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Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport May 2024There is limited information on the performance progression of athletics endurance athletes from junior-to-senior status and the determinants of success in adulthood....
OBJECTIVES
There is limited information on the performance progression of athletics endurance athletes from junior-to-senior status and the determinants of success in adulthood. This study aimed to quantify the youth-to-senior transition rate, the likelihood of success and the relationship between youth and senior performance amongst world-class athletes competing in middle- and long-distance disciplines.
DESIGN
Retrospective design examining public data between 2000 and 2019.
METHODS
The performances of 4678 international athletes (45.3 % female) were analysed. World's all-time top 50 athletes were identified for U18 and Senior categories (age ≥ 20 years). Youth-to-senior transition rate and transition probabilities were calculated. Correlations between best U18 and Senior performances were determined to assess the stability of the performance.
RESULTS
The youth-to-senior transition rate for top U18 athletes was low for males and females (~19 % and 21 %). Nevertheless, the probability of transition to a top senior was ~7 times higher for top U18 athletes than for non-top U18 athletes. The correlations between youth and senior best performances were low-to-high.
CONCLUSIONS
Few top U18 athletes maintained top world ranking status during their senior careers. Still, they are more likely to become top senior athletes than those who did not perform at the top level in U18. The association between youth and senior performance is stronger when comparing the same discipline or when athletes competed over longer distances in their senior compared to U18 career. Being a successful youth athlete may represent a small advantage for future success, however, it does not guarantee advancement to the senior top level.
PubMed: 38821815
DOI: 10.1016/j.jsams.2024.05.007 -
Frontiers in Psychology 2023When sight-reading a score, a timpanist needs to decide in real-time which stick to use to play a specific note while interpreting the musical material. Our main point...
When sight-reading a score, a timpanist needs to decide in real-time which stick to use to play a specific note while interpreting the musical material. Our main point of inquiry seeks to understand which sticking patterns performers employ and how they are affected by rhythmic stability. This paper analyzes the bi-manual sequencing (i.e., sticking) patterns of 31 timpanists in a sight-reading task. We analyze their results compared to model sticking patterns common in percussion pedagogical literature. Results show that while hand dominance plays an essential role in an individual's sticking pattern, the stability of a rhythmic pattern may also dramatically influence the observed particular sticking strategies. In areas of rhythmic stability, performers largely adhered to one of two conventional sticking patterns in the literature (dominant hand lead & alternating). Where rhythmic patterns became more unstable, the performers separated into diverse sticking groups. Moreover, several performers demonstrated sticking patterns which were hybrids or an inverse of the model sticking patterns, without any impact on the success of their sight-reading abilities. Overall, no two individual performers demonstrated the same sticking pattern. In terms of percussion pedagogy, our findings suggest that performers may benefit from an awareness of the adaptability of model sticking strategies. Lastly, we make the case for further study of rhythmic stability and bi-manual sequencing by locating the difference between notational and aural complexity.
PubMed: 37780147
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1188773 -
Sports Medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) Mar 2024Does younger involvement in talent promotion programs (TPPs) facilitate the attainment of higher performance levels? This question is the subject of the present... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis
BACKGROUND
Does younger involvement in talent promotion programs (TPPs) facilitate the attainment of higher performance levels? This question is the subject of the present meta-analysis. Many national sport systems have established TPPs such as federations' junior squads (including under-age selection teams) and youth sport academies, and many are making expanding investments in TPPs. TPPs seek to select the most advanced youth high performers at young ages, around puberty or younger, and then strive to further accelerate their performance development. However, studies show 25-55% annual athlete turnover within TPPs. In this context, accelerated biological maturation (puberty, growth spurt), high relative age within one's birth year, and intensified sport-specific childhood/adolescent practice may boost rapid junior performance, but the effects diminish or are reversed by adulthood. Moreover, expanded opportunity costs and risks (time demands, injury, burnout) imposed on young TPP participants may impair their long-term development and even prematurely terminate their career.
OBJECTIVE
We aimed to provide robust and generalizable evidence on the effects of early talent promotion on junior and senior performance through a systematic review and meta-analysis.
