Judging where a ball will go: the case of curved free kicks in football

This study examined whether adding spin to a ball in the free kick situation in football affects a professional footballer’s perception of the ball’s future arrival position. Using a virtual reality set-up, participants observed the flight paths of aerodynamically realistic free kicks with (±600 rpm) and without sidespin. With the viewpoint being fixed in the centre of the goal, participants had to judge whether the ball would have ended up in the goal or not. Results show that trajectories influenced by the Magnus force caused by sidespin gave rise to a significant shift in the percentage of goal responses. The resulting acceleration that causes the ball to continually change its heading direction as the trajectory unfolds does not seem to be taken into account by the participants when making goal judgments. We conclude that the visual system is not attuned to such accelerated motion, which may explain why goalkeepers appear to misjudge the future arrival point of such curved free kicks. Electronic Supplementary Material  Supplementary material is available for this article at .     

EU sustainable development indicators: An overview

The European Union's commitment to sustainable development at the 1992 Earth Summit resulted in an EU‐wide sustainable development strategy, adopted in Gothenburg in 2001. This article presents an overview of the set of sustainable development indicators (SDIs) recently adopted by the European Commission to monitor, assess and revise the strategy. It provides a critical assessment of the current status of the indicator set, and reviews the main policy trends in the areas of the strategy through a brief analysis of headline indicators, placing energy and climate change issues in a broader perspective. Finally, the article compares the energy SDIs to the recent inter‐agency energy indicators for sustainable development (EISD), underlining their similarities as well as their different priorities and objectives. The article concludes that further research is needed to improve the SDI set and further explore the linkages between themes.     

Aliphatic hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls, organochlorine, and organophosphorous pesticides in surface sediments from the Arc river and the Berre lagoon, France

Introduction  

The Arc River and Berre lagoon are one of important river basin hydrosystem in the South of France that receives industrial and municipal wastewaters from the adjacent area.     

Thermodynamic and kinetic study of phenol degradation by a non-catalytic wet air oxidation process

This work is dedicated to an accurate evaluation of thermodynamic and kinetics aspects of phenol degradation using wet air oxidation process. Phenol is a well known polluting molecule and therefore it is important having data of its behaviour during this process. A view cell is used for the experimental study, with an internal volume of 150 mL, able to reach pressures up to 30 MPa and temperatures up to 350 °C. Concerning the thermodynamic phase equilibria, experimental and modelling results are obtained for different binary systems (water/nitrogen, water/air) and ternary system (water/nitrogen/phenol). The best model is the Predictive Soave Redlich Kwong one. This information is necessary to predict the composition of the gas phase during the process. It is also important for an implementation in a process simulation. The second part is dedicated to kinetics evaluation of the degradation of phenol. Different compounds have been detected using GC coupled with a MS. A kinetic scheme is deduced, taking into account the evolution of phenol, hydroquinones, catechol, resorcinol and acetic acid. The kinetic parameters are calculated for this scheme. These data are important to evaluate the evolution of the concentration of the different polluting molecules during the process. A simplified kinetic scheme, which can be easily implemented in a process simulation, is also determined for the direct degradation of phenol into H₂O and CO₂. The Arrhenius law data obtained for the phenol disappearance are the following: k = 1.8 × 10⁶ ± 3.9 × 10⁵ M⁻¹ s⁻¹ (pre-exponential factor) and E_a = 77 ± 8 kJ mol⁻¹ (activation energy).     

Development of novel and ecological keratin/cellulose-based composites for absorption of oils and organic solvents

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Keratin/cellulose cryogels were successfully fabricated using chicken feathers (CF) and cardboard (C) from environmental waste for the first time, to...     

Multi-elemental compound-specific isotope analysis of pesticides for source identification and monitoring of degradation in soil: a review

Environmental Chemistry Letters - The transfer of pesticides from agricultural soils to food and drinking water is a major health issue. There are actually few robust methods to identify,...