Applied Sports Science newsletter – July 29, 2017

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for July 29, 2017

 

Former Broncos captain David Bruton Jr. retires, ready for ‘new life’

ESPN NFL, Jeff Legwold from

… Bruton, who graduated from Notre Dame before entering the NFL in 2009, is already back in school at the University of Colorado-Denver. He has begun what he says will be a five-year journey to become a physical therapist in his post-football life.

To that end, he has been an intern at Next Level Sports Performance in Golden, Colorado, and will work with the Broncos’ training staff during training camp.

“I thought about professional mountain biking,” Bruton said with a laugh. “I don’t know if they have a great concussion plan. But physical therapy is definitely something I’ve always wanted to do. To see the people who enjoy doing it, who are good at it, and seeing the reward they get with working with people who work so hard to get back to normal life — it’s so rewarding.”

 

Squash: Amanda Sobhy’s recovery from Achilles injury continues

Excelle Sports, Amanda Sobhy from

Last week I reached the fourth month since my Achilles surgery operation. I think to myself, “has four months really passed by so quickly?” In retrospect it also feels like a lifetime ago when I was back competing in Floridablanca, Colombia on the Professional Squash Association World Tour.

The injury in Colombia feels like it happened yesterday. I can clearly remember lunging for the drop shot, the one that could have won the match for me but instead snapped my Achilles. Still vivid in my mind is the popping sound, then suddenly falling to floor and asking my opponent if she had kicked me in the back of my leg. At that point I knew exactly what had happened.

Looking back, I can see myself bedridden, graduating to a cast and crutches, to finally managing a double standing calf raise which I accomplished just last week! Now I finally see all of the progress I’ve made so far. However, it’s easy to look at my recovery from a more pessimistic perspective, which I try not to revert to.

 

Ravens’ John Urschel did the math and put his future over football

Baltimore Sun, C.J. Doon from

Ravens offensive lineman John Urschel knew the risks, but he kept playing anyway. He knew he was putting his body — and most importantly, his mind — in jeopardy. But he loved the thrill of the game, the “rush you get when you go out on the field, lay everything on the line and physically dominate the player across from you.”

That’s what Urschel wrote in March 2015, responding to former San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland’s sudden retirement at age 24 in a Players’ Tribune blog post titled “Why I Still Play Football.” On Thursday, Urschel announced his own retirement at age 26 after three seasons in the NFL.

“Playing a hitting position in the NFL can’t possibly help your long-term mental health,” Urschel wrote in 2015. “However, it’s also true that how bad such a pursuit is for you is something that, I believe, no one really knows for sure right now.”

 

New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski has a clean bill of health

ESPN NFL, Mike Reiss from

New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, whose 2016 season was cut short due to a back injury that required surgery, has a clean bill of health for the start of training camp.

“He doesn’t have limits that I know of,” coach Bill Belichick said Thursday when asked if the next challenge for Gronkowski is to absorb full contact.

 

Controlling Neuromuscular Performance 
to Prevent Muscle Cramps

TrainingPeaks, Dr. Bob Murray from

… Unlike Crowie’s calf cramp, most exercise-associated muscle cramps (EAMCs) don’t result from obvious trauma, but from the unnoticeable changes that build over time to spark an outpouring of nervous impulses. Regardless of the circumstances of the cramp, the root cause is the same- hyper-active motor nerves that signal constant contraction. Until that signal is interrupted, the affected muscle is locked down by the cramp.

Like most serious athletes, Crowie has had his share of experience with cramps. “I’ve suffered cramps towards the end of races, sometimes just minutes from the finish line but also in the swim and at the start of races,” he explains. “They can strike at any time, temporarily paralyzing physical and mental performance, and costing crucial time.”

 

In Tired Worms, Clues to Sleep

Simons Foundation, Emily Singer from

Sleep is ubiquitous across the animal kingdom — all species assessed to date show some kind of sleep state. But no one knows the precise purpose of sleep. “Why does every neural network need some relaxation?” asks Manuel Zimmer, a neuroscientist at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, in Vienna, and an investigator with the Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain. “Neuroscience has a lot of good hypotheses but not a unifying clear-cut answer to why that’s the case.”

