Individual Competition Research Articles

Pattern-Matching Kinematic Analysis of Glide Phase after Start with Different Techniques in Medley Swimming: An Olympic Champion Case

<strong>Background:</strong> The analysis of kinematic characteristics in the glide phase after the start of swimming is significantly valuable for the technical optimization of competition. However, in the traditional analysis of kinematic parameters in time series are generally similar in the time axis, but their corresponding relationship is unknown. <strong>Objective:</strong> The objective of this study is to identify the difference in kinematic parameters in underwater phases of hands-free start and hands-together start by using a case of an Olympic champion in men’s 200 m individual medley competition, through the dynamic time warp (DTW) pattern-matching approach. <strong>Methods:</strong> An Olympic gold medal winner in the men’s 200 m individual medley competition is the subject of this study. The start techniques of hands-together and hands-free were included in the comparison. A Marker-Free Subaqueous Motion Recognition System was used to capture the motion, and nonlinear regressions between each kinematic parameter were made according to their theoretical physical relationships. And the DTW was applied to conduct the pattern matching. <strong>Results:</strong> The majority of the resistance loads on the swimmer’s body in the subaqueous glide phase is the pressure drag of the water, and the swimmer will have a higher instantaneous and average velocity at the end of the start when the swimmer keeps his or her hands together and arms straight forward in the subaqueous glide phase due to the dynamic benefit prepared during the whole glide phase. <strong>Conclusion:</strong> A start technique with hands-together and arms straight forwards could create mechanical and kinematical advantages for the swimmer, and the advantages might come from the optimal preload for the muscle activation at the end of the glide phase.

Hegyi competition index decomposition to improve estimation accuracy of Larix olgensis crown radius

• A method for calculating the components of the Hegyi competition index is proposed. • Adding Hegyi competition index component to crown radius prediction model. • The role of Hegyi competition index component is explored by using the GAMs. • The quantitative expression of tree competition pressure in different directions. The current individual tree competition indexes cannot provide information on the competitive pressure of trees in different directions. To quantitatively describe the magnitude of competitive pressure on trees in different directions, this study proposes a method to calculate the magnitude of competitive pressure in the east, west, south, and north directions based on the Hegyi competition index. The Hegyi competition index was assumed as a vector and it is decomposed in two vertical directions by attributing a weight in each direction. Under the condition that the Hegyi index is constant, the Hegyi index is allocated to the four directions. Correlation analysis between the Hegyi competition index components in the four directions of trees and the crown radius of the corresponding azimuth was carried out. The crown radius prediction model containing the Hegyi competition index component was established by using Generalized additive models (GAMs). The results show that the Hegyi competition index component was significantly negatively correlated with the crown radius in the corresponding direction, and the correlation coefficient with the crown radius in the corresponding direction was the largest compared with other directions. The crown radius in the four directions decreased with the increase of the Hegyi competition index component in the corresponding direction, indicating that the competition pressure on the crown in a specific direction inhibited the growth and extension of the crown in this direction. After adding the Hegyi competition index component, the fitting effect of crown radius models in different directions is greatly improved. In general, the Hegyi competition index component quantitatively expresses the competitive pressure of trees in different directions. The proposed method has particular significance for the study of tree crown morphology and provides a new idea for studying the competitive growth relationship of plants.

Competitiveness of Individuals in the Labour Market During the Pandemic

The global COVID-19 pandemic has changed the behaviour of individuals and companies. This study aims to determine changes in the labour market behaviour of economically active individuals in the context of the pandemic and to identify competitive segments in this period. For this purpose, a representative survey (n = 3079) conducted in the Czech Republic was used. The paper’s contribution is a perspective of individuals’ behaviour and their perception of the situation. Based on subjective perceptions, respondents provided an assessment of their living situation before and during the pandemic, expressing their opinion on the importance of selected aspects of quality of life, such as their health, active social contacts, creation of financial savings, ability to pay bills, leisure time and coping with stressful situations. The results of a Wilcoxon test showed that individuals re-evaluated each aspect of life and that the pandemic changed the importance for all of them (except leisure time). This change is also reflected in their psyche, attitude towards work organisation, digitalisation and other factors; these were applied in a cluster analysis, which resulted in the identification of three segments in the group of employees in the labour market (competitive individuals, surviving individuals and those reluctant to respond to change). For the group of entrepreneurs, two segments emerged (flexible and loss-creating), while for the unemployed group, the typical segment can be described as dissatisfied and Covid victims. The names of these segments indicate their behaviour and provide possibilities for future use.

