Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Un e.mail primit de la Tavi a lu' "Teleaga".....


REVANŞA SENTIMENTELOR ASUPRA INTELIGENŢEI
sau
ADEVĂRATA MĂSURĂ A INTELIGENŢEI:
E.Q.

In link-ul de mai jos gasiti:

Daniel Goleman - Inteligenta emotionala (pdf 39,6 MB)

Istoria romanilor povestita de Neagu Djuvara (mp3 354 MB)

http://dl.transfer.ro/transfer_ro-20feb-d43448c67d63.zip

Este foarte interesant că, deşi au diplome echivalente ca valoare, unii se tîrăsc în slujbe umile, în timp ce alţii fac salturi impresionante în drumul lor către succes. Cum se explică faptul că unii care dovedeau în copilărie o inteligenţă vie şi promiteau foarte mult, au eşuat pînă la urmă în mediocritate, iar alţii, care nu se distingeau prin nimic deosebit, au reuşit în viaţă? De ce sînt cupluri care se ceartă şi apoi se despart, şi perechi care, deşi se mai confruntă cu tensiuni, nu se destramă şi chiar sînt fericite? Răspunsul la toate aceste întrebări ţine cont de faptul că noi „decidem şi gîndim sub influenţa sentimentelor", după cum ne sugerează Daniel Goleman, psiholog la Harvard.

Adevărata măsură a inteligenţei nu este I.Q., ci E.Q., coeficientul emoţional. "Marea revoluţie a anilor 2000 constă în revanşa sentimentelor asupra inteligenţei", ne asigură Daniel Goleman în cartea sa celebră deja în Statele Unite ale Americii, "Emotional Intelligence".

În prezent, cînd ne referim la inteligenţă, înţelegem cel puţin două lucruri:

  • intelectul (IQ) şi
  • inteligenţa emoţională (EQ).

"În mod tradiţional, puterea creierului este dată de IQ, însă cu cît lumea devine mai complexă, inteligenţa emoţională trece pe primul plan" (Daniel Goleman).

O persoană inteligentă emoţional este abilitată în patru domenii: identificarea emoţiilor, înţelegerea emoţiilor, reglarea emoţiilor şi folosirea emoţiilor.

În viziunea lui Daniel Goleman (1998), inteligenţa emoţională este formată din cinci factori: cunoaşterea propriilor emoţii, managementul emoţiilor, motivare, recunoaşterea emoţiilor la alţii (empatie) şi relaţiile interpersonale.

Iată o comparaţie între IQ şi EQ.

Intelectul - IQ (capul)

  • ne ajută să facem socoteli;
  • ne ajută să procesăm informaţii;
  • se bazează pe logică;
  • ne ajută să rezolvăm probleme;
  • ne ajută să reuşim la şcoală;
  • în decursul vieţii IQ-ul este relativ constant;

Inteligenţa emoţională - EQ (inima)

  • ne ajută să ne înţelegem pe noi înşine şi să ne motivăm;
  • ne ajută să luăm decizii (fără emoţii nu poate fi luată nici o decizie);
  • ne ajută să comunicăm şi să ne înţelegem mai bine cu alţi oameni şi să construim relaţii puternice, care durează;
  • ne ajută să ne transformăm;
  • ne ajută să învăţăm din experienţă;
  • ne ajută să fim creativi;
  • ne ajută să reuşim la locul de muncă şi în viaţă.

Dezavantajele intelectului

  • funcţionează bine doar cînd sîntem calmi;
  • funcţionează încet, sau în orice caz mai încet decît inteligenţa emoţională; din această cauză nu ne putem baza pe IQ atunci cînd ne aflăm în situaţii critice sau cînd trebuie să luam rapid decizii;
  • este un predictor slab al succesului nostru în viaţă; (însă un bun predictor al succesului nostru în şcoala tradiţională);
  • rămîne relativ constant toata viaţa.

Avantajele inimii

  • funcţionează bine în orice situaţie;
  • functionează rapid, sau în orice caz mai repede decît IQ-ul; din această cauză ne putem baza pe EQ cînd ne aflăm în situaţii critice sau cînd trebuie să luăm rapid decizii;
  • este un predictor puternic al succesului nostru în viaţă;
  • poate creşte, chiar foarte mult.