Zimmer and collaborators aim to chip away at this question using newly developed techniques to monitor the whole brain in the microscopic round worm C. elegans as it falls asleep and wakes up. “That makes it possible to watch how the brain switches between these drastically different states,” Zimmer says.

 

How Your 12-Hour Internal Clock Affects Overall Health

Chronobiology.com from

… You have probably noticed that your body follows predictable patterns throughout your day. Maybe you get sleepy in the early afternoon or begin thinking about lunch around 12:00 p.m. sharp. These are not just habits, but products of a distinct internal 12-hour clock called the ultradian rhythm, which runs independently of your 24-hour circadian rhythm. Many physiological processes follow this 12-hour clock.

Chronobiology researchers have long noted that we appear to have these 12-hour rhythms, but only recently have they been able to measure them systematically. They measured the genetic activity of mice throughout their day and found that there was a predictable pattern of gene expression throughout the mice’s waking hours. Many of these genes expressed are ones tied to internal clocks; others were related to cortisol levels and various carefully timed factors. In total, more than 3,000 genes appear to be affected by our ultradian rhythm.

 

How to Break Bad Habits and Form Good Ones

Triathlete.com, Dr. Simon Marshall and Lesley Paterson from

To master the art of doing, you need to create habits and routines in the brain that are relatively resistant to a whining Chimp and the paralysis-by-analysis ruminations of your Professor brain. For the routine to become automatic, we need to design it with such conscious and deliberate precision that it’s ready-made to run on autopilot.

Here are the step-by-step instructions.

 

Are Big Veins a Sign of Fitness?

Bicycling, Selene Yeager from

… Tour de France riders have minimal body fat, so there’s no soft layer under the skin masking the veins, which are essentially sitting closer to the surface. … “High level cyclists also have double the blood flow to their legs compared to recreational exercisers,” he explains. So while you may have about 20 liters a minute coursing through your pistons as you ride, a pro like Poljanski pumps 40 liters a minute through his pedal pushing muscles. “That contributes to bulging prominent veins,” says Mukherjee.

 

Spartans using bowling to move past tumultuous offseason

Detroit Free Press, Chris Solari from

… After not going to a bowl game last year for the first time in Mark Dantonio’s 10 seasons, Michigan State’s football team spent the summer creating their own bowling.

“During camp, we’ll do a tournament – every position picks five guys, and we’ll do a head-to-head battle,” senior linebacker Chris Frey said. “It allows guys to just kind of get out and have fun.”

It’s a continuation of the team bonding the Spartans have used to develop better chemistry and unity than a year ago.

 

Why Sitting at Your Computer All Day Is Exhausting

New York Magazine, Science of Us blog, Katie Heaney from

… Dr. Steven Feinsilver, the director of sleep medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital, stresses that mental fatigue is very much legitimate. He explains that the human body reacts to stress in many of the same ways regardless of whether the source is mental, like a difficult math problem, or physical, like running. “Your heart will pump and you’ll produce adrenaline whether somebody’s chasing you, or you’re just really upset about something,” he said. Furthermore, the brain requires a disproportionately high amount of the body’s energy, accounting for about 20 percent of the oxygen consumed by the body. “Your muscles normally aren’t sucking a lot of oxygen out of you,” says Feinsilver. “With exercise, they will. But the brain always takes a lot of your energy.” In other words, if you’re conscious, your brain demands your energy, and lots of it. Using your brain takes real, honest, physical work — it’s just not visible to us the way using our muscles to exercise is.

It’s also possible that you’re picking up some of your exhaustion from the people around you, says Dr. Curtis Reisinger, clinical psychologist at Zucker Hillside Hospital. “Emotions are pretty much contagious, so the environment you’re in can make you exhausted,” says Reisinger.

 

Dave Brailsford fires back at critics after masterminding a fifth Tour De France win in six years

Daily Mirror, Mike Walters from

Tour De France godfather Sir Dave Brailsford has warned that the cycling empire he built will crumble if it caves in to ­political correctness.

Brailsford is the architect of five Yellow Jersey triumphs in six years for Team Sky, with Chris Froome completing his fourth crown at the weekend, and the pioneer behind Team GB’s gold rush in the Olympic velodrome.

