estimate.

Science.gov (United States)

Kerr, Zachary Y; Littleton, Ashley C; Cox, Leah M; DeFreese, J D; Varangis, Eleanna; Lynall, Robert C; Schmidt, Julianne D; Marshall, Stephen W; Guskiewicz, Kevin M

2015-07-15

Over the past decade, there has been significant debate regarding the effect of cumulative subconcussive head impacts on short and long-term neurological impairment. This debate remains unresolved, because valid epidemiological estimates of athletes' total contact exposure are lacking. We present a measure to estimate the total hours of contact exposure in football over the majority of an athlete's lifespan. Through a structured oral interview, former football players provided information related to primary position played and participation in games and practice contacts during the pre-season, regular season, and post-season of each year of their high school, college, and professional football careers. Spring football for college was also included. We calculated contact exposure estimates for 64 former football players (n = 32 college football only, n = 32 professional and college football). The head impact exposure estimate (HIEE) discriminated between individuals who stopped after college football, and individuals who played professional football (p < 0.001). The HIEE measure was independent of concussion history (p = 0.82). Estimating total hours of contact exposure may allow for the detection of differences between individuals with variation in subconcussive impacts, regardless of concussion history. This measure is valuable for the surveillance of subconcussive impacts and their associated potential negative effects.

Playing Muller Games in a Hurry

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John Fearnley

2010-06-01

Full Text Available This work studies the following question: can plays in a Muller game be stopped after a finite number of moves and a winner be declared. A criterion to do this is sound if Player 0 wins an infinite-duration Muller game if and only if she wins the finite-duration version. A sound criterion is presented that stops a play after at most 3^n moves, where n is the size of the arena. This improves the bound (n!+1^n obtained by McNaughton and the bound n!+1 derived from a reduction to parity games.

Playing Muller Games in a Hurry

OpenAIRE

Fearnley, John; Zimmermann, Martin

2010-01-01

This work studies the following question: can plays in a Muller game be stopped after a finite number of moves and a winner be declared. A criterion to do this is sound if Player 0 wins an infinite-duration Muller game if and only if she wins the finite-duration version. A sound criterion is presented that stops a play after at most 3^n moves, where n is the size of the arena. This improves the bound (n!+1)^n obtained by McNaughton and the bound n!+1 derived from a reduction to parity games.

Facing temptation: The neural correlates of gambling availability during sports picture exposure.

Science.gov (United States)

Brevers, Damien; Herremans, Sarah C; He, Qinghua; Vanderhasselt, Marie-Anne; Petieau, Mathieu; Verdonck, Dimitri; Poppa, Tasha; De Witte, Sara; Kornreich, Charles; Bechara, Antoine; Baeken, Chris

2018-04-26

Nowadays, sports betting has become increasingly available and easy to engage in. Here we examined the neural responses to stimuli that represent sporting events available for betting as compared to sporting events without a gambling opportunity. We used a cue exposure task in which football (soccer) fans (N = 42) viewed cues depicting scheduled football games that would occur shortly after the scanning session. In the "betting" condition, participants were instructed to choose, at the end of each block, the game (and the team) they wanted to bet on. In the "watching" condition, participants chose the game they would prefer to watch. After the scanning session, participants completed posttask rating questionnaires assessing, for each cue, their level of confidence about the team they believed would win and how much they would enjoy watching the game. We found that stimuli representing sport events available for betting elicited higher fronto-striatal activation, as well as higher insular cortex activity and functional connectivity, than sport events without a gambling opportunity. Moreover, games rated with more confidence towards the winning team resulted in greater brain activations within regions involved in affective decision-making (ventromedial prefrontal cortex), cognitive inhibitory control (medial and superior frontal gyri) and reward processing (ventral and dorsal striatum). Altogether, these novel findings offer a sensible simulation of how the high availability of sports betting in today's environment impacts on the reward and cognitive control systems. Future studies are needed to extend the present findings to a sample of football fans that includes a samilar proportion of female and male participants.

Movement games in sports training of children

OpenAIRE

Komoň, Tomáš

2015-01-01

Title: Movement Games in Sports Training of Children Objectives: Create a systemized inventory of movement games. Movement games categorized according to which football skills can developed. Verify popularity of the each movement game in simple questionnaire. Methods: The literature search and data analysis. Also, quantitative research in the form of a simple questionnaire. Results: Systematized inventory of 39 movement games with methodological descriptions. Each movement game has feedback i...

Features of physiological responses on organism of football players aged 10-12 years in exercise using different training methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. B. Abdula

2014-02-01

Full Text Available Purpose : To evaluate the effect of various special exercises football players’ organism in different modes. Material : The study involved 24 young players aged 10-12 years. Results : There is a large range of load parameters for elite athletes, which necessitates evaluation exercise intensity football for young players. Found that depending on the method chosen football special exercises have different effects on the body force young players. Conclusions : It was found that by using the method of competitive gaming and heart rate and energy increases with increasing number of players. The analysis shows the existence of significant differences in terms of heart rate for game and interval method.

Epidemiology of Exertional Heat Illnesses in Youth, High School, and College Football.

Science.gov (United States)

Yeargin, Susan W; Kerr, Zachary Y; Casa, Douglas J; Djoko, Aristarque; Hayden, Ross; Parsons, John T; Dompier, Thomas P

2016-08-01

Data on exertional heat illness (EHI) in youth football are limited and have not been compared across competition levels. This study describes the epidemiology of EHI events in youth, high school (HS), and college football in the 2012-2014 seasons. One hundred and eighteen youth teams (players age 5-14 yr), 96 HS programs (~14-18 yr), and 34 college programs (~18-23 yr) participated. During games and practices, athletic trainers recorded EHI events and athlete exposures (AE), defined as one athlete participating in one game/practice. We calculated the number of reported EHI by time in season, game/practice, and need for emergency transportation. EHI rates, risk, included rate ratios (IRR), and risk ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated in 2015. EHI rates for youth, HS, and college football were 1.82, 0.57, and 1.67/10,000 AE, respectively. Rates were highest during the preseason (youth: 2.76; HS: 1.47; college: 3.66/10,000 AE). Game rates were higher than practice rates in youth (4.04 vs 1.22/10,000 AE; IRR = 3.31; 95% CI, 1.75-6.26) and college (4.42 vs 1.38/10,000 AE; IRR = 3.21; 95% CI, 2.00-5.16); the practice rate was higher than the game rate in HS (0.63 vs 0.27/10,000 AE; IRR = 2.33; 95% CI, 1.01-5.38). The EHI risk was higher in college (0.9%) than in youth (0.6%; RR = 1.59; 95% CI, 1.06-2.37) and HS (0.5%; RR = 2.01; 95% CI, 1.43-2.81). Common EHI events included heat cramps (youth: 15.8%; HS: 28.6%; college: 45.6%), heat exhaustion (youth: 42.1%; HS: 32.9%; college: 20.0%), and dehydration (youth: 31.6%; HS: 28.6%; college: 28.9%). EHI risk was low. Higher preseason football EHI rates across levels emphasize developing and continually modifying preseason heat acclimatization policies. Lower EHI rates in HS games and youth practices may be attributable to night events, suggesting the importance of modifying/canceling events based on environmental conditions.

Learning Mathematics through Games

Science.gov (United States)

Gough, John

2015-01-01

When considering the use of games for teaching mathematics, educators should distinguish between an "activity" and a "game". Gough (1999) states that "A 'game' needs to have two or more players, who take turns, each competing to achieve a 'winning' situation of some kind, each able to exercise some choice about how to move…

Investigation of game characteristics of elite tennis players on different surfaces.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bülent KİLİT

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigation of game characteristics of elite tennis players on different surfaces (grass, clay and hard. Material and Methods: As a data collection tool used in the official web pages (www.rolandgarros.com, www.wimbledon.com, www.usopen.org in 2015 Grand Slam tennis tournaments. The study monitored the following game characteristics: 1st service %, aces, double faults, unforced error, winning % on 1st serve, winning % on 2nd serve, winners (including service, average 1st serve speed, average 2nd serve speed, average duration of games, average game number, total match duration, average duration of sets. One way ANOVA and Scheffe post-hoc test was performed in order to evaluate the game characteristics in this study. Results: Wimbledon had a significant more responses in terms of 1st service %, aces, winning % on 1st serve, average 1st and 2nd serve speed in male tennis players (p<0.05. For female tennis players, American open had more double faults, while Wimbledon had more aces, winning % on 1st Serve, winning % on 1st serve, average 1st and 2nd serve speed, winners responses (p<0.05. Conclusion: According to these results, serve values in fast court like Wimbledon were more than the others. Similar game characteristics were seen in French open (slow court and American open (medium court.

Caffeine supplementation does not affect match activities and fatigue resistance during match play in young football players

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pettersen, Svein Arne; Krustrup, Peter; Bendiksen, Mads

2014-01-01

The study examined the effect of caffeine supplementation on match activities and development of fatigue during a football match. In a randomised, double-blind cross-over design, two experimental football games separated by 7 days were organised between the junior teams of two professional footba...

Spinal-cord injuries in Australian footballers, 1960-1985.

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, T K; Coolican, M R

1987-08-03

A review of 107 footballers who suffered a spinal-cord injury between 1960 and 1985 has been undertaken. Since 1977, the number of such injuries in Rugby Union, Rugby League and Australian Rules has increased, from an average of about two injuries a year before 1977 to over eight injuries a year since then. Rugby Union is clearly the most dangerous game, particularly for schoolboys; all of the injuries in schoolboy games for this code have occurred since 1977. This study has shown that collision at scrum engagement, and not at scrum collapse, is the way in which the majority of scrum injuries are sustained. These injuries are largely preventable, and suggestions for rule changes are made. Half the injured players recovered to Frankel grades D or E. The financial entitlements of those injured were grossly inadequate; this warrants action. A national register for spinal-cord injuries from football should be established to monitor the effects of desirable rule changes in Rugby Union and Rugby League.

A game on the universe of sets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Saveliev, D I

2008-01-01

Working in set theory without the axiom of regularity, we consider a two-person game on the universe of sets. In this game, the players choose in turn an element of a given set, an element of this element and so on. A player wins if he leaves his opponent no possibility of making a move, that is, if he has chosen the empty set. Winning sets (those admitting a winning strategy for one of the players) form a natural hierarchy with levels indexed by ordinals (in the finite case, the ordinal indicates the shortest length of a winning strategy). We show that the class of hereditarily winning sets is an inner model containing all well-founded sets and that each of the four possible relations between the universe, the class of hereditarily winning sets, and the class of well-founded sets is consistent. As far as the class of winning sets is concerned, either it is equal to the whole universe, or many of the axioms of set theory cannot hold on this class. Somewhat surprisingly, this does not apply to the axiom of regularity: we show that the failure of this axiom is consistent with its relativization to winning sets. We then establish more subtle properties of winning non-well-founded sets. We describe all classes of ordinals for which the following is consistent: winning sets without minimal elements (in the sense of membership) occur exactly at the levels indexed by the ordinals of this class. In particular, we show that if an even level of the hierarchy of winning sets contains a set without minimal elements, then all higher levels contain such sets. We show that the failure of the axiom of regularity implies that all odd levels contain sets without minimal elements, but it is consistent with the absence of such sets at all even levels as well as with their appearance at an arbitrary even non-limit or countable-cofinal level. To obtain consistency results, we propose a new method for obtaining models with non-well-founded sets. Finally, we study how long this game can

"It All Ended in an Unsporting Way": Serbian Football and the Disintegration of Yugoslavia, 1989-2006

OpenAIRE

Mills, Richard

2009-01-01

Part of a wider examination into football during the collapse of Eastern European Communism between 1989 and 1991, this article studies the interplay between Serbian football and politics during the period of Yugoslavia's demise. Research utilizing interviews with individuals directly involved in the Serbian game, in conjunction with contemporary Yugoslav media sources, indicates that football played an important proactive role in the revival of Serbian nationalism. At the same time the Yugos...

COMPETITIVE BALANCE IN AMERICAN COLLEGE FOOTBALL: THE GI BILL, GRANT-IN-AID AND THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Steven Salaga

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This paper identifies three historical events, listed in the title, representing key changes in the business structure of American college football and then tests to see whether these events are associated with changes in competitive balance. The analysis shows that balance has been relatively stable despite these alterations. The significant effects that are uncovered are confined to single conferences suggesting these events are not tied to widespread changes in balance throughout the sport. Additionally, the margin of victory ratio, a metric accounting for game closeness is introduced. Based on this measure, game uncertainty in individual conferences has improved over time.

Sports teams as complex adaptive systems: manipulating player numbers shapes behaviours during football small-sided games.

Science.gov (United States)

Silva, Pedro; Vilar, Luís; Davids, Keith; Araújo, Duarte; Garganta, Júlio

2016-01-01

Small-sided and conditioned games (SSCGs) in sport have been modelled as complex adaptive systems. Research has shown that the relative space per player (RSP) formulated in SSCGs can impact on emergent tactical behaviours. In this study we adopted a systems orientation to analyse how different RSP values, obtained through manipulations of player numbers, influenced four measures of interpersonal coordination observed during performance in SSCGs. For this purpose we calculated positional data (GPS 15 Hz) from ten U-15 football players performing in three SSCGs varying in player numbers (3v3, 4v4 and 5v5). Key measures of SSCG system behaviours included values of (1) players' dispersion, (2) teams' separateness, (3) coupling strength and time delays between participants' emerging movements, respectively. Results showed that values of participants' dispersion increased, but the teams' separateness remained identical across treatments. Coupling strength and time delay also showed consistent values across SSCGs. These results exemplified how complex adaptive systems, like football teams, can harness inherent degeneracy to maintain similar team spatial-temporal relations with opponents through changes in inter-individual coordination modes (i.e., players' dispersion). The results imply that different team behaviours might emerge at different ratios of field dimension/player numbers. Therefore, sport pedagogists should carefully evaluate the effects of changing RSP in SSCGs as a way of promoting increased or decreased pressure on players.

An optical model for implementing Parrondo’s game and designing stochastic game with long-term memory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Si Tieyan

2012-01-01

Highlights: ► Using a photon propagating through a designed array of beam splitters to simulate Parrondo’s game paradox. ► Design the optical flowchart for implementing Parrondo history-dependent game paradox. ► Design new game with long-term memory on a designed tree lattice and loop lattice. - Abstract: An optical model for a photon propagating through a designed array of beam splitters is developed to give a physical implementation of Parrondo’s game and Parrondo’s history-dependent game. The winner in this optical model is a photon passed the beam splitter. The loser is a photon being reflected by the beam splitter. The optical beam splitter is the coin-tosser. We designed new games with long-term memory by using this optical diagram method. The optical output of the combined game of two losing games could be a win, or a loss, or an oscillation between win and loss. The modern technology to implement this optical model is well developed. A circularly polarized photon is a possible candidate for this physical implementation in laboratory.

The Ability of American Football Helmets to Manage Linear Acceleration With Repeated High-Energy Impacts.

Science.gov (United States)

Cournoyer, Janie; Post, Andrew; Rousseau, Philippe; Hoshizaki, Blaine

2016-03-01

Football players can receive up to 1400 head impacts per season, averaging 6.3 impacts per practice and 14.3 impacts per game. A decrease in the capacity of a helmet to manage linear acceleration with multiple impacts could increase the risk of traumatic brain injury. To investigate the ability of football helmets to manage linear acceleration with multiple high-energy impacts. Descriptive laboratory study. Laboratory. We collected linear-acceleration data for 100 impacts at 6 locations on 4 helmets of different models currently used in football. Impacts 11 to 20 were compared with impacts 91 to 100 for each of the 6 locations. Linear acceleration was greater after multiple impacts (91-100) than after the first few impacts (11-20) for the front, front-boss, rear, and top locations. However, these differences are not clinically relevant as they do not affect the risk for head injury. American football helmet performance deteriorated with multiple impacts, but this is unlikely to be a factor in head-injury causation during a game or over a season.

Executive summary: The health and fitness benefits of regular participation in small-sided football games

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Krustrup, Peter; Dvorak, J.; Junge, A.

2010-01-01

The present special issue of Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports deals with health and fitness benefits of regular participation in small-sided football games. One review article and 13 original articles were the result of a 2-year multi-center study in Copenhagen and Zurich...... and include studies of different age groups analyzed from a physiological, medical, social and psychological perspective. The main groups investigated were middle-aged, former untrained, healthy men and women who were followed for up to 16 months. In addition, elderly, children and hypertensive patients were...... studied. A summary and interpretations of the main findings divided into an analysis of the physical demands during training of various groups and the effect of a period of training on performance, muscle adaptations and health profile follow. In addition, social and psychological effects on participation...

Epidemiological Patterns of Ankle Sprains in Youth, High School, and College Football.

Science.gov (United States)

Clifton, Daniel R; Koldenhoven, Rachel M; Hertel, Jay; Onate, James A; Dompier, Thomas P; Kerr, Zachary Y

2017-02-01

Variations in ankle injury rates and distributions among competition levels are unclear, but such data may help inform strategies to prevent ankle sprains during American football. To describe the epidemiological patterns of ankle sprains in youth, high school (HS), and collegiate American football. Descriptive epidemiological study. Data regarding youth, HS, and college football athletes were collected from 3 injury surveillance programs: (1) the Youth Football Safety Study (YFSS), (2) the National Athletic Treatment, Injury and Outcomes Network (NATION), and (3) the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Injury Surveillance Program (ISP). During the 2012-2014 seasons, the YFSS, NATION, and NCAA ISP included 310, 184, and 71 football team-seasons, respectively. Athletic trainers (ATs) attended each practice and game and reported injuries and athlete-exposures (AEs) via their preferred injury documentation application. Ankle sprain rates for each type of ankle sprain were calculated overall, by event type (ie, practices and games), and specifically for severe injuries (ie, participation restriction time >21 days) and recurrent injuries (as defined by ATs). Rate ratios (RRs) were used to compare ankle sprain rates by competition level and event type. Injury proportion ratios (IPRs) were used to compare differences in severity, surgical needs, recurrence, injury mechanism, and injury activity by competition level. RRs and IPRs with 95% confidence intervals excluding 1.00 were considered statistically significant. A total of 124, 897, and 643 ankle sprains were reported in youth, HS, and college football, respectively. This led to respective rates of 0.59, 0.73, and 1.19 sprains per 1000 AEs. The ankle sprain rate in college football was higher than the rates in HS (RR = 1.64; 95% CI, 1.48-1.82) and youth (RR = 2.01; 95% CI, 1.65-2.43) football. The proportion of ankle sprains that were recurrent in youth football was higher than the proportions in HS (IPR

What's so Hard about Win-Win?

Science.gov (United States)

Bluestein, Jane

2011-01-01

The win-win approach to solving conflicts, which has become popular in the business world, should be a natural for the school environment. Win-win thinking can foster a cooperative school climate by meeting educators' and students' needs for dignity, belonging, and respect. Yet win-win thinking faces a number of obstacles in schools, writes…

Designing Experiences to Increase Stadium Capacity Utilisation in Football

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Junghagen, Sven; Besjakov, Simon D; Lund, Anders Alrø

2016-01-01

The aim of this paper is to show in what way football clubs in smaller leagues with limited capacity utilisation can increase their per-game revenue by increasing the attendance frequency. A sequential mixed method research design was employed, involving both qualitative and quantitative methods...

Length, width and centroid distance as measures of teams tactical performance in youth football

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Folgado, Hugo; Lemmink, Koen A. P. M.; Frencken, Wouter; Sampaio, Jaime

2014-01-01

Small-sided games are commonly used in training and teaching contexts of football. However, few studies have focused on the tactical implications of this type of drills. The aim of this study is to identify how tactical collective behaviour varies with age in different small-sided game formats. We

Comparison of Indiana High School Football Injury Rates by Inclusion of the USA Football “Heads Up Football” Player Safety Coach

Science.gov (United States)

Kerr, Zachary Y.; Dalton, Sara L.; Roos, Karen G.; Djoko, Aristarque; Phelps, Jennifer; Dompier, Thomas P.

2016-01-01

Background: In Indiana, high school football coaches are required to complete a coaching education course with material related to concussion awareness, equipment fitting, heat emergency preparedness, and proper technique. Some high schools have also opted to implement a player safety coach (PSC). The PSC, an integral component of USA Football’s Heads Up Football (HUF) program, is a coach whose primary responsibility is to ensure that other coaches are implementing proper tackling and blocking techniques alongside other components of the HUF program. Purpose: To compare injury rates in Indiana high school football teams by their usage of a PSC or online coaching education only. Study Design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2. Methods: Athletic trainers (ATs) evaluated and tracked injuries at each practice and game during the 2015 high school football season. Players were drawn from 6 teams in Indiana. The PSC group, which used the PSC component, was comprised of 204 players from 3 teams. The “education only” group (EDU), which utilized coaching education only, was composed of 186 players from 3 teams. Injury rates and injury rate ratios (IRRs) were reported with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results: During 25,938 athlete-exposures (AEs), a total of 149 injuries were reported, of which 54 (36.2%) and 95 (63.8%) originated from the PSC and EDU groups, respectively. The practice injury rate was lower in the PSC group than the EDU group (2.99 vs 4.83/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.40-0.95). The game injury rate was also lower in the PSC group than the EDU group (11.37 vs 26.37/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.25-0.74). When restricted to concussions only, the rate was lower in the PSC group (0.09 vs 0.73/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.01-0.94), although only 1 concussion was reported in the PSC group. No differences were found in game concussion rates (0.60 vs 4.39/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.14; 95% CI, 0.02-1.11). Conclusion: Findings support the PSC as an effective

Automatic recognition of offensive team formation in american football plays

KAUST Repository

Atmosukarto, Indriyati

2013-06-01

Compared to security surveillance and military applications, where automated action analysis is prevalent, the sports domain is extremely under-served. Most existing software packages for sports video analysis require manual annotation of important events in the video. American football is the most popular sport in the United States, however most game analysis is still done manually. Line of scrimmage and offensive team formation recognition are two statistics that must be tagged by American Football coaches when watching and evaluating past play video clips, a process which takes many man hours per week. These two statistics are also the building blocks for more high-level analysis such as play strategy inference and automatic statistic generation. In this paper, we propose a novel framework where given an American football play clip, we automatically identify the video frame in which the offensive team lines in formation (formation frame), the line of scrimmage for that play, and the type of player formation the offensive team takes on. The proposed framework achieves 95% accuracy in detecting the formation frame, 98% accuracy in detecting the line of scrimmage, and up to 67% accuracy in classifying the offensive team\\'s formation. To validate our framework, we compiled a large dataset comprising more than 800 play-clips of standard and high definition resolution from real-world football games. This dataset will be made publicly available for future comparison. © 2013 IEEE.

The Heritage Fallacy: Race, Loyalty, and the First Grambling-Southern Football Game

Science.gov (United States)

Aiello, Thomas

2010-01-01

On Armistice Day 1932, the Southern University Bushmen football team left Baton Rouge and traveled to Monroe, Louisiana to play the Tigers of Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute for the first time. Normal was far younger than Southern. It was a two-year junior college in the northeast cotton town of Grambling, and its football team was…

Injuries can be prevented in contact flag football!

Science.gov (United States)

Kaplan, Yonatan; Myklebust, Grethe; Nyska, Meir; Palmanovich, Ezequiel; Victor, J; Witvrouw, E

2016-06-01

This original prospective cohort study was conducted in an attempt to significantly reduce the incidence and the severity of injuries in an intervention cohort as compared to a two-season historical cohort, and to provide recommendations to the International Federation of Football (IFAF) pertaining to prevention measures to make the game safer. A total of 1,260 amateur male (mean age: 20.4 ± 3.9 years) and 244 female (mean age: 18.5 ± 1.7 years) players participated in the study. Four prevention measures were implemented: the no-pocket rule, self-fitting mouth guards, ankle braces (for those players with recurrent ankle sprains) and an injury treatment information brochure. All time-loss injuries sustained in game sessions were recorded by the off-the-field medical personnel and followed up by a more detailed phone injury surveillance questionnaire. There was a 54 % reduction in the total number of injuries and a significant reduction in the incidence rate and incidence proportion between the intervention cohorts as compared to the historical cohort (p football. Recommendations to the IFAF include strict enforcement of the no-pocket rule, the use of soft headgear, comfortable-fitting ankle braces and mouth guards and additionally, to change game rules concerning blocking. II.

The colour of a football outfit affects visibility and team success.

Science.gov (United States)

Olde Rikkert, Joris; Haes, Vincent De; Barsingerhorn, Annemiek D; Theelen, Thomas; Olde Rikkert, Marcel G M

2015-01-01

We investigated the impact of the colour of football outfits on localising football players and on the results of football matches. Two studies were conducted: an experimental study examining the effects of outfit colour on the assessment of the positions of computer-animated football players in a video set-up (study 1) and a retrospective study on professional football clubs' performances dependent on their outfit colours (study 2). The studies were conducted with 18 human volunteers aged 15-18 years (study 1) and league results from 10 professional European football teams over 17 years (1995-2013) (study 2). We analysed the number of correct assessments of the positions of virtual football players with different outfit colours (study 1) and analysed the relationship between match results and outfits' colours (study 2). Study 1 showed that the position of players wearing white outfits was better assessed in 5.2% of the trials compared to players wearing green outfits (P = 0.007). Study 2 showed that Manchester City conceded less goals against in away games in highly visible kits (r = 0.62; P = 0.024), while Newcastle United conceded less goals and won more points while playing in kits associated with low visibility (r = 0.63; P = 0.007; r = 0.50; P = 0.040, respectively). We conclude that the colour of football outfits affects evaluations of football players' positions on the field, with white tricots resulting in the best location assessment. The outfit colour may indirectly influence football match results, warranting more attention to the home and away shirts by team managers and football scientists.

The Minority Game : An Economics Perspective

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kets, W.

2007-01-01

This paper gives a critical account of the minority game literature. The minority game is a simple congestion game: players need to choose between two options, and those who have selected the option chosen by the minority win. The learning model proposed in this literature seems to differ markedly

Emerging data on the incidence of concussion in football practice at all levels of amateur play.

Science.gov (United States)

Guthrie, Robert M

2015-11-01

There has been increasing concern, particularly in the US, about potential long-term neurological deterioration syndromes seen in the US football players. Recurrent concussions are a potential area of concern. The authors of this paper have used data bases from three levels of amateur US football to identify the rate and risk of concussion injury in both football games and practice at the youth, high school, and college levels. This information is very important initial data around concussion rates at these levels.

New issues in attendance demand: the case of the English football league

OpenAIRE

D Forrest; R Simmons

2005-01-01

This paper uses an attendance demand model with panel data on over 4,000 games to examine economic problems of fixture congestion in English Football League schedules. We find that televised midweek Champions League matches involving English Premier League clubs have substantial adverse impacts on lower division Football League gate attendance. This suggests that affected clubs may have a case for compensation from the Premier League for loss of gate revenue from this source. Scheduling of ho...

Analysis of linear head accelerations from collegiate football impacts.

Science.gov (United States)

Brolinson, P Gunnar; Manoogian, Sarah; McNeely, David; Goforth, Mike; Greenwald, Richard; Duma, Stefan

2006-02-01

Sports-related concussions result in 300,000 brain injuries in the United States each year. We conducted a study utilizing an in-helmet system that measures and records linear head accelerations to analyze head impacts in collegiate football. The Head Impact Telemetry (HIT) System is an in-helmet system with six spring-mounted accelerometers and an antenna that transmits data via radio frequency to a sideline receiver and laptop computer system. A total of 11,604 head impacts were recorded from the Virginia Tech football team throughout the 2003 and 2004 football seasons during 22 games and 62 practices from a total of 52 players. Although the incidence of injury data are limited, this study presents an extremely large data set from human head impacts that provides valuable insight into the lower limits of head acceleration that cause mild traumatic brain injuries.

"Mended or ended?" Football injuries and the British and American medical press, 1870-1910.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, R J

2001-01-01

'Playing Hurt/Playing Tough', a dominant ideology in today's football (soccer, rugby, American 'gridiron'), is by no means new. Many books, monographs, and articles have examined the historical development of these games, but the attention given to them in the medical press during the late 1800s/early 1900s has been overlooked. The Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, and other turn-of-the-century medical publications regularly included accounts and descriptions of injuries and deaths. More telling were the many editorials in which physicians in both Britain and the United States expressed enthusiasm while also lamenting the games' physical and morale effects upon players, asking whether 'football' should be mended or ended.

Theoretical analysis and numerical simulation of Parrondo's paradox game in space

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xie Nenggang; Chen Yun; Ye Ye; Xu Gang; Wang Lingang; Wang Chao

2011-01-01

Highlights: → A multi-agent spatial Parrondo game model is designed. → Double actions between individual and its neighbors are discussed. → The weak and strong paradox conditions are established by theoretical analysis. → Research results demonstrate some new biological points. → Competition is an adaptive behavior on the population level too. - Abstract: A multi-agent spatial Parrondo game model is designed according to the cooperative Parrondo's paradox proposed by Toral. The model is composed of game A and game B. Game A is a zero-sum game between individuals, reflecting competitive interaction between an individual and its neighbors. The winning or losing probability of one individual in game B depends on its neighbors' winning or losing states, reflecting the dependence that individuals has on microhabitat and the overall constraints that the microhabitat has on individuals. By using the analytical approach based on discrete-time Markov chain, we analyze game A, game B and the random combination of game A+B, and obtain corresponding stationary distribution probability and mathematical expectations. We have established conditions of the weak and strong forms of the Parrondo effect, and compared the computer simulation results with the analytical results so as to verify their validity. The analytical results reflect that competition results in the ratchet effect of game B, which generates Parrondo's Paradox that the combination of the losing games can produce a winning result.

Just watching the game ain't enough: striatal fMRI reward responses to successes and failures in a video game during active and vicarious playing.