Iată un exemplu dat de Robert Stenberg, care ilustrează diferenţa dintre intelect şi inteligenţa emoţională: Doi copii se plimbau printr-o pădure. Unul din ei era foarte bun la învăţătură, premiant, foarte apreciat de adulţi (IQ). Celălalt era un şmecheraş, slab la învăţătură, dar foarte descurcăreţ în viaţa de zi cu zi (una din caracteristicile persoanelor inteligente emoţional). Celor doi copii le iese un urs în faţă. Primul face repede nişte calcule şi ajunge dezamăgit la concluzia că nu poate scăpa cu fuga din faţa ursului. Celălalt, foarte calm, se apleacă, îşi verifică pantofii şi îşi strînge mai bine şireturile. Primul, foarte trist, îi spune că a facut calcule şi nu au nici o şansă să scape de urs dacă o iau la fugă. Cel de-al doilea îi răspunde, cu acelaşi calm: "Te-nşeli! Tot ce trebuie să fac este să fiu cu un pas înaintea ta." (păstrarea calmului şi mintea limpede în situaţii critice, sînt alte două caracteristici ale persoanelor inteligente emoţional).

Bell Labs, Centrul de cercetare pentru înalta tehnologie al lui A.T.&T., gigantul telecomunicaţiilor din SUA, a apelat la Goleman pentru a testa angajaţii care se dovediseră foarte eficienţi. Rezultatul: cei mai valoroşi cercetători nu aveau un I.Q. foarte ridicat sau diplome dintre cele mai prestigioase. Erau însă persoane foarte echilibrate din punct de vedere emoţional, capabile să facă faţă cu succes momentelor de criză.

Cercetarile au arătat că succesul nostru la locul de muncă sau în viaţă depinde 80% de inteligenţa emoţională şi doar 20% de intelect. În cazul liderilor, inteligenţa emoţională contribuie cu pînă la 90% la succes. Asta nu înseamnă că rolul IQ-ului trebuie neglijat. IQ-ul continuă să fie important, dar nu cel mai important. Creierul omului, înainte de toate, este făcut ca să iubească.

De altfel, viaţa şi experienţa fiecărui individ arată că, spre deosebire de IQ, care nu se schimbă mai deloc după adolescenţă, inteligenţa emoţională este, în mare parte, învăţată, şi continuă să se dezvolte pe măsură ce înaintăm în vîrstă şi învăţăm să cunoaştem emoţiile şi sentimentele şi să le utilizam pozitiv. Poate că nu întîmplător se vorbeşte în popor de maturizare, care, în fond, este potenţialul pe care-l dobîndim de a învăţa abilităţile practice bazate pe componentele EQ.

Aceasta este marea revoluţie a anilor 2000: supremaţia trăirilor sufletesti care ia locul spiritului materialist, al gîndirii reci, al gestiunii şirurilor de cifre, al statisticilor şi deciziilor luate de sus. Adevăratele valori se dovedesc a fi: intuiţia, blîndeţea, simpatia, puterea de concentrare, înţelegerea, empatia. Viitorul aparţine pe deplin E.Q.-ului.

Abonati-va......, "Cotrobaiti-l"..... Multe noutati

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Tuesday, March 1, 2011 8:08 PM
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Snake-oils, supplements and the pinnacle of data presentation

Monday, February 28, 2011 1:16 PM
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Snake-oils, supplements and the pinnacle of data presentation

Posted: 28 Feb 2011 12:26 AM PST


A big part of the reason for our existence at The Science of Sport is the clear and creative presentation and discussion of scientific subjects and concepts. The idea was to make sports science more accessible, whether you're an interested reader, a coach, a high school teacher, a student, a scientist in an unrelated field, or a sports scientist.

Of course, we regularly deviate into debate and opinion, but it's the way in which concepts are presented that (we hope!) makes the subject more interesting. I've often felt that if you can go to a cocktail party or a dinner and talk about a scientific/analytical subject related to sport thanks to one of our articles and its discussion, then we've done our job!

The presentation of data - a defining characteristic for the translation of science

Yet have you ever noticed how badly, in general, science present its data? You see this all the time in University courses, where often, the most accomplished scientists make the worst lecturers. Students pick this up immediately, when some lecturers cannot seem to filter their ideas, they don't appreciate the level of the audience they're speaking to, and they lack the visual 'discipline' to take data and translate it into clear and concise principles and concepts. I suspect all of you are remembering one such academic right now... (and if I happened to lecture you, you'd better not be thinking about me!)

The key here is that designing the research study, gathering the data, and performing the stats (which is the academic focus, most times) represents only part of the "journey". This is because data by itself is raw and has no significance beyond its existence. It must be related to other data, it must be aggregated or collected, analyzed, visualized and designed. They teach this as part of "systems thinking" in IT courses, and the following diagram, designed by a brilliant website called "Information is Beautiful" depicts this:


Translation

The ability to communicate becomes all the more valuable when a scientist goes OUTSIDE the academic world and must speak to the public or corporate world. Within academia, there is a level of acceptance of how data is presented - look at a dozen scientific journals and you'll see much the same style of language and graphics in every one. Tables and line graphs are common and the language is, for all but a few in the field, very difficult to follow. That's because it works in the field. But outside, whether it's to the public, or the corporate sector, the rules of the game change a little.