But Froome’s ride towards greatness has not dispersed the clouds over British cycling after a traumatic year of allegations ranging from bullying and sexism to missed drug tests, jiffy bags, and UK Anti-Doping raids on Sky’s offices.

 

Inside the Premier League’s Sports Science: Ice Baths & Cryotherapy

Bleacher Report, Ross Edgly from

… After Belgian striker Divock Origi was sidelined by the same hamstring injury as Martin Skrtel, Jordan Rossiter and Daniel Sturridge at the end of 2015, Klopp was quoted in the Independent saying, “Hamstring is the s–t word. It is always hamstring, hamstring, hamstring—that is the intensity of the game and fixtures.”

It is a view reinforced by former England manager Sam Allardyce who, as reported by ESPN FC, said, “English football might be the richest around, but its concurrent status as the most physically demanding in European football (where players habitually run more than 10km a match) risks the physical well-being of its participants.”

But can ice therapy offer sporting salvation for injuries that currently plague the Premier League, and is there any science to support its use? Or are baths filled with ice the “magic sponge” of the 21st century, doomed to fade into footballing obscurity along with oranges at half-time?

 

Bruce Arena blends intense demands with humor to lead US

Associated Press, Janie McCauley from

… “I’m thinking about my investments and retirement and things like that,” Arena cracked, then added: “I’m observing the players and looking at their habits, trying to learn as much as I can about players on a daily basis. It’s not only game day. When you have a team and there’s 23 players, every player is important. So sometimes your contributions aren’t only on game or on the field and it’s other things. You look at the qualities of players both on and off the field.”

With his quick wit off the field and demanding nature on it, Arena has instilled a calm and a swagger the U.S. squad needed, and that has bred success again after fans reached panic mode. Now, Arena can become the first to coach three CONCACAF Gold Cup titles if the Americans can beat surprising Jamaica on Wednesday night. The U.S. won under Arena in 2002 and ’05.

“I came in with Bruce in January and I think initially you saw someone who’s trying to get points across and be pretty serious about it, but as we realized his demands and his intentions he’s been able to kind of dial it back a little bit,” midfielder Graham Zusi said. “Very dry, good sense of humor. It’s important, especially in these long camps, to have some kind of comic relief as well.”

 

Study says the right running stride for you is the one you naturally use

Brigham Young University, BYU News from

USA Track and Field consultant Iain Hunter and U.S. Olympian Jared Ward have a message for runners: Don’t mess with your stride.

A new study by the duo of BYU professors finds the stride length people naturally choose is the best for them, whether they are experienced or inexperienced runners. That means whatever shape you are in — marathon warrior or weekend jogger — stick with what you’re doing.

“Don’t worry about changing your stride length,” said Hunter, a professor of exercise science at BYU. “You should just leave it alone or you’re going to use more energy in the end.”

 

Chicago Bears plan for better health in John Fox’s third season

ESPN NFL, Jeff Dickerson from

… “The injury bug hopefully will be better to us this year than it was a year ago,” Fox said on Wednesday.

To their credit, Fox and general manager Ryan Pace promised to thoroughly review their methodology for preserving their players’ health. While no noticeable changes were made in the offseason to Chicago’s sports science department or training staff, the Bears’ new training camp schedule is a little lighter, featuring more recovery days and walk-through practices. And unlike the past two seasons, the Bears will not conduct joint practice sessions with an opponent prior to a preseason game, as they did with Indianapolis and New England the last two years.

The Bears also invested heavily in player tracking technology to assist the support staff.

 

First Team Data Scientist Laura Bowen explains the data that she and her colleagues capture from the players during their training sessions.

Twitter, Southampton FC from

 

Science Says This 5-Second Rule Will Make Your Brain Stop Procrastinating

Inc.com, Thomas Koulopoulos from

… Make a five-second decision that is directly contrary to the stress response.