Science.gov (United States)

Kätsyri, Jari; Hari, Riitta; Ravaja, Niklas; Nummenmaa, Lauri

2013-01-01

Although the multimodal stimulation provided by modern audiovisual video games is pleasing by itself, the rewarding nature of video game playing depends critically also on the players' active engagement in the gameplay. The extent to which active engagement influences dopaminergic brain reward circuit responses remains unsettled. Here we show that striatal reward circuit responses elicited by successes (wins) and failures (losses) in a video game are stronger during active than vicarious gameplay. Eleven healthy males both played a competitive first-person tank shooter game (active playing) and watched a pre-recorded gameplay video (vicarious playing) while their hemodynamic brain activation was measured with 3-tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Wins and losses were paired with symmetrical monetary rewards and punishments during active and vicarious playing so that the external reward context remained identical during both conditions. Brain activation was stronger in the orbitomedial prefrontal cortex (omPFC) during winning than losing, both during active and vicarious playing. In contrast, both wins and losses suppressed activations in the midbrain and striatum during active playing; however, the striatal suppression, particularly in the anterior putamen, was more pronounced during loss than win events. Sensorimotor confounds related to joystick movements did not account for the results. Self-ratings indicated losing to be more unpleasant during active than vicarious playing. Our findings demonstrate striatum to be selectively sensitive to self-acquired rewards, in contrast to frontal components of the reward circuit that process both self-acquired and passively received rewards. We propose that the striatal responses to repeated acquisition of rewards that are contingent on game related successes contribute to the motivational pull of video-game playing.

Just watching the game ain’t enough: Striatal fMRI reward responses to successes and failures in a video game during active and vicarious playing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jari eKätsyri

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Although the multimodal stimulation provided by modern audiovisual video games is pleasing by itself, the rewarding nature of video game playing depends critically also on the players’ active engagement in the gameplay. The extent to which active engagement influences dopaminergic brain reward circuit responses remains unsettled. Here we show that striatal reward circuit responses elicited by successes (wins and failures (losses in a video game are stronger during active than vicarious gameplay. Eleven healthy males both played a competitive first-person tank shooter game (active playing and watched a pre-recorded gameplay video (vicarious playing while their hemodynamic brain activation was measured with 3-tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI. Wins and losses were paired with symmetrical monetary rewards and punishments during active and vicarious playing so that the external reward context remained identical during both conditions. Brain activation was stronger in the orbitomedial prefrontal cortex (omPFC during winning than losing, both during active and vicarious playing conditions. In contrast, both wins and losses suppressed activations in the midbrain and striatum during active playing; however, the striatal suppression, particularly in the anterior putamen, was more pronounced during loss than win events. Sensorimotor confounds related to joystick movements did not account for the results. Self-ratings indicated losing to be more unpleasant during active than vicarious playing. Our findings demonstrate striatum to be selectively sensitive to self-acquired rewards, in contrast to frontal components of the reward circuit that process both self-acquired and passively received rewards. We propose that the striatal responses to repeated acquisition of rewards that are contingent on game related successes contribute to the motivational pull of video-game playing.

Local Strategy Improvement for Parity Game Solving

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Oliver Friedmann

2010-06-01

Full Text Available The problem of solving a parity game is at the core of many problems in model checking, satisfiability checking and program synthesis. Some of the best algorithms for solving parity game are strategy improvement algorithms. These are global in nature since they require the entire parity game to be present at the beginning. This is a distinct disadvantage because in many applications one only needs to know which winning region a particular node belongs to, and a witnessing winning strategy may cover only a fractional part of the entire game graph. We present a local strategy improvement algorithm which explores the game graph on-the-fly whilst performing the improvement steps. We also compare it empirically with existing global strategy improvement algorithms and the currently only other local algorithm for solving parity games. It turns out that local strategy improvement can outperform these others by several orders of magnitude.

Mitigation win-win

Science.gov (United States)

Moran, Dominic; Lucas, Amanda; Barnes, Andrew

2013-07-01

Win-win messages regarding climate change mitigation policies in agriculture tend to oversimplify farmer motivation. Contributions from psychology, cultural evolution and behavioural economics should help to design more effective policy.

Development and Validation of Kid Tsu Chu Futbol Games for Character Development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sulistiyono

2017-08-01

Full Text Available This research aims to develop and validation games to develop character in the students Football School under 12 years age group. This study was conducted using R and D. This study produced a product in the form of games related to the process of training, but can be used to develop the student’s character. Games that resulted from this research given the name “Tsu Chu Kid Futbol Games For Character Development”. Games have the flexible nature can be placed at the warm-up, core, and cooling at a football training process. The game must have at least two training purposes with the provisions of the first objective should be able to develop the character, and the second objective can develop one component among the components of the physical, technical, or tactics.

Comprehensive Coach Education Reduces Head Impact Exposure in American Youth Football

Science.gov (United States)

Kerr, Zachary Y.; Yeargin, Susan W.; Valovich McLeod, Tamara C.; Mensch, James; Hayden, Ross; Dompier, Thomas P.

2015-01-01

Background: Despite little evidence that defines a threshold of head impact exposure or that participation in youth sports leads to long-term cognitive impairments, it is prudent to identify methods of reducing the frequency of head impacts. Purpose: To compare the mean number of head impacts between youth football players in practice and games between leagues that implemented the Heads Up Football (HUF) educational program and those that did not (NHUF). Study Design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2. Methods: During the 2014 season, head impact exposure was measured using xPatch accelerometers from 70 youth football players aged 8 to 15 years from 5 leagues. Data were collected during both games and practices. The NHUF group comprised 32 players from 8 teams within 3 leagues. The HUF group comprised 38 players from 7 teams within 2 leagues. Independent-sample t tests evaluated differences in head impact exposure across groups (ie, HUF and NHUF). Results: Players (mean ± SD: age, 11.7 ± 1.4 years; height, 152.2 ± 10.5 cm; weight, 51.6 ± 9.6 kg) experienced a total of 7478 impacts over 10g, of which 4250 (56.8%) and 3228 (43.2%) occurred in practices and games, respectively. The majority of impacts occurred within the NHUF group (62.0%), followed by the HUF group (38.0%). With a 10g impact threshold, the mean number of impacts during practice per individual event was lower in the HUF group (mean ± SD, 5.6 ± 2.9) than in the NHUF group (mean ± SD, 8.9 ± 3.1; difference, 3.4; 95% CI, 2.9-3.9). This difference was attenuated when the threshold was changed to 20g but remained significant (difference, 1.0; 95% CI, 0.7-1.3). At both the 10g and 20g impact thresholds, no differences were found in games. Conclusion: Players who participated in HUF leagues accumulated fewer head impacts per practice at both the 10g and 20g thresholds. Youth football leagues should consider the HUF educational program, while exploring additional interventions, to help reduce the

Femoroacetabular Impingement in Professional Football Players: Return to Play and Predictors of Career Length After Hip Arthroscopy.

Science.gov (United States)

Menge, Travis J; Bhatia, Sanjeev; McNamara, Shannen C; Briggs, Karen K; Philippon, Marc J

2017-07-01

Previous studies have shown hip arthroscopy to be a highly effective treatment for symptomatic femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) in a wide range of athletes; however, the rate of return to play and length of career after hip arthroscopy in professional football players are unknown. To determine how many athletes returned to professional football and the number of seasons they played after surgery. Case series; Level of evidence, 4. Fifty-one professional football players (60 hips) underwent hip arthroscopy for FAI between 2000 and 2014 by a single surgeon. Return to play was defined as competing in a preseason or regular season professional football game after surgery. Data were retrospectively obtained for each player from NFL.com , ESPN.com , individual team websites, and/or CFL.ca . We found that 87% (52/60) of the arthroscopic procedures allowed professional football players to return to play in a preseason or regular season game. Athletes who returned played an average of 38 games during 3.2 seasons after arthroscopy, with an average total career length of 7.4 seasons. Ninety-two percent (48/52) of players who returned had a minimum total career length of 3 years. When participants were analyzed by position, linemen were less likely to return after hip arthroscopy compared with other players (odds ratio 5.6; 95% CI, 1.1-35; P = .04). All quarterbacks and tight ends returned to play after surgery. No significant difference in return to play rate was found between athletes who underwent microfracture and those who did not (25% vs 38%, P = .698). Hip arthroscopy for treatment of FAI and associated pathologic abnormalities in professional football players resulted in a high rate of return to play. The study's findings demonstrate that 87% of the arthroscopic procedures allowed professional football players to return to play, linemen were less likely to return compared with other positions, and the presence of microfracture did not significantly affect the return

Training habits and injuries of masters' level football players: a preliminary report.

Science.gov (United States)

Newsham-West, R; Button, C; Milburn, P D; Mündermann, A; Sole, G; Schneiders, A G; Sullivan, S J

2009-05-01

To profile training habits and injuries in football players participating in a national Masters tournament. A cross-sectional retrospective study design was used to survey male football players attending the 2008 New Zealand Masters Games. Information regarding player demographics, football injuries, football related training, and risk factors for injury were collected. 199 Players were recruited, with a median age of 44 yrs (range 35-73) and a median football playing history of 15 yrs (range 0-66). Irrespective of age, 112 (84%) players included a warm-up and 104 (78%) included a stretching regime in their regular training programme. In the 12 months prior to the tournament, 128 football related injuries were reported by 93 players (64 injuries/100 players or 46 injured players/100 players). The most frequently injured region was the lower limb; specifically the lower leg (n=23), ankle (n=18), hamstring (n=17), knee (n=15), and Achilles tendon (n=15). This study provides a preliminary insight into the training habits and injury profiles of Masters football players. Despite all players including some form of injury prevention strategy in their training, a significant number of players experienced an injury in the 12 months prior to the tournament.

Football in inter-war Northern Ireland: Ballymena Football and Athletic Club Limited - religious and political exclusivity or civic inclusivity?

Science.gov (United States)

Laverty, David; Garnham, Neal

2010-01-01

Historians have almost universally seen association football in the north of Ireland as a divisive influence. The impacts of sectarian and political tensions on the game have been stressed, alongside the extent to which this sport supposedly feeds into existing divisions. Much of the work carried out has concentrated on the last four decades, though even studies outside this period of widespread civil disorder have highlighted these problems. This paper uses the surviving records of the Ballymena Football and Athletic Club, the local press, census returns and other records to consider aspects of one particular Northern Irish club in the 1920s and 1930s. This short consideration of the players, supporters and shareholders suggests that at least in this case football was successful in bringing together and developing cooperation between men of widely differing political and religious views. While the club was a not a financial success, it was a social and sporting one. The evidence available suggests there was little exhibition of sectarian tension at any level.

Robust estimates of the impact of broadcasting on match attendance in football

OpenAIRE

B Buraimo; D Forrest; R Simmons

2006-01-01

The paper employs data from 2,884 matches, of which 158 were televised, in the second tier of English football (currently known as The Football League Championship). It builds a model of the determinants of attendance that is designed to yield estimates of the proportionate changes in the size of crowds resulting from games being shown on either free-to-air or subscription based channels. The model has two innovatory features. First, it controls for the market size of home and away teams very...

Injury rates of the German Women’s American Football National Team from 2009 to 2011

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marco Ezechieli

2012-09-01

Full Text Available American football is one of the leading causes of athletic-related injuries. Injury rates in female elite players are mostly unknown. We hypothesized that the injury rates of female was comparable to those in men’s football during practice, as well as games. From 2009 to 2011, injury data were collected from the German female national team during training camps, World Championship 2010 and International friendly matches. The injury was categorized by location on the body and recorded as fracture/dislocation, strain, concussion, contusion or other injury. Injury rates were determined based on the exposure of an athlete to a game or practice event. The injury rate was calculated as the ratio of injuries per 1000 athlete exposures (AE. The rate of injury was significantly higher during games (58.8/1000 AE than practices [16.3/1000 AE, (P<0.01]. Furthermore, the injury rate in the tryouts was significantly higher (24.05/1000 AE compared to other training sessions with the national team (11.24/1000 AE. Our findings show that the injury rates in female elite American football players can be compared to those described for male players. Higher injury rates during matches than in training should also be underlined.

Modifying Flag Football for Gender Equitable Engagement in Secondary Schools

Science.gov (United States)

Kahan, David

2008-01-01

Flag or touch football is a popular activity unit in American secondary physical education curricula. However, unlike other sports its stigmatization as a masculine-typed activity and frequent inequitable distribution of game play opportunities at the skill positions (e.g., receiver, quarterback) results in the marginalization of female…

[Online gaming. Potential risk and prevention programs].

Science.gov (United States)

Malischnig, Doris

2014-12-01

Online gaming is more and more common and increasingly accessible. Due to a lack of social control the participation could be a potential risk for certain customers. The given article focuses on prevention measures that are provided by the Austrian online gaming operator, the Austrian Lotteries, provider of the online gaming platform win2day, in the light of the specifics of Internet gaming in order to avoid problems with gaming.

Noisy quantum game

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen Jingling; Kwek, L.C.; Oh, C.H.

2002-01-01

In a recent paper [D. A. Meyer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 1052 (1999)], it has been shown that a classical zero-sum strategic game can become a winning quantum game for the player with a quantum device. Nevertheless, it is well known that quantum systems easily decohere in noisy environments. In this paper, we show that if the handicapped player with classical means can delay his action for a sufficiently long time, the quantum version reverts to the classical zero-sum game under decoherence

Winning Concurrent Reachability Games Requires Doubly-Exponential Patience

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Kristoffer Arnsfelt; Koucký, Michal; Miltersen, Peter Bro

2009-01-01

We exhibit a deterministic concurrent reachability game PURGATORYn with n non-terminal positions and a binary choice for both players in every position so that any positional strategy for Player 1 achieving the value of the game within given isin ... that are less than (isin2/(1 - isin))2n-2 . Also, even to achieve the value within say 1 - 2-n/2, doubly exponentially small behavior probabilities in the number of positions must be used. This behavior is close to worst case: We show that for any such game and 0 ... with all non-zero behavior probabilities being 20(n) at least isin2O(n). As a corollary to our results, we conclude that any (deterministic or nondeterministic) algorithm that given a concurrent reachability game explicitly manipulates isin-optimal strategies for Player 1 represented in several standard...

Deterministic Graphical Games Revisited

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersson, Klas Olof Daniel; Hansen, Kristoffer Arnsfelt; Miltersen, Peter Bro

2012-01-01

Starting from Zermelo’s classical formal treatment of chess, we trace through history the analysis of two-player win/lose/draw games with perfect information and potentially infinite play. Such chess-like games have appeared in many different research communities, and methods for solving them......, such as retrograde analysis, have been rediscovered independently. We then revisit Washburn’s deterministic graphical games (DGGs), a natural generalization of chess-like games to arbitrary zero-sum payoffs. We study the complexity of solving DGGs and obtain an almost-linear time comparison-based algorithm...

Systematic review of team Nigeria's performance in olympic games ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Systematic review of team Nigeria's performance in olympic games: Causes, concerns, and remediation strategies. ... Participation and winning medals in Olympic Games have become a veritable avenue ... AJOL African Journals Online.

Theoretical analysis and numerical simulation of Parrondo's paradox game in space

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Xie Nenggang, E-mail: xienenggang@yahoo.com.cn [School of Mechanical Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Maanshan, Anhui Province 243002 (China); Chen Yun; Ye Ye; Xu Gang; Wang Lingang; Wang Chao [School of Mechanical Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Maanshan, Anhui Province 243002 (China)

2011-06-15

Highlights: > A multi-agent spatial Parrondo game model is designed. > Double actions between individual and its neighbors are discussed. > The weak and strong paradox conditions are established by theoretical analysis. > Research results demonstrate some new biological points. > Competition is an adaptive behavior on the population level too. - Abstract: A multi-agent spatial Parrondo game model is designed according to the cooperative Parrondo's paradox proposed by Toral. The model is composed of game A and game B. Game A is a zero-sum game between individuals, reflecting competitive interaction between an individual and its neighbors. The winning or losing probability of one individual in game B depends on its neighbors' winning or losing states, reflecting the dependence that individuals has on microhabitat and the overall constraints that the microhabitat has on individuals. By using the analytical approach based on discrete-time Markov chain, we analyze game A, game B and the random combination of game A+B, and obtain corresponding stationary distribution probability and mathematical expectations. We have established conditions of the weak and strong forms of the Parrondo effect, and compared the computer simulation results with the analytical results so as to verify their validity. The analytical results reflect that competition results in the ratchet effect of game B, which generates Parrondo's Paradox that the combination of the losing games can produce a winning result.

Consequences of repeated blood-brain barrier disruption in football players.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicola Marchi

Full Text Available The acknowledgement of risks for traumatic brain injury in American football players has prompted studies for sideline concussion diagnosis and testing for neurological deficits. While concussions are recognized etiological factors for a spectrum of neurological sequelae, the consequences of sub-concussive events are unclear. We tested the hypothesis that blood-brain barrier disruption (BBBD and the accompanying surge of the astrocytic protein S100B in blood may cause an immune response associated with production of auto-antibodies. We also wished to determine whether these events result in disrupted white matter on diffusion tensor imaging (DT scans. Players from three college football teams were enrolled (total of 67 volunteers. None of the players experienced a concussion. Blood samples were collected before and after games (n = 57; the number of head hits in all players was monitored by movie review and post-game interviews. S100B serum levels and auto-antibodies against S100B were measured and correlated by direct and reverse immunoassays (n = 15 players; 5 games. A subset of players underwent DTI scans pre- and post-season and after a 6-month interval (n = 10. Cognitive and functional assessments were also performed. After a game, transient BBB damage measured by serum S100B was detected only in players experiencing the greatest number of sub-concussive head hits. Elevated levels of auto-antibodies against S100B were elevated only after repeated sub-concussive events characterized by BBBD. Serum levels of S100B auto-antibodies also predicted persistence of MRI-DTI abnormalities which in turn correlated with cognitive changes. Even in the absence of concussion, football players may experience repeated BBBD and serum surges of the potential auto-antigen S100B. The correlation of serum S100B, auto-antibodies and DTI changes support a link between repeated BBBD and future risk for cognitive changes.

Consequences of Repeated Blood-Brain Barrier Disruption in Football Players

Science.gov (United States)

Puvenna, Vikram; Janigro, Mattia; Ghosh, Chaitali; Zhong, Jianhui; Zhu, Tong; Blackman, Eric; Stewart, Desiree; Ellis, Jasmina; Butler, Robert; Janigro, Damir

2013-01-01

The acknowledgement of risks for traumatic brain injury in American football players has prompted studies for sideline concussion diagnosis and testing for neurological deficits. While concussions are recognized etiological factors for a spectrum of neurological sequelae, the consequences of sub-concussive events are unclear. We tested the hypothesis that blood-brain barrier disruption (BBBD) and the accompanying surge of the astrocytic protein S100B in blood may cause an immune response associated with production of auto-antibodies. We also wished to determine whether these events result in disrupted white matter on diffusion tensor imaging (DT) scans. Players from three college football teams were enrolled (total of 67 volunteers). None of the players experienced a concussion. Blood samples were collected before and after games (n = 57); the number of head hits in all players was monitored by movie review and post-game interviews. S100B serum levels and auto-antibodies against S100B were measured and correlated by direct and reverse immunoassays (n = 15 players; 5 games). A subset of players underwent DTI scans pre- and post-season and after a 6-month interval (n = 10). Cognitive and functional assessments were also performed. After a game, transient BBB damage measured by serum S100B was detected only in players experiencing the greatest number of sub-concussive head hits. Elevated levels of auto-antibodies against S100B were elevated only after repeated sub-concussive events characterized by BBBD. Serum levels of S100B auto-antibodies also predicted persistence of MRI-DTI abnormalities which in turn correlated with cognitive changes. Even in the absence of concussion, football players may experience repeated BBBD and serum surges of the potential auto-antigen S100B. The correlation of serum S100B, auto-antibodies and DTI changes support a link between repeated BBBD and future risk for cognitive changes. PMID:23483891

The first concussion crisis: head injury and evidence in early American football.

Science.gov (United States)

Harrison, Emily A

2014-05-01

In the early 21st century, sports concussion has become a prominent public health problem, popularly labeled "The Concussion Crisis." Football-related concussion contributes much of the epidemiological burden and inspires much of the public awareness. Though often cast as a recent phenomenon, the crisis in fact began more than a century ago, as concussions were identified among footballers in the game's first decades. This early concussion crisis subsided-allowing the problem to proliferate-because work was done by football's supporters to reshape public acceptance of risk. They appealed to an American culture that permitted violence, shifted attention to reforms addressing more visible injuries, and legitimized football within morally reputable institutions. Meanwhile, changing demands on the medical profession made practitioners reluctant to take a definitive stance. Drawing on scientific journals, public newspapers, and personal letters of players and coaches, this history of the early crisis raises critical questions about solutions being negotiated at present.

Globalisation, Tradition And Cultural Identity In Spanish Football

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jim O'Brien

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This article offers some reflections and observations on the complex relationship between the forces of Globalisation and Spanish football, posing the key question as to whether the impact of Globalisation has been a quintessentially corrosive dynamic, eroding the quasi - sacrosanct traditions of the Spanish game to fashion a distinctive post- modern pastiche of elitism and inequality based on an orgy of consumption and commodity.

Extended non-local games and monogamy-of-entanglement games.

Science.gov (United States)

Johnston, Nathaniel; Mittal, Rajat; Russo, Vincent; Watrous, John

2016-05-01

We study a generalization of non-local games-which we call extended non-local games -in which the players, Alice and Bob, initially share a tripartite quantum state with the referee. In such games, the winning conditions for Alice and Bob may depend on the outcomes of measurements made by the referee, on its part of the shared quantum state, in addition to Alice and Bob's answers to randomly selected questions. Our study of this class of games was inspired by the monogamy-of-entanglement games introduced by Tomamichel, Fehr, Kaniewski and Wehner, which they also generalize. We prove that a natural extension of the Navascués-Pironio-Acín hierarchy of semidefinite programmes converges to the optimal commuting measurement value of extended non-local games, and we prove two extensions of results of Tomamichel et al.  concerning monogamy-of-entanglement games.

Football refereeing: Identifying innovative methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Reza MohammadKazemi

2014-08-01

Full Text Available The aim of the present study is to identify the potentials innovation in football industry. Data were collected from 10 national and international referees, assistant referees and referees’ supervisors in Iran. In this study, technological innovations are identified that assist better refereeing performances. The analysis revealed a significant relationship between using new technologies and referees ‘performance. The results indicate that elite referees, assistant referees and supervisors agreed to use new technological innovations during the game. According to their comments, this kind of technology causes the referees’ performance development.

Impact of Gaming in Singapore

OpenAIRE

Wong, Siok Hwee

2011-01-01

The gaming industry in Asia has developed over the years to become major business operations today. The term, ‘gaming industry’ refers to legalised gambling, an activity that is defined as taking the risk of losing something of value, usually monetary, in the hope of winning additional value if the outcome of a game which depends on chance is in one’s favour. To avoid the ‘negative connotations’ of the word ‘gambling’, legalised gambling is commonly referred to as the gaming indust...

Prevalence and Impact of Glenoid Augmentation in American Football Athletes Participating in the National Football League Scouting Combine

Science.gov (United States)

Knapik, Derrick M.; Gillespie, Robert J.; Salata, Michael J.; Voos, James E.

2017-01-01

Background: Bony augmentation of the anterior glenoid is used in athletes with recurrent shoulder instability and bone loss; however, the prevalence and impact of repair in elite American football athletes are unknown. Purpose: To evaluate the prevalence and impact of glenoid augmentation in athletes invited to the National Football League (NFL) Scouting Combine from 2012 to 2015. Study Design: Case series; Level of evidence, 4. Methods: A total of 1311 athletes invited to the NFL Combine from 2012 to 2015 were evaluated for history of either Bristow or Latarjet surgery for recurrent anterior shoulder instability. Athlete demographics, surgical history, imaging, and physical examination results were recorded using the NFL Combine database. Prospective participation data with regard to draft status, games played, games started, and status after the athletes’ first season in the NFL were gathered using publicly available databases. Results: Surgical repair was performed on 10 shoulders in 10 athletes (0.76%), with the highest prevalence in defensive backs (30%; n = 3). Deficits in shoulder motion were exhibited in 70% (n = 7) of athletes, while 40% (n = 4) had evidence of mild glenohumeral arthritis and 80% demonstrated imaging findings consistent with a prior instability episode (8 labral tears, 2 Hill-Sachs lesions). Prospectively, 40% (n = 4) of athletes were drafted into the NFL. In the first season after the combine, athletes with a history of glenoid augmentation were not found to be at significant risk for diminished participation with regard to games played or started when compared with athletes with no history of glenoid augmentation or athletes undergoing isolated shoulder soft tissue repair. After the conclusion of the first NFL season, 60% (n = 6 athletes) were on an active NFL roster. Conclusion: Despite being drafted at a lower rate than their peers, there were no significant limitations in NFL participation for athletes with a history of glenoid

Prevalence and Impact of Glenoid Augmentation in American Football Athletes Participating in the National Football League Scouting Combine.

Science.gov (United States)

Knapik, Derrick M; Gillespie, Robert J; Salata, Michael J; Voos, James E

2017-08-01

Bony augmentation of the anterior glenoid is used in athletes with recurrent shoulder instability and bone loss; however, the prevalence and impact of repair in elite American football athletes are unknown. To evaluate the prevalence and impact of glenoid augmentation in athletes invited to the National Football League (NFL) Scouting Combine from 2012 to 2015. Case series; Level of evidence, 4. A total of 1311 athletes invited to the NFL Combine from 2012 to 2015 were evaluated for history of either Bristow or Latarjet surgery for recurrent anterior shoulder instability. Athlete demographics, surgical history, imaging, and physical examination results were recorded using the NFL Combine database. Prospective participation data with regard to draft status, games played, games started, and status after the athletes' first season in the NFL were gathered using publicly available databases. Surgical repair was performed on 10 shoulders in 10 athletes (0.76%), with the highest prevalence in defensive backs (30%; n = 3). Deficits in shoulder motion were exhibited in 70% (n = 7) of athletes, while 40% (n = 4) had evidence of mild glenohumeral arthritis and 80% demonstrated imaging findings consistent with a prior instability episode (8 labral tears, 2 Hill-Sachs lesions). Prospectively, 40% (n = 4) of athletes were drafted into the NFL. In the first season after the combine, athletes with a history of glenoid augmentation were not found to be at significant risk for diminished participation with regard to games played or started when compared with athletes with no history of glenoid augmentation or athletes undergoing isolated shoulder soft tissue repair. After the conclusion of the first NFL season, 60% (n = 6 athletes) were on an active NFL roster. Despite being drafted at a lower rate than their peers, there were no significant limitations in NFL participation for athletes with a history of glenoid augmentation when compared with athletes without a history of shoulder

Analisis Semiotika Komunikasi Virtual Player Game Dota 2 dalam Menerapkan Strategi Psywar

OpenAIRE

Andreyano, Dimas; ", Suyanto

2017-01-01

DotA 2 game is one of the online game played by millions of people around the world. That vast scale led to the birth of huge online community so that the only way for them to communicate with each other is through virtual communication. Dota 2 players assume that winning the game is their priority so that they will do various way to be win, one of those is by applying psywar strategy that means war by words through the chat and interaction through the web. This study aimed to fiind out the m...

Action Investment Energy Games

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Kim Guldstrand; Laursen, Simon; Srba, Jiri

2012-01-01

We introduce the formalism of action investment energy games where we study the trade-off between investments limited by given budgets and resource constrained (energy) behavior of the underlying system. More specifically, we consider energy games extended with costs of enabling actions and fixed...... budgets for each player. We ask the question whether for any Player 2 investment there exists a Player 1 investment such that Player 1 wins the resulting energy game. We study the action investment energy game for energy intervals with both upper and lower bounds, and with a lower bound only, and give...

Characterization of the intensity of effort of blind athletes from the Brazilian Football 5-A-Side national team

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Ramon Pereira Souza

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Football 5-a-side is a sport played by blind athletes that takes part in the Paralympic Games since 2004. The Brazilian national team is currently considered the best team in the world in this sport. Objective: To analyze the variations of intensity of effort (average per position and group average made by blind athletes of the Brazilian football 5-a-side national team during six matches simulations. Methods: The sample on this research is the intentional type, made with eight blind male players,  ages ranging from 21 to 30 years old (23.8 ± 3.3, all of them part of the Brazilian Football 5-a-side National team, which played in the 2012 Paralympics Games in England. In was evaluated the VO2máx and the heart rate during six simulations of official matches. Results: The intensity of effort of the blind athletes of the Brazilian Football 5-a-side National Team is intermittent and remains 52.5 % of the total time of a match (50 minutes with an intensity of effort between the zone 2 (between threshold ventilation and respiratory compensation point and the zone 3 (above the respiratory compensation point averaging 89.8 % of the HR max. Conclusion: The intensity of effort is greater than the Football of 11 and, that in the Futsal players.

A field-based community assessment of intoxication levels across college football weekends: does it matter who's playing?

Science.gov (United States)

Barry, Adam E; Howell, Steve; Bopp, Trevor; Stellefson, Michael; Chaney, Elizabeth; Piazza-Gardner, Anna; Payne-Purvis, Caroline

2014-12-01

While alcohol consumption has been consistently linked to college football games in the United States, this literature lacks (a) field-based event-level analyses; (b) assessments of the context of drinking, such as days leading to an event, that occurs in conjunction with a contest; (c) investigations of non-student drinking; and (d) objective assessments of opponent rating. Therefore, the present study: (1) examines the extent to which breath alcohol concentrations (BrAC) among restaurant and bar district patrons differ for low- and high-profile games and (2) explores the relationship between an objective rating of a team's opponent and BrAC levels. Data were collected throughout the fall 2011 football season via six anonymous field studies in a bar district within a southeastern college community. During low-profile game weekends, respondents recorded significantly lower BrAC levels than those during high-profile game weekends. Additionally, there was a positive correlation between opponent rating and BrAC levels, such that mean BrAC readings were highest prior to the game featuring the highest rated opponent. Overall, participants exhibited significantly higher BrACs when a higher-rated opponent was playing that weekend. When resources (money, manpower) are limited, community-based prevention and enforcement efforts should occur during the weekends surrounding higher-profile games.

The Study of Fans’ Brand Loyalty in Iranian Professional Football League

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vajihe Javani

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The study aims to examine winning brands influence on fans’ brand loyalty in Iranian professional football league. A ten-minute pen and paper questionnaire was distributed to fans of five superior teams of Iranian professional football league in 2009-2010 seasons. Team’s association questionnaire developed by Gladden and Funk (2001 was used for data collection. Reliability of the questionnaire was estimated by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. A structural equation model (SEM test with maximum likelihood estimation was performed to test the relationships among the research variables using 912 participants. The findings showed three dimensions of brand associations influenced on fan’s brand loyalty of which the attitude was the most important. Benefits and attributes were placed in the second and third rank respectively. In addition, the obtained model of this research highlighted strong interactional effects between the three mentioned dimensions of brand associations.