I learned this the hard way, incidentally, because in 2006, I deviated from my PhD and went to the UCT Faculty of Commerce to do a Post-graduate in Sports Management. There, I did marketing and finance, and spent 2 years working in the sports sponsorship industry, where a big part of the job was to put together presentations and show market-related, financial and sponsorship data to companies. Gone was the classic approach of line graphs, tables and standard deviations. I learned more about data presentation in those 2 years than in the previous 8.

And I can't help feeling that science loses out in this area, because it is often left to the individual to learn how to manage and present information. I was lucky, because in my supervisor Tim Noakes, I had someone who had a gift for the communication of science, and then I was fortunate enough to work in sports sponsorship and learn on that job. Not that I'm very good at it (it's not my place to say!), but I was at least given direct, tangible advice on how to do it. For the most part, it's neglected (I haven't seen it taught before) and so some succeed, but most fail.

And so in line with that, today is a post on the presentation of data, and specifically, the scientific evidence for popular health supplements.

Snake-oils and health supplements

Right, so here is the single best piece of data presentation that I have ever seen. It comes, once again, from the "Information is Beautiful" website, run by David McCandless (when you're done here, play around on the "Visualizations" tab on the top of his home-page. Amazing work).

So what you're looking at below is an image depicting the level of evidence and popularity of a range of health supplements. The higher the balloon, the stronger the evidence for the supplement (but only for the conditions listed in or linked to the bubbles).

The larger the balloon, the more popular it has been, based on Google hits.


So there's a lot to be said for this graphic. It's easy to follow - so obvious that I dare say anyone will understand it almost instantly. It's also concise - no need to read a 32-page review of the literature in a scientific journal to grasp the key points. For example, in one glance, you can see that Vitamin A lacks evidence, whereas Vitamin D has strong evidence. As easy as that. In fact, it's so easy to follow that I don't even need to comment on it...!

The graphic uses "relativity" (in the size and position of the bubbles) to get across those key points, and it uses colour to further emphasize strength of evidence. It's a masterpiece of clear and accurate data presentation.

Strength of evidence - not just externally impressive!

And then most important of all, the evidence is just about as "stringent" as you'll find it - it comes from Cochrane reviews and PubMed analyses in which only randomized, double-blinded placebo studies were used. And this is a vital point - you cannot compensate for weak data with spectacular design and visualization. Or at least, you shouldn't.

This happens too often, and one of the challenges faced by science is that marketers and designers often end up working on projects with zero scientific backing, but they win the battle for "the mind of the consumer" because they know how to present what is actually hollow and worthless "science" in a much more appealing way (think Power Balance bands and other hocus pocus products that become "scientifically proven"). The end result is that you have this "debate" in which the companies present their visually impressive material and the science argues the "nuts and bolts", and in the end, the consumer loses (usually because it's easier to believe the fancy graphic than the dry science).

The interactive - taking presentation to an even higher level

But wait, there's even more to it. Taking the above image, McCandless then turned it into an interactive graphic (click here to open in a new tab). Here, you can:
  • Hover over each balloon to see which conditions it is effective for
  • Click on "Show me" on the right hand side of the image to see which supplements are produced for each of the listed conditions
  • (Most impressively), click on the balloon and you'll be redirected to the page which carries the evidence for the image - the Pubmed and Cochrane review papers.

    This is the strength of evidence I was talking about earlier - it is indispensable, because without that scientific evidence, this would just be wallpaper that does more damage than good. And I dare say, this is part of the reason why many scientists will be skeptical of this kind of data. Bizarrely, there seems to be a culture that "if it looks too good, then it's probably not accurate or credible". (This is the data equivalent of medicine - if it doesn't taste terrible, it probably doesn't work...!)
Contrasting with the "typical" approach

A final point to make is that the "typical" approach to this kind of question (how effective are supplements?) would be to conduct a meta-analysis, and then publish the findings in a scientific journal, in 32-pages of black and white, scientific language and probably with multiple tables showing the level of evidence and the p-value.

This is as accurate as anything you see above, and it contributes enormously to the value WITHIN that field, but for anyone outside of the health science-academic world, it has little significance. The general public, as informed as they may wish to be, will not see that data - they will remain uninformed, not as a result of this knowledge not being available, but because it has not been translated and delivered to them in such an interactive, palatable (and stimulating) way.

