Department of Polytechnics, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Split, Teslina 12, 21000 Split, Croatia
Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Split, Teslina 12, 21000 Split, Croatia
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Keywords:
Expert system
Sport talents identication
Web application
Fuzzy logic
a b s t r a c t
This paper presents a fuzzy expert system for scouting and evaluation of young sport talents. Based on
the knowledge of several human sport experts, various motoric skills tests, morphologic characteristics
measurements and functional tests are quantized according to their importance for a chosen set of sports.
Obtained values are entered into the knowledge database along with the grades of the measured results
for each test. Fuzzy logic is implemented in order to make the system more exible and robust. The whole
system is web-oriented, i.e. developed ASP.NET application is available to the internet users with a proper
login and password. The developed expert system gives acceptability prediction and proposal of the most
suitable sports for the person being tested. The output results of the system were evaluated by 4 experts,
using real data collected during several years.
Comparison is done between the sport proposed by our expert system and the actual outcome of the
persons sports career. Also, the comparison of the expert system output and the human expert suggestions were done. All tests showed high reliability and accuracy of the developed system. Strengths, possibilities and future plans of the Sport Talent expert system are also discussed.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Numerous sport clubs, parents and sportsmen are permanently
seeking the answer to the question: how to recognize a talented
child and which sport is the most appropriate for him or her?
The correct answer is not trivial at all because it demands adequate
input information about the observed person, as well as the knowledge of what this information should include. In other words, expert knowledge is needed in order to predict the sport with the
highest expectation rate for the observed individual, based on
available data.
Similar methodology and knowledge can be implemented and
used in order to predict future results of adult sportsmen, but a distinction should be made because a reliable prediction for children
is much more difcult. Changes during puberty can signicantly
inuence the prospects of a future sportsman. However, extensive
research that has been done in order to test, analyze and compare
athletes of various sports (MacDougall, Wenger, & Green, 1991;
Stergiou, 2004) brings precious information and knowledge that
can be used for the sport talents identication, also.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +385 21 385 499; fax: +385 21 385 431.
E-mail address: vpapic@pmfst.hr (V. Papic).
URL: http://www.pmfst.hr/~vpapic (V. Papic).
0957-4174/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2008.11.031
8831
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ated test importance for all the sports. Test importance evaluation
scale minimum was 0 (test has no importance at all) and maximum value was 10 (extremely important test).
Of course, test weight factors obtained by 45 experts for particular
sport (at least 3 experts for each sport) have signicantly more
importance than test weight factors obtained by the other 52 general
knowledge experts, but the latter groups results were used as a correction factor because their accumulated knowledge provided more
clear big picture than only partial image brought by the rst group.
The rst question estimation of the importance of each of the
three main test groups should be redundant because this information should be visible from partial test weights but as it turned out,
some discrepancies occurred in a certain number of lled questionnaires. So this information was used as an corrective in the nal
adjustment of all the obtained weights and as the reliability factor
of certain expert answers.
Assume that there is a series of sports S1, S2,..., Sp in sports domain S,
S S1 ; S2 ; . . . ; Sp
G G1 ; G2 ; . . . ; Gn
R R11
R12
R1n
R21
R2n
Rmn T
C SK Gi
m
X
m
X
C SK T ij
lij wij SK
j1
j1
where lij denotes the membership grade of the test Tij, wij SK deP
denotes
notes weight factor of the test Tij for a particular sport SK,
the algebraic sum and denotes the algebraic product. If the value
of the membership grade is 0 (lij 0), then the test Tij result was
poor, and maximal membership grade value (lij 1) means that
the test Tij result was excellent.
Total tness index (TFI) for sport SK is calculated as the algebraic
sum of test group contributions:
TFISK
n
X
C SK Gi
lk
lk;l1 lk;l
ck;l1 ck;l
where k is age of the tested person (integer value), ck;l is the lower
boundary of the normative class which includes measured value,
and lk;l is a membership grade for the normative class lower boundary value; ck;l1 is the upper boundary of normative class which includes measured value, and lk;l1 is membership grade for the
normative class upper boundary value.