METHODS
A systematic literature search was conducted 18/03-03/04/2023 in SPORTDiscus, ProQuest, PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, WorldCat, and Google Scholar. We searched for original studies that compared athletes across defined higher and lower performance levels within defined types of sports, age categories, and sexes, regarding their age at commencement of TPP involvement and reported effect sizes or data needed to compute effects sizes. Mean meta-analytic Cohen's was computed separately for junior and senior athletes. Quality of evidence was evaluated using the mixed-methods appraisal tool.
RESULTS
The search yielded k = 51 effect sizes from N = 6233 athletes from a wide range of countries and sports, 82% male and 18% female, from 2009 to 2022. The central finding is that effects on short-term junior performance versus long-term senior performance are opposite, whereby higher-performing junior athletes began TPP involvement at younger ages than lower-performing junior athletes, = - 0.53. In contrast, higher-performing senior athletes began TPP involvement at older ages than lower-performing senior athletes, = 0.56. The findings are robust across different TPPs (federation's junior squad/selection team, youth academy), individual and team sports, and performance levels compared (international, national, regional). The quality of primary studies was high.
DISCUSSION
The findings are consistent with recent meta-analytic evidence that participation patterns predicting early junior success versus long-term senior success are opposite (starting age, main-sport and other-sports practice amounts, age to reach performance 'milestones'). We discuss theoretical and practical implications of potential selection and 'treatment' effects of TPPs.
CONCLUSIONS
Consistent across different populations, early TPP involvement is positively correlated with short-term junior performance but is negatively correlated with long-term senior performance.
Topics: Adolescent; Humans; Male; Female; Adult; Child; Sports; Athletes; Team Sports; Aptitude; Youth Sports
PubMed: 37921913
DOI: 10.1007/s40279-023-01957-3 -
PeerJ 2024The performance of balance is an important factor to perform activities. The complications of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), especially vestibular dysfunction (VD),...
BACKGROUND
The performance of balance is an important factor to perform activities. The complications of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), especially vestibular dysfunction (VD), could decrease balance performance and falls-efficacy (FE) which consequently impacts social participation and quality of life (QoL).
PURPOSE
This study aimed to compare balance performance, FE, social participation and QoL between individuals with T2DM with and without VD.
METHODS
The participants comprised 161 T2DM with VD and 161 without VD. Three clinical tests used for confirming VD included the Head Impulse Test (HIT), the Dix Hallpike Test (DHT) and the Supine Roll Test (SRT). The scores of static and dynamic balances, FE, social participation and QoL were compared between groups.
RESULTS
The balance performance, FE, social participation and QoL were lower in the group with VD. The number of patients who had severe social restriction was higher in T2DM with VD than without VD (58.4% 48.4%). Moreover, all domains of QoL (physical, psychological, social relationships and environmental) were lower in T2DM with VD than without VD.
CONCLUSION
The presence of VD in T2DM patients was associated with decreased physical balance performances and increased social and QoL disengagement. Comprehensive management related to balance and FE, as well as the monitoring to support social participation and QoL, should be emphasized in patients with T2DM with VD.
Topics: Humans; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2; Postural Balance; Male; Female; Quality of Life; Accidental Falls; Middle Aged; Vestibular Diseases; Social Participation; Aged
PubMed: 38766481
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.17287 -
Ergonomics May 2024Firefighters routinely perform tasks that are reliant on their muscular fitness, which includes muscular strength, power and endurance. Separately, firefighters can... (Review)
Review
Firefighters routinely perform tasks that are reliant on their muscular fitness, which includes muscular strength, power and endurance. Separately, firefighters can present with unique skeletal muscle physiology characteristics due to the strenuous nature of this occupation. This review aims to summarise muscular fitness and physiology as determinants of a firefighter's ability to perform occupation-specific tasks, identify the relevance of both muscular fitness and physiology to a firefighter's risk for sustaining a work-related injury, and address the contributions of muscular fitness and physiology on a firefighter's ability to recover from tasks and their readiness for performing subsequent or future tasks. The presented evidence reveals muscular fitness can determine a firefighter's capacity to perform their job effectively, while also influencing risk for occupational injury. Collectively, this review indicates exercise training emphasising improvements in muscular strength, power, and endurance (i.e. resistance training) should be encouraged in this occupation.
PubMed: 38742476
DOI: 10.1080/00140139.2024.2352719 -
Heliyon Oct 2023This study evaluates the skills of 30 CMIP5 GCMs and the Multimodel Ensemble (MME) in reproducing the characteristics of observed precipitation (Pr), minimum (T), and...
