… There’s no mistake that change is coming to Carolina, though. All signs point to the Panthers transitioning away from its deep-ball offense and designed quarterback runs, two of the staples of an offense that helped make Newton a superstar. This spring the Panthers added McCaffrey and speedy second-rounder Curtis Samuel to the squad in what looks to be a clear attempt to get faster on offense and the ball out of Newton’s hand more quickly.
The average observer might think of it as an easy change. But it’s a drastic transition for a quarterback to make mid-career, and the fate of a coaching staff could hang in the balance. Central to all this is one simple question: Can Cam change?
Lance Stephenson has been gearing up for the 2017-18 season ever since the Indiana Pacers got swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs. He has put in a lot of work in the weight room and on the basketball court for countless hours at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Stephenson had remained focused on shedding weight to be in much better shape than he was when he signed with the Indiana Pacers to finish out the season. Earlier in the off-season, he had already trimmed down to 215 pounds. He is looking like a more explosive athlete and being physically prepared should help with durability.
The time between a job interview and job offer are typically days, weeks and, in some cases, months full of anxiety. Rugby player Adam Zaruba only had to endure a few hours before finding out he got the job as tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Zaruba, who played for Canada’s national rugby sevens team, tried out for the Eagles over the weekend and impressed them enough to earn a contract offer Monday.
… The department will now be led by director of performance Art Horne and director of sport science Johann Bilsborough, Ainge said.
Horne spent the past two seasons as the Atlanta Hawks’ head trainer. Previously, he worked at Northeastern University from 2003-15, first as an athletic trainer and later as director of sports performance. Bilsborough was hired by the Celtics in 2015.
“We’re certainly not pointing the finger at [Lacerte, Doo, or Shulman] as bad,” Ainge said. “It’s just that when you’re making changes, it’s hard to bring in people into a new organization with ideas and control over departments. It’s just hard on everybody, and so we just decided to move in a different direction.”
… STATS Edge unifies football data and video through an easy-to-use and intuitive user interface, developed in close partnership with top English, French and Spanish clubs through a design-thinking methodology. This allows everyone in the football club – from match analysts to the manager – to analyse, annotate and share insights on the same platform.
“It’s increasingly difficult for clubs to process and analyse all the relevant data points available and distil complex information into timely, accurate insight,” said Kenneth Fuchs, STATS’ CEO. “On top of that, traditional analytics don’t always speak the visual language of players and coaches. We’ve applied computer vision and artificial intelligence to bring new levels of context and efficiency to teams already using video for their match preparations. It’ll save them time, allow them to develop proprietary results, and help get them the information to make, share and track the best decisions.”
… One of the key skills of the fast-moving game is passing the ball. Players need to be fleet-of-foot and mentally sharp to catch, maneuver and launch the ball to a waiting teammate or into the goal. Practicing the skill is easy enough surrounded by other players, but alone it can be tricky and expensive given the major cash big league teams are willing to shell out for top-of-the-line equipment.
That is until a group of Northwestern University students in the Segal Design Institute’s Design 384: Interdisciplinary Design Projects course set their minds to creating a relatively low-cost, portable and effective passing-simulation practice kit.
Electronics designed to stick to skin and transmit the body’s electric signals could improve the sensitivity of prosthetics or help doctors monitor patients’ vital signs. Unfortunately, conventional electrodes used for this purpose trap air and sweat against skin, causing irritation or inflammation when used for an extended period.
