Successful Hits Research Articles

Striking a balance: Exploring attention, attack accuracy and speed in fencing performance.

In fencing, it remains unclear whether practice enhances visual-spatial attention allocation. We explored whether this ability is improved in fencers and if it is related to attack speed and accuracy. Twelve novices (<1year of experience) and 12 trained epee fencers (18±10years of experience) visited the laboratory twice (familiarization and testing session). They performed a covert orienting of visuospatial attention test (COVAT) on a computer and an epee test, involving 30 trials of 3 shuttles followed by fast attack phases where the fencers quickly hit a target (randomly proposed out of 8). We measured COVAT reaction time, number of successful target hits, and execution time to hit in the fencing test. We found shorter COVAT reaction time for trained fencers (332±24ms) versus novices (367±32ms; p<0.001). The number of hits was greater for trained fencers (22±3) versus novices (16±3; p<0.001). ANCOVA showed a difference in execution time at the test (823±73ms vs. 913±141ms, p=0.035). A relationship was found between hits and execution time and between execution time and COVAT reaction time for the trained group (r=0.62, p=0.03 and r=0.70, p=0.01, respectively) but not in the novice group (r=0.11, p=0.72 and r=0.45, p=0.14, respectively). Mediation analysis showed that the relationship between execution time and number of hits (ADE: p=0.008) was not mediated by COVAT reaction time (ACME: p=0.17). These results evidence the importance of visual-spatial attention allocation in fencing and evidence differences between novices and trained fencers with important implications for talent development in the early career stage.

Development and utility of a SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus assay for compound screening and antibody neutralization assays

BackgroundThe highly infectious nature of SARS-CoV-2 necessitates using bio-containment facilities to study viral pathogenesis and identify potent antivirals. However, the lack of high-level bio-containment laboratories across the world has limited research efforts into SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis and the discovery of drug candidates. Previous research has reported that non-replicating SARS-CoV-2 Spike-pseudotyped viral particles are effective tools to screen for and identify entry inhibitors and neutralizing antibodies. MethodsTo generate SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus, a lentiviral packaging plasmid p8.91, a luciferase expression plasmid pCSFLW, and SARS-CoV-2 Spike expression plasmids (Wild-type (D614G) or Delta strain) were co-transfected into HEK293 cells to produce a luciferase-expressing non-replicating pseudovirus which expresses SARS-CoV-2 spike protein on the surface. For relative quantitation, HEK293 cells expressing ACE2 (ACE2-HEK293) were infected with the pseudovirus, after which luciferase activity in the cells was measured as a relative luminescence unit. The ACE2-HEK293/Pseudovirus infection system was used to assess the antiviral effects of some compounds and plasma from COVID-19 patients to demonstrate the utility of this assay for drug discovery and neutralizing antibody screening. ResultsWe successfully produced lentiviral-based SARS-CoV2 pseudoviruses and ACE2-expressing HEK293 cells. The system was used to screen compounds for SARS-CoV-2 entry inhibitors and identified two compounds with potent activity against SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus entry into cells. The assay was also employed to screen patient plasma for neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, as a precursor to live virus screening, using successful hits. SignificanceThis assay is scalable and can perform medium-to high-throughput screening of antiviral compounds with neither severe biohazard risks nor the need for higher-level containment facilities. Now fully deployed in our resource-limited laboratory, this system can be applied to other highly infectious viruses by swapping out the envelope proteins in the plasmids used in pseudovirus production.

RNet: a network strategy to predict RNA binding preferences.

