Former Mets star Darryl Strawberry doesn’t think athletes should use marijuana as a pain reliever.
He said on Wednesday that weed is a gateway drug that can lead to other drug addiction problems, TMZ Sports reported.
“Most people don’t understand marijuana is a drug,” Strawberry told TMZ Sports. “It’s just the beginning. Starting people off when they’re young and then it leads to everything else.”
… He started getting those fouls on the other side of the break. But maybe what was most remarkable about his second-half takeover was its efficiency. He finished the game with a lofty 38.8 per cent usage rate but touched the ball only 58 times, which was third on his team. Pascal Siakam needed nearly 20 more touches to notch his own career-best scoring night with 28 points.
“You have a certain rhythm about yourself. And in games like this, it’s easy to make shots,” Leonard said after the game. “I always enjoy the challenge of missing your first couple and seeing where you’re going to stay. If you’re going to be mentally focused or confident in your shot.
“I’ve been missing the last few games with my shot, so I felt like that’s why I took the challenge tonight. I just know I can make those shots and stay in my groove and just try to win. That’s it. That’s all I’m trying to do — just win the game.”
Tranmere Rovers, who scrapped their youth teams below Under-16 level in the summer, had a more productive Academy than three Premier League teams in our 2017/18 rankings.
The research, which was carried out by Mark Crane, covered only clubs in Categories 1 to 3. However, Crane has also looked at the productivity of three clubs that downgraded their Academies in recent seasons: Brentford, Huddersfield and Tranmere.
Tranmere would have ranked 48th in the country – ahead of Bournemouth, Burnley and Swansea. Furthermore, they would have been above four Category 2 clubs (Burnley, Cardiff, Colchester and Hull) and ninth of all the Category 3 sides.
When Scott Carney first saw the photo of a nearly naked man sitting comfortably on a glacier in the frigid cold, he was skeptical.
The man — Wim Hof — is a Dutch athlete who claims to control his body temperature in extreme cold through sheer force of will. Exercising in the cold, Hof argues, makes people healthier.
“I actually flew out there with the intention of debunking him as a fraud,” says Carney, a Colorado-based journalist, author and senior fellow at Brandeis University’s Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism.
… From the data we receive and put into TRAQ, our internal tools package that powers both Remote Training and tracks everything at Driveline, we have automated insights on how we can improve both performance and durability through a variety of means. An expert trainer sits down with the athlete and goes over the data, insights, and the path that makes the most sense given where the athlete is in his career. This is the part where computers cannot reliably replace humans – expert coaching is still required to get the most out of the data.
For an athlete who is looking to get better but not do anything “crazy,” we would keep the volume and intensity low and focus around lower-skilled drills while monitoring output over time. Through our new biomechanical pipeline developed by our R&D department, we process nearly 200+ variables automatically and come up with profiles to target the highest risk-reward items using our Athlete Typing initiatives using advanced clustering and statistical analysis principles.
We may assign a bunch of corrective exercises, heavy throwing drills at low speeds, force acceptance work, breathing patterning, recommend manual therapy techniques, improving specific power outputs – the list goes on and on.
Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering journal from
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of variations in quadriceps muscle forces on patellofemoral stress. We created subject-specific finite element models for 21 individuals with chronic patellofemoral pain and 16 pain-free control subjects. We extracted three-dimensional geometries from high resolution magnetic resonance images and registered the geometries to magnetic resonance images from an upright weight bearing squat with the knees flexed at 60°. We estimated quadriceps muscle forces corresponding to 60° knee flexion during a stair climb task from motion analysis and electromyography-driven musculoskeletal modelling. We applied the quadriceps muscle forces to our finite element models and evaluated patellofemoral cartilage stress. We quantified cartilage stress using an energy-based effective stress, a scalar quantity representing the local stress intensity in the tissue. We used probabilistic methods to evaluate the effects of variations in quadriceps muscle forces from five trials of the stair climb task for each subject. Patellofemoral effective stress was most sensitive to variations in forces in the two branches of the vastus medialis muscle. Femur cartilage effective stress was most sensitive to variations in vastus medialis forces in 29/37 (78%) subjects, and patella cartilage effective stress was most sensitive to variations in vastus medialis forces in 21/37 (57%) subjects. Femur cartilage effective stress was more sensitive to variations in vastus medialis longus forces in subjects classified as maltrackers compared to normal tracking subjects (p = 0.006). This study provides new evidence of the importance of the vastus medialis muscle in the treatment of patellofemoral pain.