WATER POLO GAME-RELATED STATISTICS IN WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: DIFFERENCES AND DISCRIMINATORY POWER

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yolanda Escalante

2012-09-01

Full Text Available The aims of this study were (i to compare women's water polo game-related statistics by match outcome (winning and losing teams and phase (preliminary, classificatory, and semi-final/bronze medal/gold medal, and (ii identify characteristics that discriminate performances for each phase. The game-related statistics of the 124 women's matches played in five International Championships (World and European Championships were analyzed. Differences between winning and losing teams in each phase were determined using the chi-squared. A discriminant analysis was then performed according to context in each of the three phases. It was found that the game-related statistics differentiate the winning from the losing teams in each phase of an international championship. The differentiating variables were both offensive (centre goals, power-play goals, counterattack goal, assists, offensive fouls, steals, blocked shots, and won sprints and defensive (goalkeeper-blocked shots, goalkeeper-blocked inferiority shots, and goalkeeper-blocked 5-m shots. The discriminant analysis showed the game-related statistics to discriminate performance in all phases: preliminary, classificatory, and final phases (92%, 90%, and 83%, respectively. Two variables were discriminatory by match outcome (winning or losing teams in all three phases: goals and goalkeeper-blocked shots

See you at the match: Motivation for sport consumption and intrinsic psychological reward of premier football league spectators in South Africa

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Frederick W. Stander

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Orientation: Local football contributes significantly to the social- and economic welfare of South Africa through its spectators. Understanding the motives and experiences of football spectators could provide opportunities for capitalising on football as revenue stream feeding the South African economy. Research purpose: To investigate how motives for sport consumption predict intrinsic psychological reward of South African premier league football spectators. Motivation for the study: Sport - particularly football - is an untapped resource for stimulating economic development and growth through its consumers. Spectators, who often experience their investment in the sport as deeply rewarding and meaningful, should participate more frequently in purchasing products or services associated with the sport. Through understanding the motives for sport consumption of South African premier league football spectators and the impact of these motives on intrinsic psychological reward experiences, football clubs are able to provide a targeted experience or service to spectators in order to further stimulate economic growth. Research design, approach and method: A census sample of 806 football spectators attending various matches at a football stadium in Soweto was drawn. A cross-sectional research design was implemented. This research was exploratory and descriptive. Structural equation modelling was implemented to assess the factor structures of the constructs, to confirm composite reliability of the measures and to assess the structural paths between the variables. Main findings: A predictive model for intrinsic psychological rewards (life satisfaction and meaning through the motivation for sport consumption (individual – and game related factors was confirmed. It was further established that motivation for sport consumption is significantly positively a related to and b associated with the experience of intrinsic psychological reward by South African

Game Indicators Determining Sports Performance in the NBA.

Science.gov (United States)

Mikołajec, Kazimierz; Maszczyk, Adam; Zając, Tomasz

2013-01-01

The main goal of the present study was to identify basketball game performance indicators which best determine sports level in the National Basketball Association (NBA) league. The research material consisted of all NBA game statistics at the turn of eight seasons (2003-11) and included 52 performance variables. Through detailed analysis the variables with high influence on game effectiveness were selected for final procedures. It has been proven that a limited number of factors, mostly offensive, determines sports performance in the NBA. The most critical indicators are: Win%, Offensive EFF, 3rd Quarter PPG, Win% CG, Avg Fauls and Avg Steals. In practical applications these results connected with top teams and elite players may help coaches to design better training programs.

Ten Do It Better, Do They?: An Empirical Analysis of an Old Football Myth

OpenAIRE

Marco Caliendo; Dubravko Radic

2006-01-01

In this paper we investigate how the expulsion of a player influences the out-come of a football match. Common sense implies a negative impact for the affected team. However, an old football myth suggests that such an expulsion might also be beneficial since it increases the team spirit as well as the efforts of the affected team. We make use of a unique dataset containing all games played in a World Cup Championship between 1930 and 2002 and follow a twofold econometric strategy: We start wi...

Solving Stochastic Büchi Games on Infinite Arenas with a Finite Attractor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nathalie Bertrand

2013-06-01

Full Text Available We consider games played on an infinite probabilistic arena where the first player aims at satisfying generalized Büchi objectives almost surely, i.e., with probability one. We provide a fixpoint characterization of the winning sets and associated winning strategies in the case where the arena satisfies the finite-attractor property. From this we directly deduce the decidability of these games on probabilistic lossy channel systems.

Effect of weather on football attendances

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cairns, J A

1984-01-01

On the premise that weather should have an effect on spectator attendance at sports events in outdoor settings (a topic which has received surprisingly little formalized study), the author examined the record of home attendances for three football teams in Scotland. In general, it was found that the greater the rainfall on the day of the match the lower the attendance. Dividing spectators into different groups, it was further found that an additional hour of sunshine was associated 162 more adults attending Aberdeen matches, while high temperatures appeared to increase juvenile attendance (by 57 for ever 1 deg. C. rise in temperature). Weather disruption of football games is attended by a number of costs, both direct and indirect. Quantifying the impact of weather can shed substantial light on the problem of scheduling for the season. For example, since certain periods are, on average, wetter than others, rescheduling to drier periods might encourage greater attendance.

Effect of Exposure Type and Timing of Injuries in Division I College Football: A 4-year Single Program Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Krill, Michael K; Borchers, James R; Hoffman, Joshua T; Tatarski, Rachel L; Hewett, Timothy E

2017-02-01

Football players compete with a high risk of injury due to the sport. With the recent efforts to improve safety, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) established new terminology to clearly define exposure types and reduce the number of high contact exposures. To compare football injury rates (IR) with a focus on game versus practice, time in season of injury, mechanism of injury and utilizing recent exposure types defined by the NCAA (live contact, full-pads and non-contact). Licensed medical professionals monitored a college football program regular season from 2012-2015. Each injury was classified by timing of the injury, mechanism of injury, and whether it occurred in game or practice. Player attendance and type of exposure (non-contact, full-pad or live contact, which involves live tackling to the ground and/or full-speed blocking and can occur in full-pad or half-pad ('shell') equipment) was documented. IR were calculated per 1000 athlete-exposures (AE). Mid-exact P tests compared rates between variables. The game IR was over three times as high as the practice IR (p football season occurred in the pre-season at 5.769/1000 AE. Overall IR observed in this cohort were lower than prior studies published before recent NCAA rule changes and guideline implementation to improve athlete safety. Athletes in this cohort were at significantly increased risk of injury from live contact exposures.

Football and family violence: Learning from the experience of Great Britain

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zalcmane K.

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of the article is to analyse the methodological issues of the study of criminologist Dr. Stuart Kirby (Lancaster University on the link between the football game and domestic violence committed by football fans. The mentioned above study at the moment is one of a kind in Europe. The author assumes, the similar research should be held in Latvia and any other European country as well, as understanding the primary reason of a crime can lead to the most appropriate intervention to reduce or remove it. For that reason, the analysis of the prospective advantages and disadvantages of the Dr. Kirby research are presented in this article.

The Drinking Game

Science.gov (United States)

Poe, Marshall

2010-01-01

Americans have been wrestling with college drinking for so long that they've forgotten there was a time when they didn't. Prior to World War II there were a number of "crises" on American campuses--loutish behavior at football games, the introduction of the research-heavy "German Method," the corruption of coeds--but excessive college drinking was…

Prevalence of Surgical Repair for Athletic Pubalgia and Impact on Performance in Football Athletes Participating in the National Football League Combine.

Science.gov (United States)

Knapik, Derrick M; Gebhart, Jeremy J; Nho, Shane J; Tanenbaum, Joseph E; Voos, James E; Salata, Michael J

2017-05-01

To examine the prevalence and impact of athletic pubalgia (AP) surgery in elite American football athletes participating in the National Football League (NFL) Combine. Results from 1,311 athletes participating in the Combine from 2012 to 2015 were evaluated. Athletes with a history of AP repair were identified using the NFL Combine Database. Athlete history and available imaging was reviewed. NFL performance based on draft status, games played, games started, and current status in the NFL was gathered using publicly available databases. Statistical analysis was performed to detect for significant associations between athlete history and NFL performance in the presence of AP repair and pelvic pathology on postsurgical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). AP repair was identified in 4.2% (n = 55) of athletes. MRI was performed in 35% (n = 19 of 55) with AP repair, of which 53% (n = 10 of 19) had positive pathology. Athletes with repair were not at risk of playing (P = .87) or starting (P = .45) fewer regular season games, going undrafted (P = .27), or not being on an active NFL roster (P = .51). Compared with athletes with negative imaging findings, positive pathology on MRI did not have a significant impact on games played (P = .74), games started (P = .48), draft status (P = .26), or being on an active roster (P = .74). Offensive linemen (P = .005) and athletes with a history of repair within 1 year of the Combine (P = .03) had a significantly higher risk of possessing positive pathology on MRI. Athletes with a history of successful AP surgery invited to the NFL Combine and those with persistent pathology on MRI are not at increased risk for diminished performance in the NFL. Offensive linemen and athletes less than 1 year out from surgery have a higher risk for positive MRI findings at the pubic symphysis. Level IV, prognostic study-case series. Copyright © 2017 Arthroscopy Association of North America. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Twenty years later: The war did (not begin at Maksimir an anthropological analysis of the media narratives about a never ended football game

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Đorđević Ivan

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this work is an analysis of the media narratives about the never ended football match between Dynamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade on May 13 1990. The article focuses on the media coverage twenty years after the incident in the context of the game's acquired mythic status, symbolically marking the beginning of the war in former Yugoslavia. The object of the analysis are Serbian and Croatian media with the aim of revealing the strategies of representing this event in the period of the normalization of the relations in the region. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177026: Cultural Heritage and Identity

Satellite Maps Deliver More Realistic Gaming

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

When Redwood City, California-based Electronic Arts (EA) decided to make SSX, its latest snowboarding video game, it faced challenges in creating realistic-looking mountains. The solution was NASA's ASTER Global Digital Elevation Map, made available by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which EA used to create 28 real-life mountains from 9 different ranges for its award-winning game.

A SVM bases AI design for interactive gaming

OpenAIRE

Jiang, Yang; Jiang, Jianmin; Palmer, Ian

2008-01-01

Interactive gaming requires automatic processing on large volume of random data produced by players on spot, such as shooting, football kicking, boxing etc. In this paper, we describe an artificial intelligence approach in processing such random data for interactive gaming by using a one-class support vector machine (OC-SVM). In comparison with existing techniques, our OC-SVM based interactive gaming design has the features of: (i): high speed processing, providing instant response to the pla...

Analysis of playing activity of footballers 19-21-years-old age in the leading commands of Europe.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nikolaenko V.V.

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Competition activity of footballers is considered 19-21-years-old age in the professional commands of Europe. For research it was served as information normatively-legal documents of Federations of football of leading European championships (request letters and protocols of matches. In research it was necessary to be attached to the construction of the statistical groupings, that allowed to analyse in a dynamics playing activity of footballers on the stage of training to higher achievements. Influence of the competition loadings is appraised on the organism of sportsmen. Participating of sportsmen of this age is set in compositions of professional commands - leaders of rating of UEFA. It is set that the basic failing in preparation of the Ukrainian young footballers is surplus pursuit after a result and accent on physical preparation. It gives advantage above other commands which work above the technique of game (Holland, Germany, Spain in youth football. However, when players from youth football pass to the grown man, results sharply fall and felt substantial blanks in individual technical preparedness.

Football Fitness, a new concept in football clubs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ottesen, Laila; Bennike, Søren

2013-01-01

are received and adapted in the Danish sports organizations and associations. The Danish Football Association has launched a new concept called "Football Fitness" with a focus on the health dimension of football, both of physiological, psychological and social nature, rather than a focus on the competition...... opportunity to access the knowledge of how the concept “football fitness” is organized, implemented and adapted in the participating clubs. This knowledge will be of great importance in relation to welfare policy, where the project can contribute with knowledge of possible changes to the Danish voluntary...... methods for the gathering and analysis of data. Key words: Football Fitness, Health promotion, Implementation, Sports clubs, Sports Organizations....

Repurposing an Old Game for an International World

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hofstede, G.J.; Tipton Murff, E.J.

2011-01-01

The game SO LONG SUCKER was designed in the United States in 1964 with the aim of showing how potentially unethical behavior necessary for winning was inherent in the game’s incentive structure. Sessions with East Asian participants, however, led to very different game dynamics in which

Mapping the global football field: a sociological model of transnational forces within the world game.

Science.gov (United States)

Giulianotti, Richard; Robertson, Roland

2012-06-01

This paper provides a sociological model of the key transnational political and economic forces that are shaping the 'global football field'. The model draws upon, and significantly extends, the theory of the 'global field' developed previously by Robertson. The model features four quadrants, each of which contains a dominant operating principle, an 'elemental reference point', and an 'elemental theme'. The quadrants contain, first, neo-liberalism, associated with the individual and elite football clubs; second, neo-mercantilism, associated with nation-states and national football systems; third, international relations, associated with international governing bodies; and fourth, global civil society, associated with diverse institutions that pursue human development and/or social justice. We examine some of the interactions and tensions between the major institutional and ideological forces across the four quadrants. We conclude by examining how the weakest quadrant, featuring global civil society, may gain greater prominence within football. In broad terms, we argue that our four-fold model may be utilized to map and to examine other substantive research fields with reference to globalization. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2012.

SCAT3 changes from baseline and associations with X2 Patch measured head acceleration in amateur Australian football players.

Science.gov (United States)

Willmott, Catherine; McIntosh, Andrew S; Howard, Teresa; Mitra, Biswadev; Dimech-Betancourt, Bleydy; Donovan, Jarrod; Rosenfeld, Jeffrey V

2018-05-01

To investigate changes from baseline on SCAT3 as a result of football game exposure, and association with X2 Patch measured head acceleration events in amateur Australian footballers. Prospective cohort. Peak linear acceleration (PLA) of the head (>10 g) was measured by wearable head acceleration sensor X2 Biosystems X-Patch in male (n=34) and female (n=19) Australian footballers. SCAT3 was administered at baseline (B) and post-game (PG). 1394 head acceleration events (HEA) >10 g were measured. Mean and median HEA PLA were recorded as 15.2 g (SD=9.2, range=10.0-115.8) and 12.4 g (IQR=11.0-15.6) respectively. No significant difference in median HEA PLA (g) was detected across gender (p=0.55), however, more HEAs were recorded in males (p=0.03). A greater number (p=0.004) and severity (p0.05 for all), was identified for either gender. Increase in symptom severity post game was not associated with X2 measured HEA. Males sustained more HEA, however HEA PLA magnitude did not differ across gender. Further work on the validation of head acceleration sensors is required and their role in sports concussion research and medical management. Copyright © 2017 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The association between hip and groin injuries in the elite junior football years and injuries sustained during elite senior competition.

Science.gov (United States)

Gabbe, B J; Bailey, M; Cook, J L; Makdissi, M; Scase, E; Ames, N; Wood, T; McNeil, J J; Orchard, J W

2010-09-01

To establish the relationship between the history of hip and groin injuries in elite junior football players prior to elite club recruitment and the incidence of hip and groin injuries during their elite career. Retrospective cohort study. Analysis of existing data. 500 Australian Football League (AFL) players drafted from 1999 to 2006 with complete draft medical assessment data. Previous history of hip/groin injury, anthropometric and demographic information. The number of hip/groin injuries resulting in > or =1 missed AFL game. Data for 500 players were available for analysis. 86 (17%) players reported a hip/groin injury in their junior football years. 159 (32%) players sustained a hip/groin injury in the AFL. Players who reported a previous hip or groin injury at the draft medical assessment demonstrated a rate of hip/groin injury in the AFL >6 times higher (IRR 6.24, 95% CI 4.43 to 8.77) than players without a pre-AFL hip or groin injury history. This study demonstrated that a hip or groin injury sustained during junior football years is a significant predictor of missed game time at the elite level due to hip/groin injury. The elite junior football period should be targeted for research to investigate and identify modifiable risk factors for the development of hip/groin injuries.

The mathematics of games an introduction to probability

CERN Document Server

Taylor, David G

2014-01-01

Dice, Coins, and Candy Introduction ProbabilityCandy (Yum)! Wheels and More Dice RouletteCrapsCounting the Pokers Cards and CountingSeven Card Pokers Texas Hold'Em BluffingWindmills and Black Jacks? Blackjack Blackjack VariantsMore Fun Dice!Liar's Dice Yahtzee Zombie Dice Board Games, Not ""Bored"" Games Board Game Movement Pay Day (The Board Game) MonopolySpread, RevisitedCan You Bet and Win? Betting SystemsGambler's RuinThere Are More Games! The LotteryBingo Baccarat Farkle BackgammonMemoryAppendices A Probabilities with Infinity B St. Petersburg Paradox C Prisoner's Dilemma and More Game Th

Video Game Adapts To Brain Waves

Science.gov (United States)

Pope, Alan T.; Bogart, Edward H.

1994-01-01

Electronic training system based on video game developed to help children afflicted with attention-deficit disorder (ADD) learn to prolong their attention spans. Uses combination of electroencephalography (EEG) and adaptive control to encourage attentiveness. Monitors trainee's brain-wave activity: if EEG signal indicates attention is waning, system increases difficulty of game, forcing trainee to devote more attention to it. Game designed to make trainees want to win and, in so doing, learn to pay attention for longer times.

Just like the lottery? Player behaviour and anomalies in the market for football pools.

Science.gov (United States)

Forrest, David; Pérez, Levi

2015-06-01

Football pools were an antecedent to lotto in providing a long-odds, high-prize gambling opportunity for a mass market in Europe. Even after lotto has become well established, pools games continue to occupy a significant niche in the gaming market in several jurisdictions, most notably Spain. This paper employs 23 years of sales data from the national pools game in Spain to investigate similarities between the behaviour of lotto players and pools players. It observes similar phenomena as have been noted in lotto sales studies, including strong sensitivity of sales to the size of jackpot on offer, significant habit effects, a halo effect whereby there is some short-term persistence in increased sales whenever a high jackpot is offered (even after jackpot size has returned to normal), and a tendency to jackpot fatigue (over time, the size of the jackpot has to be increased to more than before to stimulate the same increase in sales). Notwithstanding that the football pools are marketed as based on knowledge and understanding of sport whereas lotto is a pure numbers game, modelling sales of the pools therefore yields findings very similar to those reported in the literature on lotto. This suggests that both sets of players share common psychological and cognitive traits and economic motivation. Those responsible for promoting pools should therefore be able to draw on findings from the much more extensive literature on lotto when formulating strategy in terms of game design and marketing.

Investigating the Importance of Sports Facilities & Staff for Football Fans

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pinelopi Athanasopoulou

2012-01-01

Full Text Available (a Purpose: This study seeks to investigate the importance of facilities and staff for football fans in Greece. (b Design/methodology/approach: A survey was carried out during two matches of Superleague games with a convenience sample of 312 spectators. A structured questionnaire was used with scales based on previous research. (c Findings: Factor analysis revealed four reliable factor dimensions: facilities design; staff; facilities maintenance, and quick & easy access. Staff and quick & easy access are shown to be the most important dimensions for respondents followed by the other two. Results also indicated that there are significant differences in the importance assigned to these 4 factor dimensions among different levels of age; education; income, and marital status. (d Research limitations/implications: This study is limited to one sport and on a convenience sample of football fans. Future research can validate further these findings and increase their generalisability. (e Practical implications: The results of this study challenge sport managers to manage effectively the design of the stadium; the processes of entry and exit of fans; the environment of the game; and the quality of stadium facilities.

Tailoring Spectator Experiences for Non-Regular Attendants to Increase Stadium Capacity Utilisation in Football

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Junghagen, Sven; Besjakov, Simon D; Lund, Anders Alrø

The aim of this paper is to show in what way football clubs in smaller leagues with limited capacity utilisation can increase their per-game revenue by increasing the attendance frequency. A sequential mixed method research design was employed, involving both qualitative and quantitative methods...

Football on television: technological evolution and entertainment language

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Igor José Siquieri Savenhago

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The first broadcast of a World Cup footballon television, to Brazil was in 1970, via Embratel. Before that, the people followed the games of the Brazilian team on the radio. Gradually, the owners of television networks realized that football could generate good financial results, with the exposing of advertisements during the broadcasts, similar to what was already done on the radio. Thus, the television, focused on the growth of audience and number of advertisers, covered football with a language of entertainment. The narration of the matches, in which the figure of the narrator is more like that of an entertainer, and improvement of the transmission technologies that improve the image quality every day, take away from football the characteristic of being just a sport to occupy the place of an entertainment. In this context, the sport becomes an article of purchase and sale. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how this entertainment language was made up on Brazilian television, based on the broadcast sports, especially football, and like the television, which represented a technological leapin the country over the radio, assumed of the sport, country’s most popular as a commodity, interfering with the dynamics of Brazilian society. Finally, an attempt to understand how the researches that allow a technological development change behaviors and vice versa, that is, how the demands of society lead to a race to develop new technologies.

Which skills and factors better predict winning and losing in high-level men's volleyball?

Science.gov (United States)

Peña, Javier; Rodríguez-Guerra, Jorge; Buscà, Bernat; Serra, Núria

2013-09-01

The aim of this study was to determine which skills and factors better predicted the outcomes of regular season volleyball matches in the Spanish "Superliga" and were significant for obtaining positive results in the game. The study sample consisted of 125 matches played during the 2010-11 Spanish men's first division volleyball championship. Matches were played by 12 teams composed of 148 players from 17 different nations from October 2010 to March 2011. The variables analyzed were the result of the game, team category, home/away court factors, points obtained in the break point phase, number of service errors, number of service aces, number of reception errors, percentage of positive receptions, percentage of perfect receptions, reception efficiency, number of attack errors, number of blocked attacks, attack points, percentage of attack points, attack efficiency, and number of blocks performed by both teams participating in the match. The results showed that the variables of team category, points obtained in the break point phase, number of reception errors, and number of blocked attacks by the opponent were significant predictors of winning or losing the matches. Odds ratios indicated that the odds of winning a volleyball match were 6.7 times greater for the teams belonging to higher rankings and that every additional point in Complex II increased the odds of winning a match by 1.5 times. Every reception and blocked ball error decreased the possibility of winning by 0.6 and 0.7 times, respectively.

Why and When ‘Laughing out Loud’ in Game Playing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Unknown, [Unknown; Nijholt, A.; Nijholt, Antinus

2012-01-01

Playing games is fun. Being visible to others and knowing about others in social media is fun. Obviously, other factors are involved. We want to play games to escape from daily life, and we want to play games in order to satisfy our needs to compete and win, with other words, to prove ourselves in

Study on system dynamics of evolutionary mix-game models

Science.gov (United States)

Gou, Chengling; Guo, Xiaoqian; Chen, Fang

2008-11-01

Mix-game model is ameliorated from an agent-based MG model, which is used to simulate the real financial market. Different from MG, there are two groups of agents in Mix-game: Group 1 plays a majority game and Group 2 plays a minority game. These two groups of agents have different bounded abilities to deal with historical information and to count their own performance. In this paper, we modify Mix-game model by assigning the evolution abilities to agents: if the winning rates of agents are smaller than a threshold, they will copy the best strategies the other agent has; and agents will repeat such evolution at certain time intervals. Through simulations this paper finds: (1) the average winning rates of agents in Group 1 and the mean volatilities increase with the increases of the thresholds of Group 1; (2) the average winning rates of both groups decrease but the mean volatilities of system increase with the increase of the thresholds of Group 2; (3) the thresholds of Group 2 have greater impact on system dynamics than the thresholds of Group 1; (4) the characteristics of system dynamics under different time intervals of strategy change are similar to each other qualitatively, but they are different quantitatively; (5) As the time interval of strategy change increases from 1 to 20, the system behaves more and more stable and the performances of agents in both groups become better also.

Extreme Ritualistic Alcohol Consumption among College Students on Game Day

Science.gov (United States)

Glassman, Tavis J.; Dodd, Virginia J.; Sheu, Jiunn-Jye; Rienzo, Barbara A.; Wagenaar, Alex C.

2010-01-01

Alcohol use and the related consequences associated with college football games are a serious public health issue for university communities. Objective: Examining "Extreme Ritualistic Alcohol Consumption" (ERAC), defined as consuming 10 or more drinks on game day for a male, and 8 or more drinks for a female, is the focus of this study.…

Interactive football training based on rebounders with hit position sensing and audio/light feedback

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Mads Møller; Grønbæk, Kaj; Rasmussen, Majken Kirkegård

A Danish football club has established a (24/7/365) football training facility, where the authors developed an interactive training installation (http://vimeo.com/28446312). The training installation consist of a 12*12 m square with 4 M­Station Pro rebounders equipped with sensors that enable hit...... position sensing. The rebounders are equipped with loudspeakers and lights being used to call for the ball. Here we discuss one game “Pass ­and ­Turn”, which is meant to train speed in controlling a returned ball, reaction to a call for the ball and turning to hit rebounders to the left, right, behind...

Medication and Supplement Use in Disability Football World Championships.

Science.gov (United States)

Broman, Daniel; Ahmed, Osman Hassan; Tscholl, Philippe M; Weiler, Richard

2017-10-01

Individuals with an impairment comprise more than 15% of the world's population, many of whom can benefit greatly from participation in sport. The provision of medical services in disability sport is a challenging area with a lack of scientific evidence. Given the positive impact that sport can have on the people with an impairment, it is vital that measures are taken to better understand the medical issues posed by disability sport. It is well established that medications and supplements are overused in sport, particularly within professional football, but there is no current evidence on medication or supplement use in elite disability football. To examine and describe the use of medication and supplements in disability football, before and during international tournaments, and to identify the profile of substances used by category. Prospective, descriptive, cohort study. International Blind Sport Association Football World Cup 2015 and the International Federation of Cerebral Palsy Football World Cup 2015. Two hundred forty-two elite-level disability footballers, classified with B1 visual impairment or cerebral palsy. Team clinicians were asked to document all medication and supplements taken in the 48 hours before each match. This study recorded the use of 1648 substances in 242 players, with more than one half (53.1%) classified as supplements. There was an overall rate of 1.26 substances used per player per match and a medication use rate of 0.59 medications per player per match. Seventy percent (170/242) of players reported using at least one substance per tournament, with 57.9% (140/242) using at least one prescribed medication (63.6% of players at International Blind Sports Association World Games and 57.7% of players at International Federation of Cerebral Palsy World Cup). The most commonly prescribed category of medications was nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, representing 39.3% of all reported medications. This study highlights the potential

The second leg home advantage: evidence from European football cup competitions.

Science.gov (United States)

Page, Lionel; Page, Katie

2007-12-01

The home advantage is a widely acknowledged sporting phenomenon, especially in association football. Here, we examine the second leg home advantage, an effect that is discussed in the public domain but which has received very little scientific attention. The second leg home advantage effect occurs when on average teams are more likely to win a two-stage knock-out competition when they play at home in the second leg. That is, both teams have a home advantage but this advantage is significantly greater for the team that plays at home second. Examining data from three different European Cup football competitions spanning 51 years, we show that the second leg home advantage is a real phenomenon. The second leg home team has more than a 50% probability to qualify for the next round in the competition even after controlling for extra time and team ability as possible alternative explanations. The second leg home advantage appears, however, to have decreased significantly over the past decade. Possible reasons for its existence and subsequent decline are presented.

"Soccer": The Beautiful Game

Science.gov (United States)

Spires, Todd

2008-01-01

Soccer, or football as it is called in the rest of the world, is the most popular and fastest-growing global sport, with an estimated 240 million people regularly playing what Brazilian star Pele called "the beautiful game." Millions, worldwide, watch it on television. In 2006, the average viewership for each match of the month-long World Cup was…

The economics interests In Football

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Raúl Fustes-Ross

2012-09-01

Full Text Available The football is the most popular sport in the Word and the economics interests have been fundamentals in his increase and expansion; this idea is confirmed by the numerous competitions for even sexes with categories from National Championships to regional events, continentals, intercontinental, Olympic Games and World Cup from majors, the most important event where showed the most expensive and important merchandise: the players. All this sport mechanism is capitalized by the owners clubs, business trade associations and greats corporations in the host cities, the nations participating also those without participation but with many fans. Each and every one are customers, is a chance for increase the sales.

The Influence of Playing Experience and Position on Injury Risk in NCAA Division I College Football Players.

Science.gov (United States)

McCunn, Robert; Fullagar, Hugh H K; Williams, Sean; Halseth, Travis J; Sampson, John A; Murray, Andrew

2017-11-01

American football is widely played by college student-athletes throughout the United States; however, the associated injury risk is greater than in other team sports. Numerous factors likely contribute to this risk, yet research identifying these risk factors is limited. The present study sought to explore the relationship between playing experience and position on injury risk in NCAA Division I college football players. Seventy-six male college student-athletes in the football program of an American NCAA Division I university participated. Injuries were recorded over 2 consecutive seasons. Players were characterized based on college year (freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior) and playing position. The effect of playing experience and position on injury incidence rates was analyzed using a generalized linear mixed-effects model, with a Poisson distribution, log-linear link function, and offset for hours of training exposure or number of in-game plays (for training and game injuries, respectively). The overall rates of non-time-loss and time-loss game-related injuries were 2.1 (90% CI: 1.8-2.5) and 0.6 (90% CI: 0.4-0.8) per 1000 plays, respectively. The overall rates of non-time-loss and time-loss training-related injuries were 26.0 (90% CI: 22.6-29.9) and 7.1 (90% CI: 5.9-8.5) per 1000 h, respectively. During training, seniors and running backs displayed the greatest risk. During games, sophomores, juniors, and wide receivers were at greatest risk. Being aware of the elevated injury risk experienced by certain player groups may help coaches make considered decisions related to training design and player selection.

The Importance of Teaching a Win-Win Philosophy.

Science.gov (United States)

Brainard, Alan J.

Most people are raised in a traditional environment which teaches that someone-winning implies that someone-loses. However, psychology and the examples provided in the Watergate scandal demonstrate that such a philosophy is neither productive nor beneficial. A "win-win" philosophy of cooperation, not competition, is needed for…

Game theory, alive

CERN Document Server

Karlin, Anna R

2016-01-01

This book presents a rigorous introduction to the mathematics of game theory without losing sight of the joy of the subject. This is done by focusing on theoretical highlights (e.g., at least six Nobel Prize winning results are developed from scratch) and by presenting exciting connections of game theory to other fields, such as computer science, economics, social choice, biology, and learning theory. Both classical topics, such as zero-sum games, and modern topics, such as sponsored search auctions, are covered. Along the way, beautiful mathematical tools used in game theory are introduced, including convexity, fixed-point theorems, and probabilistic arguments. The book is appropriate for a first course in game theory at either the undergraduate or graduate level, whether in mathematics, economics, computer science, or statistics. Game theory's influence is felt in a wide range of disciplines, and the authors deliver masterfully on the challenge of presenting both the breadth and coherence of its underlying ...