Robbins calls this a decision of courage: “When you act with courage, your brain is not involved. Your heart speaks first, and you listen.” It’s what you’d do in the drowning analogy I just gave. In other words, rather than try to rationalize the stress by thinking “How can I cope with it?” do the exact opposite and make a decision to spend the next five minutes working on whatever you are fearful of doing. Confront the stress. If it’s a phone call, then pick up the phone and make the call. If it’s writing, then make the decision to write whatever you can for the next five minutes. It may end up as gibberish and get tossed, or it may be brilliant. It doesn’t really matter because, as long as you make that five-second decision to commit five minutes, you will have broken the cycle and proven that you can confront the stress. The five seconds is critical in both triggering the fast acting part of your brain as well as limiting the influence of the slow acting part of your brain, as Robbins describes in her book. So don’t stretch it out to more than that. Decide and act.

 

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll’s tech dream: Holographic robot players so the real ones don’t get hurt

GeekWire, John Cook from

Could we one day see robot quarterbacks on the gridiron or automaton catchers behind home plate?

One guy thinks that could be pretty cool. Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll envisions a new world of sports where the athletes — helped through new technologies — don’t get hurt.

Speaking at the annual Postback mobile marketing conference in Seattle Thursday afternoon, Carroll mentioned a high-tech future of sports. Tune CEO Peter Hamilton asked the legendary football coach about the one technology that he’d like to see developed sooner.

 

Josh Weissbock – High Fidelity Web Crawling in Python

YouTube, PyData from

Python modules such as Requests make it easy for Python to pull HTML from a webpage which you can feed to your parsing function. What becomes difficult is converting that process into an autonomous process to crawl webpages to parse their HTML for data. This talk covers the lessons learns and solutions I’ve found to create high fidelity autonomous web crawling scripts in Python.

 

Designing a 4D camera for robots

Stanford University, News Service from

A new camera that builds on technology first described by Stanford researchers more than 20 years ago could generate the kind of information-rich images that robots need to navigate the world. This camera, which generates a four dimensional image, can also capture nearly 140 degrees of information.

“We want to consider what would be the right camera for a robot that drives or delivers packages by air. We’re great at making cameras for humans but do robots need to see the way humans do? Probably not,” said Donald Dansereau, a postdoctoral fellow in electrical engineering.

With robotics in mind, Dansereau and Gordon Wetzstein, assistant professor of electrical engineering, along with colleagues from the University of California, San Diego have created the first-ever single-lens, wide field of view, light field camera, which they are presenting at the computer vision conference CVPR 2017 on July 23.

 

Cortana’s new Fitbit skill lets you log fitness progress with your voice

The Verge, Tom Warren from

Microsoft launched a set of skills for Cortana at its Build developers conference earlier this year, and today it’s adding Fitbit support. Cortana skills are similar to Amazon’s own Alexa skills, allowing Microsoft’s digital assistant to connect to third-party apps and services. The new Fitbit skill will allow Cortana users to monitor their health and fitness goals on Windows 10, Android, iOS, and any other devices that support Cortana.

The Skill works by saying “Hey Cortana, ask Fitbit how I am doing today,” and you can also ask how you slept or how much water you’ve consumed in a day. Where the Cortana and Fitbit integration gets interesting is the ability to log activities directly to Fitbit with your voice. You can say “Hey Cortana, tell Fitbit to log I had an omelet for breakfast” and Cortana will add this to your Fitbit account.

 

Monitoring metabolic energy expenditure, health, and fitness with a breath analyzer

MIT News, Lincoln Laboratory from

The U.S. military has great interest in more comprehensive measurement and tracking of metabolism, both for optimizing the performance of warfighters under demanding physical conditions and for maintaining the health and wellness of forces during and after their military careers. While sensors for making metabolic measurements have existed for decades, they are expensive, cumbersome instruments primarily intended for clinical or professional use. MIT Lincoln Laboratory, in collaboration with the U.S. Army Research Institute for Environmental Medicine (USARIEM), has undertaken a research effort to create a low-cost personal metabolic sensor and an associated metabolic fuel model. The Carbon dioxide/Oxygen Breath and Respiration Analyzer (COBRA) enables individuals to make on-demand metabolic measurements simply by breathing into it.

“Besides assessing performance of soldiers in the field, the COBRA can be applied to broader purposes, such as training athletes for high-endurance activities, guiding weight loss by quantifying the impact of dietary and exercise regimens, or identifying nutritional imbalances,” says Kyle Thompson, a member of the development team from Lincoln Laboratory’s Mechanical Engineering Group.