Determining the RNA binding preferences remains challenging because of the bottleneck of the binding interactions accompanied by subtle RNA flexibility. Typically, designing RNA inhibitors involves screening thousands of potential candidates for binding. Accurate binding site information can increase the number of successful hits even with few candidates. There are two main issues regarding RNA binding preference: binding site prediction and binding dynamical behavior prediction. Here, we propose one interpretable network-based approach, RNet, to acquire precise binding site and binding dynamical behavior information. RNetsite employs a machine learning-based network decomposition algorithm to predict RNA binding sites by analyzing the local and global network properties. Our research focuses on large RNAs with 3D structures without considering smaller regulatory RNAs, which are too small and dynamic. Our study shows that RNetsite outperforms existing methods, achieving precision values as high as 0.701 on TE18 and 0.788 on RB9 tests. In addition, RNetsite demonstrates remarkable robustness regarding perturbations in RNA structures. We also developed RNetdyn, a distance-based dynamical graph algorithm, to characterize the interface dynamical behavior consequences upon inhibitor binding. The simulation testing of competitive inhibitors indicates that RNetdyn outperforms the traditional method by 30%. The benchmark testing results demonstrate that RNet is highly accurate and robust. Our interpretable network algorithms can assist in predicting RNA binding preferences and accelerating RNA inhibitor design, providing valuable insights to the RNA research community.

Design of Virtual Reality for Gonggong Building as a Tourism Information

The rapid development of information media in line with the presence of technology increasingly provides convenience for humans so that information or messages can be conveyed properly, quickly, precisely, and usefully. One of the technological developments that support information media is Virtual Reality (VR). Information Media related to Tanjungpinang City Tourism with the object of research in the form of the Gonggong Building as the Tanjungpinang City Tourism Information Center, which has the problem of stopping the function of the Building as a City Tourism Information Center due to damage. The purpose of this research is to implement Virtual Reality on the Gonggong Building with the output of the VR website of the Gonggong Building and the presentation of Tanjungpinang City tourism information content delivered by the Chatbot Tour Guide. The SDLC method used in this research is Prototype. The research results are a VR website for the Gonggong Building, which contains information related to Tanjungpinang City Tourism, namely Typical Culinary Destinations, Nature Tourism, and Melayu Traditional Clothing of the Riau Islands. The result of testing methods with 25010 obtained excellent results with Grade B on performance GTmetrix in testing the efficiency of the system in getting a response time of 5,8s fully loaded time page. From the reliability test results, a summary is obtained in the form of successful session 25964, failed session 0, successful page 25966, failed pages 0, successful hits 51932, failed hits 0, and other errors 0. These results, if expressed in percentage form, amount to 100%.

Applying augmented feedback in basketball training facilitates improvements in jumping performance

ABSTRACT Augmented feedback, which is feedback about movement characteristics provided by an external source, can facilitate performance improvements. Results from recent studies, in which information about the jumping height were presented, indicated increased jumping performance due to augmented feedback. In the present study we aimed to utilize augmented feedback about the jumping height in regular basketball training. Therefore, augmented feedback was implemented and part of the training regime, and information about the jumping height was displayed while subjects performed catch and shoot exercises with the basketball. 18 subjects (9 with augmented feedback, 9 without augmented feedback) practiced for 3 weeks (9 training sessions). The subjects receiving augmented feedback, but not subjects in the control group, displayed increased jumping heights of countermovement-jumps and drop-jumps after the training. The ground contact times of countermovement-jumps and drop-jumps were not significantly changed after training. The number of successful hits, indicating ball performance, did also not change after training. Thus augmented feedback had no detrimental effect on sport-specific performance. The unchanged ground contact times of drop-jumps in combination with increased jumping heights indicate increased efficiency of stretch shortening cycle contractions. According to the positive effect of augmented feedback on jumping performance and the simplicity with which it was integrated into the training regime we recommend this method for regular basketball training. Highlights Augmented feedback about the jumping height in basketball training facilitated jumping height of countermovement-jumps and drop-jumps. The ground contact times were not altered, suggesting increased efficiency of the stretch-shortening cycle during jumping. According to the positive effect and its simple implementation augmented feedback is recommended for regular basketball training.

Two Hits for Bone Regeneration in Aged Patients: Vertebral Bone Marrow Clot as a Biological Scaffold and Powerful Source of Mesenchymal Stem Cells.

