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Walking is one of the most repetitive activities that humans have done throughout their entire life. Each person has a specific pattern of a walking cycle called gait. Analysis on gait is a great topic to study and can be used in many applications such as to assess and improve athletic performance, to identify and correct pathomechanical dysfunctions and to design suitable footwear. Gait analysis is also a helpful tool to indicate health problems by identifying and addressing abnormalities and asymmetries that are often used by clinicians and researchers. This paper studied the development of portable smart shoe that was used to track and monitor walking gait pattern and gait analysis. The system employed a wireless connection and used four force sensors (FSR) that were located inside the insole according to four-point-critical pressure under the feet. Data from sensors were collected by ESP32 and transmitted in real-time through the internet into the online application. The portable smart shoe provided a data Ground reaction Force (GRF) for every gait phase when healthy subject walked at normal walking speed. Gait analysis was done from the collected data by gait phase characterization and comparing the gait pattern with previous studies to ensure the result was reliable. In normal walking conditions, the highest force was found at FSR1 sensor during the loading response phase while FSR 4 sensor provided the lowest force during pre-swing phase. The gait monitoring system is very useful in the rehabilitation field to identify the abnormalities and problems faced by patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twitter is the first social network that enables users to exchange data, acquire data, reply to data, debate data, publish data, promote data, and even spread rumours, spam, and abusive comments via their Tweets. Users may also use Twitter to follow current trends all across the globe. Abusers, fraudsters, scammers, and killers have been known to interact with one another before or after a global athletic event or performance via the use of encoded tweets. Weird behavior from users and automated programs has been documented. Quote Retweets, also known as Retweets with remarks, are often created by promotional users or bots, and they are often false or taken out of context in order to promote a certain brand or political propaganda. This research examines the numerous techniques for spotting suspicious behavior on Twitter and takes into account the online habits of fake users and automated programs. They also conduct sentiment analysis to compare the polarity and subjectivity of Quote Retweets posted by bots and those posted by real people on Twitter in order to ascertain whether or not the former have a good or negative effect on the latter. Polarity identifies the statement's underlying tone, whether it positive, negative, or neutral, whereas subjectivity describes the information's objectivity or subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is focused on the implementation of an athletic performance system for the measurement of the vital signs like Heart rate, temperature, and kinetic parameters like the number of revolutions of a fixed bike wheel for football players. The proposed system uses a Raspberry Pi3 as a base station, in addition to the ESP-32S microcontroller for data collection tools from sensors. Wi-Fi technology is utilized as a communication tool between wireless sensors and the base station. The received data are stored in the base station database, which in turn is analyzed using the fuzzy system. The fuzzy system was applied on three-player status; the rest state, during exercise and after the effort, to evaluate the final player assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates human geometry in design, allowing exploration of unknown geometries in Paralympic sports equipment. By creating a configuration map exploring the solution-space, optimal sit-ski seating positions-in the sense of performance and ergonomics-can efficiently be found for individual athletes. A physical prototype was developed, and an experiment was designed to identify changes in performance due to different geometries. The design method and application make it possible to translate critical angles onto geometries, and test individuals for optimal work ergonomics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent surge in sensing platforms for sports has been accompanied by drastic improvements in the quality of data analytics. This improved quality has catalyzed notable progress in training techniques, athletic performance tracking, real-time strategy management, and even better refereeing. However, despite a sustained growth in the number of para-athletes, there has been little exploration into the accessibility and data analytics needs for adaptive sports. We interviewed 18 participants in different roles (athletes, coaches, and high-performance managers) across six adaptive sports. We probed them on their current practices, existing challenges, and analytical needs. We uncovered common themes prevalent across all six sports and further examined findings in three groups: (1) blind sports; (2) wheelchair sports; and (3) adaptive sports with high equipment. Our study highlights the challenges faced by different adaptive sports and unearths opportunities for future research to improve accessibility and address specific needs for each sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper based on sports physiology, mainly using literature review and experiment methods to solve the problems of physical education teaching in colleges and universities, especially ball games teaching, such as the emphasis on basic skills teaching, lack of exercise amount and intensity, and weak participation of students. It proposes to use Daryl Siedentopp's sport education model for ball games teaching and make use of the characteristics of students competitive spirit and love of games so that students can participate in sports successfully. It is found in the research that teaching under the sports teaching mode can effectively improve students' sports ability, sports accomplishment and sports enthusiasm. The students' physical