 

Cannabis, goggles, quick diagnosis – latest in treating concussions

Miami Herald, Samantha J. Gross from

… Florida physicians who specialize in concussions are expanding their programs to tackle the issue. Advancements like cannabis treatment and concussion-detecting goggles, along with concussion clinics, are facilitating quicker detection, treatment and return to sports.

Since 2012, the University of Miami Health System has partnered with 35 Miami-Dade County public high schools, prioritizing concussion prevention and treatment for the county’s 12,000 student athletes. It also works with around 10 private schools. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 5 to 10 percent of athletes will experience a concussion in any given sport season.

Part of UHealth’s partnership with the schools is using the ImPACT test, which provides a baseline score for athletic trainers to use to make comparisons and diagnose concussions.

 

Miami Dolphins to fund concussion testing for Miami-Dade public schools

Miami Herald, Armando Salguero from

The Miami Dolphins will pay to have approximately 15,000 Miami-Dade public high school athletes undergo baseline concussion tests as well as get other benefits during the 2017 school year.

At a time concussions and their effects have been the focus of professional and college sports, the Dolphins are helping expand the attention to local prep sports by helping fund parts of the University of Miami Countywide Care High School Program for Miami-Dade public schools.

 

My Toughest Opponent: Depression

Iowa Hawkeyes from

My name is Sean Welsh and I’m an offensive lineman for the Iowa Hawkeyes.

On Saturdays in the fall I live life in the trenches at Kinnick Stadium and other venues across the Big Ten. Each week, in front of 70,000 or more cheering football fans, I have the privilege of wearing the black and gold and going toe-to-toe with some of the best defensive linemen in the United States.

Each snap, each series and each quarter are physically and emotionally demanding. But no game or season has ever tested my endurance or attacked my resolve like the challenge that I now face each day of my life.

Depression.

 

When Should We Eat? | FiveThirtyEight

FiveThirtyEight, Katherine Hobson from

If you’re plumbing the causes of the great American weight gain over the past few decades, you could do worse than starting with the fact that food is available all the time, and very often we’re putting it in our mouths. According to a 2015 study that tracked eating patterns using smartphones, at least some of us are chowing down at almost every hour of the day (except in the wee hours of the morning). The study found the least frequent eaters had about 3.3 eating occasions per day, defined as food or drink consisting of at least five calories, while the most frequent eaters had about 10.5 such occasions a day.

As a scientific statement on meal timing from the American Heart Association noted earlier this year, “This study clearly demonstrated that adults in the United States eat around the clock.”

Nutrition research often looks at what people are eating. But researchers are also investigating whether when we eat has implications for weight or other health markers.1 Guidance on meal timing has made its way into dietary advice, from continued admonishments to eat breakfast that you probably heard in grade school to, more recently, popular interest in intermittent fasting.

 

Icarus | Official Trailer [HD]

YouTube, Netflix from

Filmmaker Bryan Fogel sets out on a mission to learn about performance-enhancing drugs in sports. What he ends up discovering is far bigger than anyone could have even imagined. Icarus on Netflix August 4, 2017.

 

High sugar intake linked with poorer long-term mental health 

University College London, UCL News from

Men with high sugar intakes have an increased likelihood of common mental disorders (such as anxiety and depression) after 5 years compared to those with low intakes, according to UCL research. The study also showed that having a mood disorder did not make people more inclined to eat foods with a high sugar content.

 

Going global: how Besiktas are aiming to become the Turkish Chelsea

The Guardian, Emre Sarigul from

Five years ago it looked like the Istanbul big three – Galatasaray, Fenerbahce and Besiktas – were about to become two. Besiktas were struggling with £250m of debt, 142 lawsuits and a suspension from Uefa competitions.

“Nobody else wanted to run this club, we were on the verge of collapse,” Fikret Orman said after his election as Besiktas president in 2012 – and he was probably right.

Five years on, however, it is a completely different story. Besiktas not only stayed in the big three, they have overtaken the other two to win the past two league titles. They have built a new stadium to replace the old Inonu: the 41,903-capacity – 1903 being the founding year of the club – Vodafone Arena is located opposite the Dolmabahce Palace in an idyllic setting on the banks of the Bosphorus. They are also recruting smartly with the Real Madrid defender Pepe one of the players to have joined this summer.