Recently, the use of a new formulation of bone marrow aspirate (BMA), the BMA clot, has been described. This product entails a naturally formed clot from the harvested bone marrow, which retains all the BMA components preserved in a matrix biologically molded by the clot. Even though its beneficial effects were demonstrated by some studies, the impact of aging and aging-associated processes on biological properties and the effect of BMA cell-based therapy are currently unknown. The purpose of our study was to compare selected parameters and properties of clotted BMA and BMA-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) from younger (<45 years) and older (>65 years) female donors. Clotted BMA growth factors (GFs) expression, MSCs morphology and viability, doubling time, surface marker expression, clonogenic potential, three-lineage differentiation, senescence-associated factors, and Klotho synthesis from younger and older donors were analyzed. Results indicated that donor age does not affect tissue-specific BMA clot regenerative properties such as GFs expression and MSCs morphology, viability, doubling time, surface antigens expression, colony-forming units, osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation, and Klotho and senescence-associated gene expression. Only few differences, i.e., increased platelet-derived growth factor-AB (PDGF-AB) synthesis and MSCs Aggrecan (ACAN) expression, were detected in younger donors in comparison with older ones. However, these differences do not interfere with all the other BMA clot biological properties. These results demonstrated that BMA clot can be applied easily, without any sample processing and avoiding potential contamination risks as well as losing cell viability, proliferation, and differentiation ability, for autologous transplantation in aged patients. The vertebral BMA clot showed two successful hits since it works as a biological scaffold and as a powerful source of mesenchymal stem cells, thus representing a novel and advanced therapeutic alternative for the treatment of orthopedic injuries.

Introducing DerivatizeME and its Application in the Augmentation of a Natural Product Library

The large chemical space universe can be traversed by screening libraries of compounds that possess novel medicinally relevant chemistries, properties and complexity criteria. These libraries can be populated with the use of exhaustive, de novo approaches or inspired, combinatorial approaches. By assuming that natural products within screening libraries may be classified as a source of feedstock for populating virtual libraries, they can act as scaffolds upon which exhaustive approaches may be used in exploring chemical space. In order to achieve this, we have built DerivatizeME as a tool that enumerates derivatives of query compounds in order to evaluate their relevance for further assessment and development. This technique was applied to natural products present in the South African natural compound database (SANCDB). By expanding the chemical space of SANCDB compounds through the generation of SANCDB derivatives, we were able to graduate some natural products that were in undesirable regions of medicinally relevant chemical space, to acceptable regions of this chemical space. These modified scaffolds are available for further development, testing and evaluation in a manner similar to natural product driven focused libraries. The natural product parent is used, through its derivatives, instead of being discarded from screening protocols. This approach has the potential to enhance the efficiency of the natural product library in providing successful hits, amplifying the potential that they possess to access both novel bioactives and privileged scaffolds which may have otherwise been overlooked.

Development Of Web-Based Information System As A Media For Distribution Of Information On Vocational School Production Units To The Community

The production unit in SMK is a means of learning and entrepreneurship for students. However, the production unit in SMK is currently still facing problems related to the marketing of products or services. This research was conducted with the objectives to: (1) assist SMK in disseminating production unit information to the general public online using a web-based SMK production unit information system. The results of this study are: (1) a web-based SMK production unit information system to help disseminate information on SMK production units to the wider community. the system has met the ISO/IEC 25010 software quality standard on usability aspect of 84.24% (very feasible), functional suitability aspect of 1 (all features can be implemented), reliability aspect of successful session 100%, successful pages 100%, and 100% successful hits (exceeding Telcordia standards), PageSpeed ​​efficiency aspect is 93.33% (Grade A) Yslow is 90.16% (Grade A) page load time is 3.06, and maintainability aspect has Maintainability value (2) the system has met the ISO/IEC 25010 software quality standard on usability aspect of 84.24% (very feasible), functional suitability aspect of 1 (all features can be implemented), reliability aspect of successful session 100%, successful pages 100%, and 100% successful hits (exceeding Telcordia standards), PageSpeed ​​efficiency aspect is 93.33% (Grade A) Yslow is 90.16% (Grade A)), and maintainability aspect has Maintainability value. Index 90.72 (easy to maintain). a web-based SMK production unit information system to help disseminate information on SMK production units to the wider community. the system has met the ISO/IEC 25010 software quality standard on usability aspect of 84.24% (very feasible), functional suitability aspect of 1 (all features can be implemented), reliability aspect of successful session 100%, successful pages 100%, and 100% successful hits (exceeding Telcordia standards), PageSpeed ​​efficiency aspect is 93.33% (Grade A) Yslow is 90.16% (Grade A) page load time is 3.06 seconds (less than 10 seconds), and maintainability aspect has Maintainability value. Index 90.72 (easy to maintain).