Because the age of the tested person (j) is generally not an integer number (in years), an interpolation of normative classes and
corresponding grades is done. In fact, two rules are red one with
the nearest lower age in the antecendent part of the rule and another with the nearest upper age in the antecendent part of the
rule. Final membership grade value can be calculated using the following equations:
Membership grade indexes for particular age value can be simplied: lk;l lk1;l ll ; lk;l1 lk1;l1 ll1 :
Finally,
lij
ll1 ll
cl1 cl
Rij cl ll
i1
MFISK
n
X
M SK Gi 1;
8 SK 2 S
i1
M SK Gi
m
X
wij SK
j1
Membership grade lij of the test Tij needed for the Eq. (3) is calculated using the available test normative data for a particular gender and age. Each normative class (cl) is dened by its minimal (n1)
and maximal value (n2) and it can be expressed with the rule in the
following form:
Fig. 1. Membership grade lij of the test Tij as a function of test normative classes for
particular age (and gender).
8833
set membership. Fuzzy sets are actually functions that map a value
that might be a member of the set to a number between zero and
one indicating its actual degree of membership. A degree of zero
means that the value is not in the set and a degree of one means
that the value is completely representative of the set. Fuzzy logic
incorporates a simple, rule-based approach to make a system to
yield a decision rather than attempting to model a system mathematically. The vagueness of human thoughts and expressions make
the fuzzy approach a natural choice in solution-seeking.
For our particular problem, values obtained by the measurement of a persons height and weight are used as input values in
fuzzy module. Athletic body of a person is represented by two variables: height and body mass index (BMI). For the calculation of
BMI, height and weight of a person are needed:
Fig. 2. Membership functions of the fuzzy sets short, medium and tall used
for the calculation of fuzzy. Membership grade for height.
BMI
w
h
10
FH
FH1
FH2
FH3
lh1
lh2
lh3
where FH1, FH2, FH3 denote the fuzzy terms short, medium and
tall, respectively, whereas lhi denote the membership value of the
height belonging to the linguistic term FHi, lhi 2 0; 1; 1 6 i 6 3.
Fuzzy grade vector for BMI (FB) can be presented as follows:
Fig. 3. Membership functions of the fuzzy sets very low, low, semi-low,
semi-high, high and very high used for the calculation of fuzzy membership
grade for BMI.
FB
FB1
FB2
FB3
FB4
FB5
FB6
where FB1, FB2, FB3 FB4, FB5 and FB6 denote the fuzzy terms very
low, low, semi-low, semi-high, high and very high,
respectively, whereas lBMIi denote the membership value of the
BMI belonging to the linguistic term FBi, lBMIi 2 0; 1; 1 6 i 6 6
An example of a fuzzy rule matrix to infer the body model adequacy is presented in Table 1. Each sport has different rule matrix.
Based on the fuzzy grade vectors FH, FB and fuzzy rules which
are partially shown in Table 1 (only for swimming), fuzzy reasoning is performed in order to evaluate the athletic body adequacy
for each sport.
IF the sport is swimming and the height is tall and BMI is semilow THEN model is matched.
IF the sport is swimming and the height is medium and BMI is
semi-low THEN model is semi-matched.
IF the sport is swimming and the height is tall and BMI is low
THEN model is semi-matched.
IF the sport is swimming and the height is tall and BMI is semihigh THEN model is semi-matched.
IF the sport is swimming and the height is medium and BMI is
semi-low THEN model is semi-matched.
Table 1
Fuzzy rule matrix for swimming.
Height
Low
Semi-low
Semi-high
High
Very high
Short
Medium
Tall
Unmatched
Unmatched
Unmatched
Unmatched
Unmatched
Semi-matched
Unmatched
Semi-matched
Matched
Unmatched
Unmatched
Semi-matched
Unmatched
Unmatched
Unmatched
Unmatched
Unmatched
Unmatched
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Domain knowledge
Test
weights
Normative
values
Rules
IF the sport is Sk and the height is FHi and BMI is FBj THEN
model is Ml
where Ml can have three linguistic values: M1 = unmatched,
M2 = semi-matched and M3 = matched.
The triggering of each rule as a result gives the model membership grade. Linguistic value (Ml) in the consequent part of the rule
determines which linguistic variable the membership grade relates
to. Result of each rule is calculated as follows:
11
Each element
follows:
12
where N is a total number of rules that as an output have membership grade of the linguistic value Mj.