quality, basic skills and tactical ability have improved obviously, and their participation and autonomous learning ability have improved obviously. Traditional physical education teaching organizes relatively regular competitive sports teaching competitions after learning all the movements, and students' participation is not strong. The sports teaching mode has lowered the competition threshold, instead of taking the regular competition of competitive sports as the only competition, the regular competition has been reformed to gradually transition from simple games to regular competitions, so that sports and teaching can be well combined, and teaching can be made simple and entertaining. Through this frequency of participation in this type of competition, students are more familiar with the rules, judging methods and so on. They have the ability to organize competitions autonomously after class, which greatly improves students' spontaneous exercise ability, gives full play to students' subjective initiative, reflects the students' learning dominant position and is conducive to the implementation of the concept of lifelong sports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. Modern tennis requires a very good technique, which can only be achieved through a long work training. Under current conditions it is not enough to be a good technician on clay courts, but also on those of cement, grass, plastic, flooring etc. The more complex the procedures luggage is, the more adaptable to the competitions the technique shall be. Also, the more this technique will be improved with a substantial theoretical training, the more the tactical thinking will develop. Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the fact that by using equipment aids the main elements and techniques of tennis can be learned more effectively. Methods. Thus, during the training of four tennis players (14 ± 1.5years) special exercises using helping devices were introduced for 8 weeks and the efficiency of the specific techniques was evaluated throughout the experiment. Subjects were tested before and after applying the exercises. Results. There was found an improvement at the technical level within each test, from the initial testing to the final, which leads us to consider that action systems implemented in the game were well chosen and accompanied by an appropriate level of effort. Conclusion. The selected exercises content proved to be effective in preparing students, contributing to the formation and strengthening of specific tennis players motor skills, to which it can be added the pleasure with which they implemented these exercises. The efficiency of training in tennis involves maximizing the possibilities to use of the aid devices in training the players. The versatile training means aids positively influence the lessons and leads to performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effort to know and minutely analyze the neuropsychological developmentin children must accompany any educational intervention, because child's stimulation towards the specific evolving trends will lead to the early emergence of its positive effects, while an intervention that doesn't comply with the developmental laws and trends may be considered by the psychic system as a perturbing factor. Due to its extension to other scientific fields, too, sports psychology has constantly passed through major developments during the last decades. This article examines the developmental changes that characterize the years from 6 to 11and highlightsthe sports practice impact on the development of children in the middle childhood age. Children's development can't be conceived any more without taking into consideration the sports influenceon themodern understanding of children's psychic, cognitive and psychomotor development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a fundamental part of personality, behavior represents the modality of acting and reacting in certain circumstances or situations. Specialty literature describes three types of behavior: aggressive, assertive and nonassertive ones. The purpose of this paper is to construct the assertive behavior profile in performance sports, but also to highlight the behavioral differences, depending on the type of sport practiced by the subjects of our study (individual sports, team sports and combat sports). In order to achieve our purpose, we used the Assertive Behavior Inventory Tool (ABIT), which includes 33items. Concerning the assertive behavior, the results of our research emphasize that the highest mean of this behavioral type belongs to the athletes who practice combat sports (M 33.10 ± sd 5.6), followed by the athletes who practice team sports(M 32.71 ± sd4.2) and by those who practice individual sports(M 31.95± sd 5.9). As to the nonathletes, the mean of their assertive behavior is 32.24 (± sd 3.9). To conclude, the behavior of athletes who practice combat sports is not antisocially oriented, but the more it is aggressive, the higher their performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study experimentally tested stereotypes and credibility of message associated with athletes. Participants were asked to rate photos of Black and White baseball players based on stereotypes identified in previous literature. They were then given an anonymous paragraph from a newspaper that featured either a stereotype consistent or inconsistent message and asked to rate the author's credibility. Black players were rated significantly higher in physical strength and natural ability, which is consistent with previous literature. However, White-consistent stereotypes were found to be credible, while Black-consistent were not. These results are interpreted in light of Devine's model of stereotype processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of technological device to the day-to-day life of the people with disabilities specially on their personal living conditions in the society. It cites the development of international competitive sports for people with disabilities for their social perception in the social media. It details the cultural diversity of people with disabilities that indicates social deficits when it comes to social interaction with others.