TEAM-BASED INNOVATION CONTESTS FOR CROWDSOURCING: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON IDEACONNECTION PLATFORM

Crowdsourcing for innovation contests represents a promising mechanism to access and integrate external ideas. Among various crowdsourcing types, online, team-based contest is one of the most prominent one. The objective of this study is to deepen the understanding of team-based crowdsourcing by exploring specifically the issues that characterise the innovation process of crowdsourcing in a virtual team setting. To empirically pursue this aim, we conducted an interview-based case study leveraging interviews of 106 solvers and 24 facilitators moderating the team of solvers, which have participated in contests through the IdeaConnection crowdsourcing platform. We found that five main issues characterise team-based crowdsourcing competitions: Platform support, Solvers skills, Solver motivation, Solutions, and Performance. Specifically, some of these issues are in line with previous literature investigating individual crowdsourcing competition, while others are novel highlighting the peculiarity of the virtual team setting.

The effect of bottom elimination system on individual competition: testing the N-effect

The effect of bottom elimination system on individual competition: testing the N-effect

Disabled students doing activism: Borrowing from and trespassing neoliberal reason in English higher education

The neoliberal rationale in English higher education promotes institutional and individual competition for economic success, often at the cost of equity and universalism. Within such context, there is a tendency to formalise student voice, for example, through professionalisation of students’ unions. This paper argues that neoliberalism and its effects on university practices enforce ableist culture, further marginalising disabled students. More specifically, the paper is concerned with how Disabled Students’ Officers – official full- or part-time student representatives of disabled students in English students’ unions – practise activism in response to universities’ neoliberal agendas. By utilising Foucault’s concept of governmentality and qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with Disabled Students’ Officers, we explore the ways of doing disability activism in their experience. The findings indicate that activism as it is practised by participants is complex and contradictory, combining neoliberal ways of acting, i.e., evidence production, committee-based work and lobbying, with more subtle forms of critique and resistance related to collectivism, arts and ethics of care. By enabling critical reflections on participants’ experiences, this paper strives to encourage debate on renewed strategies and complexity and contradiction in activism, but also to highlight the potential for trespassing the dominant neoliberal rationale in higher education.

Preface: Functional biogeography in Japanese cedar

Preface: Functional biogeography in Japanese cedar

Fighting ability, personality and melanin signalling in free-living Eurasian tree sparrows (Passer montanus).

BackgroundIndividuals’ access to resources is often decided during dyadic contests the outcome of which is determined by the fighting (or competitive) ability of the participants. Individuals’ fighting ability (termed also as resource-holding power or potential, RHP) is usually associated with individual features (e.g., sex, age, body size) and is also frequently signalled through various ornaments like the black throat patch (bib) in many birds. Individual personality is a behavioural attribute often linked to fighting ability as well. Based on earlier studies, however, the relationship between personality and fighting ability is far from being straightforward. While accounting for sex and body size, we studied whether exploratory behaviour, an aspect of personality, predicts fighting ability when competing for food during winter in free-living Eurasian tree sparrows (Passer montanus). We also investigated whether the bib can serve as a potential indicator of individual competitiveness in this species.MethodsWe captured adult tree sparrows, marked them with a unique combination of colour rings, and collected data about the individuals’ sex, body size, bib size and exploratory behaviour. Birds were then released and the agonistic behaviour of the marked individuals was recorded while foraging in groups on bird feeding platforms.ResultsThe probability of winning a fight, a proxy for fighting ability of individuals, was not related to exploratory behaviour, in either of the sexes. However, bib size was positively related to probability of winning in females, but not in males. Body size was not associated with probability of winning neither in males, nor in females.ConclusionsOur results suggest that, at least in tree sparrows, the outcome of dyadic encounters over food during the non-breeding period are not determined by the exploratory personality of individuals. However, our findings provide further support for a status signalling role of the black bib in tree sparrows, and hint for the first time that bib size might function as a status signal in females as well. Finally, our results do not confirm that body size could serve as an indicator of fighting ability (i.e., RHP) in this species.