'Thoroughly Good Football': Teachers and the Origins of Elementary School Football.

Science.gov (United States)

Kerrigan, Colm

2000-01-01

Discusses the origins of elementary school soccer (football), addressing topics such as: the role of public schools in organized soccer, soccer in elementary schools, the first schoolboy soccer association, South London Schools' Football Association, the London Schools' Football Association, and the English Schools' Football Association. (CMK)

Dynamics of Three Agent Games

OpenAIRE

Rador, Tonguc; Mungan, Muhittin

2007-01-01

We study the dynamics and resulting score distribution of three-agent games where after each competition a single agent wins and scores a point. A single competition is described by a triplet of numbers $p$, $t$ and $q$ denoting the probabilities that the team with the highest, middle or lowest accumulated score wins. We study the full family of solutions in the regime, where the number of agents and competitions is large, which can be regarded as a hydrodynamic limit. Depending on the parame...

Effects of a lighter, smaller football on Acute match injuries in adolescent female football

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zebis, Mette K.; Thorborg, Kristian; Andersen, Lars L.

2018-01-01

BACKGROUND: The high injury incidence during match-play in female adolescent football is a major concern. In football, males and females play matches with the same football size. No studies have investigated the effect of football size on injury incidence in female adolescent football. Thus......, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of introducing a lighter, smaller football on the injury pattern in female adolescent football. METHODS We conducted a pilot cluster randomized controlled trial including 26 football teams representing 346 adolescent female football players (age...... 15-18 years). The teams were randomized to a new lighter, smaller football (INT, N.=12 teams) or a traditional FIFA size 5 football (CON, N.=14 teams) during a full match-season. Acute time-loss injuries and football-exposure during match-play were reported weekly by text-message questions...

Football - Feminisation - Fans

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mintert, Svenja-Maria

The researcher reviewed relevant primary and secondary literature relating to women’s football, female football consumption and identity dynamics in a European perspective. Between March and August 2013, 31 semi-structured interviews with Danish women aged between 24 and 60 years were conducted following......Football has long time been considered as a genuine masculine domain. However, in the current football culture, the dualism of masculinity and femaleness is in progress. More and more women consume football which is in many countries considered the most popular sport, not only in Scandinavia where......, the combination ‘women and football’ is still adhered to certain scepticism. Objective The overall objective of this Ph.D. thesis is to contribute to the body of knowledge associated with the distinct aspects of women’s football, female fandom and gender identities in European football drawing upon various...

Locomotor activity of professional football referees

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Y.V. Manilo

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Purpose : To study the structure of the motor activity of foreign (European football referees qualifications and Ukrainian arbitrators (Premier League, the first, second league. The objectives of the study was to determine the amount and direction of the motor activity of soccer referees. Also perform a comparative analysis of the motor activity of football referees of different qualifications in Europe and Ukraine. Material : The study involved 38 referees - soccer referees first, second, of the Premier League with the different regions of Ukraine, as well as foreign arbitrators FIFA. Results : It was found that in the period of the motor activity of the arbitrator was walking - 13.0% of the total distance when moving, running at a moderate pace - 67.4%, accelerating - 16.7%, jumps - 2.9%. Average per match referee overcomes distance 8970.2 m: foreign arbitrators - 12,030.0 m., Arbitrators Premier League - 9292.5 m., 1 league - 7530.0 m., 2 leagues - 7028.3 m. Ukrainian Premier League referees are inferior to move moderate jogging foreign arbitrators FIFA respectively - 6,425.0 m (69.1% and 9615.3 m (79.9%. Conclusions : The results of the research showed that the magnitude of motor activity during football matches in professional arbitrators may be different. It depends on their physical fitness Championship (competition, the league, the level of the teams playing, the nature of the intensity of the match. The arbitrator must remain near the gaming moments to control them and prevent possible confrontation.

'The Money's Good, The Fame's Good, The Girls Are Good': The Role of Playground Football in the Construction of Young Boys' Masculinity in a Junior School.

Science.gov (United States)

Swain, Jon

2000-01-01

Explores the effects of football (soccer) in the social construction of hegemonic masculine practices among a group of Year 6 English junior school boys. Argues that football (soccer) acts as a model for the boys in which they utilize the game as a means of constructing, negotiating, and performing their masculinity. (CMK)

Why and When ‘Laughing out Loud’ in Game Playing

OpenAIRE

Unknown, [Unknown; Nijholt, A.; Nijholt, Antinus

2012-01-01

Playing games is fun. Being visible to others and knowing about others in social media is fun. Obviously, other factors are involved. We want to play games to escape from daily life, and we want to play games in order to satisfy our needs to compete and win, with other words, to prove ourselves in game situations where we are confronted with challenges that we think we can master. There are video games where a single player has to deal with the game challenges. There are games where individua...

Superior Labrum Anterior-Posterior Tears in the National Football League.

Science.gov (United States)

Chambers, Caitlin C; Lynch, T Sean; Gibbs, Daniel B; Ghodasra, Jason H; Sahota, Shawn; Franke, Kristina; Mack, Christina D; Nuber, Gordon W

2017-01-01

Shoulder disorders are common in football players, with up to 50% of National Football League (NFL) recruits reporting a history of shoulder injuries. Superior labrum anterior-posterior (SLAP) tears are an entity with well-described detrimental effects on return to play in overhead-throwing athletes but with minimal data in contact athletes. To identify the incidence, predisposing factors, and effect of SLAP tears in NFL athletes and prospects as well as the treatment patterns of NFL team physicians. Descriptive epidemiology study. This study was a comprehensive analysis of SLAP tears in elite football players using a dual approach: (1) SLAP injuries recorded in the NFL Injury Surveillance System from 2000 to 2014 were evaluated by player position, type of play, days/games lost, and surgical intervention; (2) NFL Scouting Combine athletes from 2003 to 2011 with prior SLAP repair were evaluated for draft success, and drafted athletes were compared with matched controls for career length and performance scores. SLAP tears represented a small portion (3.1%) of shoulder injuries in NFL athletes from 2000 to 2014, occurring most commonly in offensive linemen (28%). Surgically treated SLAP tears (42%) resulted in more days missed than did nonoperatively managed tears (140.2 vs 21.5 days; P football players, it is clear that these injuries have the potential to cause significant detriment to an athlete's career.

Non-Abelian strategies in quantum penny flip game

Science.gov (United States)

Mishima, Hiroaki

2018-01-01

In this paper, we formulate and analyze generalizations of the quantum penny flip game. In the penny flip game, one coin has two states, heads or tails, and two players apply alternating operations on the coin. In the original Meyer game, the first player is allowed to use quantum (i.e., non-commutative) operations, but the second player is still only allowed to use classical (i.e., commutative) operations. In our generalized games, both players are allowed to use non-commutative operations, with the second player being partially restricted in what operators they use. We show that even if the second player is allowed to use "phase-variable" operations, which are non-Abelian in general, the first player still has winning strategies. Furthermore, we show that even when the second player is allowed to choose one from two or more elements of the group U(2), the second player has winning strategies under certain conditions. These results suggest that there is often a method for restoring the quantum state disturbed by another agent.

An evaluation of the Australian Football League Central Australian Responsible Alcohol Strategy 2005-07.

Science.gov (United States)

Mentha, Ricky; Wakerman, Johne

2009-12-01

In 2004, the Australian Football League Central Australia (AFLCA) implemented the Responsible Alcohol Strategy (RAS), which aimed to decrease alcohol consumption at matches, and to promote healthy lifestyle messages to the youth of Central Australia participating in Australian Rules football. The evaluation adopted a pre- and post-implementation design to monitor a number of performance indicators. The evaluation analysed routinely collected data from AFLCA, its Security Company, Alice Springs Police Department and Alice Springs Hospital; we surveyed AFLCA staff, club officials and umpires; and undertook direct observation at AFLCA events. The volume of alcohol sold at matches decreased. Survey data indicate decreased alcohol related violence, improved spectator behaviour and decreased spectator attendances. Police data suggest declining alcohol-related and violent behaviours, but trends were not statistically significant. Alice Springs Hospital injury admission data indicate a non-significant interaction between year and season effect. In a community context of high alcohol consumption and high rates of interpersonal violence, the strategies implemented were successful in decreasing alcohol consumption and related undesirable behaviours at football games. However, these measures have resulted in unintended consequences: decreased numbers of spectators attending games, decreased canteen sales and falling sponsorship. The decreased revenue has raised serious issues about sustainability of the alcohol intervention, and stimulated discussions with government and others about strategies to maintain this important alcohol reduction policy.

Conservative Management for Stable High Ankle Injuries in Professional Football Players.

Science.gov (United States)

Knapik, Derrick M; Trem, Anthony; Sheehan, Joseph; Salata, Michael J; Voos, James E

High ankle "syndesmosis" injuries are common in American football players relative to the general population. At the professional level, syndesmotic sprains represent a challenging and unique injury lacking a standardized rehabilitation protocol during conservative management. PubMed, Biosis Preview, SPORTDiscus, PEDro, and EMBASE databases were searched using the terms syndesmotic injuries, American football, conservative management, and rehabilitation. Clinical review. Level 3. When compared with lateral ankle sprains, syndesmosis injuries result in significantly prolonged recovery times and games lost. For stable syndesmotic injuries, conservative management features a brief period of immobilization and protected weightbearing followed by progressive strengthening exercises and running, and athletes can expect to return to competition in 2 to 6 weeks. Further research investigating the efficacy of dry needling and blood flow restriction therapy is necessary to evaluate the benefit of these techniques in the rehabilitation process. Successful conservative management of stable syndesmotic injuries in professional American football athletes requires a thorough understanding of the anatomy, injury mechanisms, diagnosis, and rehabilitation strategies utilized in elite athletes.

Updated Review of the Applied Physiology of American College Football: Physical Demands, Strength and Conditioning, Nutrition, and Injury Characteristics of America's Favorite Game.

Science.gov (United States)

Fullagar, Hugh H K; McCunn, Robert; Murray, Andrew

2017-11-01

While there are various avenues for performance improvement in college American football (AF), there is no comprehensive evaluation of the collective array of resources around performance, physical conditioning, and injury and training/game characteristics to guide future research and inform practitioners. Accordingly, the aim of the present review was to provide a current examination of these areas in college AF. Recent studies show that there is a wide range of body compositions and strength characteristics between players, which appear to be influenced by playing position, level of play, training history/programming, and time of season. Collectively, game demands may require a combination of upper- and lower-body strength and power production, rapid acceleration (positive and negative), change of direction, high running speed, high-intensity and repetitive collisions, and muscle-strength endurance. These may be affected by the timing of and between-plays and/or coaching style. AF players appear to possess limited nutrition and hydration practices, which may be disadvantageous to performance. AF injuries appear due to a multitude of factors-strength, movement quality, and previous injury-while there is also potential for extrinsic factors such as playing surface type, travel, time of season, playing position, and training load. Future proof-of-concept studies are required to determine the quantification of game demands with regard to game style, type of opposition, and key performance indicators. Moreover, more research is required to understand the efficacy of recovery and nutrition interventions. Finally, the assessment of the relationship between external/internal-load constructs and injury risk is warranted.

Dynamics of three-agent games

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mungan, Muhittin; Rador, Tonguc

2008-01-01

We study the dynamics and resulting score distribution of three-agent games where after each competition a single agent wins and scores a point. A single competition is described by a triplet of numbers p, t and q denoting the probabilities that the team with the highest, middle or lowest accumulated score wins. The three-agent game can be regarded as a social model where a player can be favored or disfavored for advancement, based on his/her accumulated score. We study the full family of solutions in the regime, where the number of agents and competitions is large, which can be regarded as a hydrodynamic limit. Depending on the parameter values (p, q, t), we find six qualitatively different asymptotic score distributions and we provide a qualitative explanation of these results. We also compare our analytical results against numerical simulations of the microscopic model and find these to be in excellent agreement. It is possible to decide the outcome of a three-agent game through a mini-tournament of two-agent competitions among the participating players and it turns out that the resulting possible score distributions are a subset of those obtained for the general three-agent games. We discuss how one can add a steady and democratic decline rate to the model and present a simple geometric construction that allows one to obtain the score evolution equations for n-agent games

Dynamics of three-agent games

Science.gov (United States)

Mungan, Muhittin; Rador, Tonguç

2008-02-01

We study the dynamics and resulting score distribution of three-agent games where after each competition a single agent wins and scores a point. A single competition is described by a triplet of numbers p, t and q denoting the probabilities that the team with the highest, middle or lowest accumulated score wins. The three-agent game can be regarded as a social model where a player can be favored or disfavored for advancement, based on his/her accumulated score. We study the full family of solutions in the regime, where the number of agents and competitions is large, which can be regarded as a hydrodynamic limit. Depending on the parameter values (p, q, t), we find six qualitatively different asymptotic score distributions and we provide a qualitative explanation of these results. We also compare our analytical results against numerical simulations of the microscopic model and find these to be in excellent agreement. It is possible to decide the outcome of a three-agent game through a mini-tournament of two-agent competitions among the participating players and it turns out that the resulting possible score distributions are a subset of those obtained for the general three-agent games. We discuss how one can add a steady and democratic decline rate to the model and present a simple geometric construction that allows one to obtain the score evolution equations for n-agent games.

On the biased n-in-a-row game

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Csorba, P.

2005-01-01

The biased version of the n-in-a-row game1 is rather boring. The player who can occupy more points per move has a winning strategy [J. Beck, Tic-Tac-Toe Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006, to appear] for any n. In order to make this game more interesting József Beck suggested to

The Football

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

GENERAL ! ARTICLE. The Football. 1. From Euclid to Soccer it is ... ARRao. A football is a 3-dimensional convex polyhedron with each face a regular pentagon or a regular hexagon and with at least one hexagonal face. This article is in two parts. In this first part, we will prove that a football exists and is unique and in the.

The diagnosis and comparison of physical abilities of skiers and footballers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vasilios Giovanis

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The purpose of this research was to diagnose the physical abilities such as speed, strength, agility and endurance of alpine skiers and footballers through the same country tests. Also, the purpose was to compare the performance and test results of the above tested against one another. Methods: The sample of 58 individuals came from two groups of men of different sports: skiing (n = 29 aged 18-26 (20.97 ± 2.08 years and football (n = 29 aged 18-25 (21, 28 ± 1.56 years, while the level in each group was the advanced and the beginner respectively. Until the trials, the ski and football teams had a training program exercising physical abilities and skills three days a week for the specialties and one day a week the select skiing session and the compulsory football session according to the curriculum. In order to diagnose and compare the physical abilities of ski students and football students, the following four tests of Alpine skiing on dry ground were used after the ski season on this day in April 2014: A Route speed test (route 20m with flight start. B Explosive power tests of the lower limbs (eightfold with alternating tossing of feet. C Agility Tests (Slalom's track on a "folder" 5m x 5m. D Anaerobic test (jumping obstacle 20cm height for 60sec. Results: In the skiing specialty we have a great correlation between speed tests and other physical abilities and agility with endurance (r = -0,72. In football specialty there was a great correlation between speed and power tests (r = - 0.65 and agility with the power (r = - 0.69. In optional skiing, we have a moderate correlation between the tests, while in the A year football students the correlation between speed and strength (r = - 0.81 is distinguished. Conclusions: It is noteworthy that the students of the first year of football as well as the specialists do not have as good results in endurance as compared to the students of the skiing, even though the football game lasts 90 minutes

THE SPHERE OF THE SOURCES FOR ENERGY AND OF THE MEANS FOR RENFORCING IN FOOTBALL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aurelian Drăgan

2009-10-01

Full Text Available If the footballers have a rich nourishment in carbohydrats, she has an positive effect on thecapacity of them biological performance. The footballer who is good trained, has a big concentration of glycogenin muscle, if the meal after the last traning before the game contents a big proportion of carbohydrats. Also, thefootballers can to use in excess the vitamins A, C and E, with the justification that they are capable to stop thefortuitous frequency of the free radicals who oxidize and who work in the same kind as the antioxidants.In the view of the renforcing after effort, the footballers have at disposition a series of natural means: theaerobycal activity; the therapy through extent (streching; the total rest, as well as a series of physiotherapeuticalmeans: the massage; the therapy at warm; the therapy at cold; the cold-warm

Winning by Losing: Incentive Incompatibility in Multiple Qualifiers

OpenAIRE

Dagaev, Dmitry; Sonin, Konstantin

2013-01-01

In sport tournaments, the rules are presumably structured in a way that any team cannot be better off (e.g., to advance to the next round of competition) by losing instead of winning a game. Starting with a real-world example, we demonstrate that the existing national rules of awarding places for the UEFA Champions Leagues and the UEFA Europa League, which are based on the results of the national championship, a round-robin tournament, and the national cup, a knock-out tournament, might produ...

EEG Spectral Analysis in Serious Gaming: An Ad Hoc Experimental Application

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Minchev Z.

2009-12-01

Full Text Available The application of serious gaming technology in different areas of human knowledge for learning is raising the question of quantitative measurement of the training process quality. In the present paper a pilot study of 10 healthy volunteers' EEG spectra is performed for ad hoc selected game events ('win' and 'lose' via continuous wavelet transform (real and complex on the basis of the Morlet mother wavelet function and S-transformation. The results have shown a general decrease of the alpha rhythms power spectra frequencies for the 'lose' events and increase for the 'win' events. This fact corresponds to an opposite behaviour of the theta rhythm of the players for the same 'win' and 'lose' events. Additionally, the frequency changes in the alpha1 (8-10.5 Hz, alpha2 (10.5-13 Hz and theta2 rhythms (6-8 Hz were supposed to be a phenomena related to positive and negative emotions appearance in the EEG activity of the players regarding the selected 'win' and 'lose' states.

The prevention of injuries in contact flag football.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaplan, Yonatan; Myklebust, Grethe; Nyska, Meir; Palmanovich, Ezequiel; Victor, Jan; Witvrouw, Erik

2014-01-01

American flag football is a non-tackle, contact sport with many moderate to severe contact-type injuries reported. A previous prospective injury surveillance study by the authors revealed a high incidence of injuries to the fingers, face, knee, shoulder and ankle. The objectives of the study were to conduct a pilot-prospective injury prevention study in an attempt to significantly reduce the incidence and the severity of injuries as compared to a historical cohort, as well as to provide recommendations for a future prospective injury prevention study. A prospective injury prevention study was conducted involving 724 amateur male (mean age: 20.0 ± 3.1 years) and 114 female (mean age: 21.2 ± 7.2 years) players. Four prevention measures were implemented: the no-pocket rule, self-fitting mouth guards, ankle braces (for those players with recurrent ankle sprains) and an injury treatment information brochure. An injury surveillance questionnaire was administered to record all time-loss injuries sustained in game sessions. There was a statistically significant reduction in the number of injured players, the number of finger/hand injuries, the incidence rate and the incidence proportion between the two cohorts (p football. Prevention strategies for a longer, prospective, randomised-controlled injury prevention study should include the strict enforcement of the no-pocket rule, appropriate head gear, the use of comfortable-fitting ankle braces and mouth guards, and changing the blocking rules of the game.

Winning in NCAA Women?s Soccer: Does the Gender of the Coach Matter?

Science.gov (United States)

Brush, Brian C.; Naples, Gregory J.

2011-01-01

While women's intercollegiate soccer has grown rapidly over the past three decades, men still hold nearly two-thirds of all head coaching positions in NCAA Division I women's soccer programs. This paper explores whether the gender of the head coach affects success in winning games. After considering various reasons why gender might matter, we…

I feel good whether my friends win or my foes lose: brain mechanisms underlying feeling similarity.

Science.gov (United States)

Aue, Tatjana

2014-07-01

People say they enjoy both seeing a preferred social group succeed and seeing an adversary social group fail. At the same time, they state they dislike seeing a preferred social group fail and seeing an adversary social group succeed. The current magnetic resonance imaging study investigated whether-and if so, how-such similarities in reported feeling states are reflected in neural activities. American football fans anticipated success and failure situations for their favorite or their adversary teams. The data support the idea that feeling similarities and divergences expressed in verbal reports carry with them significant neural similarities and differences, respectively. Desired (favorite team likely to win and adversary team likely to lose) rather than undesired (favorite team likely to lose and adversary team likely to win) outcomes were associated with heightened activity in the supramarginal gyrus, posterior cingulate cortex, insula, and cerebellum. Precuneus activity additionally distinguished anticipated desirable outcomes for favorite versus adversary teams. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

RELATION BETWEEN MOTORIC ABILITIES AND SPECIFIC MOTORIC ABILITIES WITH FOOTBALL PLAYERS FROM 14 TO 16 YEARS OLD

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Rabit Veseli

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Football is one of the most famous games that man has invented. It is a complex of collective organization and individual ingenuity. No doubt, top results in sport require a serious base of scientific researches and skills. Certainly, modern top results that have been achieved can be analyzed scientifically. It is exactly the scientific approach that is to establish the characteristics of basic importance to provide success in football. It is in favor of top football game to regularly conduct researches, which, as elements of special interest, would cover the basic motoric and specific motoric abilities with football players.The subject of the research is the motoric and specific motoric abilities with young football players aged from 14 to 16. The goal of the research is to establish how the explosive power influences the dribbling skills. The sample of respondents in the research consists of 39 school children at the age of 14 to 16, who play at FC ”Gjilani” and have attended the club for at least two years. They underwent three tests for assessing the explosive power: 1. Standing long jump; 2. 20-meter running and 3. Sargent test. Along with it, two tests for assessing the specific motorics: 1. Dribbling 20 metres with start from the place and 2. Dribbling 20 metres - fly start. The data obtained from the applied five tests is worked out with basic statistic parameters. The relation between motoric and specific motoric abilities is determined through linear regressive analyzes in manifest space. The results suggest that there is a positive and significant relation between the applied motoric and specific motoric abilities. This confirms the close relation between the explosive power and specific motorics of football players expressed through dribbling. Similar results are obtained in the researches of the following authors: Christou et all., 2006, Kraemer et al., 1998, and Young et al., 2001.

Football Fitness - a new version of football?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bennike, Søren; Wikman, Johan Michael; Ottesen, Laila Susanne

2014-01-01

This article explores a new Danish football-based activity for health called Football Fitness (FF). Data are from quantitative and qualitative methods, and the theoretical framework for the analysis of the organizational form of FF is the theory of path dependency (Mahoney) and first- and second...... by the Danish Football Association (FA) and managed by the voluntary clubs, is one example in a Danish context. Data indicate that FF is beneficial to the clubs involved in a number of ways. Among other things, it attracts new user groups and improves the club environment, including social activities...

The Europeanisation of Romanian football: What do UEFA country coefficients reveal?

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Roșca Vlad I.

2017-12-01

Full Text Available After the fall of communist regimes, Central and Eastern European states have been encouraged to Europeanise by aligning to Western standards. Even if politics and economy have been primarily concerned, football has often allowed easier and faster contact to occidental cultures than other facets of the civic society did. From a football club perspective, being Europeanized involves the abilities to establish a constant presence in continental cups, as well as to raise performances to higher, international standards. The game itself has strongly Europeanised over the years, with UEFA transforming its two continental inter-club competitions into iconic brands, ‘pluralizing’ fan attention between domestic leagues and international cups, with the latter ones enjoying increased awareness. While some UEFA member associations have properly mastered the process of Europeanisation, others saw their teams struggle to perform in Europe, which led to the creation of a cleavage between ‘elitist’ and ‘periphery’ countries. Results of Romanian teams in European competitions have fluctuated over the past and a half decade. The purpose of this research is to find out how far Europeanised Romanian football can be currently considered. The research question asks what is the current European dimension of Romanian club football? UEFA Country Coefficients are used as input data for computing statistical observations such as means and standard deviations, which are then compared with a three-levelled center-periphery model designed by Maguire (2001. Results indicate that Romanian football is still far away from the continental ‘center’ status it pretends to have. The Discussions section addresses some of the reasons for this distance. The article tries to fill in a research gap as most Europeanisation studies so far have focused on the hardcore concepts of economics, politics, or law, but rather few on social and cultural alignments, such as football

Who Wants To Win a Million? A Library Media Game.

Science.gov (United States)

Singleterry, Jolene

2000-01-01

Describes a library media game for grades four and five that is centered around books and is based on the television show "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?". Procedures for the game are explained, and examples of questions from simple to more difficult, with answers, are presented. (LRW)

Direct and indirect measurement of neuromuscular fatigue in Canadian football players.

Science.gov (United States)

Clarke, Nick; Farthing, Jonathan P; Lanovaz, Joel L; Krentz, Joel R

2015-05-01

This study assessed the effects of a fatiguing game simulation (G-Sim) on the balance of collegiate Canadian football players. The purpose of the study was to evaluate postural control as a potential tool for monitoring neuromuscular fatigue (NMF) in collision-based team sports. Fifteen male Canadian football players were recruited (mean±SD: age 21.8±1.6 years, weight 97.6±14.7 kg). Indirect NMF measures (postural sway and countermovement jump (CMJ)) were performed 24 h before (TBase), immediately before (TPre) and after (TPost), and 24 h (T24) and 48 h after (T48) a Canadian football G-Sim. Peak isometric knee extensor torque of a maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) and electrically evoked tetani at 20 Hz (P20) and 80 Hz (P80) were also recorded as direct NMF measures at TBase, TPre, TPost, and T48. At TPost, we observed significant declines in MVC, P20, and the MVC/P80 ratio (-15.3%, -15.7%, and -12.1%, respectively; n=12) along with reductions in CMJ takeoff velocity and peak power (-6.9% and -6.5%, respectively; n=12) and larger area of the center of pressure trajectory (95.2%; n=10) during a 60-s postural sway task. All variables were no longer different than baseline by T48. Acute neuromuscular impairment in this cohort is likely attributable to alterations in excitation-contraction coupling due to structural damage and central activation failure. Congruency between the direct and indirect measures of NMF suggests monitoring postural sway has the potential to identify both neuromuscular and somatosensory alterations induced by acute game-induced fatigue in collision-based team sports players.

Release the Prisoners Game

Science.gov (United States)

Van Hecke, Tanja

2011-01-01

This article presents the mathematical approach of the optimal strategy to win the "Release the prisoners" game and the integration of this analysis in a math class. Outline lesson plans at three different levels are given, where simulations are suggested as well as theoretical findings about the probability distribution function and its mean…

It is just a game: lack of association between watching football matches and the risk of acute cardiovascular events.

Science.gov (United States)

Barone-Adesi, Francesco; Vizzini, Loredana; Merletti, Franco; Richiardi, Lorenzo

2010-08-01

The role of trigger factors in acute cardiovascular events has been much studied in the past few years. A recent study analysed changes in the rates of cardiac emergencies in Bavaria (Germany) during the last Football World Cup. The authors reported a 2.7-fold increase in the incidence of cardiac emergencies in the 12 h before and after football matches involving the German team, which sparked the debate on the necessity of the introduction of ad hoc cardiovascular preventive measures. We studied 25,159 hospital admissions for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) among the Italian population during three international football competitions: the World Cup 2002, the European Championship 2004 and the World Cup 2006. Poisson regression was used to estimate the relative risk of hospital admission for AMI on the days when football matches involving the Italian team were disputed, compared with the other days of the three competitions. Furthermore, we reviewed the available published studies regarding the association between football matches and the risk of cardiovascular events. We did not find an increase in the rates of admission for AMI on the days of football matches involving Italy in either the single competitions or the three competitions combined (relative risk 1.01; 95% confidence interval 0.98-1.05). We identified 10 studies published on this topic. With the exception of the recently published German study and two small Swiss studies, all relative risk estimates were between 0.7 and 1.3. The cardiovascular effects of watching football matches are likely to be, if anything, very small.

Football fever: goal distributions and non-Gaussian statistics

Science.gov (United States)

Bittner, E.; Nußbaumer, A.; Janke, W.; Weigel, M.

2009-02-01

Analyzing football score data with statistical techniques, we investigate how the not purely random, but highly co-operative nature of the game is reflected in averaged properties such as the probability distributions of scored goals for the home and away teams. As it turns out, especially the tails of the distributions are not well described by the Poissonian or binomial model resulting from the assumption of uncorrelated random events. Instead, a good effective description of the data is provided by less basic distributions such as the negative binomial one or the probability densities of extreme value statistics. To understand this behavior from a microscopical point of view, however, no waiting time problem or extremal process need be invoked. Instead, modifying the Bernoulli random process underlying the Poissonian model to include a simple component of self-affirmation seems to describe the data surprisingly well and allows to understand the observed deviation from Gaussian statistics. The phenomenological distributions used before can be understood as special cases within this framework. We analyzed historical football score data from many leagues in Europe as well as from international tournaments, including data from all past tournaments of the “FIFA World Cup” series, and found the proposed models to be applicable rather universally. In particular, here we analyze the results of the German women’s premier football league and consider the two separate German men’s premier leagues in the East and West during the cold war times as well as the unified league after 1990 to see how scoring in football and the component of self-affirmation depend on cultural and political circumstances.