Unlike physiological loads, the biomechanical loads of training in running-based sports are still largely unexplored. This study, therefore, aimed to assess the validity of estimating ground reaction forces (GRF), as a measure of external whole-body biomechanical loading, from segmental accelerations. METHODS:
Fifteen team-sport athletes performed accelerations, decelerations, 90° cuts and straight running at different speeds including sprinting. Full-body kinematics and GRF were recorded with a three-dimensional motion capture system and a single force platform respectively. GRF profiles were estimated as the sum of the product of all fifteen segmental masses and accelerations, or a reduced number of segments. RESULTS:
Errors for GRF profiles estimated from fifteen segmental accelerations were low (1-2Nkg-1) for low-speed running, moderate (2-3Nkg-1) for accelerations, 90° cuts and moderate-speed running, but very high (>4Nkg-1) for decelerations and high-speed running. Similarly, impulse (2.3-11.1%), impact peak (9.2-28.5%) and loading rate (20.1-42.8%) errors varied across tasks. Moreover, mean errors increased from 3.26±1.72Nkg-1 to 6.76±3.62Nkg-1 across tasks when the number of segments was reduced. CONCLUSIONS:
Accuracy of estimated GRF profiles and loading characteristics was dependent on task, and errors substantially increased when the number of segments was reduced. Using a direct mechanical approach to estimate GRF from segmental accelerations is thus unlikely to be a valid method to assess whole-body biomechanical loading across different dynamic and high-intensity activities. Researchers and practitioners should, therefore, be very cautious when interpreting accelerations from one or several segments, as these are unlikely to accurately represent external whole-body biomechanical loads.
Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the energy cost of running (Cr) and speed and its mechanical determinants by comparing running in normal [100% body weight (BW)] and reduced (20% and 60% BW) gravity conditions at several speeds (2.25, 3.17, 4.08, and 5.00 m·s−1) in experienced runners.
Methods: Twelve experienced runners (24.6 ± 5.4 year) ran on an AlterG treadmill in a partially randomized order at the four running speeds and at the three gravity conditions in order to assess Cr, spatiotemporal parameters, spring-mass characteristics and elastic energy (EL) during running.
Results: For the three gravity conditions, the speed-Cr per kg of body mass relationship was curvilinear (significant speed effect: P < 0.001) and was significantly downward shifted with reduced gravity (100%>60%>20% BW; P < 0.001). EL, expressed in J·step−1, was significantly higher at 100% BW than at 60 and 20% BW and at 60% BW than at 20% BW (significant gravity effect: P < 0.001) with a significant increase in EL per step at faster speeds for the 3 gravity conditions (P < 0.001). EL, expressed in J·kg−1·m−1, was significantly downward shifted with gravity (100%>60%>20% BW; P < 0.001), with no significant speed effect (P = 0.39).
Conclusions: Our findings showed that, for the three gravity conditions, the speed-Cr relationship was curvilinear, and the optimization of the stretch-shortening cycle and muscle activation in the muscle-tendon unit may be involved to explain these U-shaped relationships, especially at normal terrestrial gravitational conditions (100% BW). The U-shaped speed-Cr per kg of the body mass relationship was shifted downward in hypogravity conditions, which was characterized by decreased EL compared to 100% BW. These mechanisms may contribute to the less than proportional decrease in Cr per kg of body mass relative to gravity. [full text]
Use of printed electronics for sensor arrays holds great promise in health, environmental and industrial applications, but the technology is still in its early stages.
Printed electronics (PE) technology uses different types of inks to print electronic devices on a variety of substrates, creating thin, flexible devices that can be deployed in ways rigid devices cannot. Flexible sensors are thus becoming increasingly attractive for benefits including the printing of multiple arrays, cost efficiencies, thinner profiles, light weight and conformability.
Individual sensors deliver individual data points, which are not sufficient in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Demand is rising for data-intensive applications that use AI, but solutions based on individual sensors cannot deliver reliable data in the volumes needed for comprehensive and actionable information.
In a paper to be published in the forthcoming issue in NANO, researchers from the Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications have developed a simple, scalable and low-cost capillary-driven self-assembly method to prepare flexible and stretchable conductive fibers that have applications in wearable electronics and smart fabrics.
A simple, scalable and low-cost capillary-driven self-assembly method to prepare conductive fibers with uniform morphology, high conductivity and good mechanical strength has been developed by a team of researchers in Nanjing, China. Dr. Yi Li and Yanwen Ma, from the Key Laboratory for Organic Electronics and Information Displays, Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM) of Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications and his collaborators have developed a simple, scalable and low cost capillarity-driven self-assembly route to produce silver nanowires (Ag NWs) coated flexible and stretchable conductive fibers.
Taking advantage of the capillary action of fibers, such as cotton, nylon and polyester yarns as well as PDMS fibers, the solution containing Ag NWs is spontaneously absorbed into the capillary tunnels. Then Ag NWs are evenly coated onto the fibers through evaporation-induced flow and capillary-driven self-assembly process to form conductive fibers, which is in situ observed by the optical microscopic measurement. The fabricated flexible and stretchable conductor exhibits uniform morphology, high conductivity and good mechanical strength, which is promising for the application in wearable electronics and smart fabrics.
