Real-time interaction with a humanoid avatar in an immersive table tennis simulation

Development of a yoga posture coaching system using an interactive display based on transfer learning

Yoga is a form of exercise that is beneficial for health, focusing on physical, mental, and spiritual connections. However, practicing yoga and adopting incorrect postures can cause health problems, such as muscle sprains and pain. In this study, we propose the development of a yoga posture coaching system using an interactive display, based on a transfer learning technique. The 14 different yoga postures were collected from an RGB camera, and eight participants were required to perform each yoga posture 10 times. Data augmentation was applied to oversample and prevent over-fitting of the training datasets. Six transfer learning models (TL-VGG16-DA, TL-VGG19-DA, TL-MobileNet-DA, TL-MobileNetV2-DA, TL-InceptionV3-DA, and TL-DenseNet201-DA) were exploited for classification tasks to select the optimal model for the yoga coaching system, based on evaluation metrics. As a result, the TL-MobileNet-DA model was selected as the optimal model, showing an overall accuracy of 98.43%, sensitivity of 98.30%, specificity of 99.88%, and Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.9831. The study presented a yoga posture coaching system that recognized the yoga posture movement of users, in real time, according to the selected yoga posture guidance and can coach them to avoid incorrect postures.

Ubiquitous computing in sports: A review and analysis

Ubiquitous (pervasive) computing is a term for a synergetic use of sensing, communication and computing. Pervasive use of computing has seen a rapid increase in the current decade. This development has propagated in applied sport science and everyday life. The work presents a survey of recent developments in sport and leisure with emphasis on technology and computational techniques. A detailed analysis on new technological developments is performed. Sensors for position and motion detection, and such for equipment and physiological monitoring are discussed. Aspects of novel trends in communication technologies and data processing are outlined. Computational advancements have started a new trend - development of smart and intelligent systems for a wide range of applications - from model-based posture recognition to context awareness algorithms for nutrition monitoring. Examples particular to coaching and training are discussed. Selected tools for monitoring rules' compliance and automatic decision-making are outlined. Finally, applications in leisure and entertainment are presented, from systems supporting physical activity to systems providing motivation. It is concluded that the emphasis in future will shift from technologies to intelligent systems that allow for enhanced social interaction as efforts need to be made to improve user-friendliness and standardisation of measurement and transmission protocols.

The effectiveness of exercise intervention on inhibitory control in children with developmental coordination disorder: using a visuospatial attention paradigm as a model

Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) have been demonstrated to show a deficit of inhibitory control in volitional shifts of attention. The aim of this study was to use ecological intervention to investigate the efficacy of table-tennis training on treating both problems with attentional networks and motor disorder in children with DCD. Forty-three children aged 9-10 years old were screened using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children and divided into DCD (n=27) and typically developing (TD, n=16) groups. Children with DCD were then quasi-randomly assigned to either a DCD-training group who underwent a ten-week table-tennis training program with a frequency of 3 times a week or a DCD non-training group. Before and after training, the capacity of inhibitory control was examined with the endogenous Posner paradigm task for DCD and TD groups. Table-tennis training resulted in significant improvement of cognitive and motor functions for the children with DCD. The study demonstrated that exercise intervention employed within the school setting can benefit the inhibitory control and motor performance in children with DCD. However, future research efforts should continue to clarify whether the performance gains could be maintained over time.