A survey of referee participation, training and injury in elite Gaelic games referees.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Blake, Catherine

2009-01-01

BACKGROUND: Referees in Gaelic games are exposed to injury risk in match-play and training. Little is currently know about the degree of exposure or the prevalence of injury in this group. The aim of this study was to determine the time commitment to refereeing and training in elite-level Gaelic referees and to establish, for the first time, point and period (past 12 months) prevalence of Gaelic games injury in these officials. METHODS: A retrospective survey was posted to the complete list of 111 male referees who officiated in elite-level competition in Gaelic football and hurling at the end of the 2005 competition season. Data were summarised using percentages with 95% Confidence Intervals. RESULTS: The response rate was 80% (n = 89). Mean age was 42 +\\/- 6 years, ranging from 28-55 years. Forty eight percent were football referees, 25% were hurling referees and 27% refereed both football and hurling. Most referees (69%) officiated at 3-4 games weekly (range 1-6) and most (62%) trained 2-3 times per week (range 1-7). Fourteen percent (n = 12) were currently injured (95% CI 9-21%). Annual injury prevalence was 58% (95% CI 46 to 70%) for football, 50% (95% CI 33 to 67%) for hurling and 42% (95% CI 27 to 58%) for dual referee groups. Sixty percent of injuries were sustained while refereeing match play. The majority (83%, n = 40) were to the lower limb and the predominant (56%, n = 27) injury mechanism was running or sprinting. The most prevalent injuries were hamstring strain (n = 12, 25% of injuries) and calf strain (n = 9, 19% of injuries). Injury causing time off from refereeing was reported by 31% of all referees (95% CI 24 to 40%, n = 28), for a median duration of 3 weeks. CONCLUSION: Participation in official duties and training is high in elite Gaelic games referees, despite the amateur status of the sports. Gaelic games injury is common in the referee cohort, with lower limb injury predominating. These injuries have implications for both the referee and

A survey of referee participation, training and injury in elite gaelic games referees

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gissane Conor

2009-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Referees in Gaelic games are exposed to injury risk in match-play and training. Little is currently know about the degree of exposure or the prevalence of injury in this group. The aim of this study was to determine the time commitment to refereeing and training in elite-level Gaelic referees and to establish, for the first time, point and period (past 12 months prevalence of Gaelic games injury in these officials. Methods A retrospective survey was posted to the complete list of 111 male referees who officiated in elite-level competition in Gaelic football and hurling at the end of the 2005 competition season. Data were summarised using percentages with 95% Confidence Intervals. Results The response rate was 80% (n = 89. Mean age was 42 ± 6 years, ranging from 28–55 years. Forty eight percent were football referees, 25% were hurling referees and 27% refereed both football and hurling. Most referees (69% officiated at 3–4 games weekly (range 1–6 and most (62% trained 2–3 times per week (range 1–7. Fourteen percent (n = 12 were currently injured (95% CI 9–21%. Annual injury prevalence was 58% (95% CI 46 to 70% for football, 50% (95% CI 33 to 67% for hurling and 42% (95% CI 27 to 58% for dual referee groups. Sixty percent of injuries were sustained while refereeing match play. The majority (83%, n = 40 were to the lower limb and the predominant (56%, n = 27 injury mechanism was running or sprinting. The most prevalent injuries were hamstring strain (n = 12, 25% of injuries and calf strain (n = 9, 19% of injuries. Injury causing time off from refereeing was reported by 31% of all referees (95% CI 24 to 40%, n = 28, for a median duration of 3 weeks. Conclusion Participation in official duties and training is high in elite Gaelic games referees, despite the amateur status of the sports. Gaelic games injury is common in the referee cohort, with lower limb injury predominating. These injuries have implications for both

Evaluating Motoric Performance of 10 - 12 Age Group Football Players

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mehmet KUMARTAŞLI

2014-08-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study is to evaluate motoric perfromance of 10 - 12 age group football players. Akdeniz University tiny football team joined as experiment group and 80. Yıl Cumhuriyet Grammar School football team joined to the study as control group. An exercise programme with educational game format considering physical capacities and develeopment features was applied to the student as 8 weeks, 3 days a week. Standing long jump, flexibilty, 20 m. speed, handgrip strength, arm pull, vert ical jump, 10x5 shuttle run and leg strength tests were applied to the students. Handled data were compared at SPSS 10 statistic programme by using Independent Sample t Test. Students’ lenght and weight measurements were calculated. As a result of measurem ents, there were not found diffrences between experimental and control group’s standing long jump, flexibilty, 20 m. speed, handgrip strength, a vertical jump, 10x5 shuttle run and leg strength tests (p>0,05; but in arm pull test, statistically difference was found (p<0,01. While evaluating the physical performance in cihldren and adolescents, growth process is had to be considered. The results of football players that exercise regularly from small ages at physical and physiologic measurements have an importance according to their age. Performance observed in children is sudden and temporary. There are a few studies in the literature about negative psycological effects of starting trainings in early ages.

Association football and the representation of homosexuality by the print media: a case study of Anton Hysén.

Science.gov (United States)

Cleland, Jamie

2014-01-01

In March 2011, Anton Hysén (a semiprofessional footballer currently playing in the Swedish fourth division) became only the second association football (soccer) player of any professional disposition to publicly declare his homosexuality while still playing the game. This article provides a textual analysis of the print media's reaction to Hysén coming out and examines whether, in 2011, they portray more inclusive notions toward homosexuality than they did in 1990 when British footballer Justin Fashanu came out. The results advance inclusive masculinity theory as a number of print media sources (mostly British) interview Hysén in the weeks immediately after he came out and publish articles that challenge homophobia. Highlighting a change since 1990, a significant number of articles stress the need for the key stakeholders in football (players, fans, clubs, agents, the authorities, and the media) to accept gay players.

Activity profile and physiological response to football training for untrained males and females, elderly and youngsters: influence of the number of players

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Randers, Morten Bredsgaard; Nybo, Lars; Petersen, Jesper

2010-01-01

for all player groups, independently of age, sex, social background and number of players, and a high number of intense actions both for men and women. Thus, small-sided football games appear to have the potential to create physiological adaptations and improve performance with regular training......The present study examined the activity profile, heart rate and metabolic response of small-sided football games for untrained males (UM, n=26) and females (UF, n=21) and investigated the influence of the number of players (UM: 1v1, 3v3, 7v7; UF: 2v2, 4v4 and 7v7). Moreover, heart rate response...... to small-sided games was studied for children aged 9 and 12 years (C9+C12, n=75), as well as homeless (HM, n=15), middle-aged (MM, n=9) and elderly (EM, n=11) men. During 7v7, muscle glycogen decreased more for UM than UF (28 +/- 6 vs 11 +/- 5%; P

Evaluation of football players’ power during a maturation period by use the RAST test

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adrian Sieroń

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract          Introduction: Properly planned and implemented training cycle should influence the development      of motor skills, responsible for anaerobic work. The ability to quickly achieve and maintain high power is crucial to the final success of football (Stankiewicz               i Cieślicka, 2013. Performing     a specific test several Times, during preparation for the league games, gives the coaches and instructors of the sport the ability to dispense appropriate training loads, before the start and during the game. Moreover, they can freely watching the progress of the pupil. An athlete who, under intense effort, will reach high speeds with a low power loss, will achieve a high level of tolerance to fatigue. The ability to rapidly speed up and to multiple repetition of this activity, is now the basic requirement of most sports, such as football, basketball, handball, athletics, tennis and more.          The aim of the study is to assess the power of football players of different ages with the RAST test. In addition, relative power will be tested with reference to the body weight of the subjects.         Conclusion: By analyzing the study population, it can be concluded that body mass is significantly dominant in the group of high school students, which undoubtedly influences their ability to gain more power. Furthermore, taking into account the results of the relativized power, it has to be stated, that after weight loss relative power is also significantly dominant in high school students, which is evidence for their more advanced biological development and the impact of football training on the obtained results.

Learning With Repeated-Game Strategies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christos A. Ioannou

2014-07-01

Full Text Available We use the self-tuning Experience Weighted Attraction model with repeated-game strategies as a computer testbed to examine the relative frequency, speed of convergence and progression of a set of repeated-game strategies in four symmetric 2x2 games: Prisoner's Dilemma, Battle of the Sexes, Stag-Hunt, and Chicken. In the Prisoner's Dilemma game, we fi□nd that the strategy with the most occurrences is the Grim-Trigger. In the Battle of the Sexes game, a cooperative pair that alternates between the two pure-strategy Nash equilibria emerges as the one with the most occurrences. In the Stag-Hunt and Chicken games, the Win-Stay, Lose-Shift and Grim-Trigger strategies are the ones with the most occurrences. Overall, the pairs that converged quickly ended up at the cooperative outcomes, whereas the ones that were extremely slow to reach convergence ended up at non-cooperative outcomes.

Football players, asset management & the unexploited potential of enhanced player engagement in football management & marketing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cortsen, Kenneth

2016-01-01

This article gives insights into why and how football brands (e.g. clubs and governing bodies) can benefit from enhancing the activation of players in football management and football marketing initiatives.......This article gives insights into why and how football brands (e.g. clubs and governing bodies) can benefit from enhancing the activation of players in football management and football marketing initiatives....

Football players, asset management & the unexploited potential of enhanced player engagement in football management & marketing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cortsen, Kenneth

2014-01-01

This article gives insights into why and how football brands (e.g. clubs and governing bodies) can benefit from enhancing the activation of players in football management and football marketing initiatives.......This article gives insights into why and how football brands (e.g. clubs and governing bodies) can benefit from enhancing the activation of players in football management and football marketing initiatives....

Design sensitivities for interactive sport-training games

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Mads Møller; Rasmussen, Majken Kirkegård; Grønbæk, Kaj

2014-01-01

and reflected upon. Based on the experiences gained from the design and development process, as well as examples from the existing field and skill acquisition theory, we present three areas of interest to consider for interactive sport-training game designers: Context Characteristics, Movement Patterns...... and Perceptual Reaction. From a discussion of these areas, we derive eight design sensitivities that emphasize issues, challenges and opportunities, important for the design, development and analysis of interactive sport-training games in general.......This paper presents the design and development process of an interactive football-training game that aims to improve players' ball-handling skills, and their ability to simultaneously survey the playing field. A small-scale experiment was conducted to test the game, and the results are presented...

Average-energy games

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patricia Bouyer

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Two-player quantitative zero-sum games provide a natural framework to synthesize controllers with performance guarantees for reactive systems within an uncontrollable environment. Classical settings include mean-payoff games, where the objective is to optimize the long-run average gain per action, and energy games, where the system has to avoid running out of energy. We study average-energy games, where the goal is to optimize the long-run average of the accumulated energy. We show that this objective arises naturally in several applications, and that it yields interesting connections with previous concepts in the literature. We prove that deciding the winner in such games is in NP inter coNP and at least as hard as solving mean-payoff games, and we establish that memoryless strategies suffice to win. We also consider the case where the system has to minimize the average-energy while maintaining the accumulated energy within predefined bounds at all times: this corresponds to operating with a finite-capacity storage for energy. We give results for one-player and two-player games, and establish complexity bounds and memory requirements.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Football: A Metaphorical, Symbolic and Ritualistic Community Event

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

James W. Satterfield

2010-11-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to develop an understanding of the social dynamics surrounding the University of Nebraska-Lincoln football program on the community at large. The following research questions helped guide the research study: 1. What are the sociological effects of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln football on the community? and 2. How is commitment displayed to University of Nebraska football by members of the community? Six focus group interviews were conducted, each with five to seven participants. Through phenomenological analysis, it became clear that the sociological nature of University of Nebraska-Lincoln football is steeped in tradition, and the ritualistic nature that surrounds this phenomenon extends well into communities. This study illuminates three themes that emerged through data collection and analysis: 1. Harvest, 2. United we stand, and 3. Farm values. The Harvest theme represents the similarities of the agricultural lifestyle to a football season and how the entire year is dedicated towards performance. United we stand emerged as a visual, social and emotional sense of pride for the state of Nebraska residents towards the University and Nebraska and its football team. The connection between the university and the state begins early in life and grows as the years pass to become a social symbol of pride and togetherness as small towns shut down to gather and watch football games. Farm values emerged as the final theme and represented the importance of the farming value structure on the many small communities and towns in the state of Nebraska. For many small towns, a great sense of pride was generated when a local athlete was able to play for the University of Nebraska. This pride served as a means of legitimacy and hope in many struggling families that create Nebraska's farming communities. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs110134

Search Games on Hypergraphs

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pelekis, C.

2014-01-01

The main motivation behind this thesis is a certain type of win-lose games that are played on hypergraphs and can be translated into the following puzzle. Suppose there are two persons, say Alice and Bob. There are n biscuits, where n is a positive integer, and Alice chooses s of them uniformly at

Doubling Your Payoff: Winning Pain Relief Engages Endogenous Pain Inhibition

Science.gov (United States)

Becker, Susanne; Gandhi, Wiebke; Kwan, Saskia; Ahmed, Alysha-Karima; Schweinhardt, Petra

2015-01-01

When in pain, pain relief is much sought after, particularly for individuals with chronic pain. In analogy to augmentation of the hedonic experience ("liking") of a reward by the motivation to obtain a reward ("wanting"), the seeking of pain relief in a motivated state might increase the experience of pain relief when obtained. We tested this hypothesis in a psychophysical experiment in healthy human subjects, by assessing potential pain-inhibitory effects of pain relief "won" in a wheel of fortune game compared with pain relief without winning, exploiting the fact that the mere chance of winning induces a motivated state. The results show pain-inhibitory effects of pain relief obtained by winning in behaviorally assessed pain perception and ratings of pain intensity. Further, the higher participants scored on the personality trait novelty seeking, the more pain inhibition was induced. These results provide evidence that pain relief, when obtained in a motivated state, engages endogenous pain-inhibitory systems beyond the pain reduction that underlies the relief in the first place. Consequently, such pain relief might be used to improve behavioral pain therapy, inducing a positive, perhaps self-amplifying feedback loop of reduced pain and improved functionality.

Observations of youth football training: How do coaches structure training sessions for player development?

Science.gov (United States)

O'Connor, Donna; Larkin, Paul; Williams, A Mark

2018-01-01

We used systematic observation tools to explore the structure (i.e., activity and inactivity) and sequencing (i.e., the types of activities used) of football coaching sessions in Australia following the implementation of a new National Curriculum. Youth soccer coaches (n = 34), coaching within the Skill Acquisition (U11-U13 n = 19) and Game Training (U14-U17 n = 15) phases of the Football Federation Australia National Curriculum participated. Participants were filmed during a regular coaching session, with systematic observation of the session undertaken to provide a detailed analysis of the practice activities and coach behaviours. Findings indicated a session comprised of Playing Form activities (40.9%), Training Form activities (22.3%), inactivity (31%), and transitions between activities (5.8%). Coaches prescribed more Training Form activities (e.g., individual (5.4%) and drills (15.1%)) early in the session and progressed to Playing Form activities (i.e., small-sided games (15.3%) then larger games (24.8%)) later in the session. Most inactivity reflected the players listening to the coach - either in a team huddle (9.9%) or frozen on the spot during an activity (16.5%). In addition, coaches generally spent over 3 min communicating to players prior to explaining and introducing an activity regardless of when in the session the activity was scheduled.

Win-stay-lose-learn promotes cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game with voluntary participation.

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Chen Chu

Full Text Available Voluntary participation, demonstrated to be a simple yet effective mechanism to promote persistent cooperative behavior, has been extensively studied. It has also been verified that the aspiration-based win-stay-lose-learn strategy updating rule promotes the evolution of cooperation. Inspired by this well-known fact, we combine the Win-Stay-Lose-Learn updating rule with voluntary participation: Players maintain their strategies when they are satisfied, or players attempt to imitate the strategy of one randomly chosen neighbor. We find that this mechanism maintains persistent cooperative behavior, even further promotes the evolution of cooperation under certain conditions.

Kicking velocity and physical, technical, tactical match performance for U18 female football players - effect of a new ball

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Thomas B; Bendiksen, Mads; Pedersen, Jens M

2012-01-01

the new ball (NB) compared with the standard ball (SB) in a laboratory testing situation (23.2±0.4 vs. 22.4±0.3 ms(-1); p.05), but lower-limb muscular RPE was lower with NB (4.2±0.4 vs. 5.2±0.3; p.05). High-intensity running decreased (p.05). In conclusion, physiological demands were high in youth female...... football games, and decrements in running performance occurred towards the end of games. The players kicked faster and reported lower muscular exertion during games played with a lighter smaller ball, but locomotor activities, heart rate and overall technical-tactical game performance remained unaffected....

High precompetition injury rate dominates the injury profile at the Rio 2016 Summer Paralympic Games: a prospective cohort study of 51 198 athlete days.

Science.gov (United States)

Derman, Wayne; Runciman, Phoebe; Schwellnus, Martin; Jordaan, Esme; Blauwet, Cheri; Webborn, Nick; Lexell, Jan; van de Vliet, Peter; Tuakli-Wosornu, Yetsa; Kissick, James; Stomphorst, Jaap

2018-01-01

To describe the incidence of injury in the precompetition and competition periods of the Rio 2016 Summer Paralympic Games. A total of 3657 athletes from 78 countries, representing 83.4% of all athletes at the Games, were monitored on the web-based injury and illness surveillance system over 51 198 athlete days during the Rio 2016 Summer Paralympic Games. Injury data were obtained daily from teams with their own medical support. A total of 510 injuries were reported during the 14-day Games period, with an injury incidence rate (IR) of 10.0 injuries per 1000 athlete days (12.1% of all athletes surveyed). The highest IRs were reported for football 5-a-side (22.5), judo (15.5) and football 7-a-side (15.3) compared with other sports (pGames (IR of 5.5). The shoulder was the most common anatomical area affected by injury (IR of 1.8). The data from this study indicate that (1) IRs were lower than those reported for the London 2012 Summer Paralympic Games, (2) the sports of football 5-a-side, judo and football 7-a-side were independent risk factors for injury, (3) precompetition injuries had a higher IR than competition period injuries, (4) injuries to the shoulder were the most common. These results would allow for comparative data to be collected at future editions of the Games and can be used to inform injury prevention programmes. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

Football Players' Perceptions of Future Risk of Concussion and Concussion-Related Health Outcomes.

Science.gov (United States)

Baugh, Christine M; Kroshus, Emily; Kiernan, Patrick T; Mendel, David; Meehan, William P

2017-02-15

Concussion is increasingly recognized as a risk of participation in contact and collision sports. There have been few examinations of athletes' perceptions of their susceptibility to concussion or concussion-related health consequences. We examine college football players' perceptions of their risk of sustaining a concussion and concussion-related health consequences in their future, whether these perceptions change over time, and how concussion history is related to perceived future risk of concussion and concussion-related health consequences. A survey was administered to National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Championship Series athletes on 10 teams in 2013 and to nine of those teams in 2014. Athletes answered questions assessing their perceptions of concussion and potential concussion-related health consequences. Approximately 40% of athletes believed there was a strong possibility that they would sustain a concussion in the future, while approximately one-in-four thought a concussion would make them miss a few games. About one-in-10 athletes predicted dementia, Alzheimer's disease, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy would develop from concussions. These beliefs were stronger among athletes who had sustained previous concussions. Across the two years studied, athletes' perceptions of the risk of concussion and missing a few games because of concussion decreased significantly. Overall, a substantial proportion of college football players believe they will have long-term health consequences as a result of sustaining sport-related concussions. The true incidence and prevalence of many of these outcomes are unknown. Further research is needed to determine whether athletes have an accurate perception of the risks of these outcomes developing.

A class of extensions of Restricted (s, t-Wythoff’s game

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liu Sanyang

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Restricted (s, t-Wythoff’s game, introduced by Liu et al. in 2014, is an impartial combinatorial game. We define and solve a class of games obtained from Restricted (s, t-Wythoff’s game by adjoining to it some subsets of its P-positions as additional moves. The results show that under certain conditions they are equivalent to one case in which only one P-position is adjoined as an additional move. Furthermore, two winning strategies of exponential and polynomial are provided for the games.

Belonging to a community-based football team: an ethnographic study.

Science.gov (United States)

Mynard, Lorrae; Howie, Linsey; Collister, Laura

2009-08-01

This study considered the benefits derived from participation in a community-based Australian Rules Football league in Melbourne, Australia. The RecLink league deliberately tackles the social and occupational disadvantages associated with mental illness, addictions, unemployment and homelessness. An ethnographic methodology was used to study one team from the RecLink football league throughout an entire season. Fieldnotes were written following participant observation at training, games and events, and five in-depth interviews were conducted and transcribed. A constant comparative approach to data analysis was adopted. Three major themes were identified: a spirit of inclusion, team-building and meaning of team involvement. The first describes how members were accepted, welcomed and given the opportunity for team involvement, with the expectation that they 'had a go', and 'tried their best'. The second illustrates how the team collectively fostered a culture of friendship, cooperation and support. The third examines the significance of being part of the team, incorporating personal contributions and gains, and meanings attributed to team involvement. These findings demonstrated how football can be used as non-clinical, community-based occupational therapy: enabling participation in a personally meaningful and culturally valued occupation. Occupational therapists are challenged to explore further how such community-based sports programs may complement existing clinical and welfare-based approaches to social disadvantage.

Football gambling three arm-controlled study: gamblers, amateurs and laypersons.

Science.gov (United States)

Huberfeld, Ronen; Gersner, Roman; Rosenberg, Oded; Kotler, Moshe; Dannon, Pinhas N

2013-01-01

Football (soccer) betting, as a strategic form of betting, became one of the favorite wagers for pathological gamblers. Previous studies demonstrated the psychological and biological significance of the 'illusion of control' (personal control) and 'near miss' results in gambling. In our study, we explored whether knowledge and expertise of pathological sports gamblers can ensure a successful bet. Participants were divided into three groups of individuals - pathological gamblers, amateurs and laypersons - and were asked to predict in advance the general result and the exact result of football matches in the European Champions League Round of 16. The 165 participants included 53 pathological sports gamblers (52 males and 1 female), 78 laypersons (45 females and 33 males) and 34 amateurs (all males). After a thorough statistical analysis, we found no significant differences between the groups, no matter what kind of previous knowledge they had acquired. This study demonstrates that the 'illusion of control' of pathological gamblers, attained by knowledge of the game and its latest data and information (especially in a strategic gamble as football betting), has no factual background. Moreover, our study demonstrates without a doubt that there is no significant difference between the male pathological sports gamblers group and the male/female laypersons group. Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Comparative analysis of gameplay and players emotion in the most popular games from play store

Science.gov (United States)

Riwinoto; Mahfud, N.; Lumombo, L.

2018-03-01

The development of the android mobile operating system and the presence of Play Store services poses challenges for developers to produce exciting mobile games. Although publishing games in Play Store is not difficult, in fact developers have to face tough competition to make homemade games can become popular. This study analyzes the gameplay of three popular paid-free games in Play Store that can survive for a period of one year from the top 10 positions in October 2015- November 2016. Analysis performed on 8 elements of the game based on the definition of Fullerton and emotional expression analysis of respondents who appeared while playing the three choosen games. The analysis shows that scarce resources are the main attraction of all three games because they create conflicts, giving constraints and challenges to players. The multiplayer game has a pattern of results and the result makes the opponent become more negative than the player to win. While the single player game is analyzed has a pattern to make the player get positive to win. There are 3 basic emotions that most often appear that is joy, disgust and surprise. Multiplayer games tend to emphasize the emotions of joy players, while single player games tend to bring disgust emotions.

The Value of Team-Based Mixed-Reality (TBMR) Games in Higher Education

Science.gov (United States)

Denholm, John A.; Protopsaltis, Aristidis; de Freitas, Sara

2013-01-01

This paper reports on a conducted study, measuring the perceptions of post-graduate students on the effectiveness of serious games in the classroom. Four games were used (Project Management Exercise, "Winning Margin" Business Simulation, Management of Change and Management of Product Design and Development) with scenarios ranging from…

The Epidemiology of Overuse Conditions in Youth Football and High School Football Players.

Science.gov (United States)

Morris, Kevin; Simon, Janet E; Grooms, Dustin R; Starkey, Chad; Dompier, Thomas P; Kerr, Zachary Y

2017-10-01

  High-intensity sport training at the youth level has led to increased concern for overuse conditions. Few researchers have examined overuse conditions in youth sports.   To examine the rates, risks, and distributions of overuse conditions between youth and high school football players.   Descriptive epidemiologic study.   Youth and high school football teams.   The Youth Football Safety Study (YFSS) investigated youth football athletes from age 5 to 14 years. The National Athletic Treatment, Injury and Outcomes Network (NATION) focused on high school football athletes 14 to 18 years old. The YFSS data consisted of 210 team-seasons, and the NATION data consisted of 138 team-seasons.   Athletic trainers collected football injury and exposure data during the 2012 and 2013 seasons. Injury rates, risks, and distributions were calculated, with injury rate ratios, risk ratios, and injury proportion ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) comparing youth and high school football players.   The YFSS reported 1488 injuries, of which 53 (3.6%) were overuse conditions. The NATION reported 12 013 injuries, of which 339 (2.8%) were overuse conditions. The overuse condition rate did not differ between high school and youth football (3.93 versus 3.72/10 000 athlete-exposures; injury rate ratio = 1.06; 95% CI = 0.79, 1.41). However, the 1-season risk of overuse condition was higher in high school than in youth football players (2.66% versus 1.05%; risk ratio = 2.53; 95% CI = 1.84, 3.47). Compared with high school football players, youth football players had greater proportions of overuse conditions that were nontime loss (ie, football players. However, differences existed between the 2 levels of competition. Although additional research on the incidence of overuse conditions across all youth and high school sports is needed, these findings may highlight the need for programming that is specific to competition level.

Managing Tensions in Educational Organizations: Trying for a Win-Win Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Grab, Rudi

1996-01-01

Constructive tension can be healthy for an organization. Although win-lose solutions based on adversarial strategies are common, the management of conflicts in schools should focus on win-win problem solving, which requires creativity. Identifies collaboration as the most desirable conflict resolution strategy, and discusses conflict management…

Win-win Imageries in a Soap Bubble World

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ekman, Susanne

2015-01-01

This article explores the imagery and notions of personhood underlying the willingness to undertake extreme work among creative knowledge workers. The core argument is that extreme work is informed by pervasive win-win fantasies which can be recognized in a number of current organizational trends...

Head Impact Exposure in Junior and Adult Australian Football Players

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark Hecimovich

2018-01-01

Full Text Available This study measured and compared the frequency, magnitude, and distribution of head impacts sustained by junior and adult Australian football players, respectively, and between player positions over a season of games. Twelve junior and twelve adult players were tracked using a skin-mounted impact sensor. Head impact exposure, including frequency, magnitude, and location of impacts, was quantified using previously established methods. Over the collection period, there were no significant differences in the impact frequency between junior and adult players. However, there was a significant increase in the frequency of head impacts for midfielders in both grades once we accounted for player position. A comparable amount of head impacts in both junior and adult players has implications for Australian football regarding player safety and medical coverage as younger players sustained similar impact levels as adult players. The other implication of a higher impact profile within midfielders is that, by targeting education and prevention strategies, a decrease in the incidence of sports-related concussion may result.

Factors Affecting Match Outcome in Elite Australian Football: A 14-Year Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Lazarus, Brendan H; Hopkins, William G; Stewart, Andrew M; Aughey, Robert J

2018-02-01

Effects of fixture and team characteristics on match outcome in elite Australian football were quantified using data accessed at AFLtables.com for 5109 matches for seasons 2000 to 2013. Aspects of each match included number of days' break between matches (≤7 d vs ≥8 d), location (home vs away), travel status (travel vs no travel), and differences between opposing teams' mean age, body mass, and height (expressed as quintiles). A logistic-regression version of the generalized mixed linear model estimated each effect, which was assessed with magnitude-based inference using 1 extra win or loss in every 10 matches as the smallest important change. For every 10 matches played, the effects were days' break, 0.1 ± 0.3 (90% CL) wins; playing away, 1.5 ± 0.6 losses; traveling, 0.7 ± 0.6 losses; and being in the oldest, heaviest, or shortest, quintile, 1.9 ± 0.4, 1.3 ± 0.4, and 0.4 ± 0.4 wins, respectively. The effects of age and body-mass difference were not reduced substantially when adjusted for each other. All effects were clear, mostly at the 99% level. The effects of playing away, travel, and age difference were not unexpected, but the trivial effect of days' break and the advantage of a heavier team will challenge current notions about balancing training with recovery and about team selection.

Physiological Responses and Physical Performance during Football in the Heat

Science.gov (United States)

Mohr, Magni; Nybo, Lars; Grantham, Justin; Racinais, Sebastien

2012-01-01

Purpose To examine the impact of hot ambient conditions on physical performance and physiological responses during football match-play. Methods Two experimental games were completed in temperate (∼21°C; CON) and hot ambient conditions (∼43°C; HOT). Physical performance was assessed by match analysis in 17 male elite players during the games and a repeated sprint test was conducted after the two game trials. Core and muscle temperature were measured and blood samples were obtained, before and after the games. Results Muscle and core temperatures were ∼1°C higher (P14 km⋅h−1) by 26% in HOT compared to CON), but peak sprint speed was 4% higher (P24 km⋅h−1) between CON and HOT. In HOT, success rates for passes and crosses were 8 and 9% higher (Pheat (r = 0.85 and r = 0.53, respectively; Pheat, but these changes were not directly related to the absolute or relative changes in core or muscle temperature. However, peak sprinting speed and execution of successful passes and crosses were improved in the HOT condition. PMID:22723963

Noisy non-transitive quantum games

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ramzan, M; Khan, Salman; Khan, M Khalid

2010-01-01

We study the effect of quantum noise in 3 x 3 entangled quantum games. By taking into account different noisy quantum channels, we analyze how a two-player, three-strategy Rock-Scissor-Paper game is influenced by the quantum noise. We consider the winning non-transitive strategies R, S and P such that R beats S, S beats P and P beats R. The game behaves as a noiseless game for the maximum value of the quantum noise. It is seen that Alice's payoff is heavily influenced by the depolarizing noise as compared to the amplitude damping noise. A depolarizing channel causes a monotonic decrease in players' payoffs as we increase the amount of quantum noise. In the case of the amplitude damping channel, Alice's payoff function reaches its minimum for α = 0.5 and is symmetrical. This means that larger values of quantum noise influence the game weakly. On the other hand, the phase damping channel does not influence the game. Furthermore, the Nash equilibrium and non-transitive character of the game are not affected under the influence of quantum noise.

Predictive value of prior injury on career in professional American football is affected by player position.

Science.gov (United States)

Brophy, Robert H; Lyman, Stephen; Chehab, Eric L; Barnes, Ronnie P; Rodeo, Scott A; Warren, Russell F

2009-04-01

The National Football League holds an annual combine where individual teams evaluate college football players The abstract goes here and covers two columns. likely to be drafted for physical skills, review players' medical history and imaging studies, and perform a physical examination. The purpose of this study was to test the effect of specific diagnoses and surgical procedures on the likelihood of playing and length of career in the league by position. Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3. A database for all players reviewed at the annual National Football League Combine by the medical staff of 1 National Football League team from 1987 to 2000 was created, including each player's orthopaedic rating, diagnoses, surgical procedures, number of games played, and number of seasons played in the National Football League. Athletes were grouped by position as follows: offensive backfield, offensive receiver, offensive line, quarterback, tight end, defensive line, defensive secondary, linebacker, and kicker. The percentage of athletes who played in the National Football League was calculated by position for each specific diagnosis and surgery. The effect of injury on the likelihood of playing in the league varied by position. Anterior cruciate ligament injury significantly lowered the likelihood of playing in the league for defensive linemen (P = .03) and linebackers (P = .04). Meniscal injury significantly reduced the probability of playing (P history of spondylolysis had a significant effect for running backs (P = .01). Miscellaneous injuries (eg. acromioclavicular joint, knee medial collateral ligament, carpal fractures) had isolated position-specific effects. The significant injuries and diagnoses appear congruent with the position-specific demands placed on the athletes. This information is useful to physicians and athletic trainers caring for college football athletes as well as those assessing these athletes at the National Football League Combine.