STUDY ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE ROMANIAN WOMEN’S EPEE TEAM AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES

This study refers to the evolution of the Romanian Women’s Epee Team at the Olympic Games in terms of performance, but especially from the perspective of making up the team and establishing the strategy for addressing each goal-focused competition. The literature review reveals that one of the ways to increase both the quality of the training process in fencing and the success rate in team events lies in the team composition, but also in establishing the sequence of athletes competing in a match. Research purpose: The study aims to highlight the dynamics of the Romanian Women’s Epee Team through both a detailed analysis of the results achieved by athletes in their fight against various opponents and their comparison at different times of the matches. Methods: Bibliographic study, comparison, abstraction, induction and deduction methods, video analysis, mathematical and statistical methods. Results and conclusion: The sequence of athletes’ performance in team competitions and their effectiveness depending on the number of won/lost bouts, but also successful hits and recovery times were analysed based on the competition protocols for the Rio de Janeiro and London Olympics, and the performance of the Romanian Women’s Epee Team was compared with the performance achieved by other competing teams. The study has shown that, in today’s modern fencing (particularly the Epee), one of the most important factors for achieving performance in the team event refers to making up the team so that it can work as a whole in relation to the opposing team’s composition.

Quality Analysis of Mobile Web Server

There are many mobile web servers that can be used, whether it is a mobile web server that is free or paid. This research aims to analyze the quality of three mobile web servers consisting of one paid mobile web server and two other web servers that are obtained free of charge. To measure the quality of a mobile web server in this study using Apache JMeter tools and Web Application Performance Testing (WAPT). Based on the results of testing, it was found that the quality of paid mobile web servers was better compared to the quality of free mobile web servers based on values obtained using Apache JMeter, paid mobile web server is faster looking from sample times, latency and connect time result. When tested using WAPT, paid mobile servers also have better results based on the value of successful hits and average response time. The results of this assessment will depend on the type of smartphone that uses in the implementation hardware, so the value of the test results can be different if implemented on a different smartphone.

Assessing the Effectiveness of Open Access Finding Tools

The open access (OA) movement seeks to ensure that scholarly knowledge is available to anyone with internet access, but being available for free online is of little use if people cannot find open versions. A handful of tools have become available in recent years to help address this problem by searching for an open version of a document whenever a user hits a paywall. This project set out to study how effective four of these tools are when compared to each other and to Google Scholar, which has long been a source of finding OA versions. To do this, the project used Open Access Button, Unpaywall, Lazy Scholar, and Kopernio to search for open versions of 1,000 articles. Results show none of the tools found as many successful hits as Google Scholar, but two of the tools did register unique successful hits, indicating a benefit to incorporating them in searches for OA versions. Some of the tools also include additional features that can further benefit users in their search for accessible scholarly knowledge.