Finally, the athletic body membership grade of the observed
individual for particular sport is calculated as follows:
13
As it is expected, the nal body model membership value is different for each sport which distinct this membership value from
others in Eq. (3). As a consequence, Eq. (3) should be corrected as
follows:
C SK Gi
m
X
C SK T ij
j1
m
X
lij SK wij SK
14
j1
lM l11 .
Fuzzy
module
Measurements
database
Inference
engine
Measured values
Sports adequacy
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data. This approach with limited number of users that can modify
important data and rules helps in preserving consistency of database. Structure of the web application is presented in Fig. 6.
Processing
+
translation
Sport Talent
Web application
(ASP.NET)
Internet
User computer
with Web browser
User computer
with Web browser
User computer
with Web browser
ited so they can only read mutual data but not congure it. The
user is only able to input data regarding his measurement.
The connection between the web server with application and
the user can be divided into seven steps:
Step 1: User is sending request for Sport Talent web application
over internet.
Step 2: Web server receive request from user.
Step 3: Web server request user name and password.
Step 4: User receive inquiry.
Step 5: User is sending user name and password.
Step 6: Web server receive user name and password and compare it with data in the database.
Step 7: If user name and password exist in database, user is
authenticated and he is connected with Sport Talent web application, otherwise user receive error message and he can not
enter application.
User with administrator rights is called the superuser. He can
see all other users, read all data and he is able to change mutual
Menu
Students
Sport Talent expert system was in the testing phase as a standalone application for about 12 months while it has been used by 3
kinesiology experts. Since beginning of 2008, web version of the
system along with the fuzzy module has been mounted on the
web server (Fig. 7). Chosen group of experts and school teachers
has used the application since then and the database is growing
daily.
Results of the total tness calculation are presented for each of
14 sports that are currently in the database (Fig. 8). Also, user can
receive grades for each test and, separately, athletic model grade
for each sport. To improve usability of the expert system by new
users, a 15 min video with audio comments of each test has been
supplied with the help module.
Although there are different verication and validation components such as competency, completeness, consistency, correctness,
testability, relevance, usability and reliability (Vermesan, 1997),
the focus of our interest was mainly on the last mentioned component. There are different verication and validation techniques that
can be applied at different stages of development process. At the
implementation stage, techniques that can be applied are inspection, static verication, testing and cross-reference verication
(Preece, 2001). Logical anomalies in the knowledge base are the
object of static verication and therefore, due to the described
methods used for the calculation of TFI, such anomalies are
avoided. Cross-reference verication would not be performed and
commented here because we will be dealing only with the implemented expert system here. It means that inspection and testing
are the techniques used for evaluation of our system. Three checkouts were conducted.
4.1. Checkout #1
A test group of 46 students (21 male and 25 female) age 1118
was chosen from the available records stored in the database.
Every chosen student was active in some of the 14 sports which
have importance factors assigned, i.e. the output domain of the expert system included all the sports which the tested students were
active in. Measurement results for all the tests Tij for a particular
student (along with her/his age and gender) were presented to four
kinesiology experts working at the university. Normative-based
grades obtained from the achieved results of each test were also
presented to the experts. Each expert was asked to make a list of
the most probable sports that the observed student is active in. If
the actual sport of the student was among top three proposed
sports, output was considered correct, otherwise it was incorrect.
Add student
Edit
View student
Delete
Measurements
New measurement
Authorization
Tests
Saved measurements
Delete
View tests
Activate/deactivate
Help
User
(teacher/trainer )
Logout
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Fig. 8. Part of the results obtained after input of the measurement results for a student.
Human/computer
1
2
3
4
5
Kinesiology expert
Sport Talent ES
Kinesiology expert
Kinesiology expert
Kinesiology expert
4
3
1
2
Correct answers
Incorrect answers
26
24
18
17
16
20
22
28
29
30
Table 3
Human expert comments on the Sport Talent ES output results (N = 36).
Comment
Frequency
Completely agree
Mainly agree
Uncertain
Mainly disagree
Strongly disagree
31
6
1
0
0
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