The purpose of this study was to examine the three-stage skill, attack-defense performance, zones of scoring points of elite male table tennis players. The study was observed the semi-finalists (Ma Lin, Wang Hau, Wang Li-gin, and Persson, G.) of table tennis men's single in 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. We analyzed all games of the four subjects played using three-stage skill and attack-defense skill analysis table. The results as follows: 1. All subjects were "Pass" in most of three-stage skill evaluative index. The using percentage of rally part was below evaluative index in all players. 2. The main scoring techniques for the top four players were serve-then-attack part (serve point and forehand attack), receive-then-attack part (forehand attack and backhand attack), and rally part (counter-driver and forehand attack) in three-stage skill. Top four players' scoring percentage of three-stage skill was significantly higher than those of their opponents, but no difference in using percentage. 3. There were significant differences in attack-defense performance and zones of scoring points but no difference was found in zones of losing points of four players. 4. The stepwise regression analysis data showed that the scoring percentage of attack-defense in three-stage skill could be effectively to predict the performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine the method for evaluating skills of table tennis players during the rally of the game. An incidence angle, speed and height of the balls passing above the net were investigated for both winners and losers. In this study, these three factors were defined as the characteristics of the hit ball. In order to observe those three factors, infrared laser units were set up 0.3 m from the net. The intervals of the time which were required for the balls to pass through two fixed units were measured. Those data were digitized and recorded in a personal computer. The above-mentioned characteristics of the hit ball were calculated. The results showed the following tendency. A winner's ball has a larger incidence angle than that of loser's one. On the other hand, the speed and height were not important factors in order to win the games. However, higher the skill levels, the higher the hit ball position and more the speed. It was found that a large incidence angle was necessary to win. In conclusion, observing an incidence angle gives coaches and players the possibility to evaluate skills of table tennis even in different skill levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to construct the norms for evaluating performance of players in Table Tennis Skill Test. Since, there is a lack of standardized evaluative criteria in Table Tennis for assessing the ability, grading and predicting the performance of Table-Tennis players, an effort was undertaken to construct Norms for Skill Test for junior and senior Table Tennis Players. For this purpose 816 male, 410 Junior and 406 Senior, state and national level Table-Tennis players of different states in India were randomly selected to serve as subjects. The performance of Table Tennis players in Table Tennis test battery of four test items, Namely, Alternate Push Test, Target Service Test, Alternate Counter Test and Fore Hand Drive on Target Test with foot movement after playing backhand push, constructed by Pushpendra Purashwani and Dr. A.K. Datta, was chosen for the purpose of the study. The data was collected by administering the test for the selected test items during the Summer Coaching Camps and Regular Training Sessions of various districts, different Ranking Table Tennis Tournaments and State and Inter-District Table-Tennis Championships in the year 2006. The data, which was collected by administering tests, was statistically treated to develop norms for all the test items. The two normative scales, namely, the Percentile Scale and 7 Sigma Scale were constructed for the junior and senior table tennis players of state and national level. The norms were constructed by using Percentile and 7 Sigma Scale techniques analyzed through statistical packages, the scores were further classified into five grades i.e. very good, good, average, poor and very poor under Normal Distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the basic balance recovery movements performed during slackline balancing. Slacklining is an activity where the athlete balances on a thin piece of webbing that is mounted between two fixed points in a not too tight way. We designed an experimental setting where a controlled perturbation is applied to the slackline and study the movements of athletes to regain a balanced position. Four athletes took part in the study and for each we recorded five trials using a Vicon motion capture system. With the help of a 15 segment biomechanical model we studied mechanical quantities like the center of mass trajectory, the energy contributions, and also analyzed joint actuation patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interdisciplinary