Would You Let Your Child Play Football? Attitudes Toward Football Safety.

Science.gov (United States)

Fedor, Andrew; Gunstad, John

2016-01-01

An estimated 1.6 million to 3.8 million sports-related concussions occur each year in the United States, and many are related to football. This has generated much discussion in the media on the perceived safety of the sport. In the current study, researchers asked 230 individuals various questions about attitudes toward safety in football. Approximately 92.6% of participants indicated they would allow their child to play football; these participants were more likely to be female (χ(2) = 5.23, p > .05), were slightly younger (t= -2.52, p football, and future studies are needed to clarify factors that inform this opinion.

Football Players' Head-Impact Exposure After Limiting of Full-Contact Practices.

Science.gov (United States)

Broglio, Steven P; Williams, Richelle M; O'Connor, Kathryn L; Goldstick, Jason

2016-07-01

Sporting organizations limit full-contact football practices to reduce concussion risk and based on speculation that repeated head impacts may result in long-term neurodegeneration. To directly compare head-impact exposure in high school football players before and after a statewide restriction on full-contact practices. Cross-sectional study. High school football field. Participants were varsity football athletes from a single high school. Before the rule change, 26 athletes (age = 16.2 ± 0.8 years, height = 179.6 ± 6.4 cm, weight = 81.9 ± 13.1 kg) participated. After the rule change, 24 athletes (age = 15.9 ± 0.8 years, height = 178.3 ± 6.5 cm, weight = 76.2 ± 11.6 kg) participated. Nine athletes participated in both years of the investigation. Head-impact exposure was monitored using the Head Impact Telemetry System while the athletes participated in football games and practices in the seasons before and after the rule change. Head-impact frequency, location, and magnitude (ie, linear acceleration, rotational acceleration, and Head Impact Telemetry severity profile [HITsp], respectively) were measured. A total of 15 398 impacts (592 impacts per player per season) were captured before the rule change and 8269 impacts (345 impacts per player per season) after the change. An average 42% decline in impact exposure occurred across all players, with practice-exposure declines occurring among linemen (46% decline); receivers, cornerbacks, and safeties (41% decline); and tight ends, running backs (including fullbacks), and linebackers (39% decline). Impact magnitudes remained largely unchanged between the years. A rule change limiting full-contact high school football practices appears to have been effective in reducing head-impact exposure across all players, with the largest reduction occurring among linemen. This finding is likely associated with the rule modification, particularly because the coaching staff and offensive scheme remained consistent, yet how

Physiological Responses During Multiplay Exergaming in Young Adult Males are Game-Dependent

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

McGuire Stephen

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Regular moderate-intensity exercise provides health benefits. The aim of this study was to examine whether the selected exercise intensity and physiological responses during exergaming in a single and multiplayer mode in the same physical space were game-dependent. Ten males (mean ±SD, age: 23 ±5 years, body mass: 84.2 ±15.6 kg, body height: 180 ±7 cm, body mass index: 26.0 ±4.0 kg·m−2 played the games Kinect football, boxing and track & field (3 × ~10 min, ~ 2 min rest periods in similar time sequence in two sessions. Physiological responses were measured with the portable Cosmed K4b2 pulmonary gas exchange system. Single play demands were used to match with a competitive opponent in a multiplay mode. A within-subjects crossover design was used with one-way ANOVA and a post-hoc t-test for analysis (p<0.05. Minute ventilation, oxygen uptake and the heart rate were at least 18% higher during a multiplayer mode for Kinect football and boxing but not for track & field. Energy expenditure was 21% higher during multiplay football. Single play track & field had higher metabolic equivalent than single play football (5.7 ±1.6, range: 3.2-8.6 vs 4.1 ±1.0, range: 3.0-6.1, p<0.05. Exergaming in a multiplayer mode can provide higher physiological demands but the effects are game-dependent. It seems that exergaming with low intensity in a multiplayer mode may provide a greater physical challenge for participants than in a single play mode but may not consistently provide sufficient intensity to acquire health benefits when played regularly as part of a programme to promote and maintain health in young adults.

Qatar Airways Official Partner of China Team At 15th Doha Asian Games 2006

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

无

2006-01-01

@@ Asian Games was held from Dec.1-15 this year in Qatar's capital Doha,which attracted more than 10,500 athletes and team officials from 45 countries competing in 39sports.As Official Airline of the 15th Asian Games,Qatar Airways delivers its award-winning Five Star service to visitors to the Games,whether they are participating or are spectators.

Peers and parents: a comparison between neural activation when winning for friends and mothers in adolescence.

Science.gov (United States)

Braams, Barbara R; Crone, Eveline A

2017-03-01

Rewards reliably elicit ventral striatum activity. More recently studies have shown that vicarious rewards elicit similar activation. Ventral striatum responses to rewards for self peak during adolescence. However, it is currently not well understood how ventral striatum responses to vicarious rewards develop. In this study, we test this question using behavioral and fMRI data. A total of 233 participants aged 9-26 years old played a gambling game in the scanner in which they could win or lose money for themselves, their best friend and mother. Participants rated how close they felt to their friend and mother and how much they liked winning for them. These ratings were positively correlated. On the neural level males showed higher responses to winning for a friend, but there were no age differences. In contrast, there was a quadratic effect of age when winning for mother, showing heightened ventral striatum activity in mid-adolescence. Furthermore, there was an interaction between age and sex; for females responses to winning for friends become stronger with age relative to winning for mothers. In conclusion, this study provided evidence for elevated ventral striatum responses for mothers in mid-adolescence, and a shift in ventral striatum responses towards peers in girls. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Tribal love: the neural correlates of passionate engagement in football fans.

Science.gov (United States)

Duarte, Isabel C; Afonso, Sónia; Jorge, Helena; Cayolla, Ricardo; Ferreira, Carlos; Castelo-Branco, Miguel

2017-05-01

The tribal character of the affective link between football fans and their teams is a well-recognized phenomenon. Other forms of love such as romantic or maternal attachment have previously been studied from a neuroimaging point of view. Here we aimed to investigate the neural basis of this tribal form of love, which implies both the feeling of belongingness and rivalry against opposing teams. A pool of 56 participants was submitted to an fMRI experimental design involving the presentation of winning and losing football moments of their loved, rival or neutral teams. We found recruitment of amygdala and reward regions, including the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and substantia nigra (SN), as well as other limbic regions involved in emotional cognition, for 'positive vs neutral' and 'positive vs negative' conditions. The latter contrast was correlated with neuropsychological scores of fanaticism in the amygdala and regions within the reward system, as the VTA and SN. The observation of increased response patterns in critical components of the reward system, in particular for positive content related to the loved team, suggests that this kind of non-romantic love reflects a specific arousal and motivational state, which is biased for emotional learning of positive outcomes. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press.

Online news media reporting of football-related fatalities in Australia: A matter of life and death.

Science.gov (United States)

Fortington, Lauren V; Bekker, Sheree; Finch, Caroline F

2018-03-01

While deaths in sports settings are rare, they do occur. To develop an understanding of the sports and people most at risk, and to identify opportunities for prevention, routine and systematic data detailing the occurrence of these fatalities is required. There is currently no routine reporting of data of this nature in Australia. As there is often strong community interest in these incidents, the media offers an opportunity for surveillance. However before this can occur, understanding of the terminology used by the media is required. The aim of this study was to identify the terminology most frequently used in online Australian news media coverage of football-related deaths. Retrospective review of online news media. Three databases were searched for online news media reports of people who died while participating in football (all football codes) in Australia. A descriptive analysis of terminology was undertaken to identify the common language applied. Thirty-four football-related fatalities in Australia were identified between 2010-2016, via 149 separate articles. The most frequent terms identified in the media items were: Family; Club; Rugby; Football; Player; League; Died; Game; Death; Life; Loved; Hospital; Match; Young; Community; Playing; Friends; Sport; Heart; AFL [Australian Football League]. This study identified terminology used in reporting football-related fatalities in Australia, identifying common reference to terms relating to 'death' as metaphors and the frequent celebration of 'life.' The findings suggest that a reliance on researcher-generated terminology will be insufficient to reflect media discourse in prospective monitoring of sports deaths for surveillance. Copyright © 2017 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Win-Win transportation solutions price reforms with multiple benefits

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Litman, T.

2001-01-01

Reform strategies in the transportation market, such as the Win-Win Transportation Solutions, can provide several economic, social and environmental benefits. The strategies are cost effective, technically feasible reforms based on market principles which help create a more equitable and efficient transportation system that supports sustainable economic development. The benefits they provide include reduced traffic congestion, road and parking facility savings, consumer savings, equity, safety and environmental protection. They also increase economic productivity. If fully implemented, they could reduce motor vehicle impacts by 15 to 30 per cent and could help achieve the Kyoto emission reduction targets. Examples of Win-Win strategies at the federal level include: (1) removal of subsidies to oil production and internalized costs, and (2) tax exempt employer provided transfer benefits. Examples of Win-Win strategies at the state/provincial level include: (1) distance-based vehicle insurance and registration fees, (2) least-coast transportation planning and funding, (3) revenue-neutral tax shifting, (4) road pricing, (5) reform motor carrier regulations for competition and efficiency, (6) local and regional transportation demand management programs, (7) more efficient land use, (8) more flexible zoning requirements, (9) parking cash out, (10) transportation management associations, (11) location-efficient housing and mortgages, (12) school and campus trip management, (13) car sharing, (14) non-motorized transport improvements, and (15) traffic calming. It was noted that any market reform that leads to more efficient use of existing transportation systems can provide better economic development benefits. 9 refs., 1 tab., 1 fig

Prediction of core and lower extremity strains and sprains in collegiate football players: a preliminary study.

Science.gov (United States)

Wilkerson, Gary B; Giles, Jessica L; Seibel, Dustin K

2012-01-01

Poor core stability is believed to increase vulnerability to uncontrolled joint displacements throughout the kinetic chain between the foot and the lumbar spine. To assess the value of preparticipation measurements as predictors of core or lower extremity strains or sprains in collegiate football players. Cohort study. National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Championship Subdivision football program. All team members who were present for a mandatory physical examination on the day before preseason practice sessions began (n = 83). Preparticipation administration of surveys to assess low back, knee, and ankle function; documentation of knee and ankle injury history; determination of body mass index; 4 different assessments of core muscle endurance; and measurement of step-test recovery heart rate. All injuries were documented throughout the preseason practice period and 11-game season. Receiver operating characteristic analysis and logistic regression analysis were used to identify dichotomized predictive factors that best discriminated injured from uninjured status. The 75th and 50th percentiles were evaluated as alternative cutpoints for dichotomization of injury predictors. Players with ≥2 of 3 potentially modifiable risk factors related to core function had 2 times greater risk for injury than those with football injury risk factors that can be identified on preparticipation screening. These predictors need to be assessed in a prospective manner with a larger sample of collegiate football players.

Football – Feminisation – Fans

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mintert, Svenja-Maria

The researcher reviewed relevant primary and secondary literature relating to women’s football, female football consumption and identity dynamics in a European perspective. Between March and August 2013, 31 semi-structured interviews with Danish women aged between 24 and 60 years were conducted following......Football has long time been considered as a genuine masculine domain. However, in the current football culture, the dualism of masculinity and femaleness is in progress. More and more women consume football which is in many countries considered the most popular sport, not only in Scandinavia where......, the combination ‘women and football’ is still adhered to certain scepticism. Objective The overall objective of this Ph.D. thesis is to contribute to the body of knowledge associated with the distinct aspects of women’s football, female fandom and gender identities in European football drawing upon various...

Games That Teach Concepts Around the Nexus of Energy, Water, and Climate

Science.gov (United States)

Mayhew, M. A.; Hall, M.; Balaban, S.

2013-12-01

Three manifestations of the extreme amplification of the human population--exploding worldwide demand for energy, increasing exploitation of and competition for water resources, and alteration of the planet's climate--are tightly intertwined. All processes for generating energy require consumption of water, for some processes enormous quantities. It takes water to get energy. The inverse is also true: it takes energy to get water. It takes energy to move water from where it is stored to where it is needed. Burning fossil fuels for energy has increased greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, resulting in increases in the average temperature of the Earth. But the response of the climate system is exceedingly complex. Changes in atmospheric circulation due to global warming are altering weather patterns and changing the distribution of water on the planet. Climate-related weather events alter availability of water and impact energy supply and demand. This is the nexus of energy, water, and climate. We have created two lively card games that convey the nexus concepts. They have been extensively play-tested with groups from middle school to adult; they have been found to be both educational and fun. A distinguished advisory committee, including representatives of the national labs, has insured the scientific accuracy of the games. In the first game, Thirst For Power, each player is the governor of a region; a GOAL card specifies the amount of General and Transportation energy needed for the region, achieved via ENERGY SOURCE cards. WATER cards are used as currency for obtaining energy sources. Each energy source has an associated 'environmental impact' penalty, meaning greenhouse gas emissions, but also other things like water and air pollution. ACTION cards (TECHNOLOGY, POLICY, AND CLIMATE) act much like 'Chance' cards in Monopoly to change the course of the game. The first player to achieve energy goals without exceeding an environmental impact limit for the region wins

WinBUGSio: A SAS Macro for the Remote Execution of WinBUGS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael K. Smith

2007-09-01

Full Text Available This is a macro which facilitates remote execution of WinBUGS from within SAS. The macro pre-processes data for WinBUGS, writes the WinBUGS batch-script, executes this script and reads in output statistics from the WinBUGS log-file back into SAS native format. The user specifies the input and output file names and directory path as well as the statistics to be monitored in WinBUGS. The code works best for a model that has already been set up and checked for convergence diagnostics within WinBUGS. An obvious extension of the use of this macro is for running simulations where the input and output files all have the same name but all that differs between simulation iterations is the input dataset. The functionality and syntax of the macro call are described in this paper and illustrated using a simple linear regression model.

The football laboratory: policing football supporters in the Netherlands

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Spaaij, R.; Mastrogiannakis, D.; Dorville, C.

2012-01-01

An advanced security assemblage is now at the permanent disposal of authorities in their quest to pre-empt and manage risk at football matches. This chapter proposes the ‘football stadia-as-laboratories’ metaphor as an analytical lens through which to examine the security and risk management

Effect of shoulder stabilization on career length in national football league athletes.

Science.gov (United States)

Brophy, Robert H; Gill, Corey S; Lyman, Stephen; Barnes, Ronnie P; Rodeo, Scott A; Warren, Russell F

2011-04-01

Shoulder instability and surgical stabilization are common in college football athletes. The effect of shoulder stabilization during college on the length of an athlete's career in the National Football League (NFL) has not been well examined. Athletes with a history of shoulder stabilization before the NFL combine have a shorter career than do matched controls. Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3. A database containing the injury history and career NFL statistics of athletes from 1987 to 2000 was used to match athletes with a history of shoulder stabilization and no other surgery or significant injury to controls without a history of any previous surgery or significant injury. Athletes were matched by position, year drafted, round drafted, and additional minor injury history. Forty-two athletes with a history of shoulder stabilization were identified and matched with controls. A history of shoulder stabilization significantly reduced the length of career in terms of years (5.2 ± 3.9 vs 6.9 ± 3.6 years; P = .01) and games played (56 ± 53 vs 77 ± 50, P = .03) as compared with controls. By position, linemen and linebackers (20 athletes) with a history of shoulder stabilization had a significantly shorter career in years (4.7 ± 3.8 vs 6.7 ± 3.4 years; P = .049) and games played (51 ± 58 vs 81 ± 48; P = .046) than did controls. Among the other positions (22 athletes), the difference was not statistically significant in this small cohort. A history of shoulder stabilization shortens the expected career of a professional football player, particularly for linemen and linebackers. Further research is warranted to better understand how these injuries and surgeries affect an athlete's career and what can be done to improve the long-term outcome after treatment.

Seasonality as a Parrondian game

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Peacock-Lopez, Enrique, E-mail: epeacock@williams.edu [Department of Chemistry, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7701 Cape Town (South Africa)

2011-08-15

Switching strategies can be related to the so-called Parrondian games, where the alternation of two losing games yields a winning game. We consider two dynamics that by themselves yield undesirable behaviors, but when alternated, yield a desirable oscillatory behavior. In the analysis of the alternate-logistic map, we prove that alternating parameter values yielding extinction with parameter values associated with chaotic dynamics results in periodic trajectories. Ultimately, we consider a four season logistic model with either migration or immigration. -- Highlights: → We consider the logistic map as a population model and include parameter switching. → From bifurcation diagrams, we find parameters that follow the Parrondian Paradox. → We study a four-season Parrondian model that includes migration or immigration.

Seasonality as a Parrondian game

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peacock-Lopez, Enrique

2011-01-01

Switching strategies can be related to the so-called Parrondian games, where the alternation of two losing games yields a winning game. We consider two dynamics that by themselves yield undesirable behaviors, but when alternated, yield a desirable oscillatory behavior. In the analysis of the alternate-logistic map, we prove that alternating parameter values yielding extinction with parameter values associated with chaotic dynamics results in periodic trajectories. Ultimately, we consider a four season logistic model with either migration or immigration. -- Highlights: → We consider the logistic map as a population model and include parameter switching. → From bifurcation diagrams, we find parameters that follow the Parrondian Paradox. → We study a four-season Parrondian model that includes migration or immigration.

Limitations of the relative standard deviation of win percentages for measuring competitive balance in sports leagues

OpenAIRE

P. Dorian Owen

2009-01-01

The relative standard deviation of win percentages, the most widely used measure of within-season competitive balance, has an upper bound which is very sensitive to variation in the numbers of teams and games played. Taking into account this upper bound provides additional insight into comparisons of competitive balance across leagues or over time.

Sport-Related Structural Brain Injury: 3 Cases of Subdural Hemorrhage in American High School Football.

Science.gov (United States)

Yengo-Kahn, Aaron M; Gardner, Ryan M; Kuhn, Andrew W; Solomon, Gary S; Bonfield, Christopher M; Zuckerman, Scott L

2017-10-01

The risk of sport-related concussion (SRC) has emerged as a major public health concern. In rare instances, sport-related head injuries can be even more severe, such as subdural hemorrhage, epidural hemorrhage, or malignant cerebral edema. Unlike SRCs, sport-related structural brain injury (SRSBI) is rare, may require neurosurgical intervention, and can lead to permanent neurologic deficit or death. Data characterizing SRSBI are limited, and many have recognized the need to better understand these catastrophic brain injuries. The goal of the current series is to describe, in detail, the presentation, management, and outcomes of examples of these rare injuries. During the fall of 2015, three high school football players presented with acute subdural hemorrhages following in-game collisions and were treated at our institution within a span of 2 months. For the 2 athletes who required surgical intervention, a previous SRC was sustained within 4 weeks before the catastrophic event. One year after injury, 2 players have returned to school, though with persistent deficits. One patient remains nonverbal and wheelchair bound. None of the athletes has returned to sports. Acute subdural hemorrhage resultant from an in-game football collision is rare. The temporal proximity of the reported SRSBIs to recent SRCs emphasizes the importance of return-to-play protocols and raises questions regarding the possibility of second impact syndrome. Although epidemiologic conclusions cannot be drawn from this small sample, these cases provide a unique opportunity to demonstrate the presentation, management, and long-term outcomes of SRSBI in American high school football. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Win, Learn, Focus, Adapt, Win Again: The Scrimmage Should be as Hard as the Game

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-01

deployed. In addition, the Training Brain is helping us to evolve massive multiplayer online role-playing games that will al- low soldiers and leaders...training at home station and training at the combat training centers. Absent actual violence , each should confront Soldiers and leaders with the

Tackling in Youth Football.

Science.gov (United States)

2015-11-01

American football remains one of the most popular sports for young athletes. The injuries sustained during football, especially those to the head and neck, have been a topic of intense interest recently in both the public media and medical literature. The recognition of these injuries and the potential for long-term sequelae have led some physicians to call for a reduction in the number of contact practices, a postponement of tackling until a certain age, and even a ban on high school football. This statement reviews the literature regarding injuries in football, particularly those of the head and neck, the relationship between tackling and football-related injuries, and the potential effects of limiting or delaying tackling on injury risk. Copyright © 2015 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The incidence and nature of injuries sustained on grass and 3rd generation artificial turf: a pilot study in elite Saudi National Team footballers.

Science.gov (United States)

Almutawa, M; Scott, M; George, K P; Drust, B

2014-02-01

To compare the incidence, severity and nature of injuries sustained by Saudi National Team footballers during match-play and training on natural grass and 3rd generation (3G) artificial turf. Injury data was collected on all Saudi National Team players competing at the Gulf Cup (Yemen December 2010: 3G) and the Asian Cup (Qatar January 2011; grass). A total of 49 players were studied (mean ± SD; Age 27 ± 4 yr; body mass 71.4 ± 6.7 kg; height 176.8 ± 6.3 cm; professional playing experience 9 ± 3 yr) of which 31 competed at the Gulf Cup, 32 at the Asian Cup (14 at both). A prospective cohort design was used to investigate the incidence, nature and severity of injuries sustained with data collected using a standardised injury questionnaire. All data were collected by the team physiotherapist with the definition of injury set at any injury that required player and clinician contact. Injury and exposure data were collected and reported for games, training and all football activity. A total of 82 injuries [incidence - 56.1 per 1000 h total game and training exposure] were recorded at the Asian Cup (grass) and 72 injuries [incidence - 37.9 per 1000 h total game and training exposure] were recorded at the Gulf Cup (3G). Incidence data for training, game and all football exposure injury rates were higher when playing on grass. The vast majority of injuries on both surfaces were very minor that, whilst requiring medical attention, did not result in loss of match/training exposure. Injuries that resulted in 1-3 days absence from training or game play had similar incidence rates (Grass: 7.4 vs. 3G: 7.4 injuries per 1000 h exposure). More severe injuries were less frequent but with a higher incidence when playing on grass. Lower limb injuries were the most common in both tournaments with a higher incidence on grass (Grass: 14.2 vs. 3G: 7.9 injuries per 1000 h exposure). Muscle injuries were the most frequent of all injuries with similar incidence rates on

Performance indicators analysis at Brazilian and Italian women's volleyball leagues according to game location, game outcome, and set number.

Science.gov (United States)

Campos, Fabio A D; Stanganélli, Luiz C R; Campos, Leandra C B; Pasquarelli, Bruno N; Gómez, Miguel-Angel

2014-04-01

This study was done to investigate the advantage of playing at home in elite women's volleyball leagues and the influence of performance indicators in the game score according to set number. The sample consisted of 240 games of the Brazilian Volleyball League (n = 132 games) and the Italian Volleyball League (n = 108 games) from the 2011-2012 season. The relationship of performance indicators (including serve, attack, block, and opponents' errors) with the game outcome (win or lose) was assessed. The results showed that there was a home advantage effect in women's volleyball leagues, with a higher prevalence of victory for the home teams in Brazilian and Italian leagues (58 and 56%, respectively). When related to the performance indicators and among the aspects that were most highly correlated with victory, the attack was the technical indicator that explained most of the results of volleyball games.

Prevalence and Impact of Hip Arthroscopic Surgery on Future Participation in Elite American Football Athletes.

Science.gov (United States)

Knapik, Derrick M; Sheehan, Joe; Nho, Shane J; Voos, James E; Salata, Michael J

2018-02-01

Intra-articular injuries to the hip in elite athletes represent a source of significant pain and disability. Hip arthroscopic surgery has become the gold standard for the treatment of disorders involving the hip joint. To examine the incidence of and abnormalities treated with hip arthroscopic surgery as well as the impact on future participation in American football athletes invited to the National Football League (NFL) Scouting Combine with a history of hip arthroscopic surgery. Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3. Athletes invited to the NFL Combine from 2012 to 2015 were evaluated for a history of hip arthroscopic surgery. Athlete demographics, imaging findings, and physical examination results were gathered using the NFL Combine database. Information on prospective participation in the NFL with regard to draft status, games played, games started, and current status was gathered using publicly available databases and compared against all other athletes participating in the combine. Fourteen athletes (15 hips) had a history of arthroscopic hip surgery. Acetabular labral tears were treated in 93% (14 hips), with femoroacetabular impingement decompression performed in 33% (5 hips). Compared with athletes who had no history of hip arthroscopic surgery, those undergoing arthroscopic surgery did not possess a lower likelihood of being drafted (66% vs 71%, respectively; P = .78) or of being on an active roster (52% vs 43%, respectively; P = .44) after their first season in the NFL. Moreover, there was no significant difference in the number of regular-season games played (10.9 ± 4.8 with arthroscopic surgery vs 11.0 ± 5.1 without; P = .96) or started (7.0 ± 3.6 with arthroscopic surgery vs 7.1 ± 5.3 without; P = .98). American football athletes invited to the NFL Combine with a history of hip arthroscopic surgery were not at risk for diminished participation when compared with all other athletes during their first season in the NFL.

SigWinR; the SigWin-detector updated and ported to R.

Science.gov (United States)

de Leeuw, Wim C; Rauwerda, Han; Inda, Márcia A; Bruning, Oskar; Breit, Timo M

2009-10-06

Our SigWin-detector discovers significantly enriched windows of (genomic) elements in any sequence of values (genes or other genomic elements in a DNA sequence) in a fast and reproducible way. However, since it is grid based, only (life) scientists with access to the grid can use this tool. Therefore and on request, we have developed the SigWinR package which makes the SigWin-detector available to a much wider audience. At the same time, we have introduced several improvements to its algorithm as well as its functionality, based on the feedback of SigWin-detector end users. To allow usage of the SigWin-detector on a desktop computer, we have rewritten it as a package for R: SigWinR. R is a free and widely used multi platform software environment for statistical computing and graphics. The package can be installed and used on all platforms for which R is available. The improvements involve: a visualization of the input-sequence values supporting the interpretation of Ridgeograms; a visualization allowing for an easy interpretation of enriched or depleted regions in the sequence using windows of pre-defined size; an option that allows the analysis of circular sequences, which results in rectangular Ridgeograms; an application to identify regions of co-altered gene expression (ROCAGEs) with a real-life biological use-case; adaptation of the algorithm to allow analysis of non-regularly sampled data using a constant window size in physical space without resampling the data. To achieve this, support for analysis of windows with an even number of elements was added. By porting the SigWin-detector as an R package, SigWinR, improving its algorithm and functionality combined with adequate performance, we have made SigWin-detector more useful as well as more easily accessible to scientists without a grid infrastructure.

Change in indicators of physical development of young footballers with different strength of the nervous system according to the excitation process

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Georgiy Polevoy

2016-09-01

Full Text Available The topicality of the research problem is connected with the search for new ways to improve the educational and training process of young footballers that would strengthen or improve the physical development of the athletes involved and enhance the result of competition and gaming activities. The purpose of this article is to get and synthesize data, which were obtained in the course of the study, namely the change in indicators of physical development of football players aged 11-12 who have different typological peculiarities of nervous system properties. The leading approaches to the study of this problem are pedagogical experiment, theoretical analysis and generalization of scientific and methodological literature and methods of mathematical statistics. The research resulted in the change in the indicators of physical development of children at the age of 11-12 years old playing football due to the methodology of differentiated development of 11- and 12-year-old footballers’ coordination abilities with different typological peculiarities of nervous system properties. The article can be useful for updating the content of professional training of football coaches and be used in the educational and training process of football players of different ages and fitness level.

Cortisol, testosterone and mood state variation during an official female football competition.

Science.gov (United States)

Casanova, Natalina; Palmeira-DE-Oliveira, Ana; Pereira, Ana; Crisóstomo, Luís; Travassos, Bruno; Costa, Aldo M

2016-06-01

Endogenous hormones are essential on the control of physiological reactions and adaptations during sport performance. This study aims to compare the mood state and the salivary levels of cortisol and testosterone during an official female association football tournament. Twenty female football players (22.85±4.2 years) from the Portuguese women's national team were included in the study. Mood, salivary cortisol and testosterone levels were examined in five moments over the championship (M1, neutral measures; M2-M5, on every match day). Saliva samples were collected before breakfast and immediately after each match. Mood was measured by the profile of mood states questionnaire (POMS); hormone levels were measure by immunoassay methods. Iceberg Profiles of POMS were observed during all the moments of evaluation (M2-M5), showing a decrease in vigor and an increase in tension and depression in both team defeats (M2 and M5). There is no relationship between the hormones levels and the outcome of the competition, once cortisol and testosterone decrease from pre-match to post-match in both wins (M2 and M5) and defeats (M3 and M4). For testosterone the observed decrease is significantly different (Pfootball players training systematically and regularly seem to be very well adapted to competition stress effect.

Noisy non-transitive quantum games

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ramzan, M; Khan, Salman; Khan, M Khalid, E-mail: mramzan@phys.qau.edu.p [Department of Physics Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320 (Pakistan)

2010-07-02

We study the effect of quantum noise in 3 x 3 entangled quantum games. By taking into account different noisy quantum channels, we analyze how a two-player, three-strategy Rock-Scissor-Paper game is influenced by the quantum noise. We consider the winning non-transitive strategies R, S and P such that R beats S, S beats P and P beats R. The game behaves as a noiseless game for the maximum value of the quantum noise. It is seen that Alice's payoff is heavily influenced by the depolarizing noise as compared to the amplitude damping noise. A depolarizing channel causes a monotonic decrease in players' payoffs as we increase the amount of quantum noise. In the case of the amplitude damping channel, Alice's payoff function reaches its minimum for {alpha} = 0.5 and is symmetrical. This means that larger values of quantum noise influence the game weakly. On the other hand, the phase damping channel does not influence the game. Furthermore, the Nash equilibrium and non-transitive character of the game are not affected under the influence of quantum noise.

Influence of non-preferred foot technical training in reducing lower limbs functional asymmetry among young football players.