J-101 Diagnosis and treatment of HCV in the VA healthcare system

More than 145,000 Veterans were known to be HCV viremic and approximately 66% of the 1945–1965 birth cohort had been screened for HCV when all-oral direct acting antivirals (DAAs) were placed on the VA formulary in January 2015. Although the VA had addressed HCV screening and treatment for more than 15 years, the availability of highly effective treatments heightened the focus on HCV. Beginning in FY15, Congress appropriated additional funds for DAAs. VA negotiated favorable pricing for DAAs and wrote guidelines that allowed treatment of patients with and without cirrhosis as well as those with ongoing substance use disorders or mental health conditions. Training nurse practitioners (NP), physician assistants (PA), and clinical pharmacists (PharmD) resulted in more than 60% of patients being treated by non-physicians, with excellent success. In anticipation of the availability of DAAs, the VA created the National Hepatitis C Resource Center (NHCRC) to oversee HCV care in VHA in 2014. In collaboration with the VA's New England Veteran Engineering Resource Center (VERC), the NHCRC created VISN-based Hepatitis Innovation. Teams (HITs). Composed of HCV providers and system redesign (process improvement) experts, HITs were coached in the use of Lean methodology to identify gaps in current care, develop solutions and implement changes, and measure improvement in care. Annually, each HIT prepared an A3 (plan) describing their goals for improving HCV diagnosis and treatment. HITs reported activities towards their annual goals and shared their successful practices (“best practices”) on monthly conference calls with HIT leadership coaches and other VISNs. Data on HCV screening and treatment starts, by facility, was updated monthly on the VA website, and was critical for implementing change. Annually, HIT leadership established goals for screening, treatment, and sustained virologic response (SVR) (steps in the HCV care cascade). Progress towards those goals was reviewed monthly with the HITs. The NHCRC's evaluation team assessed implementation strategies used by the most successful HIT's, as measured by treatment starts at the facility. Change infrastructure, develop stakeholder relationships, and use evaluative/iterative strategies were 3 of strategies used by the most successful HITs. As of summer 2018, HCV screening of the 1945–1965 birth cohort had increased above 80%. The VA had treated more than 110,000 patients with DAAs, which included many with older age (&gt;60), and/or substance use disorders/mental health diagnoses. Approximately 88% of treated patients had been tested for SVR12, and among those tested, SVR12 rates exceeded 95%. Of the approximately 28,000 patients remaining to be treated, it is estimated that between 10 and 15,000 are currently not candidates because of patient preference for non-treatment or treatment-limiting co-morbidities. The number of patients starting treatment each month continues to decline, as it has since ∼6/2016, although &gt;1000 patients still start treatment each month. In summary, VA has screened &gt; 80% of the 1945–1965 birth cohort in current VA care and treated approximately 75% of the known viremic patients in current VA care. Many of the remaining untreated patients have barriers to HCV treatment that VA is addressing. The VA has a goal of 90-90-90 (screening, treated, documented SVR) by 2020. Sufficient funding for medications, support from leadership, real-time data, and creating and sustaining teams on the ground trained in Lean management and system redesign were critical to VA's successes.

Using the trajectory of the shuttlecock as a measure of performance accuracy in the badminton short serve

Accuracy of a projectile is typically quantified as the proportion of successful target hits, or the distance an object finishes from the target. Serving in sports such as badminton differs since the shuttlecock is usually intercepted by the opponent before landing on the target (i.e. court surface). Therefore, landing accuracy measures are inappropriate and a new method of determining accuracy of the serve is needed. During interviews, elite coaches and players described an accurate short serve as crossing the net with low clearance and having an apex before the net. Three-dimensional trajectory of the shuttlecock was therefore tracked from eight national-level players who performed 30 short serves in simulated match conditions (i.e. with an opponent); 27% of all serves were classified as ‘accurate’, 27% of serves as ‘inaccurate’, 21% with a ‘good apex’ position, and 25% with a ‘good clearance’ height. The proposed method of assessing shuttlecock trajectory as a measure of accuracy could be adopted by coaches and players to assess and improve short serve accuracy. Furthermore, this method is more representative of a match environment since the shuttlecock rarely lands because the opponent returns the serve.

Antifibrotic Synergy Between Phosphodiesterase Type 5 Inhibitors and Selective Oestrogen Receptor Modulators in Peyronie's Disease Models

BackgroundPeyronie's disease (PD) is a fibrotic disorder of the penile tunica albuginea, characterised by the formation of a localised fibrous plaque that can lead to deformity and erectile dysfunction. Nonsurgical therapeutic options for PD are limited in efficacy and safety. Myofibroblasts are key cells in the pathogenesis of PD, and inhibition of myofibroblast transformation has been suggested as a therapeutic option. ObjectiveTo identify potential drugs using a novel phenotypic assay and then to test them using in vitro and in vivo models of PD. Design, setting, and participantsWe have developed and validated a phenotypic screening assay that measures myofibroblast transformation, by which we tested 21 compounds that were suggested to be efficacious in treating PD. The successful hits from this assay were further tested using in vitro and in vivo models of PD. Results and limitationsThe new assay was able to detect transforming growth factor-β1–induced myofibroblast transformation. Using this assay, phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE5i) and selective oestrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) were identified to significantly inhibit myofibroblast transformation. A PDE5i (vardenafil) and an SERM (tamoxifen) inhibited myofibroblast transformation, collagen gel contraction, and extracellular matrix production in a synergistic fashion. In a rat model of PD, the antifibrotic effect of the combination of vardenafil and tamoxifen was greater than that of each drug alone. This study is limited by not providing a molecular mechanism for the proposed synergy. ConclusionsThis is the first demonstration of a synergistic activity between a PDE5i and an SERM discovered through a phenotypic screening approach. Future clinical trials using a combination of these drugs should be considered during the active phase of PD, given the early evidence of benefit in both in vitro and in vivo models. Patient summaryThis report suggests that the combination of a phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor and a selective oestrogen receptor modulator may be efficacious in treating Peyronie's disease in its active phase.

