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Elite athletes are not immune to mental health issues. Yet, quality research on mental health in elites has so far been limited. Thus, while research on mental health emphasises the prevalence and nature of disorders in the general population, its extent in elite performers remains unclear. Indeed, the prevalence of mental conditions cannot be accurately calculated in elite athletes due to a lack of diagnostic criteria and screening tools specifically adapted to this unique population. Researchers and practitioners are, therefore, confronted with biases reflecting the use of clinical norms and instruments initially developed for the general population. Furthermore, without considering the athlete persona as well as the sport culture in which elites play, there is a risk of under- or over-estimating the prevalence of mental health issues in high-performance environments. Due to the unique characteristics surrounding an elite athlete’s life, we therefore suggest a change of perspective: moving from the usual normal-versuspathological to a functional-versus-dysfunctional approach. Implications for future research and practice are discussed, most notably examining practitioners’ expertise in diagnosing and treating elite performers.

There seems to be general agreement on the importance of challenge for effective development on the athlete pathway. What seems less coherent, however, are ideas on how much, when and how this challenge should be used. Reflecting our own experience as applied practitioners and our ongoing research, we offer a perspective on this work from a practitioner stance. The literature suggests that differences between levels of adult achievement relate more to what performers bring to the challenges than what they experience. Therefore, it is essential that young athletes have the opportunity to develop psycho-behavioural and coping skills, and have adequate social support, to ensure that adversity is interpreted as a positive growth experience. A periodized and progressive set of challenge, preceded with specific skill development, would seem to offer the best pathway to success. The importance of preparing athletes for challenges, supporting them through the experience, and then encouraging positive evaluation and reflection is key to successful outcome. Finally, we offer some suggestions, structures and systems which can be used to support the skill-based approach promoted.

In a recent paper in ISCJ, Ojala and Thorpe offered a culturally based observation that questions the role and application of coaching in action sports. Their critique is focused on the action sport of snowboarding which, despite its’ comparatively recent inclusion in the Olympics, retains a different, almost collaborative rather than competitive culture more akin to other action sports such as skateboarding and surfing. Ojala and Thorpe then present Problem Based Learning (PBL) as the solution to many of these perceived ills, describing the positive characteristics of the approach and promoting its cultural fit with action sport environments and performers. In this paper we offer a different perspective, which questions the veracity of the data presented and the unquestioningly positive view of PBL as the answer. Our alternative, data-driven perspective suggests that action sport athletes are increasingly positive, or even desirous of good coaching, of which PBL is a possible approach; suitable for some athletes some of the time.

Running is a pervasive activity across human cultures and a cornerstone of contemporary health, fitness and sporting activities. Yet for the overwhelming predominance of human existence running was an essential prerequisite for survival. A means to hunt, and a means to escape when hunted. In a very real sense humans have evolved to run. Yet curiously, perhaps due to running’s cultural ubiquity and the natural ease with which we learn to run, we rarely consider the uniqueness of human bipedal running within the animal kingdom. Our unique upright, single stance, bouncing running gait imposes a unique set of coordinative difficulties. Challenges demanding we precariously balance our fragile brains in the very position where they are most vulnerable to falling injury while simultaneously retaining stability, steering direction of travel, and powering the upcoming stride: all within the abbreviated time-frames afforded by short, violent ground contacts separated by long flight times. These running coordination challenges are solved through the tightly-integrated blending of primitive evolutionary legacies, conserved from reptilian and vertebrate lineages, and comparatively modern, more exclusively human, innovations. The integrated unification of these top-down and bottom-up control processes bestows humans with an agile control system, enabling us to readily modulate speeds, change direction, negotiate varied terrains and to instantaneously adapt to changing surface conditions. The seamless integration of these evolutionary processes is facilitated by pervasive, neural and biological, activity-dependent adaptive plasticity. Over time, and with progressive exposure, this adaptive plasticity shapes neural and biological structures to best cope with regularly imposed movement challenges. This pervasive plasticity enables the gradual construction of a robust system of distributed coordinated control, comprised of processes that are so deeply collectively entwined that descr

http://archive.org/details/applicationsofmo1094526890, NA, NA

01 juli 2012, Contains fulltext : 108222.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access), Many therapeutic approaches to cancer affect the tumour vasculature, either indirectly or as a direct target. Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) has become an important means of investigating this action, both pre-clinically and in early stage clinical trials. For such trials, it is essential that the measurement process (i.e. image acquisition and analysis) can be performed effectively and with consistency among contributing centres. As the technique continues to develop in order to provide potential improvements in sensitivity and physiological relevance, there is considerable scope for between-centre variation in techniques. A workshop was convened by the Imaging Committee of the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres (ECMC) to review the current status of DCE-MRI and to provide recommendations on how the technique can best be used for early stage trials. This review and the consequent recommendations are summarised here. Key Points * Tumour vascular function is key to tumour development and treatment * Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) can assess tumour vascular function * Thus DCE-MRI with pharmacokinetic models can assess novel treatments * Many recent developments are advancing the accuracy of and information from DCE-MRI * Establishing common methodology across multiple centres is challenging and requires accepted guidelines.

Utilization of neural network techniques to recognize and classify acoustic signals has long been pursued and shows great promise as a robust application of neural network technology. Traditional techniques have proven effective but in some cases are quite computationally intensive, as the sampling rates necessary to capture the transient result in large input vectors and thus large neural networks. This thesis presents an alternative transient classification scheme which considerably reduces neural network size and thus computation time. Parameterization of the acoustic transient to a set of distinct characteristics (e.g. frequency, power spectral density) which capture the structure of the input signal is the key to this new approach. Testing methods and results are presented on networks for which computation time is a fraction of that necessary with traditional methods, yet classification reliability is maintained. Neural network acoustic classification systems utilizing the above techniques are compared to classic time domain classification networks. Last, a case studs is presented which looks at these techniques applied to the acoustic intercept problem., http://archive.org/details/featurebasedneur1094524169, Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy, Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

In airborne anti-submarine warfare there is a need to more accurately determine the positions of sonobuoys on the surface of the vater. This report develops two algorithms which employ extended Kalman filters to determine estimated position. The bearing from the aircraft to the sonobuoy is the primary measurement. Range information is not available. The first algorithm is a six-state filter which was reduced from the 13-state system developed by the Orincon Corporation Its states include relative jjosition, relative velocity, and inertial misalignments. The second algorithm includes two cascaded Kalman filters. The primary two-state filter estimates sonobuoy position. A secondary filter estimates drift from information obtained from the primary filter. Both algorithms successfully estimated sonobuoy position for simulated aircraft data. The effect of a ircraf t-to-sono bucy range, the frequency of measurement, and changes in altitude are also analyzed., http://archive.org/details/estimationofsono1094518706, Lieutenant, United States Navy, Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Item does not contain fulltext, For optimal performance of 31P MRS at 1.5 Tesla, the use of a double resonant probe is essential to enable the application of 1H decoupling and Nuclear Overhauser Enhancement. This note describes the design, evaluation and safety validation of a versatile and compact probe optimized for 1H decoupled 31P MRS studies of tumors close to the surface of the body, in particular the head and neck region.

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