 

xG and how Opta are modernising football analysis

YouTube, Guardian Football from

Opta are the industry leaders when it comes to compiling statistics in sport – they measure millions of ‘game events’ every year, from foul throws to blocked shots, so they can be used to increase our collective understanding of how much numbers matter to success. This season they’re introducing a new metric, xG, or ‘expected goals’, so Paul MacInnes went along to see how it works in practice.

 

NEWS: Earthquakes Partner with Second Spectrum, Inc. for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

San Jose Earthquakes from

The San Jose Earthquakes and Second Spectrum, Inc. (“2S”) are entering a first-of-its-kind partnership to use artificial intelligence to revolutionize the future of soccer for the Quakes’ front office, coaches, players and fans. With its state-of-the-art soccer tracking system at Avaya Stadium, Second Spectrum and the Earthquakes will work together to combine player tracking data, machine learning and deep soccer expertise to transform the club on and off the field, while providing new content and experiences for Quakes fans.

 

Manchester United youth academy graduates top Premier League minutes table

ESPN FC, PA Sport from

Manchester United’s academy made the single biggest contribution to last season’s Premier League of any youth set-up, a Press Association Sport study has found.

Their graduates racked up more than twice as many top-flight minutes played as the next best academy.

Players who finished their youth careers in the United academy were on the field for a total of 44,055 minutes in the study. Tottenham were second, with a total of 21,668.

 

Something Strange in Usain Bolt’s Stride

The New York Times, Jere Longman from

Usain Bolt of Jamaica appeared on a video screen in a white singlet and black tights, sprinting in slow motion through the final half of a 100-meter race. Each stride covered nine feet, his upper body moving up and down almost imperceptibly, his feet striking the track and rising so rapidly that his heels did not touch the ground.

Bolt is the fastest sprinter in history, the world-record holder at 100 and 200 meters and the only person to win both events at three Olympics. Yet as he approaches his 31st birthday and retirement this summer, scientists are still trying to fully understand how Bolt achieved his unprecedented speed.

Last month, researchers here at Southern Methodist University, among the leading experts on the biomechanics of sprinting, said they found something unexpected during video examination of Bolt’s stride: His right leg appears to strike the track with about 13 percent more peak force than his left leg. And with each stride, his left leg remains on the ground about 14 percent longer than his right leg.

 

Germany’s youthful coaching revolution is showing the way forward in Europe

The Independent, Archie Rhind-Tutt from

… six of Germany’s 18 top flight teams will start the campaign in August with a coach in their thirties.

Compare the average ages of coaches from the other top five European leagues and Bundesliga coaches will next season be on average five years younger than their counterparts in England, France, Italy and Spain.

The likes of Augsburg’s Manuel Baum (37) or Werder Bremen’s Alexander Nouri (37) would hardly have rolled off the tongue of most German football fans even 12 months ago. Joining them this season is Hannes Wolf (36) who guided Stuttgart to promotion in his first campaign in charge. Sandro Schwarz (38) earned himself an internal promotion at Mainz, having been the club’s reserve-team coach.

 

Reds aren’t alone when it comes to sending pitchers to the disabled list

WCPO, John Fay from

It’s pretty clear that pitching injuries ruined the Reds’ season. Seven starters have spent time on the disabled list.

A team with a veteran, proven rotation would have a tough time surviving that. The Reds rotation was shaky coming into the season. When they lost the three guys expected to be at the top of it — Homer Bailey, Anthony DeSclafani and Brandon Finnegan — for huge chunks of time, the season was doomed.

If you’re a Reds fan, this is incredibly frustrating.

This doesn’t happen to other teams, does it? The Reds have to be among the most injured teams in baseball, right?

 

Joshua King and the Hot Foot

StatsBomb, James Yorke from

Joshua King scored sixteen goals in the Premier League last season for Bournemouth. His contributions went a huge way towards securing their 9th placed finish. He has now been linked with a big money move and a fee of around £30m is being suggested.