The delivery problem: Optimizing hit rates in e-commerce deliveries

Unsuccessful delivery attempts, or failed hits, are still a recurring problem in the fulfillment of e-commerce orders to private customers. In this paper, we consider a parcel delivery company interested in optimizing the rate of successful deliveries. By doing so, the company is able to offer a differentiated service, increasing customer satisfaction, and reducing the costs related to failed delivery attempts. In order to achieve this, routes must be designed in a way that visiting times are convenient for the customers. Revisits to some customers may also be planned, so that the expected number of successful deliveries increases. We propose availability profiles to represent the availability of customers during the delivery period. Using these profiles, we are able to compute the expected number of successful hits in a given route. We model the delivery problem as a set-partitioning problem, and solve it with a branch-and-price algorithm. The corresponding pricing problem is solved with a labeling procedure, in which reduced cost bounds are employed to discard unpromising partial routes. We show that the reduced cost of route extensions is bounded by the optimal solution to an orienteering problem, and efficiently compute bounds for that problem within the labeling procedure. Computational experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach for solving instances with up to 100 customers. A tradeoff analysis suggests that significant hit rate improvement can be achieved at the expense of small additional transportation cost. The results also indicate that flexibility regarding maximum route duration translates into an improved hit rate, and that planning revisits may reduce expected unsuccessful deliveries by more than 10%.

Experimental Protocols for Generating Focused Mutant Libraries and Screening for Thermostable Proteins.

Many proteins are rapidly deactivated when exposed to high or even ambient temperatures. This cannot only impede the study of a particular protein, but also is one of the major reasons why enzyme catalysis is still widely unable to compete with established chemical processes. Furthermore, differences in protein stability are a challenge in synthetic biology, when individual modules prove to be incompatible. The targeted stabilization of proteins can overcome these hurdles, and protein engineering techniques are more and more reliably supported by computational chemistry tools. Accordingly, algorithms to predict the differences in folding energy of a mutant compared to the wild-type, ΔΔGfold, are used in the highly successful FRESCO workflow. The resulting single mutant prediction library consists typically of a few hundred amino acid exchanges, and after combining the most successful hits we so far obtained stabilized mutants which exhibited increases in apparent melting temperature of 20-35°C and showed vastly increased half-lives, as well as resistance to cosolvents. Here, we report a detailed protocol to generate these mutant libraries experimentally, covering the entire workflow from primer design, through mutagenesis, protein production and screening, to mutation combination strategies. The individual parts of the method are furthermore applicable to many other scenarios besides protein stabilization, and these protocols are valuable for any project requiring individual or semi high-throughput site-directed mutagenesis, protein expression and purification, or generation of mutant combination libraries.

Hit detection in serial femtosecond crystallography using X-ray spectroscopy of plasma emission.

Serial femtosecond crystallography is an emerging and promising method for determining protein structures, making use of the ultrafast and bright X-ray pulses from X-ray free-electron lasers. The upcoming X-ray laser sources will produce well above 1000 pulses per second and will pose a new challenge: how to quickly determine successful crystal hits and avoid a high-rate data deluge. Proposed here is a hit-finding scheme based on detecting photons from plasma emission after the sample has been intercepted by the X-ray laser. Plasma emission spectra are simulated for systems exposed to high-intensity femtosecond pulses, for both protein crystals and the liquid carrier systems that are used for sample delivery. The thermal radiation from the glowing plasma gives a strong background in the XUV region that depends on the intensity of the pulse, around the emission lines from light elements (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen). Sample hits can be reliably distinguished from the carrier liquid based on the characteristic emission lines from heavier elements present only in the sample, such as sulfur. For buffer systems with sulfur present, selenomethionine substitution is suggested, where the selenium emission lines could be used both as an indication of a hit and as an aid in phasing and structural reconstruction of the protein.