A team of engineers and scientists have developed a new sensor that can monitor heart cells with minimal disruption. Researchers from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo Women’s Medical University and Riken in Japan produced the device, which is a soft nanomesh sensor that comes in direct contact with the heart tissue.
The idea behind the sensor was conceived by Sunghoon Lee, a researcher at the University of Tokyo. Lee along with other collaborators supplied a healthy culture of cardiomyocytes derived from human stem cells. The researchers placed the nanomesh sensor on the top of the cell culture in a complex process, which involved removing and adding liquid medium at the proper times, to orient the device.
Fundamentals of Data Visualization, Claus O. Wilke from
One of the most challenging aspects of data visualization is the visualization of uncertainty. When we see a data point drawn in a specific location, we tend to interpret it as a precise representation of the true data value. It is difficult to conceive that a data point could actually lie somewhere it hasn’t been drawn. Yet this scenario is ubiquitous in data visualization. Nearly every data set we work with has some uncertainty, and whether and how we choose to represent this uncertainty can make a major difference in how accurately our audience perceives the meaning of the data.
Two commonly used approaches to indicate uncertainty are error bars and confidence bands. These approaches were developed in the context of scientific publications, and they require some amount of expert knowledge to be interpreted correctly. Yet they are precise and space efficient. By using error bars, for example, we can show the uncertainties of many different data points in a single graph. For a lay audience, however, visualization strategies that create a strong intuitive impression of the uncertainty will be preferable, even if they come at the cost of either reduced visualization accuracy or less data-dense displays. Options here include frequency framing, where we explicitly draw different possible scenarios in approximate proportions, or animations that cycle through different possible scenarios.
When the Orioles found their new manager in Brandon Hyde last month, the Cubs were once again scrambling to fill a spot on their coaching staff. Joe Maddon’s staff in Chicago has seen a high rate of turnover this winter, but more new pieces fell into place Wednesday.
The Cubs announced the hiring of former infielder Mark Loretta as Maddon’s new bench coach to replace Hyde, who had been a part of Chicago’s staff for the past six seasons. The club also named former pitcher Bob Tewksbury its mental skills coordinator — a role he previously held for the Giants and Red Sox.
arXiv, Computer Science > Social and Information Networks; Sixie Yu, Yevgeniy Vorobeychik from
A fundamental challenge in networked systems is detection and removal of suspected malicious nodes. In reality, detection is always imperfect, and the decision about which potentially malicious nodes to remove must trade off false positives (erroneously removing benign nodes) and false negatives (mistakenly failing to remove malicious nodes). However, in network settings this conventional tradeoff must now account for node connectivity. In particular, malicious nodes may exert malicious influence, so that mistakenly leaving some of these in the network may cause damage to spread. On the other hand, removing benign nodes causes direct harm to these, and indirect harm to their benign neighbors who would wish to communicate with them.
We formalize the problem of removing potentially malicious nodes from a network under uncertainty through an objective that takes connectivity into account. We show that optimally solving the resulting problem is NP-Hard. We then propose a tractable solution approach based on a convex relaxation of the objective. Finally, we experimentally demonstrate that our approach significantly outperforms both a simple baseline that ignores network structure, as well as a state-of-the-art approach for a related problem, on both synthetic and real-world datasets.
PLOS One; Robbie S. Wilson and Nicholas M. A. Smith et al. from
The aim of this study was to use technical skill and physical performance and coaches’ rankings to predict the defensive performance of junior soccer players. Twenty-one male players (mean age 17.2 years, SD = 1.1) were recruited from the Londrina Junior Team Football Academy in Brazil. Data were collected during regular training sessions. After participants had warmed up, players were asked to either dribble the ball or sprint through five custom circuits that varied in average curvature (0–1.37 radians.m-1). In addition, four coaches were asked to rank the players from best to worst in defensive ability. Dribbling, sprinting, and coaches’ rankings were then compared with defending performance as assessed in the one vs. one competitions (N = 1090 paired-trials: 40–65 trials per individual), in which they acted as defender or attacker in turn. When defending, the objective was to steal the ball or prevent the attacker from running around them with the ball into a scoring zone. Testing occurred over three days. Overall, dribbling performance (r = 0.56; P = 0.008) and coaches’ ranking (r = 0.59; P = 0.004) were significantly related to defensive ability; sprinting performance was not (r = 0.20; P = 0.38). Though dribbling performance and coaches’ ranking each explained 30% and 37% of the variance in defensive performance, respectively, the two predictors were not related (r = 0.27; P = 0.23), so combined these traits explained more than half the variance in defensive performance. In conclusion, the current study demonstrates that including only one metric of closed-skill performance—dribbling speed—doubles the ability of coaches to identify their best defensive players in one vs. one scenarios. [full text]