Now, a team of researchers from the University of Tokyo, the Japan Science & Technology Agency, and Riken have developed a conductive gold nanomesh that is flexible and breathable while relaying electric signals.
arXiv, Computer Science > Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition; Christoph Lassner, Javier Romero, Martin Kiefel, Federica Bogo, Michael J. Black, Peter V. Gehler from
3D models provide a common ground for different representations of human bodies. In turn, robust 2D estimation has proven to be a powerful tool to obtain 3D fits “in-the- wild”. However, depending on the level of detail, it can be hard to impossible to acquire labeled data for training 2D estimators on large scale. We propose a hybrid approach to this problem: with an extended version of the recently introduced SMPLify method, we obtain high quality 3D body model fits for multiple human pose datasets. Human annotators solely sort good and bad fits. This procedure leads to an initial dataset, UP-3D, with rich annotations. With a comprehensive set of experiments, we show how this data can be used to train discriminative models that produce results with an unprecedented level of detail: our models predict 31 segments and 91 landmark locations on the body. Using the 91 landmark pose estimator, we present state-of-the art results for 3D human pose and shape estimation using an order of magnitude less training data and without assumptions about gender or pose in the fitting procedure. We show that UP-3D can be enhanced with these improved fits to grow in quantity and quality, which makes the system deployable on large scale. The data, code and models are available for research purposes.
… Google, through its biology offshoot, now named Verily Life Sciences, and the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis International, through its eye care division Alcon, joined forces to design, develop, and commercialize smart contact lenses for diabetics. If the project reaches its goals, these lenses will spare diabetics from the daily finger pricks typically used to measure blood glucose levels, instead employing embedded microelectronics to measure glucose in the wearer’s tears.
Verily and Alcon aren’t the only ones pushing smart-lens technology forward. In labs around the world, biomedical engineers have been making exciting progress on smart lenses to diagnose diseases and allow unobtrusive and continuous monitoring of patients. In fact, two smart-lens products have already hit the market in Europe to help patients with glaucoma, one of the world’s most common eye diseases.
Can you really track food intake passively just by scanning blood flow? In large part, the answer to questions like these comes down to the sensors. This episode of Engineering the Internet of Things features Andrew Baker, executive director of the industrial and healthcare business unit at Maxim Integrated.
Health Matters, University of Rochester Medical Center from
It’s easy to get, relatively inexpensive and one of the most commonly used drugs in the world, but that doesn’t mean acetaminophen—best known as Tylenol®—is risk-free. UR Medicine Pharmacy Director Curtis Haas shares tips for using this medication safely.two white tablets in the palm of a hand
Acetaminophen is an ingredient in hundreds of prescription and over-the-counter drugs, often combined with other medications. When used correctly, it’s safe and effective—especially for common ailments like pain or fever. But improper use can cause severe liver injury and death. In fact, acetaminophen is the leading cause of acute liver failure in the U.S., with roughly 1,600 cases each year attributed to acetaminophen poisoning. Roughly half of these cases are due to accidental or unintentional overdoses.
… Research has consistently shown that athletes who eat before running (and other cardio exercises) perform better and recover faster. This is especially true for morning exercisers, as a quick snack will help replenish carbohydrate stores that we use to maintain blood glucose levels overnight.
USA Today High School Sports, Jesse Churchward from
A young athlete named Bunchie Young recently made some big waves in the news when he received a verbal offer from the University of Illinois to play football—at 9 years old. And Bunchie isn’t alone. More and more athletes are verbally committing to colleges before they even get to high school.
Early recruiting is a controversial topic. While most coaches acknowledge that they don’t particularly like it, they have to take part in the practice to stay competitive with other programs.
“Sometimes you feel so hypocritical as a coach, when you’re saying you don’t think it’s healthy to recruit kids at [a young] age, but then you’re actively in that process,” Western Kentucky women’s volleyball coach Travis Hudson told ESPNW.
… According to Buning, parents are spending as much as $20,000 a year to take their children to youth sporting events that can be located across town or across the country.
“There’s a wide range of people doing it, with some families making one trip a year. But some families whose children are playing at an elite level may take 10, 20 or 30 trips a year,” he said.
Youth sports tourism includes travel-related expenses for families who travel to sports tournaments in locations they otherwise would not have visited. It includes spending on gasoline, airfare, buses, hotel rooms, meals and entertainment in the destination city.