Playing in various attacking midfield or forward roles, the 2016/17 season was a big step forward for King, after having taken time to find his feet since leaving Manchester United’s youth system in 2013. A spell at Blackburn enabled him to play first team football and led to his move to Bournemouth in time for their arrival in the Premier League. Now 25 years old, he will feel he has made his mark, and a move back up the ladder would represent a huge step. But beyond the headline number of the 16 goals, is there anything else we can glean if we analyse his output. Should clubs be taking a chance on him repeating this form, or should they be more circumspect and hold fire? Let’s take a look.

 

Daniel Levy: Spurs chairman says Premier League transfer spending unsustainable

BBC Sport from

… “We have a duty to manage the club appropriately,” said Levy.

“Some of the activity that is going on at the moment is just impossible for it to be sustainable.

“Somebody spending £200m more than they’re earning, eventually it catches up with you. And you can’t keep doing it.”

 

The White Sox’ Big Bets On Risk

FanGraphs Baseball, Dave Cameron from

On Tuesday, the White Sox completed their latest trade, sending Todd Frazier, David Robertson, and Tommy Kahnle to New York for a trio of prospects and Tyler Clippard, who was included as a salary offset. In the span of four major trades, the team added 15 minor leaguers, including most of their best-ranked prospects now. And when you look at where these guys rank on the Baseball America mid-season Top 100, it’s easy to see why White Sox fans are excited about the organization’s now-bright future.

 

How Stephen Strasburg and the Nationals Changed Baseball Forever

The Ringer, Michael Baumann from

SSome watershed moments don’t come out and bite you when they’re happening. The Battle of Lexington, for example, or the storming of the Bastille, or something Nationals GM Mike Rizzo said on February 20, 2012.

“We’re going to run him out there until his innings are gone and then stop him from pitching,” Rizzo said.

“Him” was Stephen Strasburg, whom Adam Kilgore of The Washington Post reported had about 160 innings to spend in 2012. Baseball has never quite been the same since.

 

Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence

Medium, Mark Riedl from

The term Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence is a recognition that the future is increasingly putting humans in contact with artificial intelligences.

At the heart of human-centered AI is the recognition that the way AI systems solve problems — especially using machine learning — is fundamentally alien to humans without training in computer science or AI. When consumer-facing AI systems are significantly more sophisticated than Siri, Alexa, or Cortana, what will it take for my mother to feel comfortable using these systems? Human-centered AI is also a recognition that humans can be inscrutable to AI systems. AI systems do not grow up immersed in a society and culture in the way humans do.

 

For U.S. Women’s Soccer Team, Some Space to Work Out the Kinks

The New York Times, Caitlin Murray from

… “I think people should take a step back and breathe a little bit,” midfielder Allie Long said shortly after the loss to France in March. “It’s O.K. that we failed in those games. Do we want to lose? No, it absolutely drives us crazy. I don’t think losing should be part of the process. But I do think that it’s almost needed to help us figure things out.” … “There’s a greater chance of failing when you play the top 10 teams in the world, but there’s also a greater chance of us gaining valuable experience, and that’s what I care about,” Ellis said.

 

Detailed NFL Play-by-Play Data 2009-2016 nflscrap – R generated NFL dataset wiith expected points and win probability

kaggle, Max Horowitz from

The lack of publicly available National Football League (NFL) data sources has been a major obstacle in the creation of modern, reproducible research in football analytics. While clean play-by-play data is available via open-source software packages in other sports (e.g. nhlscrapr for hockey; PitchF/x data in baseball; the Basketball Reference for basketball), the equivalent datasets are not freely available for researchers interested in the statistical analysis of the NFL. To solve this issue, a group of Carnegie Mellon University statistical researchers including Maksim Horowitz, Ron Yurko, and Sam Ventura, built and released nflscrapR an R package which uses an API maintained by the NFL to scrape, clean, parse, and output clean datasets at the individual play, player, game, and season levels. Using the data outputted by the package, the trio went on to develop reproducible methods for building expected point and win probability models for the NFL. The outputs of these models are included in this dataset and can be accessed using the nflscrapR package.

 

The Evolution of Trust

Nicky Case from

… I think game theory can help explain our epidemic of distrust –
and how we can fix it! So, to understand all this… [interactive video, 30:00]

 

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