Assessing the Relationship Between External Workloads and Noncontact Injuries During Summer Conditioning and Preseason Practice in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 1 Football Players.

Burghardt, WP, Pfeiffer, KA, and Kuenze, C. Assessing the relationship between external workloads and noncontact injuries during summer conditioning and preseason practice in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 1 football players. J Strength Cond Res 37(4): 816-822, 2023-The purpose of this study was to prospectively investigate the relationship between noncontact injuries and workload in collegiate football during summer conditioning and preseason training. Workload and noncontact injury data were collected over the summer conditioning and preseason practice periods for a Division 1 National Collegiate Athletic Association football team ( n = 34). Seven- and 21-day exponentially weighted moving averages (EWMA) were calculated daily for each athlete. The acute:chronic ratio (A:C ratio) of these 2 measures was also calculated daily. Injury rates for noncontact injuries were calculated for both periods. Continuous variable modeling (panel logistic regression and restricted cubic spline) was used to assess the relationship of EWMA A:C ratio and noncontact injury using a 3-day lag period. Athletic exposures (AEs) were defined as individual sport training, practice, or competition sessions. Nine injuries were observed (6.97/1,000 AEs), with 4 injuries resulting in lost time (3.09/1,000 AEs). The mean EWMA A:C ratio was 0.92 ± 0.41 (95% confidence interval: 0.03-2.09). Both the panel logistic regression and the restricted cubic spline models showed a significant relationship between EWMA A:C ratio and noncontact injuries. However, the odds ratio (14.16) in the logistic regression had a very large standard error (14.51) and a wide 95% confidence interval (1.90-105.49). The restricted cubic spline model had a pseudo R2 of 0.136. Injury occurrence at given EWMA ratio values was lower than reported in previous research. Although both continuous models demonstrated a significant relationship between the EWMA A:C ratio and subsequent noncontact injuries over the next 3 days, neither model had sufficient goodness of fit to warrant adoption at this time.

Large-scale multiobjective optimization with adaptive competitive swarm optimizer and inverse modeling

Competitive swarm optimizer (CSO) is an efficient algorithm for solving larger-scale multiobjective optimization problems (LSMOPs). However, the winners are not updated in original algorithm, and the random parameters model affects the convergence speed. To improve the performance of CSO for solving LSMOPs, an adaptive competitive swarm optimizer with inverse modeling is developed. In the method, an adaptive parameter model is designed to accelerate the convergence speed when the population not traps in local convergence, and the random parameter model is used to help the losers jump out of local convergence when the population traps in stagnation. Moreover, inverse modeling is used to update the winners, and the number of them is maintained by a new designed environment selection method. The exploitation ability of algorithm is improved and the drawback that convergence speed of the algorithm might be slowed by few winners in the early stage of evolution is avoided. In addition, an adjacent individual competition method is proposed to improve the distribution of solutions. Finally, the proposed algorithm is tested on nine benchmark optimization problems, and the results indicate that the average ranks in terms of IGD and HV of the proposed algorithm outperform those of seven compared algorithms.

Impact Study of the Learning Effects and Motivation of Competitive Modes in Gamified Learning

At a time when game-based learning has become a research hotspot, this study focused on the competition mechanism in gamified learning, aiming to explore the impact of different competition modes on students’ vocabulary learning effect and learning motivation. A group of 79 sixth grade students from China were randomly assigned to a non-competitive class, an individual competition class, and an inter-group competition class. The experiment was conducted in an English vocabulary course, and the game competition was carried out using the Quizlet Live game platform. The results indicated that: (1) the vocabulary learning effect and motivation of students in the competitive classes (individual competition and inter-group competition) were better than those in the non-competitive class; (2) the learning effect of students in the inter-group competitive class outperformed that of the individual competitive class, but there was no significant difference in learning motivation. Through the qualitative analysis of the students’ interviews, it was found that the results of inter-group competition may be related to the student’s perception of learning and emotional support. The findings of this study can provide relevant support for the subsequent game-based learning design.