This study evaluates the skills of 30 CMIP5 GCMs and the Multimodel Ensemble (MME) in reproducing the characteristics of observed precipitation (Pr), minimum (T), and maximum (T) temperature over the Middle Awash sub-basin (MASB) in Ethiopia. The MME of the climate variables was generated using the simple arithmetic mean method. The entire analysis was performed on the raw historical GCM simulations (before bias correction) and observed data for the periods 1981-2005 based on monthly and annual time series data over the annual and seasonal temporal resolutions. This study considered two approaches. The first one was an evaluation of GCMs employing five statistical performance metrics (SPMs), i.e., mean, CV, PBIAS, RSR, and r. The second approach involves the application of multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) analysis, adopting three SPMs (PBIAS, RSR, and r). The relative weights of the three metrics were determined by the entropy method. Besides, the weighted average and compromise programming techniques were employed to rank and select the best-performing GCMs. The findings from the first approach using five SPMs demonstrate that, for a given variable of interest, a GCM that performs well for one SPM may fail to produce the same for another SPM on the same temporal scale. Likewise, for the same SPM at different resolutions, a GCM may perform well for a one-time scale but poorly for another. These suggested that the results of GCM skills relied mainly on the SPM, time scale, and data formats chosen for analysis. Hence, it is critical to comprehensively evaluate the skill of GCMs using multiple performance metrics over a range of spatial and temporal settings and data formats. In addition, results of the MCDM analysis proved that the ensemble of GCMs, which provide adequate performance in simulating the salient features of Pr, T, and T concomitantly across the MASB, encompass CMCC-CMS, BCC-CSM1.1(m), CMCC-CM, BNU-ESM, CanESM2, and MPI-ESM-MR. However, it was observed that different GCMs performed much differently in characterizing various variables over a range of temporal scales and data formats. The MME also proved its superior potential in duplicating the climate of the study area over several individual GCMs. The overall findings attested that instead of aggregating the ranks from the three variables into one, it is recommended to treat each variable independently while developing a subset of best-performing GCMs for ensembling since each GCM responds differently to each variable under a set of conditions. Finally, the approaches and findings from this study will be valuable input for subsequent climate and hydrologic studies in the study area and beyond.
PubMed: 37790964
DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20320 -
IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis... Mar 2024Multi-Source Domain Adaptation (MSDA) focuses on transferring the knowledge from multiple source domains to the target domain, which is a more practical and challenging...
Multi-Source Domain Adaptation (MSDA) focuses on transferring the knowledge from multiple source domains to the target domain, which is a more practical and challenging problem compared to the conventional single-source domain adaptation. In this problem, it is essential to model multiple source domains and target domain jointly, and an effective domain combination scheme is also highly required. The graphical structure among different domains is useful to tackle these challenges, in which the interdependency among various instances/categories can be effectively modeled. In this work, we propose two types of graphical models, i.e. Conditional Random Field for MSDA (CRF-MSDA) and Markov Random Field for MSDA (MRF-MSDA), for cross-domain joint modeling and learnable domain combination. In a nutshell, given an observation set composed of a query sample and the semantic prototypes (i.e. representative category embeddings) on various domains, the CRF-MSDA model seeks to learn the joint distribution of labels conditioned on the observations. We attain this goal by constructing a relational graph over all observations and conducting local message passing on it. By comparison, MRF-MSDA aims to model the joint distribution of observations over different Markov networks via an energy-based formulation, and it can naturally perform label prediction by summing the joint likelihoods over several specific networks. Compared to the CRF-MSDA counterpart, the MRF-MSDA model is more expressive and possesses lower computational cost. We evaluate these two models on four standard benchmark data sets of MSDA with distinct domain shift and data complexity, and both models achieve superior performance over existing methods on all benchmarks. In addition, the analytical studies illustrate the effect of different model components and provide insights about how the cross-domain joint modeling performs.
PubMed: 35503821
DOI: 10.1109/TPAMI.2022.3172372 -
BMJ Open Aug 2023Childhood cataract is a chronic condition that may interfere with the child's learning capacities. We aimed to investigate whether childhood cataract influences academic...
