Article Business & Management Economics Education Others Psychology

The Effect of Auditory Stimulation on College Sports Team and University Identification of Media Spectators: Focusing on the Presence or Absence of Live Play-by-Play Announcements and Commentary

This study aimed to determine how college sports team identifications and university identifications of college sports media viewers differ depending on the presence or absence of live play-by-play announcements and commentary. The participants in the experiment were 115 students from University A. A screening survey was conducted to confirm that these were essential attributes, resulting in 58 and 57 participants in the groups with commentary and without commentary, respectively. We conducted an Internet survey with these two groups of experimental participants before and after watching videos of the games. The results showed that only the group with commentary demonstrated improvements in the "public evaluation" of the college sports team and university identification (College sports team: F (1, 113) = 5.28, p < .05; University: F (1, 113) = 5.28, p < .05).

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Article Information Sciences

Measurement of Motor-vehicle Traffic Volume Using Camera Images and Artificial Intelligence

In Japan, road traffic censuses are conducted to assess road traffic conditions. Recently, techniques for counting traffic volume from video images have been attracting considerable attention in order to improve work efficiency and save labor, and a large number of technologies have been developed. However, since traffic volume surveys are often conducted 24 hours a day, day and night, at various sites and under various weather conditions, existing technologies have yet to reach the counting accuracy required in practice. The authors aim to develop techniques for traffic volume surveys applicable in practice by applying artificial intelligence. This paper reports the results of a case study in which the proposed techniques were applied to the video taken during actual traffic volume surveys.

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Article Education Psychology

Creating a scale for measuring non-cognitive abilities developed through sports for elementary school students

The purpose of this study was to create a scale to measure non-cognitive skills that can be developed through sport. To begin, a draft of a non-cognitive ability measurement scale was developed based on previous research. A preliminary survey of 346 elementary school students (318 males and 28 females, mean age 8.90 ± 1.76 years) was conducted, and a preliminary scale was created using exploratory factor analysis. A subsequent main survey was conducted with 1171 elementary school students (1025 males and 146 females, mean age 8.77 ± 1.73). In the present study, confirmatory factor analysis, reliability testing using cronbach's alpha, and structural validity of the entire scale were examined using structural analysis of covariance. Furthermore, theoretical interpretations were also taken into account, and finally, a non-cognitive ability measurement scale that can be developed through sports for elementary school students was created, consisting of 50 items with 5 factors: "self-management," "problem-solving," "cooperativeness," "leadership," and "greetings/polite".

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Article Biology Environmental Sciences General Medicine Life Sciences and Basic Medicine Social Medicine

Relationship between physical education in the first year of university and exercise habits and physical and mental health in the following spring

The present study examined the relationship between taking physical education and health-related courses in the first year of university and the acquisition and maintenance of exercise habits and physical and mental health in the student’s second year. The study population consisted of university students was 2,483 in FY2017 and 2,352 in FY2018. Of these, the 2,293 students (1,744 men, 18.5 ± 1.0 years old; 549 women, 18.6 ± 1.0 years old) who responded to the self-administered questionnaire survey on daily living habits in both years were included in the analysis. The results showed that taking physical education and health-related courses in the first year was significantly related to exercise habits the following spring. The results also suggested that these courses were more strongly related to mental health than physical health. In addition, men were significantly more likely to acquire a new exercise habit and had more improved mental health. In the future, it is necessary to clarify the causal relationship between taking physical education and health-related courses and exercise habits and the maintenance and acquisition of physical and mental health, in addition to developing effective support methods for students who dislike gender differences and exercise.

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Article Education Others

Proposal of Rubric for Information Security Education Materials

This study proposes a generic rubric that can be used as an assessment axis for information security educational materials regarding existing computer science education evaluation standards to assess the learning effectiveness of information security educational materials aimed at young people. The proposed rubric includes items such as “understanding of cyber security” and “understanding why passwords are necessary,” and five-level learning objectives are defined for these items. Furthermore, the proposed rubric was used to assess the existing information security educational material “Hajimete no Joho Security (Learning First Information Security in a Different World)” using Minecraft. The proposed rubric was mapped to the learning contents of the teaching material as an assessment method, and the learning effectiveness of the teaching material was measured using Minecraft with the cooperation of a community center project in Sayama City in Japan. Therefore, we were able to evaluate the learning effects using the proposed rubric.

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Article Business & Management

Organizational Ambidexterity and Firm Performance: Effect of Two Types of Exploitation on Japanese Video Game Industry

Recent organizational ambidexterity studies have discussed the importance of achieving a balance between Exploration and Exploitation. However, existing studies have not distinguished the detail of exploitation; this study categorizes exploitation as ‘Repetitive Exploitation’ and ‘Incremental Exploitation.’ Our study contributes to ambidexterity studies by analyzing the impact of a combination of both these types of exploitation and exploration on a firm’s performance. We used 647 observations from Japanese video game industries between 1997 and 2019 for panel data analysis. In line with existing studies, we proved that firm performance increases when a balance between exploration and exploitation is achieved. At the same time, we found that firms with a lower exploration performed better when the rate of incremental exploitation was high. The results of our study suggest that even when the firm's ambidexterity is imbalanced, different results can be expected when both types of exploitation are considered. The Study has implications for organizations to improve their performance.