Social and Cultural Constraints on Football Player Development in Stockholm: Influencing Skill, Learning, and Wellbeing.

In this paper, we consider how youth sport and (talent) development environments have adapted to, and are constrained by, social and cultural forces. Empirical evidence from an 18-month ethnographic case study highlights how social and cultural constraints influence the skill development and psychological wellbeing of young football players. We utilized novel ways of knowing (i.e., epistemologies) coupled to ecological frameworks (e.g., the theory of ecological dynamics and the skilled intentionality framework). A transdisciplinary inquiry was used to demonstrate that the values which athletes embody in sports are constrained by the character of the social institutions (sport club, governing body) and the social order (culture) in which they live. The constraining character of an athlete (talent) development environment is captured using ethnographic methods that illuminate a sociocultural value-directedness toward individual competition. The discussion highlights how an emphasis on individual competition overshadows opportunities (e.g., shared, and nested affordances) for collective collaboration in football. Conceptually, we argue that these findings characterize how a dominating sociocultural constraint may negatively influence the skill development, in game performance, and psychological wellbeing (via performance anxiety) of young football players in Stockholm. Viewing cultures and performance environments as embedded complex adaptive systems, with human development as ecological, it becomes clear that microenvironments and embedded relations underpinning athlete development in high performance sports organizations are deeply susceptible to broad cultural trends toward neoliberalism and competitive individualism. Weaving transdisciplinary lines of inquiry, it is clarified how a value directedness toward individual competition may overshadow collective collaboration, not only amplifying socio-cognitive related issues (anxiety, depression, emotional disturbances) but simultaneously limiting perceptual learning, skill development, team coordination and performance at all levels in a sport organization.

Другий етап розвитку сучасного олімпійського руху відповідно до авторської комплексно-фактологічної періодизації

Другий етап розвитку сучасного олімпійського руху відповідно до авторської комплексно-фактологічної періодизації

Status Competition and Implicit Coordination: Based on the Role of Knowledge Sharing and Psychological Safety

Implicit coordination is an important research topic in the field of social cognition. Previous studies have studied implicit coordination behavior from the perspective of team mental model but ignored the internal mechanism of individual status competition motivation on implicit coordination behavior. Based on the differences of status competition motivation, the individual status competition motivation is divided into prestige-type and dominant-type. With knowledge sharing as the mediating variable and psychological safety as the moderating variable, this research constructed a process model of the influence of status competition motivation on implicit coordination behavior. The empirical study was carried out with a sample of 367 employees of 44 enterprises. The research results show the following findings: (1) Status competition has a differentiated impact on implicit coordination. Prestige-type status competition has a significant positive impact on implicit coordination behavior, while dominant-type status competition has a significant negative impact on implicit coordination behavior. (2) Knowledge sharing plays a mediating role between status competition (prestige-type status competition and dominant-type status competition) and implicit coordination. (3) Psychological safety positively moderates the relationship between prestige-type status competition, dominant-type status competition, and knowledge sharing. The research results provide a new perspective for the field of implicit coordination; reveal the mechanism of status competition motivation in implicit coordination, which is of great significance to the practice of enterprise team management and human resource management.

Exploiting the power of Gamification in Journal club.

To compare the effect of individual versus team competition gamification on trainees' engagement in journal club. The quasi-experimental study was conducted at two tertiary care hospitals in Lahore, Pakistan, from December, 2019 to May, 2020, and comprised all plastic surgery residents in training years 3-5 who had attended non-gamified journal club sessions. They were divided into two groups. Initially, two journal club sessions were run in a gamified manner. Group 1had an individual competition whereas group 2 had a team competition. In the second phase, the group orientation was reversed. Engagement scores were measured using the student engagement survey tool at baseline, at the completion of the first part, and at end of the intervention. Data was analysed using SPSS 22. Of the 44 participants, 23(52.3%) were in group 1 and 21(47.7%) in group 2. Overall, there were 27(61%) females and 17(39%) males. The mean age of the sample was 31±2 years. Gamification resulted in significant increase in the level of residents' engagement in journal club activities compared to the baseline scores(p<0.05). There was no significant inter-group difference in the post-intervention engagement scores (p>0.05). Gamification designs used in the journal club activity increased student engagement level compared to the pre-intervention score, but gamification design was not a significant factor in this regard.

