Big Data Helps Prevent Sports Injuries!
TAKE NOTE (Insights into SAP solutions and Emerging Technology)
In a physically intensive event like the Rio 2016 Olympics chances of sustaining injuries is very high. A number of athletes end up with broken legs, collarbones, fractured backs and neck injuries.
Andranik Karapetyan, an Armenian weightlifter, was taken to hospital after he damaged his elbow at the Rio 2016 Olympics. The 20-year-old sportsman was running for the third place as tried to lift 195 kg. Halfway through his lift his left elbow got dislocated; he was in great pain and had to be led off the sporting arena, leaving fans disappointed. The damage is inflicted on teams which lose out on their star players.
Grievous injuries are also a financial setback for the sponsors of sporting events as well as the countries that the sportspersons represent. With competition getting stiffer day by day, chances of injuries will shoot up. According to a recent study, sports persons lose 20–35 percent of their salaries owing to injuries, with 10% of the injuries causing long-term harm; some of them even ending the sport ing careers of several budding players.
Mushtaque Ahmad, a promising bowler from Patna, represented his university in the year 2009. He rapidly became a local hero, with people drawing comparisons between him and the likes of Ian Botham and Imran Khan. He was in the running for representing Bihar in 2009, when disaster struck him in the form of a persistent knee injury.
In an attempt to ensure the safety and well-being of players, a number of latest technologies such as Big Data, Analytics, and Internet of Things are being used in Rio 2016 Olympics to help sports teams avoid such injuries. Consequently, such technologies are high on Rio’s list of priorities.
Rio 2016 Olympics is the most data-driven Games till now
Every aspect of the Games is being captured in terms of data. Sensors, heart rate monitors, GPS trackers are some of the data technologies featuring most prominently during the Games. For the improvement of the Games, modern technologies will play a bigger role.
UNDER DEVELOPMENT(Information for ABAP Developers)
Conditional Logic in ABAP 7.4
In ABAP 7.40, the IF/THEN and CASE constructs you know and love keep on getting easier. let’s take a detailed look!
Functional Methods in Logical Expressions
One of the great features of ABAP 7.02 was the concept of functional methods and how you could use them in logical expressions. Functional methods allow you to eliminate the use of a helper variable. Thus, you can simplify the code. lets review a quick example…
Without Functional Method.
LV_HELPER = STRLEN( LV_STRING ).IF LV_HELPER > 10 THEN…..
With Functional Method.
IF STRLEN( LV_STRING ) > 10 THEN…
And the same principle applies to return variables from method calls, so you can have code that looks like the statement below…
IF zcl_system=>is_production( ) = abap_false…
Omitting ABAP_TRUE
When functional methods were first introduced in ABAP, the idea was that this would make the code read like English. Over the years, the general consensus both inside and outside of SAP was that if you were creating a method that returned a value declaring whether or not something is true, then the returning parameter should be typed as ABAP_BOOL.
So you began seeing code that looked something along the lines below…
IF zcl_system=>is_production( ) = abap_true
“In production we never want a short dump
TRY.
zcl_application=>main( ).
CATCH cx_sy_no_handler INTO gcl_no_handler.
ENDTRY.
Why do you need the = ABAP_TRUE at the end? It seems apparent what resukt we are looking for. The answer is that you had to do this, because otherwise the syntax check would fail. Well, as of release 7.4 (SP 8), you can now omit ABAP_TRUE.
IF zcl_system=>is_production( )
.”In production we never want a short dump
TRY.
zcl_application=>main( ).
CATCH cx_sy_no_handler INTO gcl_no_handler.
ENDTRY.
Why does this work? Well from a technical point of view, if we do not specify anything after the functional method, the ABAP 7.4 compiler evaluates it as IS_PRODUCTION( ) IS NOT INITIAL. An ABAP_TRUE value is really the letter X, so the result is not initial, and the statement is resolved as true.
That being said, you have to be really careful though when using this syntax; it only makes sense when the functional method is passing back a parameter typed as ABAP_BOOL.
Q&A (Post your questions to Facebook or Twitter and get the answers you need)
Q. I am new to SAP development. I have coded some very simple report programs. I’d like to learn more about SAP Workflow. Can you explain a bit about what Workflow is?
A. Workflow is a generic term that refers to any definable process flow and to the software that automates that flow. The great advantage of SAP Business Workflow is that it is embedded within SAP applications and delivered as part of the application platform, which means that many SAP processes can be automated with minimal development work. SAP ERP, SAP CRM, and SAP SRM are examples of SAP applications that provide ready-to-use workflows.
Technically, a business workflow is an executable process that is embedded within SAP applications to automate processes. These executable processes, however, are not coded using a low-level programming language; rather, they are modeled using a graphical modeling tool — the Workflow Builder. Because often, BUT NOT ALWAYS, no low-level ABAP coding is required, experts in the business process being automated can create, edit, and configure workflows.
SAP also delivers hundreds of prebuilt workflows that you can either use as-is out of the box or modify to suit the particular needs of your organization. You can also create your own workflows from scratch, where necessary, to automate any business processes for which there is no workflow delivered from SAP.
Many types of processes are suitable for automating with workflow. These processes include but are not limited to the following:
- Approval processes, such as purchase requisition, purchase order, and invoice approval.
- Processes that are repeated often and that must follow specific business rules. For example, for each new employee, a specific on-boarding process must be executed.
- Processes that could be audited, or areas where you want proof of execution for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, or other government or corporate policy regulations.
Hope this helps!