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Article Psychology

The effects of interactive fitness video games on stress and cognitive function

Exercise that stimulates perceptual and cognitive aspects and simultaneously enhances neuromuscular coordination has both cognitive and psychological effects. We examined the effects of an interactive fitness video game in 18 healthy participants (8 males and 10 females). The participants performed under 1) TETRIS, 2) Radio Gymnastics, or 3) FITRIS (interactive fitness video game) conditions on different days. In this experiment, first there was a 4-minute rest period during which the mean heart rate was measured, followed by a cognitive task. The heart rate was measured to confirm the intensity of the exercise. Then either the TETRIS, Radio Gymnastics, or FITRIS condition was initiated, while the mean heart rate was measured again. Then there was another cognitive task, followed by another 4 minute rest and mean heart rate measurement period. Saliva samples were collected after each period where the heart rate was measured. All of the participants completed evaluations of cognitive tasks (executive functions; inhibitory control and working memory) before and after each condition. The results showed that salivary cortisol decreased in all conditions, and both the FITRIS and Radio gymnastics conditions had a positive effect on executive function (inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility). In particular, it was shown that FITRIS had an increased effect on cognitive flexibility.

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Article Others

Ranking performance and network structure in world rugby sevens; 2011-2020 longitudinal data analysis

The aim of this study was to clarify the attack-defence performances of rugby sevens in 2010-2020 seasons, 4,074 matches. Firstly, averaged try scoring rate and try conceding rate of every teams were drawn in two-dimensions space. Hypothesis 1 was that the achievement values of the upper teams could be clarified. Receiver-Operator-Curve analysis was used to understand how attack-defence indicators correctly diagnose the world rankings. Secondly, the 22m entry attack-defence indicators were drawn in two-dimensional space. Clustering analysis of ranking teams was executed using try scoring rate, try conceding rate, 22m attack-defence indicators. Hypothesis 2 was that the clustering characteristics of upper teams can be clarified by these indexes. Thirdly, network analysis was executed to clarify what kind of characteristic in relationship among the ranking, team performance, and individual performance. The ROC analysis showed the specific achievement level of the top-ranking teams with high accuracy (hypothesis 1). Cluster analysis extracted 4 groups. The gradual attack defence standard values were obtained (hypothesis 2). Network analysis showed the relationship structure among the ranking, the team performance, and the individual performance with some interesting results concerned the dependence tendency changing on the ranking stage (hypothesis 3).

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Article Electrical and Electronic Engineering Interdisciplinary Sciences

Heart Rate Variability Indices May Change Accompanying Cognitive Skills Improvement in eSports Tasks

Electronic sports (eSports) is becoming an increasingly popular subject of research with progress in the video game industry. However, the relationship between eSports and cognitive skills and heart rate variability (HRV) indices is not fully understood. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed changes in HRV indices in 20 healthy adult men while playing eSports and evaluated improvement in their cognitive skills before and after playing eSports using the Stroop test. The subjects were divided into two groups: 10 subjects who were trained in eSports for at least 1 hour a day, 5 days a week for 6 weeks, and 10 subjects who were not trained. The results indicated that subjects in the training group tended to have improved cognitive skills. In addition, in the group that temporarily improved their cognitive skills by playing eSports, similar changes were observed in HRV indices during eSports play, suggesting a parasympathetic nervous system dominance. Thus, it is suggested that the observed HRV changes were accompanied by the temporary improvement in cognitive skills induced by eSports tasks.

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Article Education Others

The relationship among skills/factors and their structure and wins/losses in games in basketball classes

This study aimed to extract the structure of plays/fouls of basketball games in university PE classes using MDS and to investigate the relationship between wins/losses and their structure using logistic regression analysis in the games. Targeted games were 20 games performed in university PE classes at F-university and the plays/factors observed were assessed by a 5-point scale. The items observed were 52 items chosen from “Passing,” “Dribbling,” “Shooting,” “Rebounding,” “Fast break,” “Cooperative plays,” “Violations,” and “Fouls.” After the principal component analysis was applied to the whole data, the items that did not show significant loadings were removed from the analysis, and a correlation matrix among only the items that had significant principle loadings was computed. Another principal component analysis was performed and the principal component scores for each skill/factor were computed. Nonmetric MDS was applied to the correlation matrix, a two-dimensional space was extracted, and the rotation of axes by Varimax criterion and clustering by hierarchical cluster analysis were applied to the two-dimensional space. Finally, logistic regression analysis to predict wins/losses was carried out using skills/factors including gender and evaluators to remove their influence as independent variables. As a result, the following results were obtained: 1) The two-dimensional space obtained was interpreted as “Individual skills and skills leading to fouls/violations” and “Individual – group skills.” Again, the four clusters obtained were also named “Ball-advancing individual skills,” “Under-basket individual skills,” “Cooperative skills,” and “Against-rule and unskilled plays.” 2) Although the likelihood ratio test of logistic regression analysis with all independent variables was not significant, the test of the model after the independent-variable selection was significant, in which “Shooting,” “Cooperative plays,” “Fouls,” and “Gender” were included. In the univariate analysis using correlation ratios, “Dribbling,” “Shooting,” and “Cooperative plays” were significant, but “Fouls” were not. It is thought that “Dribbling” lost its significant relationship with wins/losses when removing the influence of “Cooperative plays,” and insignificant “Fouls” in the univariate analysis showed an important impact on wins/losses because the fouls provided the change of offense and the risk of a losing score increased.

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