body of sport research contends that mediated portrayals of athletic conduct are contingent upon the race/ethnic identity of a respective athlete. Situating these portrayals as a micro-macro artifact of human-mediated organizing (Author[s], in press) this study theoretically assesses, and empirically examines, the micro-level manner and macro-level degree in which such racialized portrayals are constituted and regulated in sport commentator talk. Content analysis of 2,367 lines of commentary talk in the 2000 Men's and Women's NCAA Final Four basketball championship games empirically revealed how commentator discourse theoretically contributes to the promotion and preservation of racialized assumptions of athletic performance. Sport commentator talk topically diverged statistically on the athletic background of Black athletes and the favorable athletic fortune (i.e., positive consonance) of White athletes. The findings aid the exploration of understanding how racialized communication practices interactively pervade mediated portrayals of organized sport. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Using aggregate data from the Office of Civil Rights combined with demographic and contextual data from the National Center for Educational Statistics, this paper (1) analyzes state-level disparities in boy?s and girl?s access to and participation in single- and mixed-gender interscholastic athletic programs, and (2) examines demographic and contextual correlates of variation among states affecting access and participation of boy?s and girl?s in interscholastic athletics. We find substantial variation among the states in how equitably girls and boys have access to both single- and mixed-gender interscholastic sports and teams. States also vary widely in girls and boy?s patterns of participation in single and mixed-gender sports activities. Regression analyses suggest that variations in gender disparities in single-gender athletic participation opportunities among states can be predicted by a combination of contextual characteristics and school demographics. And variation in gender disparities in single-gender athletic participation rates among states can be strongly predicted by participation opportunities and educational investments. This analysis also suggests that the impact on gender differences in participation rates of school demographics (percent white enrollments) is largely indirect and mediated by participation opportunities. In contrast, our model does not adequately explain disparities in mixed-gender athletic participation opportunities (number of sports and teams offered to both male and female students) among states. However, gender disparities in mixed-gender athletic participation rates among states can be modestly predicted by a combination of contextual characteristics and educational investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

the author set up the skills and tactics evaluation system of table tennis. It is based on data collected from Zhang Jike's 14 matches, using the TOPSIS method to calculate each match's closing degree from positive and negative ideal solutions. According to these closing degrees, the research compares and analyses the whole series of matches. The results indicate there is a certain practicability in the assessment index system and assessing model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study that examines the high-jump (HJ) take-off technique using force plate data and defines the take-off the ground reaction force (GRF) profiles as function of technical and conditional characteristics of different athletes. It highlights the significant role of take-off on HJ performance where it exhibits an increased complexity due to the curvilinear approach-run pathway. Results of the study suggest that GRF can be used to perform technical evaluation.

The article presents a study which examines coordination changes in bilateral elbow motion during initial acquisition of three-ball cascade juggling. It highlights the significance of bimanual coordination on the performance of continuous skills. It notes that elbow motions of the eighteen college-aged students were recorded from electronic sensors. Results of the study reveal the unique features in bimanual coordination during the acquisition of three-ball juggling.

The article presents a study that aims to clarify the relationship between reaction time and the onset of muscle activity during drop landing. It notes that quickness is one of the key factors for athletes in sporting activities wherein it reflects on the speed through the contraction of associated muscles. Findings of the study confirm the correlation between reaction time and the onset of thigh muscle activities, emphasizing the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) as the most commonly injured.

An abstract of the article "Ethnic differences in heat adaptation and autonomic tone during intensive exercise in elite athletes" by A. Datta and J. Dalzell is presented.