I realize I may sound over-critical of science, and this is not my intention (I suspect some academics will have stopped reading at this heretic talk by now!)

Rather, I want to emphasize that science can be so much more effective, powerful even, if it meets with good design and presentation. Whether that means partnering with a designer like David McCandless (probably quite costly, but I believe worth it in many cases), or simply learning the discipline of turning words, tables and line graphs into meaningful and elegantly presented information, I think it's indispensable!

And lastly, here is a slide that was labeled as the "worst Powerpoint slide ever". It comes from the military, and shows part of the strategy in Afghanistan. Just for contrast...

Ross








How the Yo Yo can test your CV endurance

How the Yo Yo can test your CV endurance
Tuesday, March 1, 2011 1:45 PM
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How the Yo Yo can test your CV endurance

Hey Mircea!

We are well and truly into the second half of the football season here in Europe and most of the domestic leagues across the continent are really starting to take shape. It is becoming clearer which teams are likely to be contesting for success, and which teams will be battling to save themselves from a drop into a lower division.

In England, the title race looks to be between three, maybe four teams but the relegation race is still open to about 10 clubs. It’s a very long season and in the last couple of months, it turns into a real battle of attrition. The 100m sprint is often described as a race to see who slows down the least and the football season is somewhat similar; which team is able to maintain their performances as close to their peak for as long as possible.

This part of the season is where the extent and the quality of the pre-season starts to really tell. Primarily, soccer is an endurance sport. Whilst the games defining moments are most often explosive (shot, jump, sprint, tackle and the like), it’s the ability to perform these actions repeatedly that is the real benefit of having a solid aerobic base.

During an average game, an elite-level soccer player will run up to about 13km at an intensity close to their lactate threshold. This is why the aerobic engine (which we can assess using VO2max testing) is said to be the single most important factor in determining success in sports like soccer. In fact, a direct correlation between VO2max and final league position has been demonstrated in elite soccer. Sports like rugby, Australian Rules Footy and hockey are very similar in their requirements of excellent cardiovascular endurance.


"To be honest, most of the players hate doing them, but in a perverse way they enjoy pushing themselves to the limit"

I use the Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test and the Maximum Aerobic Speed (MAS) Test as a means of evaluating my players’ CV endurance. Both have been designed to evaluate the ability to perform high intensity intermittent exercise, which is perfect in team sports where constant speed running is not really a feature of the game. There are 2 versions of the Yo-Yo test. The first one (Yo-Yo IR1) starts at a much reduced intensity and the second (Yo-Yo IR2) is a bit more advanced. Both are correlated with the amount of high intensity running completed during a soccer match.

The beauty of the MAS test is that the results give you a direct method of training prescription. This has been shown to dramatically improve aerobic power in soccer, rugby league and Australian Rules Football.

To be honest, most of the players hate doing them. They are hard, there’s no denying it, but the results that we’ve had are fantastic and in a perverse way, the players enjoy pushing themselves to the limit, something that these drills require.

Next week, we’ll have a look at the link between strength and running.

'Til then, stay robust, amigos!

Joycey

David Joyce

Injury and Performance Consultant at Galatasaray FC. Holds a Masters in Sports Physiotherapy and a Masters in Strength and Conditioning. He also lectures on the MSc in Sports Physio course at the University of Bath.


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Drop by, say hello and share the pain.
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Calling all runners...


Helena is trying to put together which components of fitness are of particular importance to a runner.

Can you help with any cardio training tips?
http://www.pponline.co.uk/forum/components-of-fitness-applied-to-cardio-training-eg-running-42952

Ouch!!!


"I train for sprints as a masters athlete. Training has been going well until about 5 days ago when I bent over to pick up a suitcase. As I straightened up, I felt a muscle rip in my left glute area."

Saleem would appreciate any sports injury help and advice.
http://www.pponline.co.uk/forum/torn-gluteus-minimus-or-medius-42946


Articles and Downloads

Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/yoyoirt.htm

The "Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test" is similar to the Yo-Yo Endurance Test, except the athlete has a short active 10 second break. (brianmac.co.uk is a partner site of Peak Performance.)

To learn about fitness tests, including endurance, strength, balance, agility and more, check out one of our bestselling titles, 101 Performance Evaluation Tests by clicking here.

How to monitor your endurance levels
http://www.pponline.co.uk/download/how-to-monitor-your-endurance-levels-41666

Endurance is the ability for an athlete to exert themselves for a long period of time through aerobic or anaerobic exercise. In this free download, we show you how to monitor your endurance levels in order to ensure they are not in decline.

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