Challenge-hindrance stressors and innovation: A meta-analysis

<p id="p00005">Employee innovation is the focus of current organizational behavior research, and the high demand for employee innovation and change in enterprises lead to the high pressure that employees face at work. Several studies have been conducted by researchers on the relationship between work stressors and employee innovation. Current empirical research findings on the relationship between challenge-hindrance stressors and employee innovation vary, for example, in terms of relationship strength and relationship direction. Employee innovation is found to have positive, negative, and nonlinear relationships with the challenge-hindrance stressors. Furthermore, the mechanism and boundary conditions for the challenge-hindrance stressors that affect employee innovation have not been fully revealed. Based on the current state of research on the relationship between the challenge-hindrance stressors and employee innovation, this study used the challenge-hindrance stressors model to investigate the relationship between different types of challenge-hindrance stressors and employee innovation through the meta-analysis method. <p id="p00010">According to literature retrieval and screening, keywords such as challenging stressor(s) (workload, job complexity, task conflict, and time pressure), hindrance stressor(s) (role stress, interpersonal conflict, and job insecurity), and innovation (individual creativity, individual innovation behavior, and individual innovation performance) were included. Finally, 149 independent studies with 141 articles were included for the analysis, with a total sample size of 46,261. For the analysis, we used the psychmeta meta-analysis package in R, which included publication bias tests, main effect tests, heterogeneity tests, and moderating effect analyses. <p id="p00015">The publication bias results showed that the <italic>p</italic> values of Egger’s regression coefficient and Begg rank correlation test for challenging stressor, hindrance stressor, and their subgroups were insignificant (<italic>p</italic> &gt; 0.05). The heterogeneity test was significant, indicating that the random effect model was suitable for the study. The main effect results showed that the task complexity and task conflict in challenge stressor and subgroups had a positive effect on employee innovation. Hindrance stressor had a negative impact on employee innovation. Cultural differences, data sources, and data collection time had different moderating effects on the relationship between different stressors and innovation, which can be expressed as follows. (1) Compared with individualism orientation, under the background of high collectivism orientation, high power distance, and a long-term orientation, the hindrance stressor had a stronger and significantly negative correlation with employee innovation, while under the background of high collectivism orientation, the hindrance stressor had a significantly positive correlation with employee innovation. (2) Compared with other-rating, when the data comes from employee self-rating, challenge stressor had a stronger and significantly positive correlation with innovation, and hindrance stressor had a stronger and significantly negative correlation with innovation. (3) compared with longitudinal study, in the cross-sectional study, challenging stressor has a stronger positive effect on employee innovation, while data collection time has insignificant moderating effect on the relationship between hindrance stressor and employee innovation. <p id="p00020">Consequently, we aimed to investigate the strength and direction of the relationship between binary work stressors and employee innovation in a large sample and consider the potential moderating effects of cultural differences, data sources, and data collection time points. The results of this study will provide a reference model for future enterprise management practices, such as maintaining a reasonable pressure level and category control, encouraging employee innovation within the organization, and improving the innovation performance and core competitiveness of individuals and organizations.

Improved adaptive genetic algorithm based RFID positioning

The existing active tag-based radio frequency identification (RFID) localization techniques show low accuracy in practical applications. To address such problems, we propose a chaotic adaptive genetic algorithm to align the passive tag arrays. We use chaotic sequences to generate the intersection points, the weakest single point intersection is used to ensure the convergence accuracy of the algorithm while avoiding the optimization jitter problem. Meanwhile, to avoid the problem of slow convergence and immature convergence of the algorithm caused by the weakening of individual competition at a later stage, we use adaptive rate of change to improve the optimization efficiency. In addition, to remove signal noise and outliers, we preprocess the data using Gaussian filtering. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves higher localization accuracy and improves the convergence speed.

