Speed Track Events: Development and Validity of Exercise Catalog

Introduction: Sports coaches are guided by empirical evidence at the moment of planning the training loads, and, many times, these loads are not recorded for posterior analysis. A validated scientific instrument could help coaches to plan, register, and analyse sports training load. Aim: The study aimed to develop and assess the content validity of a catalog of exercises for speed track events. Methods: Through interviews, a group of expert coaches elaborated a catalog of exercises. Two groups of raters evaluated the content validity of these exercises, producing a coefficient of content validity (CCV) for such validity indicators as clarity of language, practical pertinence and theoretical relevance. Additionally, raters assessed the specificity level of each exercise by deciding if the exercise was general, special or specific to speed track events. Results: These CCV results confirmed the content validity of a 75-exercise catalog with satisfactory validity indicators, meaning the exercises are understandable for athletic coaches (CCVCL=0,93), pertinent for speed track training (CCVPP=0,84) and relevant (CCVRT=0,83). Conclusion: This catalog may help athletic coaches to plan, implement and analyze their players’ sports training loads.

Stabilization and visual analysis of video-recorded sailing sessions

One common way to aid coaching and seek to improve athletes’ performance is by recording training sessions for posterior analysis. In the case of sailing, coaches record videos from another boat, but usually rely on handheld devices, which may lead to issues with the footage and missing important moments. On the other hand, by autonomously recording the entire session with a fixed camera, the analysis becomes challenging owing to the length of the video and possible stabilization issues. In this work, we aim to facilitate the analysis of such full-session videos by automatically extracting maneuvers and providing a visualization framework to readily locate interesting moments. Moreover, we address issues related to image stability. Finally, an evaluation of the framework points to the benefits of video stabilization in this scenario and an appropriate accuracy of the maneuver detection method.

Domiciliary Hospitalization through Wearable Biomonitoring Patches: Recent Advances, Technical Challenges, and the Relation to Covid-19

This article reviews recent advances and existing challenges for the application of wearable bioelectronics for patient monitoring and domiciliary hospitalization. More specifically, we focus on technical challenges and solutions for the implementation of wearable and conformal bioelectronics for long-term patient biomonitoring and discuss their application on the Internet of medical things (IoMT). We first discuss the general architecture of IoMT systems for domiciliary hospitalization and the three layers of the system, including the sensing, communication, and application layers. In regard to the sensing layer, we focus on current trends, recent advances, and challenges in the implementation of stretchable patches. This includes fabrication strategies and solutions for energy storage and energy harvesting, such as printed batteries and supercapacitors. As a case study, we discuss the application of IoMT for domiciliary hospitalization of COVID 19 patients. This can be used as a strategy to reduce the pressure on the healthcare system, as it allows continuous patient monitoring and reduced physical presence in the hospital, and at the same time enables the collection of large data for posterior analysis. Finally, based on the previous works in the field, we recommend a conceptual IoMT design for wearable monitoring of COVID 19 patients.