From the post-industrial prophecy to the de-industrial nightmare: Stagnation, the manufacturing fetish and the limits of capitalist wealth

The post-2008 era saw a return of the manufacturing fetish, the idea that manufacturing constitutes the flywheel of growth without which no nation can thrive. Across the Global North and South, voices are calling to reverse deindustrialization and revive manufacturing. While today deindustrialization is met with anxiety, in the 1930s economists predicted deindustrialization but interpreted it as a liberating process leading to a post-industrial age based on material abundance and widespread economic security. Far from delivering this vision, deindustrialization actually produces a precarious economic order driven by labour precarity, economic stagnation and lost development opportunities for the Global South. What can be termed the Baumolian and Kaldorian frameworks, attribute this precarious reality to services’ inability to replace manufacturing as a growth engine given their technologically stagnant nature. However, this article argues that, by focusing on the technical aspects of service economies, such views overlook the social limits of the capitalist economy and its historically specific conception of wealth, value. As capitalism matures, productivity becomes an increasingly inadequate form of augmenting social wealth as it results in great increases in physical output but counterintuitively undermines the expansion of value. Capitalism is underpinned by a secular movement towards declining dynamism, as it increasingly struggles to maintain its former economic vigour. Stagnation and heightened labour precarity are not merely the product of tertiarization but symptoms of capitalism’s declining trajectory.

Diversifying Emotional Experience by Layered Interfaces in Affective Interactive Installations

This paper aims to improve users’ experience in affective interactive installations through the diversification of interfaces. With logically organized hierarchical experience, diverse interfaces with emotion data as inputs enhance users’ emotional interaction to be more natural and immersive. By using facial affect detection technology, an installation with diverse input interfaces was tested with an organic formal setting. Mechanical flowers and support structure based on the organic form were deployed as its physical output for a multitude of sensorial dimensions. With actions of the mechanical flowers, such as blooming, closing, rotating, glowing and blinking, a layered experiential sequence was created and the atmosphere of the installation was evaluated to be more engaging. In this way, the layered complexity of information was transferred to users’ immersive emotional experience. We believe that the practices in this work can contribute to deeper emotional engagement with users and add new layers of emotional interactivity.

Monitoring post-match fatigue during a competitive season in elite youth soccer players

Introduction: Countermovement jump (CMJ) and perceived wellness measures are useful for monitoring fatigue. Fatigue indicators should simultaneously show sensitivity to previous load and demonstrate influence on subsequent physical output; however, this has not been examined. This study examined the efficacy of CMJ and wellness measures to both detect post-match fatigue and predict subsequent physical match output in elite youth soccer. Methods: Sixteen soccer players (18 ± 1 years) participated in 36 English Football League Youth Alliance League fixtures. Physical match outputs (total distance, high-speed running, very high-speed running, and accelerations and decelerations) were recorded using a 10 Hz global positioning system and 200 Hz accelerometer device during competitive match play. CMJ height and perceived wellness were assessed weekly and daily, respectively, as indirect indicators of fatigue. Four sub-units of wellness (perceived soreness, energy, general stress, and sleep) were measured using customised psychometric questionnaires. Results: Simple linear regression showed that match accelerations and decelerations (AD) were predictive of energy (R2 = 0.08, P = 0.001), stress (R2 = 0.09, P < 0.001), and total wellness (R2 = 0.06, P = 0.002) 2 days post-match. CMJ (R2 = 0.05, P = 0.002), stress (R2 = 0.08, P < 0.001), sleep (R2 = 0.03, P = 0.034), and total wellness (R2 = 0.05, P = 0.006) 5 days pre-match (MD-5) were predictive of AD during the subsequent match. Conclusion: CMJ and wellness may be useful in detecting post-match fatigue. Wellness scores, but not CMJ, on MD-5 influence subsequent match output and therefore may be used to plan and periodise training for the upcoming microcycle.

Forecasting the production of gross output in agricultural sector of the Ryazan oblast

Gross agricultural output is a generalised physical output indicator in an industry that includes hundreds of different types of products, as well as the result of the interaction of production factors. This study provides a comparative analysis of methods based on "Gradient boosting of regression trees" in the Python programming language to identify the optimal values of the model parameters with the subsequent construction of a predictive model based on indicators that affect the production of gross agricultural output. The purpose of this study is to build a regression model for predicting gross agricultural output at actual prices for 2020. To achieve this goal, the methods of regression analysis, forecasting, gradient boosting, etc., were used. The gradient boosting of regression trees was solved for the conditions of the Ryazan Oblast. 4 models were created, 2 of which were based on the preliminary data processing. As a result of the construction of all models, the optimal values of the parameters were found and the results of the correctness on the model on the test set were obtained. It was found that the gradient boosting of regression trees gives adequate regression models for predicting the target variable, in particular, the indicator of gross agricultural output. The investigated indicator is a complex result of the interaction of many factors that are common for agricultural production. Thus, the gradient boosting of trees is most suitable for forecasting complex open systems. Such a method can be used to forecast the production of gross agricultural output not only of individual regions but also of the state as a whole. Based on the "test_score" model, which showed the correctness of 99% (0.994) on the test set, the gross agricultural output in all categories of farms in 2020 amounted to RUB 19187.84 million.