Continuing Education as a Condition for Increasing Specialists’ Competitiveness in the Labor Market

Introduction. Continuing education is considered in the authorsʼ interpretation as a system that includes the requirements of the external environment, personal factors of learning motivation, learning outcomes and possibilities of their application by individuals in order to maintain their professional status and expand the opportunities for enhancing competitiveness in the labor market. Despite the existence of studies on this issue, the influence of further education on the competitiveness of specialists in todayʼs constantly changing socioeconomic conditions remains relevant. The aim of the study is to substantiate the role of additional education in the professional development of specialists and increase their competitiveness in the labor market. Materials and Methods. Statistical data on continuous education, educational activities for vocational programs in Russia were used; secondary analysis of sociological research data was carried out; data of the authorʼs sociological research conducted among unemployed youth (2018), students studying in supplementary vocational education programs (2021), teachers of Penza State University (2021) are presented. Results. The authorsʼ structural model, reflecting continuing education from the position of an individual as a condition for increasing competitiveness in the labor market, is offered. The main indicators of supplementary education system in Russia are presented. The authorsʼ research has provided new data on the features of training, motives, goals and prospects of changes in professional sphere in the cross-section of different professional and age groups; the influence of additional education on competence changes after training has been revealed; it has been determined that it contributes to competitiveness improvement in the labor market, but is not the only factor determining it. The research supports the conclusion that continuing professional education allows individuals to maintain their professional status and acts as one of the factors that ensures the competitiveness of individuals on the labor market through obtaining new and furthering the existing knowledge, skills, and abilities. Discussion and Conclusion. The study of continuing education as a factor contributing to the competitiveness of specialists in the labor market provides important empirical results in order to adapt the system of supplementary education to the goals of the modern labor market. The materials of the article can be used by educational institutions for organizing an effective system of continuing education.

The Determinants of Performance in Biathlon World Cup Sprint and Individual Competitions.

PurposeThe present study aimed to determine the association of skiing speed (SS), range time (RT), and the number of missed targets (MT) with rank in sprint and individual biathlon competitions.MethodsData were collected from the International Biathlon Union's database for 17 seasons (2002/2003–2018/2019). Furthermore, the biathletes were divided into three rank groups (G3, rank 1–3; G10, rank 4–10; and G20, rank 11–20). Multinominal regression was used to detect odds ratios associated with group rank for both sexes, separately.ResultsMT was the only variable that was constantly related to G3 (OR 1.90–6.35, all p < 0.001) for both women and men. SS was associated with G3 in the last lap in the sprint for both sexes (OR 0.46–0.66, all p < 0.001) and RT for standing shooting (OR 1.04–1.14, all p < 0.05).ConclusionThese results show that shooting is the fundamental factor for performance in both competitions, but that SS is increasingly important for the last lap in the sprint for both sexes. Further, a fast RT in the standing shooting for women in individual and men in the sprint seems important for improving final rank.

Stochasticity of individual competition and local matchup inequality for saplings in a niche-structured forest.

Ecologists have recently accepted the notion that species coexistence involves both niche and neutral processes, but few studies have explained how both of these opposite views can explain coexistence in the same community. Here we focus on competition among sessile organisms and explored first the extent to which species-based niche reflects local "matchups" between nearby individuals, using 726 saplings of 10 temperate tree species, and second the members engaging in the matchups, which have rarely been quantified despite the importance in mixed-species forests. Growth responses to light showed considerable species-level differences, suggesting commonly seen regeneration niches. Outcomes of the individual matchups were basically predictable from the species mean response, but also with substantial contribution of within-species variation. We found strong imbalance in matchup frequencies, such that some individuals meet more individuals of differing species but others meet fewer, as well as many isolated, competition-free ones. The niche and neutral processes appear to reflect, respectively, between- and within-species differences, and our findings suggest that even when niche segregation is discernible, the role of stochasticity for the frequency of local competition, as well as its outcomes, cannot be discounted in species coexistence.