Science.gov (United States)

Guilherme, José; Garganta, Júlio; Graça, Amândio; Seabra, André

2015-01-01

The functional asymmetry of the lower limbs has been regarded as a relevant factor of the performance of football players. We purposed to ascertain whether a specific technical training programme for the non-preferred foot has implications in the increasing utilisation rate of the respective member during the game. Young football players (n = 71) were randomly divided into experimental group (N = 35; 14.37 ± 1.94 years) and control group (N = 36; 14.50 ± 1.81 years). The study was developed into three stages: first, assessment of the index utilisation of both limbs during the game; second, application of a technical training programme that includes the drilling of specific motor skills exclusively directed to the non-preferred foot; and third, assessment of the new rate of both limbs' utilisation after the predefined six months. The main findings were: (1) the use of the non-preferred foot increased significantly with the technical training programme in the experimental group and remained constant in the control group; (2) the use of the preferred foot decreased significantly in the experimental group and remained similar in control group. We concluded that a systematic and specific technical training for the non-preferred foot increases its use and reduces functional asymmetry in game situation, consequently improving the player's performance.

Cervical spine injuries in American football.

Science.gov (United States)

Rihn, Jeffrey A; Anderson, David T; Lamb, Kathleen; Deluca, Peter F; Bata, Ahmed; Marchetto, Paul A; Neves, Nuno; Vaccaro, Alexander R

2009-01-01

American football is a high-energy contact sport that places players at risk for cervical spine injuries with potential neurological deficits. Advances in tackling and blocking techniques, rules of the game and medical care of the athlete have been made throughout the past few decades to minimize the risk of cervical injury and improve the management of injuries that do occur. Nonetheless, cervical spine injuries remain a serious concern in the game of American football. Injuries have a wide spectrum of severity. The relatively common 'stinger' is a neuropraxia of a cervical nerve root(s) or brachial plexus and represents a reversible peripheral nerve injury. Less common and more serious an injury, cervical cord neuropraxia is the clinical manifestation of neuropraxia of the cervical spinal cord due to hyperextension, hyperflexion or axial loading. Recent data on American football suggest that approximately 0.2 per 100,000 participants at the high school level and 2 per 100,000 participants at the collegiate level are diagnosed with cervical cord neuropraxia. Characterized by temporary pain, paraesthesias and/or motor weakness in more than one extremity, there is a rapid and complete resolution of symptoms and a normal physical examination within 10 minutes to 48 hours after the initial injury. Stenosis of the spinal canal, whether congenital or acquired, is thought to predispose the athlete to cervical cord neuropraxia. Although quite rare, catastrophic neurological injury is a devastating entity referring to permanent neurological injury or death. The mechanism is most often a forced hyperflexion injury, as occurs when 'spear tackling'. The mean incidence of catastrophic neurological injury over the past 30 years has been approximately 0.5 per 100,000 participants at high school level and 1.5 per 100,000 at the collegiate level. This incidence has decreased significantly when compared with the incidence in the early 1970s. This decrease in the incidence of

[Sports injuries and illnesses during the 2008 Olympic Games and 2013 China National Games in Shenyang Division].

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Fengzhe; Chen, Zhian; Pan, Shinong; Liao, Wei; Zhan, Yuhua; Zheng, Liqiang; Wang, Yitong; Lu, Chunxue; Fu, Wei; Zhang, Xiaogang; Liang, Hongjun; Guo, Qiyong

2015-05-05

To retrospectively analyse the medical imaging examination results of the injuries and illnesses during the 2008 Olympic Games and 2013 China National Games in Shenyang Divison. Collected and analyzed the health information and medical imaging examination results from Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University during the two games. There was 9 cases of sports injuries in the 2008 Olympic Games, mainly for knee, ankle ligament injury and muscle sprain, 36 cases of sports injuries in the 2013 China National Games, mainly for head traumas (9 cases), knee injuries (7 cases), ankle injuries (7 cases), shoulder injures (4 cases). Competitions of high risk of being injured were wrestling (10 cases), track and field (8 cases), American football (6 cases). The most common cause of illness were respiratory system (60 cases) and the digestive system (27 cases) in the total 233 cases illnesses in the China National Games. Different sports have different characteristic, regularity and mechanism of injury. Medical imaging examination has important value in the diagnosis of injury during large games. The respiratory system and digestive system are the most common illnesses and affect the athletes training and competition as important as injuries. So illness is the focus on the medical care assurance of the large games.

Effects of expertise on football betting.

Science.gov (United States)

Khazaal, Yasser; Chatton, Anne; Billieux, Joël; Bizzini, Lucio; Monney, Grégoire; Fresard, Emmanuelle; Thorens, Gabriel; Bondolfi, Guido; El-Guebaly, Nady; Zullino, Daniele; Khan, Riaz

2012-05-11

Football (soccer) is one of the most popular sports in the world, including Europe. It is associated with important betting activities. A common belief, widely spread among those who participate in gambling activities, is that knowledge and expertise on football lead to better prediction skills for match outcomes. If unfounded, however, this belief should be considered as a form of "illusion of control." The aim of this study was to examine whether football experts are better than nonexperts at predicting football match scores. Two hundred and fifty-eight persons took part in the study: 21.3% as football experts, 54.3% as laypersons (non-initiated to football), and 24.4% as football amateurs. They predicted the scores of the first 10 matches of the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship. Logistic regressions were carried out to assess the link between the accuracy of the forecasted scores and the expertise of the participants (expert, amateur, layperson), controlling for age and gender. The variables assessed did not predict the accuracy of scoring prognosis (R2 ranged from 1% to 6%). Expertise, age, and gender did not appear to have an impact on the accuracy of the football match prognoses. Therefore, the belief that football expertise improves betting skills is no more than a cognitive distortion called the "illusion of control." Gamblers may benefit from psychological interventions that target the illusion of control related to their believed links between betting skills and football expertise. Public health policies may need to consider the phenomenon in order to prevent problem gambling related to football betting.

R2WinBUGS: A Package for Running WinBUGS from R

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sibylle Sturtz

2005-01-01

Full Text Available The R2WinBUGS package provides convenient functions to call WinBUGS from R. It automatically writes the data and scripts in a format readable by WinBUGS for processing in batch mode, which is possible since version 1.4. After the WinBUGS process has finished, it is possible either to read the resulting data into R by the package itself--which gives a compact graphical summary of inference and convergence diagnostics--or to use the facilities of the coda package for further analyses of the output. Examples are given to demonstrate the usage of this package.

The Weather in Richmond

OpenAIRE

Harless, William Edwin

2014-01-01

ABSTRACT: The Weather in Richmond is a short documentary about the Oilers, the football team at Richmond High School in downtown Richmond, California, as they struggle in 2012 with the legacy of winning no games, with the exception of a forfeit, in two years. The video documents the city of Richmond’s poverty and violence, but it also is an account of the city’s cultural diversity, of the city’s industrial history and of the hopes of some of the people who grow up there. The...

Recognition of Repetitive Movement Patterns—The Case of Football Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Udo Feuerhake

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Analyzing sports like football is interesting not only for the sports team itself, but also for the public and the media. Both have recognized that using more detailed analyses of the teams’ behavior increases their attractiveness and also their performance. For this reason, the games and the individual players are recorded using specially developed tracking systems. The tracking solution usually comes with elementary analysis software allowing for basic statistical information extraction. Going beyond these simple statistics is a challenging task. However, it is worthwhile when it provides a better view into the tactics of team or the typical movements of an individual player. In this paper an approach for the recognition of movement patterns as an advanced analysis method is presented, which uses the players’ trajectories as input data. Besides individual movement patterns it is also able to detect patterns in relation to group movements. A detailed description is followed by a discussion of the approach, where different experiments on real trajectory datasets, even from other contexts than football, show the method’s benefits and features.

Evolutionary fate of memory-one strategies in repeated prisoner's dilemma game in structured populations

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Xu-Sheng; Wu, Zhi-Xi; Chen, Michael Z. Q.; Guan, Jian-Yue

2017-07-01

We study evolutionary spatial prisoner's dilemma game involving a one-step memory mechanism of the individuals whenever making strategy updating. In particular, during the process of strategy updating, each individual keeps in mind all the outcome of the action pairs adopted by himself and each of his neighbors in the last interaction, and according to which the individuals decide what actions they will take in the next round. Computer simulation results imply that win-stay-lose-shift like strategy win out of the memory-one strategy set in the stationary state. This result is robust in a large range of the payoff parameter, and does not depend on the initial state of the system. Furthermore, theoretical analysis with mean field and quasi-static approximation predict the same result. Thus, our studies suggest that win-stay-lose-shift like strategy is a stable dominant strategy in repeated prisoner's dilemma game in homogeneous structured populations.

A History of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction at the National Football League Combine Results in Inferior Early National Football League Career Participation.

Science.gov (United States)

Provencher, Matthew T; Bradley, James P; Chahla, Jorge; Sanchez, Anthony; Beaulieu-Jones, Brendin R; Arner, Justin W; Kennedy, Nicholas I; Sanchez, George; Kennedy, Mitchell I; Moatshe, Gilbert; Cinque, Mark E; LaPrade, Robert F

2018-05-19

To evaluate whether players with a history of an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) before the National Football League (NFL) Combine played or started fewer games and/or participated in fewer eligible snaps compared with NFL Combine participants without a history of knee injury or surgery. We performed a retrospective review of all players who participated in the NFL Combine between 2009 and 2015 and who had a history of an ACLR. NFL Combine participants were included if they had a previous ACLR or combined anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury and nonoperatively managed medial collateral ligament injury. The number of games started, number of games played, draft number, overall draft pick, and snap percentage for each position were determined. The mean value of each outcome metric was compared between case and control players. We identified 110 players who had an ACL injury (n = 76) or a combined ACL and medial collateral ligament injury (n = 34). Players in the ACLR group had a significantly worse mean draft pick number (difference of 30.2, P = .002) and mean draft round (difference of 0.8, P = .019) versus controls. Compared with control players, players in the ACLR group started and played significantly fewer games in both season 1 (difference of 2.7 games started, P < .001; difference of 2.7 games played, P < .001) and season 2 (difference of 7.4 games started, P < .001; difference of 3.0 games played, P = .003) and had a significantly lower snap percentage in both season 1 (difference of 23.1%, P < .001) and season 2 (difference of 24.0%, P < .001). Athletes at the NFL Combine who previously underwent an ACLR had significantly lower early-career NFL player metrics, including fewer games started, fewer games played, and a lower snap percentage, than uninjured controls. Defensive linemen, defensive backs, and linebackers were the 3 most affected positions. Players with a prior ACLR and combined meniscal-chondral pathology had

A game-theoretic approach to real-time system testing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

David, Alexandre; Larsen, Kim Guldstrand; Li, Shuhao

2008-01-01

This paper presents a game-theoretic approach to the testing of uncontrollable real-time systems. By modelling the systems with Timed I/O Game Automata and specifying the test purposes as Timed CTL formulas, we employ a recently developed timed game solver UPPAAL-TIGA to synthesize winning...... strategies, and then use these strategies to conduct black-box conformance testing of the systems. The testing process is proved to be sound and complete with respect to the given test purposes. Case study and preliminary experimental results indicate that this is a viable approach to uncontrollable timed...... system testing....

The Quantitative Analysis of a team game performance made by men basketball teams at OG 2008

OpenAIRE

Kocián, Michal

2009-01-01

Title: The quantitative analysis of e team game performance made by men basketball teams at Olympis games 2008 Aims: Find reason successes and failures of teams in Olympis game play-off using quantitative (numerical) observation of selected game statistics. Method: The thesis was made on the basic a quantitative (numerical) observation of videorecordings using KVANTÝM. Results: Obtained selected statistic desribed the most essentials events for team winning or loss. Keywords: basketball, team...

Customers and markets. International components for win-win relations; Kunden und Maerkte. Internationale Bausteine fuer Win-Win-Relationen

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lamprecht, F.

1998-09-01

In deregulated energy markets, power supply companies change from commodity suppliers to service providers. The core of the process of change is a change in attitude, from producer to customer-oriented marketer; the means applied in the process are a diversified and integrated marketing strategy, targeting both external and internal conditions, which fits into a comprehensive concept of an integrated communications strategy. An international conference held in mid-June in Lisbon, organised by the associations Unipede and EURELECTRIC as well as the International Energy Agency (IEA), supplied a wealth of information on this topical issue spanning a broad range of interesting aspects, as eg. approaches to identify customer needs and correspondingly develop new services, or the quest for new business segments and possibilities of finding win-win relations for both customers and power producers. (orig./CB) [Deutsch] Auf liberalisierten Strommaerkten entwickeln sich die Energieversorger zu Dienstleistern. Kern des Wandels ist der Weg von der Produktions- zur Kundenorientierung, Mittel eine differenzierte und integrierte Marketingstrategie, die nach aussen wie nach innen gerichtet ist und in ein umfassendes Konzept einer integrierten Kommunikationsstrategie eingepasst ist. Eine von den Verbaenden Unipede und EURELECTRIC sowie der Internationalen Energie-Agentur (IEA) Mitte Juni in Lissabon ausgerichtete internationale Konferenz lieferte hierzu eine Fuelle an Material. Es wurde thematisch ein weiter Bogen gespannt. Von der Ermittlung unterschiedlicher Kundenbeduerfnisse ueber Methoden, sich danach auszurichten sowie speziell entwickelte Marketingstrategien, bis hin zu neuen Betaetigungsfeldern wurde nach Moeglichkeiten gesucht, Win-Win-Relationen fuer Kunden und EVU darzustellen. (orig.)

Effects of expertise on football betting

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khazaal Yasser

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Football (soccer is one of the most popular sports in the world, including Europe. It is associated with important betting activities. A common belief, widely spread among those who participate in gambling activities, is that knowledge and expertise on football lead to better prediction skills for match outcomes. If unfounded, however, this belief should be considered as a form of “illusion of control.” The aim of this study was to examine whether football experts are better than nonexperts at predicting football match scores. Methods Two hundred and fifty-eight persons took part in the study: 21.3% as football experts, 54.3% as laypersons (non-initiated to football, and 24.4% as football amateurs. They predicted the scores of the first 10 matches of the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship. Logistic regressions were carried out to assess the link between the accuracy of the forecasted scores and the expertise of the participants (expert, amateur, layperson, controlling for age and gender. Results The variables assessed did not predict the accuracy of scoring prognosis (R2 ranged from 1% to 6%. Conclusions Expertise, age, and gender did not appear to have an impact on the accuracy of the football match prognoses. Therefore, the belief that football expertise improves betting skills is no more than a cognitive distortion called the “illusion of control.” Gamblers may benefit from psychological interventions that target the illusion of control related to their believed links between betting skills and football expertise. Public health policies may need to consider the phenomenon in order to prevent problem gambling related to football betting.

Football goal distributions and extremal statistics

Science.gov (United States)

Greenhough, J.; Birch, P. C.; Chapman, S. C.; Rowlands, G.

2002-12-01

We analyse the distributions of the number of goals scored by home teams, away teams, and the total scored in the match, in domestic football games from 169 countries between 1999 and 2001. The probability density functions (PDFs) of goals scored are too heavy-tailed to be fitted over their entire ranges by Poisson or negative binomial distributions which would be expected for uncorrelated processes. Log-normal distributions cannot include zero scores and here we find that the PDFs are consistent with those arising from extremal statistics. In addition, we show that it is sufficient to model English top division and FA Cup matches in the seasons of 1970/71-2000/01 on Poisson or negative binomial distributions, as reported in analyses of earlier seasons, and that these are not consistent with extremal statistics.

Sideline coverage of youth football.

Science.gov (United States)

Rizzone, Katie; Diamond, Alex; Gregory, Andrew

2013-01-01

Youth football is a popular sport in the United States and has been for some time. There are currently more than 3 million participants in youth football leagues according to USA Football. While the number of participants and overall injuries may be higher in other sports, football has a higher rate of injuries. Most youth sporting events do not have medical personnel on the sidelines in event of an injury or emergency. Therefore it is necessary for youth sports coaches to undergo basic medical training in order to effectively act in these situations. In addition, an argument could be made that appropriate medical personnel should be on the sideline for collision sports at all levels, from youth to professional. This article will discuss issues pertinent to sideline coverage of youth football, including coaching education, sideline personnel, emergency action plans, age and size divisions, tackle versus flag football, and injury prevention.

More Than the Win: The Relation between Appetitive Competition Motivation, Socialization, and Gender Role Orientation in Women's Football

OpenAIRE

Meyer-Parlapanis, Danie; Siefert, Sabrina; Weierstall, Roland

2017-01-01

The ability to produce peak performance plays a decisive role in the success of athletes in competitive contest situations. Levels of appetitive competition motivation (ACM), i.e., the desire to defeat an opponent independent of secondary reinforcing factors, were assessed in professional female football/soccer players in the premier and regional leagues, using club level as the measurement of sport success. Furthermore, the influence of social environments predominantly encouraging masculine...

Organizational structure of technical and tactical training of skilled goalkeepers in football

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shamardin V.N.

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Purpose: to study the structure of technical and tactical training of skilled goalkeepers in football. Material : the study involved 40 goalkeepers in age from 21 to 39 years (team Premier League Championship of Ukraine. According to teacher’s observations were under direct competition activity of skilled goalkeepers. Results : It is shown that the technical and tactical activities goalkeeper characterized by two phases of the game: action to protect and attack. In turn, they include eight typical situations. It was found that in accordance with these typical situations goalkeeper applying a technical and tactical actions. Conclusions : It is recommended to increase the efficiency of the game keeper in protective and offensive actions to use specific and non-specific exercises in a variety of standard situations arising during the match.

[Football, television and emergency services].

Science.gov (United States)

Miró, O; Sánchez, M; Borrás, A; Millá, J

2000-04-15

To know the influence of televised football on the use of emergency department (ED). We assessed the number, demographic characteristics and acuity of patients attended during the broadcast of football matches played by FC Barcelona during Champions' League (n = 12), and they were compared with days without televised football (n = 12). Televised football was associated with a decrease in visits to ED (-18%; p = 0.002). Such a decrease was observed for all ED units, but only for traumatology unit reached statistical significance (-28%; p = 0.006). Decay of ED visits were mainly due to a decrease of low-acuity consults (-30%; p = 0.04). There is a significant decrease on ED use associated with televised football.

SigWinR; the SigWin-detector updated and ported to R

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Breit Timo M

2009-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Our SigWin-detector discovers significantly enriched windows of (genomic elements in any sequence of values (genes or other genomic elements in a DNA sequence in a fast and reproducible way. However, since it is grid based, only (life scientists with access to the grid can use this tool. Therefore and on request, we have developed the SigWinR package which makes the SigWin-detector available to a much wider audience. At the same time, we have introduced several improvements to its algorithm as well as its functionality, based on the feedback of SigWin-detector end users. Findings To allow usage of the SigWin-detector on a desktop computer, we have rewritten it as a package for R: SigWinR. R is a free and widely used multi platform software environment for statistical computing and graphics. The package can be installed and used on all platforms for which R is available. The improvements involve: a visualization of the input-sequence values supporting the interpretation of Ridgeograms; a visualization allowing for an easy interpretation of enriched or depleted regions in the sequence using windows of pre-defined size; an option that allows the analysis of circular sequences, which results in rectangular Ridgeograms; an application to identify regions of co-altered gene expression (ROCAGEs with a real-life biological use-case; adaptation of the algorithm to allow analysis of non-regularly sampled data using a constant window size in physical space without resampling the data. To achieve this, support for analysis of windows with an even number of elements was added. Conclusion By porting the SigWin-detector as an R package, SigWinR, improving its algorithm and functionality combined with adequate performance, we have made SigWin-detector more useful as well as more easily accessible to scientists without a grid infrastructure.

Association Between Playing American Football in the National Football League and Long-term Mortality.

Science.gov (United States)

Venkataramani, Atheendar S; Gandhavadi, Maheer; Jena, Anupam B

2018-02-27

Studies of the longevity of professional American football players have demonstrated lower mortality relative to the general population but they may have been susceptible to selection bias. To examine the association between career participation in professional American football and mortality risk in retirement. Retrospective cohort study involving 3812 retired US National Football League (NFL) players who debuted in the NFL between 1982 and 1992, including regular NFL players (n = 2933) and NFL "replacement players" (n = 879) who were temporarily hired to play during a 3-game league-wide player strike in 1987. Follow-up ended on December 31, 2016. NFL participation as a career player or as a replacement player. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality by December 31, 2016. Cox proportional hazards models were estimated to compare the observed number of years from age 22 years until death (or censoring), adjusted for birth year, body mass index, height, and position played. Information on player death and cause of death was ascertained from a search of the National Death Index and web-based sources. Of the 3812 men included in this study (mean [SD] age at first NFL activity, 23.4 [1.5] years), there were 2933 career NFL players (median NFL tenure, 5 seasons [interquartile range {IQR}, 2-8]; median follow-up, 30 years [IQR, 27-33]) and 879 replacement players (median NFL tenure, 1 season [IQR, 1-1]; median follow-up, 31 years [IQR, 30-33]). At the end of follow-up, 144 NFL players (4.9%) and 37 replacement players (4.2%) were deceased (adjusted absolute risk difference, 1.0% [95% CI, -0.7% to 2.7%]; P = .25). The adjusted mortality hazard ratio for NFL players relative to replacements was 1.38 (95% CI, 0.95 to 1.99; P = .09). Among career NFL players, the most common causes of death were cardiometabolic disease (n = 51; 35.4%), transportation injuries (n = 20; 13.9%), unintentional injuries (n = 15; 10.4%), and neoplasms (n = 15

Imaging of American football injuries in children

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Podberesky, Daniel J.; Anton, Christopher G. [Cincinnati Children' s Hospital Medical Center, Department of Radiology, Cincinnati, OH (United States); Unsell, Bryan J. [Wilford Hall Medical Center, Lackland Air Force Base, Department of Radiology, San Antonio, TX (United States)

2009-12-15

It is estimated that 3.2 million children ages 6 to 14 years participated in organized youth football in the United States in 2007. Approximately 240,000 children play football in the nation's largest youth football organization, with tackle divisions starting at age 5 years. The number of children playing unsupervised football is much higher, and the overall number of children participating in American football is increasing. Sports are the leading cause of injury-related emergency room visits for teenagers, and football is a leading precipitating athletic activity for these visits. Football is also the most hazardous organized sports in the United States. Though most pediatric football-related injuries are minor, such as abrasions, sprains, and strains of the extremities, football accounts for more major and catastrophic injuries than any other sport. Given football's popularity with children in the United States, combined with the high rate of injury associated with participation in this activity, radiologists should be familiar with the imaging features and injury patterns seen in this patient population. (orig.)

Imaging of American football injuries in children.

Science.gov (United States)

Podberesky, Daniel J; Unsell, Bryan J; Anton, Christopher G

2009-12-01

It is estimated that 3.2 million children ages 6 to 14 years participated in organized youth football in the United States in 2007. Approximately 240,000 children play football in the nation's largest youth football organization, with tackle divisions starting at age 5 years. The number of children playing unsupervised football is much higher, and the overall number of children participating in American football is increasing. Sports are the leading cause of injury-related emergency room visits for teenagers, and football is a leading precipitating athletic activity for these visits. Football is also the most hazardous organized sports in the United States. Though most pediatric football-related injuries are minor, such as abrasions, sprains, and strains of the extremities, football accounts for more major and catastrophic injuries than any other sport. Given football's popularity with children in the United States, combined with the high rate of injury associated with participation in this activity, radiologists should be familiar with the imaging features and injury patterns seen in this patient population.

Imaging of American football injuries in children

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Podberesky, Daniel J.; Anton, Christopher G.; Unsell, Bryan J.

2009-01-01

It is estimated that 3.2 million children ages 6 to 14 years participated in organized youth football in the United States in 2007. Approximately 240,000 children play football in the nation's largest youth football organization, with tackle divisions starting at age 5 years. The number of children playing unsupervised football is much higher, and the overall number of children participating in American football is increasing. Sports are the leading cause of injury-related emergency room visits for teenagers, and football is a leading precipitating athletic activity for these visits. Football is also the most hazardous organized sports in the United States. Though most pediatric football-related injuries are minor, such as abrasions, sprains, and strains of the extremities, football accounts for more major and catastrophic injuries than any other sport. Given football's popularity with children in the United States, combined with the high rate of injury associated with participation in this activity, radiologists should be familiar with the imaging features and injury patterns seen in this patient population. (orig.)

26 CFR 1.50B-1 - Definitions of WIN expenses and WIN employees.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... employee. (c) Trade or business expenses. The term “WIN expenses” includes only salaries and wages which... 26 Internal Revenue 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 true Definitions of WIN expenses and WIN employees. 1... INCOME TAXES Rules for Computing Credit for Expenses of Work Incentive Programs § 1.50B-1 Definitions of...

Percutaneous discal cyst rupture in a professional football player using sublaminar epidural injection for thecal sac displacement.

Science.gov (United States)

Friedman, Michael V; Park, Andrew; Bumpass, David; Jennings, Jack W; Matava, Matthew J

2015-01-01

A case of percutaneous discal cyst rupture in a 25-year-old professional American football player is reported. The patient presented with a 3-day history of severe left-sided back pain. Magnetic resonance imaging examination demonstrated a discal cyst effacing the left L4-L5 lateral recess, with interposed thecal sac. A sublaminar epidural injection was performed displacing the thecal sac, exposing the discal cyst, and allowing for percutaneous perforation. The patient had complete resolution of symptoms after discal cyst rupture and was able to compete in a professional football game 3 days later. Computed tomography-guided percutaneous rupture is a therapeutic modality that may be considered for treatment of a symptomatic discal cyst. Copyright © 2015 SIR. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Position of women's football in the Czech Republic (Based on the example of women's football in the Pardubice Region)

OpenAIRE

Merklová, Aneta

2016-01-01

Title: Position of women's football in the Czech Republic (Based on the example of women's football in the Pardubice Region) Objectives: The aim of the thesis is to describe the position of Czech women's football, map women's football in the Pardubice Region and find out female football players' opinions on women's football in the Czech Republic. Methods: An empirical research method is used in this thesis. The research was implemented by a paper-based questionnaire survey. The questionnaire ...

Quantum Bayesian networks with application to games displaying Parrondo's paradox

Science.gov (United States)

Pejic, Michael

Bayesian networks and their accompanying graphical models are widely used for prediction and analysis across many disciplines. We will reformulate these in terms of linear maps. This reformulation will suggest a natural extension, which we will show is equivalent to standard textbook quantum mechanics. Therefore, this extension will be termed quantum. However, the term quantum should not be taken to imply this extension is necessarily only of utility in situations traditionally thought of as in the domain of quantum mechanics. In principle, it may be employed in any modelling situation, say forecasting the weather or the stock market---it is up to experiment to determine if this extension is useful in practice. Even restricting to the domain of quantum mechanics, with this new formulation the advantages of Bayesian networks can be maintained for models incorporating quantum and mixed classical-quantum behavior. The use of these will be illustrated by various basic examples. Parrondo's paradox refers to the situation where two, multi-round games with a fixed winning criteria, both with probability greater than one-half for one player to win, are combined. Using a possibly biased coin to determine the rule to employ for each round, paradoxically, the previously losing player now wins the combined game with probabilitygreater than one-half. Using the extended Bayesian networks, we will formulate and analyze classical observed, classical hidden, and quantum versions of a game that displays this paradox, finding bounds for the discrepancy from naive expectations for the occurrence of the paradox. A quantum paradox inspired by Parrondo's paradox will also be analyzed. We will prove a bound for the discrepancy from naive expectations for this paradox as well. Games involving quantum walks that achieve this bound will be presented.

Discriminating talent-identified junior Australian football players using a video decision-making task.

Science.gov (United States)

Woods, Carl T; Raynor, Annette J; Bruce, Lyndell; McDonald, Zane

2016-01-01

This study examined if a video decision-making task could discriminate talent-identified junior Australian football players from their non-talent-identified counterparts. Participants were recruited from the 2013 under 18 (U18) West Australian Football League competition and classified into two groups: talent-identified (State U18 Academy representatives; n = 25; 17.8 ± 0.5 years) and non-talent-identified (non-State U18 Academy selection; n = 25; 17.3 ± 0.6 years). Participants completed a video decision-making task consisting of 26 clips sourced from the Australian Football League game-day footage, recording responses on a sheet provided. A score of "1" was given for correct and "0" for incorrect responses, with the participants total score used as the criterion value. One-way analysis of variance tested the main effect of "status" on the task criterion, whilst a bootstrapped receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve assessed the discriminant ability of the task. An area under the curve (AUC) of 1 (100%) represented perfect discrimination. Between-group differences were evident (P talent-identified and non-talent-identified participants, respectively. Future research should investigate the mechanisms leading to the superior decision-making observed in the talent-identified group.

Being a football kid

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Johansen, Stine Liv

2016-01-01

Media and mediatization must be seen as a prerequisite for children’s play today. Children’s fan cultures cover a wide range of topics; yet, football is a field with specific explanatory power due to its structural and cultural specificities. In this chapter, football is seen as a specific play...... practice, carried out both physically and through engagements with a diverse range of traditional and new media. The chapter draws on empirical fieldwork among Danish children aged 8 to 13, describing football kids as active users of media, active play practitioners, and active performers of identity...... projects in relation to friends and family. For these children, football as a mediatized play practice is their point of departure, forming the grounds of their everyday practices....

A Comparison between Australian Football League (AFL Injuries in Australian Indigenous versus Non-indigenous Players

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jessica Orchard

2013-09-01

Full Text Available It has previously been shown that being of aboriginal descent is a risk factor for hamstring injuries in Australian football. The aim of this study was to review the Australian Football League (AFL injury database to determine whether there were any injuries where indigenous players had different relative risks to non-indigenous players. Analysis was conducted using data from the AFL injury database, which included data from 4,492 players over 21 years (1992–2012, covering 162,683 player-matches at AFL level, 91,098 matches at lower levels and 328,181 weeks (possible matches of exposure. Compared to non-indigenous players, indigenous players had a significantly higher risk of hamstring injuries (RR 1.52, 95% CI 1.32–1.73 and calf strains (RR 1.30, 95% CI 1.00–1.69. Conversely, indigenous players had a significantly lower risk of lumbar/thoracic spine injuries (RR 0.61, 95% CI 0.41–0.91, groin strains/osteitis pubis (RR 0.75, 95% CI 0.58–0.96 and Achilles tendon injuries (RR 0.32, 95% CI 0.12–0.86. The results for the above injuries were also significant in terms of games missed. There was no difference between overall risk of injury (RR 1.03, 95% CI 0.96–1.10 or missed games (RR 1.00, 95% CI 0.97–1.04. This suggests that indigenous AFL players have the same overall number of injuries and missed games, but a slightly different injury profile.