OBJECTIVES
Childhood cataract is a chronic condition that may interfere with the child's learning capacities. We aimed to investigate whether childhood cataract influences academic development by comparing school performance in reading and mathematics in children with cataract to a matched control group.
DESIGN
Nationwide registry-based cohort study.
SETTINGS
Two surgical centres that perform all treatments for childhood cataract in Denmark.
PARTICIPANTS
Children born between 2000 and 2009 diagnosed with cataract before 10 years of age (n=275) and an age-matched and sex-matched control group (n=2473).
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
School performance was assessed as test scores in national tests performed at regular intervals from grade 2 to grade 8 in reading and mathematics. Analyses were corrected for birth origin, child somatic and mental disorder and parental socioeconomic status and mental disorders.
RESULTS
Of 275 children, 85 (30.9%) were operated for bilateral cataract, 79 (28.7%) unilateral cataract and 111 (40,4%) were not operated. We found that children with cataract have lower participation rate in the tests (62.5%) compared with the control cohort (77.2%) (p value=0.0001). After adjusting the pooled analyses for birth origin, somatic and mental disease in the child and parental socioeconomic status and mental disorders, we found that the children with cataract scored significantly lower in mathematics compared with those without cataract (mean difference=-4.78, 95% CI: -8.18 to -1.38, p value=0.006), whereas no difference was found regarding scores in reading (p=0.576). The lower score in mathematics was driven by children who had been operated for bilateral cataract (p-value=0.004).
CONCLUSION
Children with cataract without somatic or neurodevelopmental comorbidities or psychosocial adversities seem to do well in school, whereas children operated for bilateral cataract have higher frequencies of difficulties in mathematical tasks.
Topics: Humans; Child; Cohort Studies; Academic Performance; Cataract; Schools; Comorbidity
PubMed: 37532485
DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-072984 -
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 2023Computer graphics research frequently evaluates research outputs with user studies, often through online crowdworking platforms. When performed carefully and...
Computer graphics research frequently evaluates research outputs with user studies, often through online crowdworking platforms. When performed carefully and thoughtfully, studies on human behavior and preferences provide valuable insights, useful for both developing and evaluating new tools. Yet, I argue that many of the current studies are performative: they result from reviewers' expectation that "papers should have some evaluation," not from careful thought about the value and usefulness of the studies themselves. These casually done studies are often uninformative or misleading, while putting undue burden on authors and reviewers. The expectation of positive user evaluation results can also inhibit creative new work. I call for reviewers to be more thoughtful about asking for user studies, for authors to be more thoughtful when they perform studies, and for our field to conduct new research and create new guidelines on when and how user studies are genuinely useful.
PubMed: 37930893
DOI: 10.1109/MCG.2023.3315759 -
International Journal of Geriatric... Dec 2023A consistent approach to defining cognitive super-ageing is needed to increase the value of research insights that may be gained from studying this population including... (Review)
Review
OBJECTIVE
A consistent approach to defining cognitive super-ageing is needed to increase the value of research insights that may be gained from studying this population including ageing well and preventing and treating neurodegenerative conditions. This review aims to evaluate the existing definitions of 'super-ageing' with a focus on cognition.
METHODS
A systematic literature search was conducted across PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO and Google Scholar from inception to 24 July 2023.
RESULTS
Of 44 English language studies that defined super-ageing from a cognitive perspective in older adults (60-97 years), most (n = 33) were based on preserved verbal episodic memory performance comparable to that of younger adult in age range 16-65 years. Eleven studies defined super-agers as the top cognitive performers for their age group based upon standard deviations or percentiles above the population mean. Only nine studies included longitudinal cognitive performance in their definitions.
CONCLUSIONS
Equivalent cognitive abilities to younger adults, exceptional cognition for age and a lack of cognitive deterioration over time are all meaningful constructs and may provide different insights into cognitive ageing. Using these criteria in combination or individually to define super-agers, with a clear rationale for which elements have been selected, could be fit for purpose depending on the research question. However, major discrepancies including the age range of super-agers and comparator groups and the choice of cognitive domains assessed should be addressed to reach some consensus in the field.
Topics: Humans; Aged; Cognition; Cognition Disorders; Aging; Memory, Episodic
PubMed: 38078669
DOI: 10.1002/gps.6034