The quiet eye supports error recovery in golf putting

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to further examine the relationship between the Quiet eye (QE, Vickers, 1996) and performance. We aimed to scrutinise the relationship between QE and shot outcome and replicate the robust relationship between QE and expertise. Based on recent findings (Cooke et al., 2015) showing that motor planning is dependent upon the outcome of a previous attempt, we wanted to examine the influence of prior performance on the functionality of the QE. Design: We performed a 2 (expertise) x 2 (outcome) mixed design study. Participants performed golf putts until they had achieved 5 successful (hits) and 5 unsuccessful (misses) attempts. Methods18 experienced and 21 novice golfers participated in the study. Putts were taken from ten feet while wearing a mobile eye tracker. ResultsExperienced golfers had consistently longer QE durations than novices but there was no difference in QE between randomly chosen hits and misses. However, QE durations were significantly longer on hits directly following a miss, but significantly shorter on misses following a miss. ConclusionsThis is the first study to have examined QE duration as a consequence of prior performance. Our findings highlight the important role of QE in recovering from an error and improving performance. The findings add further support for the response programming function of the QE, as additional ‘programming’ was needed to recover from an error. Findings also highlight the potential for a link between QE and the allocation of attentional resources to the task (effort).

Aerobic Fitness and Technical Efficiency at High Intensity Discriminate between Elite and Subelite Tennis Players.

The aim of this study was to determine whether selected physiological, performance and technical parameters derived from an on-court test are capable of discriminating between tennis players of national and international levels. 38 elite and subelite tennis players were divided into international level (INT, n=8) and national level players (NAT, n=30). They all performed a specific endurance field test, and selected physiological (maximum oxygen uptake [V˙O2max], and ventilatory thresholds [VT1 and VT2]), performance (test duration, final stage and hits per test) and technical (technical effectiveness [TE]) parameters were compared. INT showed greater V˙O2max, VO2 at VT2 (ml·kg(-1)·min(-1)), test duration (s), final stage (no.), hits per test (no.) and TE (% of successful hits), as compared with NAT (p<0.05). At high exercise intensity (stages 5 and 6), the INT achieved better TE than NAT (p=0.001-0.004), and the discriminant analyses showed that these technical parameters were the most discriminating factors. These results suggest that this specific endurance field test is capable of discriminating between tennis players at national and international levels, and that the better aerobic condition of the INT is associated with better technical efficiency at higher exercise intensities.

Using task dynamics to quantify the affordances of throwing for long distance and accuracy.

In 2 experiments, the current study explored how affordances structure throwing for long distance and accuracy. In Experiment 1, 10 expert throwers (from baseball, softball, and cricket) threw regulation tennis balls to hit a vertically oriented 4 ft × 4 ft target placed at each of 9 locations (3 distances × 3 heights). We measured their release parameters (angle, speed, and height) and showed that they scaled their throws in response to changes in the target's location. We then simulated the projectile motion of the ball and identified a continuous subspace of release parameters that produce hits to each target location. Each subspace describes the affordance of our target to be hit by a tennis ball moving in a projectile motion to the relevant location. The simulated affordance spaces showed how the release parameter combinations required for hits changed with changes in the target location. The experts tracked these changes in their performance and were successful in hitting the targets. We next tested unusual (horizontal) targets that generated correspondingly different affordance subspaces to determine whether the experts would track the affordance to generate successful hits. Do the experts perceive the affordance? They do. In Experiment 2, 5 cricketers threw to hit either vertically or horizontally oriented targets and successfully hit both, exhibiting release parameters located within the requisite affordance subspaces. We advocate a task dynamical approach to the study of affordances as properties of objects and events in the context of tasks as the future of research in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record