High prevalence of dysfunctional, asymmetrical, and painful movement in elite junior Australian Football players assessed using the Functional Movement Screen.

Science.gov (United States)

Fuller, Joel T; Chalmers, Samuel; Debenedictis, Thomas A; Townsley, Samuel; Lynagh, Matthew; Gleeson, Cara; Zacharia, Andrew; Thomson, Stuart; Magarey, Mary

2017-02-01

The purpose of this study was to describe the prevalence of dysfunctional, asymmetrical, and painful movement in junior Australian Football players using the Functional Movement Screen (FMS). Cross-sectional study. Elite junior male Australian Football players (n=301) aged 15-18 years completed pre-season FMS testing. The FMS consists of 7 sub-tests: deep squat, hurdle step, in-line lunge, shoulder mobility, active straight leg raise, trunk stability push-up (TSPU) and rotary stability. The shoulder mobility, TSPU, and rotary stability tests were combined with an accompanying clearing test to assess pain. Each sub-test was scored on an ordinal scale from 0 to 3 and summed to give a composite score out of 21. Composite scores ≤14 were operationally defined as indicating dysfunctional movement. Players scoring differently on left and right sides were considered asymmetrical. Players reported whether they missed any games due to injury in the preceding 22 game season. Sixty percent of players (n=182) had composite scores ≤14, 65% of players (n=196) had at least one asymmetrical sub-test, and 38% of players (n=113) had at least one painful sub-test. Forty-two percent of players (n=126) missed at least one game in the previous season due to injury. Previous injury did not influence composite score (p=0.951) or asymmetry (p=0.629). Players reporting an injury during the previous season were more likely to experience pain during FMS testing (odds ratio 1.97, 95% confidence interval 1.23-3.18; p=0.005). Junior Australian Football players demonstrate a high prevalence of dysfunctional, asymmetrical, and painful movement during FMS testing. Copyright © 2016 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Differences and discriminatory power of water polo game-related statistics in men in international championships and their relationship with the phase of the competition.

Science.gov (United States)

Escalante, Yolanda; Saavedra, Jose M; Tella, Victor; Mansilla, Mirella; García-Hermoso, Antonio; Domínguez, Ana M

2013-04-01

The aims of this study were (a) to compare water polo game-related statistics by context (winning and losing teams) and phase (preliminary, classification, and semifinal/bronze medal/gold medal), and (b) identify characteristics that discriminate performances for each phase. The game-related statistics of the 230 men's matches played in World Championships (2007, 2009, and 2011) and European Championships (2008 and 2010) were analyzed. Differences between contexts (winning or losing teams) in each phase (preliminary, classification, and semifinal/bronze medal/gold medal) were determined using the chi-squared statistic, also calculating the effect sizes of the differences. A discriminant analysis was then performed after the sample-splitting method according to context (winning and losing teams) in each of the 3 phases. It was found that the game-related statistics differentiate the winning from the losing teams in each phase of an international championship. The differentiating variables are both offensive and defensive, including action shots, sprints, goalkeeper-blocked shots, and goalkeeper-blocked action shots. However, the number of discriminatory variables decreases as the phase becomes more demanding and the teams become more equally matched. The discriminant analysis showed the game-related statistics to discriminate performance in all phases (preliminary, classificatory, and semifinal/bronze medal/gold medal phase) with high percentages (91, 90, and 73%, respectively). Again, the model selected both defensive and offensive variables.

Women in nuclear (WiN) Australia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lackenby, Joanne

2015-01-01

Founded in 1992, Women in Nuclear Global (WiN Global) is a worldwide organisation that supports and encourages women working in nuclear and radiation applications. Membership of WiN is made up of chapters and individuals from over 105 countries and various international organisations. As of August 2015, WiN has approximately 25 000 members in total, some of which are men. WiN Australia Inc. (a chapter of WiN Global) was formally founded in 2005 and has grown to approximately 160 members, with two affiliate members from New Zealand. Members work in a variety of fields including research, policy, defence, meteorology, reactor engineering and maintenance, reactor operations, medical physics, law, supporting roles, nuclear medicine and medical physics, mining, academia and safeguards. The objectives of WiN Global and WiN Australia can broadly be summarised as: 1) to increase awareness and information in the public, especially amongst women and the younger generations, about the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, science and technology 2) facilitate networking between individuals, chapters and with other nuclear organisations 3) to support women working in nuclear energy, science and technology 4 )to hold an annual conference and mentor the younger generations of nuclear professionals. The 2015 WiN Annual Global Conference was held in Vienna and attracted over 450 participants from 50 countries, which highlights the remarkable success of Women in Nuclear. Notable activities carried out by WiN Australia over recent years include hosting the 2014 WiN Annual Global Conference in Sydney: securing a WiN Global Executive position for Oceania: participation in workshops, panels and conferences: ongoing leadership of two important WiN Global working groups: and transition to an incorporated Association. A new WiN Australia Executive Committee was elected in September 2015. Future plans for WiN Australia focus on increased engagement and networking with think tanks, nuclear. and

Science of rugby league football: a review.

Science.gov (United States)

Gabbett, Tim J

2005-09-01

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the science of rugby league football at all levels of competition (i.e. junior, amateur, semi-professional, professional), with special reference to all discipline-specific scientific research performed in rugby league (i.e. physiological, psychological, injury epidemiology, strength and conditioning, performance analysis). Rugby league football is played at junior and senior levels in several countries worldwide. A rugby league team consists of 13 players (6 forwards and 7 backs). The game is played over two 30 - 40 min halves (depending on the standard of competition) separated by a 10 min rest interval. Several studies have documented the physiological capacities and injury rates of rugby league players. More recently, studies have investigated the physiological demands of competition. Interestingly, the physiological capacities of players, the incidence of injury and the physiological demands of competition all increase as the playing standard is increased. Mean blood lactate concentrations of 5.2, 7.2 and 9.1 mmol . l(-1) have been reported during competition for amateur, semi-professional and professional rugby league players respectively. Mean heart rates of 152 beats . min(-1) (78% of maximal heart rate), 166 beats . min(-1) (84% of maximal heart rate) and 172 beats . min(-1) (93% of maximal heart rate) have been recorded for amateur, semi-professional and junior elite rugby league players respectively. Skill-based conditioning games have been used to develop the skill and fitness of rugby league players, with mean heart rate and blood lactate responses during these activities almost identical to those obtained during competition. In addition, recent studies have shown that most training injuries are sustained in traditional conditioning activities that involve no skill component (i.e. running without the ball), whereas the incidence of injuries while participating in skill-based conditioning

تأثير برنامج تدريبي بطريقة التدريب الفتري لتطوير أهم القدرات الفسيولوجية وأداء مهارة التهديف في خماسي كرة القدم بأعمار (14-15 سنة

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

باسم خضير عباس

2017-08-01

Full Text Available That retain physical abilities own level in spite of exposure to physical effort is a clear indication to tip the team that has this status in addition to the physical capabilities of the longer a factor in the performance of the skill of the scoring as the player at the level of performance of the skill scoring province is one of the important steps to win in the game. Through follow-up researchers of the game five football for being practitioners of this game as well as a brief him on many video films for many of the games found that there are times the level of some of the physical capabilities and vulnerable accurately the performance of the skill of scoring at the continuation of the players to play throughout the match and research aims to: 1-preparation training program training pulsation way for the development of physical capacity and the performance of the skill of scoring in five football. 2. The effect of the training program of training in a way pulsation in the development of physical capacity and performance skill scoring five in football. The researchers used the experimental approach to design Almtkavitan groups with pre and post tests, and identifies the research community with famous denominator Sports Club junior class totaling 20 players were selected the same random manner Statistics totaling 16 players, and were divided into two equal groups, was conducted exploratory experiment and find the scientific basis for the tests and the researchers used statistical methods to address data (median, deviation al-Rubaie, and Cookson, Mann-Whitney, and the main conclusions are: 1.\tSignificant differences of the two groups in the development of physical capacity and the types of players scoring in five junior football emerged. 2.\tThe training curriculum best effect the experimental group in the development of physical capacity and the types of players scoring in five junior football. The researchers took the most important

How the “People’s game“ conquered the world: A short socio-economic history of football in Europe and Serbia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Đorđević Ivan

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Contemporary football represents a highly commodified spectacle, a segment of the entertainment industry where huge amounts of money change hands, and the popularity of football competitions - whether national or international - is a global phenomenon, which billions of people take part in. Only thirty years ago, however, the situation was very different. In Western Europe, and especially Great Britain, football was mostly associated with hooliganism, and the audiences at the run-down stadiums were dwindling in numbers. On the other hand, in Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin wall football was at its peak, only to fall from grace and onto the European periphery in the 90’s, where it is, by and large, still situated. This dramatic transformation which turned football into “entertainment for rich people” did not occur by accident, it has deep roots in the history of the sport, but also in the wider socio-economic transformations within the context of which this segment of pop culture exists. In this paper I will offer a look at the social and economic conditions in which football developed with the aim of establishing a framework for understanding the changes which occurred within the sport and within the society, with a special focus on the connection between football and the rise of nationalism in the former Yugoslavia, but also wider social processes linked to the descent of Serbia into the so-called process of “transition”, or the acceptance of parliamentary democracy and capitalism as bases of social order. It is my intention to, through the analysis of sociohistorical elements which influenced the development and transformation of the game of football, indicate the wider frame of possibilities for the analysis of contemporary events through the prism of this segment of pop-culture.[Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177026

Football in England of first half 20th century

OpenAIRE

Dohnal, Jiří

2013-01-01

(English) This disetation describes progress of football as a sport in the first half of the 20th century, including his position in society during both World Wars Keywords: football competition, number of fans and their culture, football in World Wars, women football, football clubs, organisation of football, football and the media

An index predictive of cognitive outcome in retired professional American Football players with a history of sports concussion.

Science.gov (United States)

Wright, Mathew J; Woo, Ellen; Birath, J Brandon; Siders, Craig A; Kelly, Daniel F; Wang, Christina; Swerdloff, Ronald; Romero, Elizabeth; Kernan, Claudia; Cantu, Robert C; Guskiewicz, Kevin

2016-01-01

Various concussion characteristics and personal factors are associated with cognitive recovery in athletes. We developed an index based on concussion frequency, severity, and timeframe, as well as cognitive reserve (CR), and we assessed its predictive power regarding cognitive ability in retired professional football players. Data from 40 retired professional American football players were used in the current study. On average, participants had been retired from football for 20 years. Current neuropsychological performances, indicators of CR, concussion history, and play data were used to create an index for predicting cognitive outcome. The sample displayed a range of concussions, concussion severities, seasons played, CR, and cognitive ability. Many of the participants demonstrated cognitive deficits. The index strongly predicted global cognitive ability (R(2) = .31). The index also predicted the number of areas of neuropsychological deficit, which varied as a function of the deficit classification system used (Heaton: R(2) = .15; Wechsler: R(2) = .28). The current study demonstrated that a unique combination of CR, sports concussion, and game-related data can predict cognitive outcomes in participants who had been retired from professional American football for an average of 20 years. Such indices may prove to be useful for clinical decision making and research.

Controlling chaotic transients: Yorke's game of survival

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Aguirre, Jacobo; D'ovidio, Francesco; Sanjuán, Miguel A. F.

2004-01-01

. This problem is focused as a two-person, mathematical game between two players called "the protagonist" and "the adversary." The protagonist's goal is to survive. He can lose but cannot win; the best he can do is survive to play another round, struggling ad infinitum. In the absence of actions by either player...... knows the action of the adversary in choosing his response and is permitted to choose the initial point x(0) of the game. We use the "slope 3" tent map in an example of this problem. We show that it is possible for the protagonist to survive....

Effects of a lighter, smaller football on acute match injuries in adolescent female football: a pilot cluster-randomized controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Zebis, Mette K; Thorborg, Kristian; Andersen, Lars L; Møller, Merete; Christensen, Karl B; Clausen, Mikkel B; Hölmich, Per; Wedderkopp, Niels; Andersen, Thomas B; Krustrup, Peter

2018-05-01

The high injury incidence during match-play in female adolescent football is a major concern. In football, males and females play matches with the same football size. No studies have investigated the effect of football size on injury incidence in female adolescent football. Thus, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of introducing a lighter, smaller football on the injury pattern in female adolescent football. We conducted a pilot cluster randomized controlled trial including 26 football teams representing 346 adolescent female football players (age 15-18 years). The teams were randomized to a new lighter, smaller football (INT, N.=12 teams) or a traditional FIFA size 5 football (CON, N.=14 teams) during a full match-season. Acute time-loss injuries and football-exposure during match-play were reported weekly by text-message questions and verified subsequently by telephone interview. In total, 46 acute time-loss injuries were registered (5 severe injuries), yielding an incidence rate of 15.2 injuries per 1000 hours of match-play (95% CI: 8.5-27.2) in INT and 18.6 injuries per 1000 hours of match-play (95% CI: 14.0-24.8) in CON. The estimated 22% greater injury incidence rate risk (IRR: 1.22 [95% CI: 0.64-2.35]) in the CON group was not significant. With an IRR of 1.22, a future RCT main study would need to observe 793 acute time-loss injuries during match-play, in order to have a power of 80%. A large-scaled RCT is required to definitively test for beneficial or harmful effects of a lighter, smaller football in adolescent female football.

Game Day Alcohol Expectancies among College Students from a University in the Southeast

Science.gov (United States)

Glassman, Tavis; Miller, Jeff; Miller, E. Maureen; Wohlwend, Jennifer; Reindl, Diana

2012-01-01

Background: The alcohol consumption associated with college sporting events depicts a public health challenge. Purpose: The aim of this investigation involved assessing the alcohol expectancies among college students associated with home football games and which of these expectancies was most predictive of high-risk drinking. Methods: Researchers…

A Game-Theoretic approach to Fault Diagnosis of Hybrid Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Davide Bresolin

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Physical systems can fail. For this reason the problem of identifying and reacting to faults has received a large attention in the control and computer science communities. In this paper we study the fault diagnosis problem for hybrid systems from a game-theoretical point of view. A hybrid system is a system mixing continuous and discrete behaviours that cannot be faithfully modeled neither by using a formalism with continuous dynamics only nor by a formalism including only discrete dynamics. We use the well known framework of hybrid automata for modeling hybrid systems, and we define a Fault Diagnosis Game on them, using two players: the environment and the diagnoser. The environment controls the evolution of the system and chooses whether and when a fault occurs. The diagnoser observes the external behaviour of the system and announces whether a fault has occurred or not. Existence of a winning strategy for the diagnoser implies that faults can be detected correctly, while computing such a winning strategy corresponds to implement a diagnoser for the system. We will show how to determine the existence of a winning strategy, and how to compute it, for some decidable classes of hybrid automata like o-minimal hybrid automata.

WIN Chapters: Milestones and Future Plans

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Castro, P.; Pelegrí, M.

2015-07-01

In this paper the WIN Chapters: milestones and future plans are presented. WIN-IAEA has rewarded-in the three last years - to Australia-2014, South-Africa-2013 and Sweden-2012. WIN-Global -specially WiN IAEA- can collaborate a lot with the CTBTO presenting the content of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons actually increasing the signatory members in 2015. Historical decisions on NTP are already affecting WiN IAEA. The research reactors or high flux reactors are important in the field of medical applications and other future applications. In Australia women-scientist of OPAL, can become WiN. Between the OPAL applications there is a production of silicon plates to be used in laptops/mobiles. WIN-Europe activities related with the climatic change and with the academic promotion. 2015 is also a very important year due the celebration of 20th Anniversary of WIN-Spain; plans of this Chapter and Conferences of WIN-Global are presented. In addition there are women working in ITER, in some activities in the EU, China, India, Japan, South Korea, USA and Russia both in the academic (R+D) field and into the Industry. (Author)

In Denmark, Football Fitness is the new girl in the FA school of football – but who is she?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bennike, Søren

2018-01-01

The Danish Football Association (DFA) has launched a football-based activity for health called Football Fitness. It is targeting adults playing in voluntary organised, non-profit and municipally subsidised football clubs, and is hugely popular among women. But what is the concept? Dr. Søren Benni...

Factors associated with playing football after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction in female football players.

Science.gov (United States)

Fältström, A; Hägglund, M; Kvist, J

2016-11-01

This study investigated whether player-related factors (demographic, personality, or psychological factors) or the characteristics of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury were associated with the return to playing football in females after ACL reconstruction (ACLR). We also compared current knee function, knee related quality of life and readiness to return to sport between females who returned to football and those who had not returned. Females who sustained a primary ACL rupture while playing football and underwent ACLR 6-36 months ago were eligible. Of the 460 contacted, 274 (60%) completed a battery of questionnaires, and 182 were included a median of 18 months (IQR 13) after ACLR. Of these, 94 (52%) returned to football and were currently playing, and 88 (48%) had not returned. Multiple logistic regression analysis identified two factors associated with returning to football: short time between injury and ACLR (0-3 months, OR 5.6; 3-12 months OR 4.7 vs reference group > 12 months) and high motivation. Current players showed higher ratings for current knee function, knee-related quality of life, and psychological readiness to return to sport (P football after ACLR. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Effect of anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction and meniscectomy on length of career in National Football League athletes: a case control study.

Science.gov (United States)

Brophy, Robert H; Gill, Corey S; Lyman, Stephen; Barnes, Ronnie P; Rodeo, Scott A; Warren, Russell F

2009-11-01

Meniscal and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are common in college football athletes. The effect of meniscectomy and/or ACL surgery on the length of an athlete's career in the National Football League (NFL) has not been well examined. Athletes with a history of meniscectomy or ACL surgery before the NFL combine have a shorter career than matched controls. Case-control study; Level of evidence, 3. A database containing the injury history and career NFL statistics of athletes from 1987-2000 was used to match athletes with a history of meniscectomy and/or ACL surgery, and no other surgery or major injury, to controls without previous surgeries. Athletes were matched by position, year drafted, round drafted, and additional injury history. Fifty-four athletes with a history of meniscectomy, 29 with a history of ACL reconstruction, and 11 with a history of both were identified and matched with controls. Isolated meniscectomy reduced the length of career in years (5.6 vs 7.0; P = .03) and games played (62 vs 85; P = .02). Isolated ACL surgery did not significantly reduce the length of career in years or games played. Comparing the athletes with meniscectomy or ACL reconstruction to athletes with combined ACL reconstruction and meniscectomy, a history of both surgeries, resulted in a shorter career in games started (7.9 vs 35.1; P history of either surgery alone. A history of meniscectomy, but not ACL reconstruction, shortens the expected career of a professional football player. A combination of ACL reconstruction and meniscectomy may be more detrimental to an athlete's durability than either surgery alone. Further research is warranted to better understand how these injuries and surgeries affect an athlete's career and what can be done to improve the long-term outcome after treatment.

Moral calculations game theory, logic, and human frailty

CERN Document Server

Mérő, László

1998-01-01

Are people ever rational? Consider this: You auction off a one-dollar bill to the highest bidder, but you set the rules so that the second highest bidder also has to pay the amount of his last bid, even though he gets nothing. Would people ever enter such an auction? Not only do they, but according to Martin Shubik, the game's inventor, the average winning bid (for a dollar, remember) is $3.40. Many winners report that they bid so high only because their opponent "went completely crazy." This game lies at the intersection of three subjects of eternal fascination: human psychology, morality, and John von Neumann's game theory. Hungarian game-theorist Laszlo Mero introduces us to the basics of game theory, including such concepts as zero-sum games, Prisoner's Dilemma and the origins of altruism; shows how game theory is applicable to fields ranging from physics to politics; and explores the role of rational thinking in the context of many different kinds of thinking. This fascinating, urbane book will interest ...

Limitations of cooperation strategy – case of board games and simulation games

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michał Mijal

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The aim of this paper was to investigate determinants of choosing negotiation strategies in simulation and board games. Methodology: The authors decided to use the standardized interview to get fi rst-thought answer fast. As respondents group of students from the Faculty of Management, University of Warsaw was chosen. Findings: Research material confi rms that confrontational strategy is the most popular one which was usually justifi ed by the actions of the opponents. Some of the participants took into their considerations also personal value hierarchy and the results of previous games. Nevertheless almost all students declared that their approach to negotiations was cooperative as well as integrative. Negotiators usually do not consider negotiations as a holistic process with a variable sum of winnings but they tend to focus rather on their own result. Moreover, distributive or confrontational negotiations are so strongly rooted in participants’ consciousness that abandoning this pattern requires a signifi cant theoretical and empirical knowledge on confl ict management. Originality: The paper is unique in terms of application of board games for defi ning determinants of the strategy-setting in negotiation games.

Community-based recreational football

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bruun, Ditte Marie; Bjerre, Eik; Krustrup, Peter

2014-01-01

is limited and the majority of prostate cancer survivors remain sedentary. Hence, novel approaches to evaluate and promote physical activity are warranted. This paper presents the rationale behind the delivery and evaluation of community-based recreational football offered in existing football clubs under...... the Danish Football Association to promote quality of life and physical activity adherence in prostate cancer survivors. The RE-AIM framework will be applied to evaluate the impact of the intervention including outcomes both at the individual and organizational level. By introducing community-based sport...

Updating Optimal Decisions Using Game Theory and Exploring Risk Behavior Through Response Surface Methodology

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Jordan, Jeremy D

2007-01-01

... with. The techniques are applied to a combat scenario, a football game, and a terrorist resource allocation problem, providing a decision maker with the best possible strategy given the information available to him. The results are intuitive and exemplify the benefits of using the methods.

Behavioural and neural modulation of win-stay but not lose-shift strategies as a function of outcome value in Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Science.gov (United States)

Forder, Lewis; Dyson, Benjamin James

2016-09-23

Competitive environments in which individuals compete for mutually-exclusive outcomes require rational decision making in order to maximize gains but often result in poor quality heuristics. Reasons for the greater reliance on lose-shift relative to win-stay behaviour shown in previous studies were explored using the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors and by manipulating the value of winning and losing. Decision-making following a loss was characterized as relatively fast and relatively inflexible both in terms of the failure to modulate the magnitude of lose-shift strategy and the lack of significant neural modulation. In contrast, decision-making following a win was characterized as relatively slow and relatively flexible both in terms of a behavioural increase in the magnitude of win-stay strategy and a neural modulation of feedback-related negativity (FRN) and stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) following outcome value modulation. The win-stay/lose-shift heuristic appears not to be a unified mechanism, with the former relying on System 2 processes and the latter relying on System 1 processes. Our ability to play rationally appears more likely when the outcome is positive and when the value of wins are low, highlighting how vulnerable we can be when trying to succeed during competition.

The Physiologic and Behavioral Implications of Playing Active and Sedentary Video Games in a Seated and Standing Position.

Science.gov (United States)

Sanders, Gabriel J; Rebold, Michael; Peacock, Corey A; Williamson, Meagan L; Santo, Antonio S; Barkley, Jacob E

Previous studies have assessed physiologic response while playing video games per manufacturer instructions with participants standing during active video game play and seated during sedentary game play. It is not known whether an assigned seated or standing position affects positional preference and oxygen consumption (VO2) while gaming. The purpose of the study was to assess VO2 and preference of playing active and sedentary video games in a seated and standing position. VO2 was assessed in 25 participants during four, 20-minute conditions; resting, PlayStation 2 Madden NFL Football 2011, Nintendo Wii-Sports Boxing and Nintendo Wii Madden NFL Football 2011. Each condition was divided into two positional conditions (10 minutes seated, 10 minutes standing) and each participant indicated their positional preference after each 20-minute condition. Standing VO2 (4.4 ± 0.2 ml • kg-1 • min-1 PS2, 4.6 ± 0.1 ml • kg-1 • min-1 Wii Madden, 6.8 ± 0.3 ml • kg-1 • min-1Wii Boxing) was significantly (p ≤ 0.001) greater than seated VO2 (4.0 ± 0.1 ml • kg-1 • min-1 PS2, 4.2 ± 0.1 ml • kg-1 • min-1 Wii Madden, 6.1 ± 0.3 ml • kg-1 • min-1Wii Boxing) for each gaming condition. Participants preferred (p ≤ 0.001) to sit for all gaming conditions except Wii Boxing. Playing video games while standing increases VO2 to a greater extent than playing the same games in a seated position. Standing was only preferred for the most physiologically challenging game, Wii Boxing. Gaming position should be considered when assessing the physiologic and behavioral outcomes of playing video games.

Doubling Your Payoff: Winning Pain Relief Engages Endogenous Pain Inhibition1,2,3

Science.gov (United States)

Kwan, Saskia; Schweinhardt, Petra

2015-01-01

Abstract When in pain, pain relief is much sought after, particularly for individuals with chronic pain. In analogy to augmentation of the hedonic experience (“liking”) of a reward by the motivation to obtain a reward (“wanting”), the seeking of pain relief in a motivated state might increase the experience of pain relief when obtained. We tested this hypothesis in a psychophysical experiment in healthy human subjects, by assessing potential pain-inhibitory effects of pain relief “won” in a wheel of fortune game compared with pain relief without winning, exploiting the fact that the mere chance of winning induces a motivated state. The results show pain-inhibitory effects of pain relief obtained by winning in behaviorally assessed pain perception and ratings of pain intensity. Further, the higher participants scored on the personality trait novelty seeking, the more pain inhibition was induced. These results provide evidence that pain relief, when obtained in a motivated state, engages endogenous pain-inhibitory systems beyond the pain reduction that underlies the relief in the first place. Consequently, such pain relief might be used to improve behavioral pain therapy, inducing a positive, perhaps self-amplifying feedback loop of reduced pain and improved functionality. PMID:26464995

26 CFR 7.6041-1 - Return of information as to payments of winnings from bingo, keno, and slot machines.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... winnings from bingo, keno, and slot machines. 7.6041-1 Section 7.6041-1 Internal Revenue INTERNAL REVENUE..., keno, and slot machines. (a) In general. On or after May 1, 1977, every person engaged in a trade or... machine play or of $1,500 or more from a keno game shall make an information return with respect to such...

Football fever: self-affirmation model for goal distributions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

W. Janke

2009-01-01

Full Text Available The outcome of football games, as well as matches of most other popular team sports, depends on a combination of the skills of players and coaches and a number of external factors which, due to their complex nature, are presumably best viewed as random. Such parameters include the unpredictabilities of playing the ball, the players' shape of the day or environmental conditions such as the weather and the behavior of the audience. Under such circumstances, it appears worthwhile to analyze football score data with the toolbox of mathematical statistics in order to separate deterministic from stochastic effects and see what impact the cooperative and social nature of the "agents" of the system has on the resulting stochastic observables. Considering the probability distributions of scored goals for the home and away teams, it turns out that especially the tails of the distributions are not well described by the Poissonian or binomial model resulting from the assumption of uncorrelated random events. On the contrary, some more specific probability densities such as those discussed in the context of extreme-value statistics or the so-called negative binomial distribution fit these data rather well. There seemed to be no good argument to date, however, why the simplest Poissonian model fails and, instead, the latter distributions should be observed. To fill this gap, we introduced a number of microscopic models for the scoring behavior, resulting in a Bernoulli random process with a simple component of self-affirmation. These models allow us to represent the observed probability distributions surprisingly well, and the phenomenological distributions used earlier can be understood as special cases within this framework. We analyzed historical football score data from many leagues in Europe as well as from international tournaments, including data from all past tournaments of the "FIFA World Cup" series, and found the proposed models to be applicable in

Explaining Match Outcome During The Men’s Basketball Tournament at The Olympic Games

Science.gov (United States)

Leicht, Anthony S.; Gómez, Miguel A.; Woods, Carl T.

2017-01-01

In preparation for the Olympics, there is a limited opportunity for coaches and athletes to interact regularly with team performance indicators providing important guidance to coaches for enhanced match success at the elite level. This study examined the relationship between match outcome and team performance indicators during men’s basketball tournaments at the Olympic Games. Twelve team performance indicators were collated from all men’s teams and matches during the basketball tournament of the 2004-2016 Olympic Games (n = 156). Linear and non-linear analyses examined the relationship between match outcome and team performance indicator characteristics; namely, binary logistic regression and a conditional interference (CI) classification tree. The most parsimonious logistic regression model retained ‘assists’, ‘defensive rebounds’, ‘field-goal percentage’, ‘fouls’, ‘fouls against’, ‘steals’ and ‘turnovers’ (delta AIC winning (93.2%). Match outcome during the men’s basketball tournaments at the Olympic Games was identified by a unique combination of performance indicators. Despite the average model accuracy being marginally higher for the logistic regression analysis, the CI classification tree offered a greater practical utility for coaches through its resolution of non-linear phenomena to guide team success. Key points A unique combination of team performance indicators explained 93.2% of winning observations in men’s basketball at the Olympics. Monitoring of these team performance indicators may provide coaches with the capability to devise multiple game plans or strategies to enhance their likelihood of winning. Incorporation of machine learning techniques with team performance indicators may provide a valuable and strategic approach to explain patterns within multivariate datasets in sport science. PMID:29238245

HENRY'S "HAND OF GOD"

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Željko Kaluđerović

2014-04-01

Full Text Available In this paper the author discusses the views and statements of the French football player Thierry Henry he gave after his illegal play during the playoff match between France and the Republic of Ireland to claim one of the final spots in the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. First, by controlling the ball with his hand before passing it on for the goal Henry has shown disregard for the constitutive rules of football. Then, by stating that he is "not a referee" he demonstrated that for some players rules are not inherent to football and that they can be relativized, given that for them winning is the goal of the highest ontological status. Furthermore, he has rejected the rules of sportsmanship, thus expressing his opinion that the opponents are just obstacles which have to be removed in order to achieve your goals. Henry's action has disrupted major moral values, such as justice, honesty, responsibility and beneficence. The rules of fair play have totally been ignored both in Henry's action and in the Football Association of France's unwillingness to comment on whether a replay should take place. They have ignored one of the basic principles stated in the "Declaration of the International Fair Play Committee", according to which, fair play is much more than playing to the rules of the game; it's about the attitude of the sportsperson. It's about respecting your opponent and preserving his or her physical and psychological integrity. Finally, the author believes that the rules, moral values and fair play in football are required for this game to become actually possible to play