Bangkok’s Bumpy Road to Sustainable Urban Mobility: Governance Challenges in the Promotion of Cycle-friendliness

Many cities promote cycling as an environmentally friendly and healthier mode of urban transport. The challenge often is bigger than anticipated, as it involves inducing behavioural change among different groups of actors and reaching agreement about the reallocation of scarce resources. Recent experiences in Bangkok are illustrative. Here, multi-year efforts by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to promote cycling have yielded only partial success. Recreational cycling has increased, but utility cycling much less so. A gap remains between what the BMA delivers in terms of pro-cycling policies and what Bangkokians need in order to become utility cyclists. This paper investigates the characteristics of this gap and the factors that produce it. It finds that safety concerns in particular keep Bangkokians from cycling, and that organizational inefficiencies and failure to commit key actors, a narrow focus on physical output, wavering political leadership, and a failure to benefit from the knowledge available among members of the public, are key factors preventing the BMA from delivering more effective solutions. The paper concludes by deriving key lessons from the Bangkok experience.

The influence of possession status on the physical output of male international hockey players

The aims of this investigation were to describe the physical output of hockey relative to possession status, and to identify differences in physical output during each possession category with respect of match result. Ten international matches were analysed utilizing Sportscode to identify in and not in possession instances. 24 players (age 26 ± 4) wore a 10 Hz GPS device to track physical output. Linear Mixed Models and post hoc pairwise comparisons were utilised to compare the physical output in each possession category within each position and relative to match result. Significant main effects were found for possession status on several physical output metrics (p ≤ 0.05). For all positions except forwards, not in possession instances were more physically demanding than in possession instances for metrics such as relative total distance, explosive distance, and high-speed running (>5.5 m.s−1). No significant difference was identified between possession category physical output aligned with match result (p > 0.05). This study shows for the first time that not in possession instances were more physically demanding than in possession instances for defenders, outside backs and midfielders. For not in possession instances, relative total distance and high-speed running was, on average, 13% and 41% higher compared to in possession instances. Furthermore, there was no statistical difference in physical output for any position during each possession category relative to the match result.

How does the workload applied during the training week and the contextual factors affect the physical responses of professional soccer players in the match?

The aim of this study was to examine whether match physical output can be predicted from the workload applied in training by professional soccer players. Training and match load records from two professional soccer teams belonging to the Spanish First and Second Division were collected through GPS technology over a season ( N = 1678 and N = 2441 records, respectively). The factors playing position, season period, quality of opposition, category and playing formation were considered into the analysis. The level of significance was set at p ≤ .05. The prediction models yielded a conditional R-squared in match of 0.51 in total distance (TD); 0.58 in high-intensity distance (HIRD, from 14 to 24 km · h−1); and 0.60 in sprint distance (SPD, >24 km·h−1). The main finding of this study was that the physical output of players in the match was predicted from the training-load performed during the previous training week. The training-TD negatively affected the match physical output while the training-HIRD showed a positive effect. Moreover, the contextual factors – playing position, season period, division and quality of opposition – affected the players’ physical output in the match. Therefore, these results suggest the appropriateness of programming lower training volume but increasing the intensity of the activity throughout the weekly microcycle, and considering contextual factors within the load programming.

Understanding the Influence of the Head Coach on Soccer Training Drills—An 8 Season Analysis

Soccer players perform a variety of training drills to develop the physical, technical and tactical qualities required for match-play. The role of coaches in prescribing training suggests that players may not always meet physical targets set by conditioning staff. To quantify the physical outputs elicited by different training drill types, 183 professional soccer players were monitored over 8 seasons using Microelectromechanical Systems during normal training, yielding 65,825 drill observations [362 ± 341 observations·player−1]. Linear mixed models assessed the influence of drill type, head coach and playing position on physical output. Drills lasted ~14 min, eliciting total distances and high speed running of ~1000 m and 40 m, respectively. Conditioning drills elicited substantially greater relative high-speed running [18.8 ± 27.2 m.min−1] and Sprint [3.5 ± 9.4 m.min−1] distances than all other drill types. The proportion of training drill types used and external outputs elicited per drill were affected by the head coach. Midfielders recorded the highest total distance [77.3 ± 36.1 m.min] and PlayerLoad™ [8.29 ± 3.54] of any playing position, whilst the lowest outputs were recorded by goalkeepers. This study provides reference data for practitioners when seeking to manipulate training prescription to achieve physical output targets whilst also meeting the team’s technical and tactical objectives.

Maximizing Energy Saving by Solar Power based Optimal Supply Side Management

Energy saving can be maximized by rectifying the intermediate conversion processes involved during the utilization of solar energy. The system eliminates the transformation of electrical form of solar energy into another form by directly utilizing its electrical energy in the management and control of power supplies obtained from renewable (solar) and conventional (mains) energy sources. A current control scheme is presented in which current delivered by solar supply is used to control the current in mains supply in such a way that both currents are inversely proportional to each other. Any increment in solar current opposes mains current in the same proportion and vice versa. A balanced common physical output is resulted from the electrical load supplied by each source separately. A natural variation in solar radiation is utilized to fluctuate the solar current which is further used to change the mains current. Energy saving is maximized in this supply management by the optimal utilization of solar energy.