SPORT AS A MEANS OF INCLUSION AND INTEGRATION FOR "THOSE OF US WITH DISABILITIES"

Can sport provide a platform for disability awareness as regards both social and biological dimensions? How can sport serve as a tool or means of social inclusion for persons or athletes with disabilities? To address these questions our qualitative study begins with a review of current research on the social dimensions of disability, namely diverse forms of social exclusion experienced by "those of us with disabilities" (McCall, 2016), such as attitudinal, institutional and environmental barriers, subsequently followed by a case study in Greece. Initially, we discuss today’s shift to inclusion—which advocates a more inclusive and people-first perspective as well as a more empowering language—and distinguish between two concepts/approaches, integration and inclusion, mainly through educational schemes, so as to facilitate the analysis that follows on sport’s role in eliminating social and institutional barriers and promoting inclusion. Inclusive education is a central objective of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and other UN and UNESCO initiatives. In this context researchers have been examining sport and physical education as tools, instruments or means of social inclusion and/or integration. Accordingly, to determine whether—and to what extent—sport participation contributes to the inclusion and integration of people with physical disabilities, interviews were conducted with 20 athletes in Athens: semi-structured interviews with 14 male and 6 female Paralympic and World Champions. The findings confirm that both genders confront many forms of social exclusion (attitudinal, environmental and institutional), however their sport participation plays a significant and positive role in their lives. All 20 acknowledge or report sport gives them a social identity, a sport identity and a meaning in life, in addition to contributing to their social integration/inclusion. Conclusions: The lack of disability awareness, information and knowledge accounts for many of the barriers. Recognizing both the social and biological dimensions of disability is important. The disability community needs visibility, i.e. coverage in mainstream media to cultivate inclusion, promote and reproduce role models and mentors, along with a wider disability awareness campaign, in which sport could play a vital role in changing stereotypes and attitudes, in addition to eliminating the supercrip identity.  Article visualizations

Does Reviewing Lead to Better Learning and Decision Making? Answers from a Randomized Stock Market Experiment

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Robust digital watermarking for compressed 3D models based on polygonal representation

Multimedia has recently played an increasingly important role in various domains, including Web applications, movies, video game and medical visualization. The rapid growth of digital media data over the Internet, on the other hand, makes it easy for anyone to access, copy, edit and distribute digital contents such as electronic documents, images, sounds and videos. Motivated by this, much research work has been dedicated to develop methods for digital data copyright protection, tracing the ownership, and preventing illegal duplication or tampering. This paper introduces a methodology of robust digital watermarking based on a well-known spherical wavelet transformation, applied to 3D compressed model based on polygonal representation using a neural network. It will be demonstrated in this work that applying a watermarking algorithm on a compressed domain of a 3D object is more effective, efficient, and robust than when applied on a normal domain

Constraints on Λ\LambdaCDM Extensions from the SPT-3G 2018 EEEE and TETE Power Spectra

We present constraints on extensions to the $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model from measurements of the $E$-mode polarization auto-power spectrum and the temperature-$E$-mode cross-power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) made using 2018 SPT-3G data. The extensions considered vary the primordial helium abundance, the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom, the sum of neutrino masses, the relativistic energy density and mass of a sterile neutrino, and the mean spatial curvature. We do not find clear evidence for any of these extensions, from either the SPT-3G 2018 dataset alone or in combination with baryon acoustic oscillation and \textit{Planck} data. None of these model extensions significantly relax the tension between Hubble-constant, $H_0$, constraints from the CMB and from distance-ladder measurements using Cepheids and supernovae. The addition of the SPT-3G 2018 data to \textit{Planck} reduces the square-root of the determinants of the parameter covariance matrices by factors of $1.3 - 2.0$ across these models, signaling a substantial reduction in the allowed parameter volume. We also explore CMB-based constraints on $H_0$ from combined SPT, \textit{Planck}, and ACT DR4 datasets. While individual experiments see some indications of different $H_0$ values between the $TT$, $TE$, and $EE$ spectra, the combined $H_0$ constraints are consistent between the three spectra. For the full combined datasets, we report $H_0 = 67.49 \pm 0.53\,\mathrm{km\,s^{-1}\,Mpc^{-1}}$, which is the tightest constraint on $H_0$ from CMB power spectra to date and in $4.1\,\sigma$ tension with the most precise distance-ladder-based measurement of $H_0$. The SPT-3G survey is planned to continue through at least 2023, with existing maps of combined 2019 and 2020 data already having $\sim3.5\times$ lower noise than the maps used in this analysis.Comment: Submitted to PRD; 19 pages, 7 figure

Free Vibration Study of Annular Laminated Composite Circular Plates with Holes

A composite laminate is layers of fibres of composite materials which are assembled to provide desired engineering properties. These have a wide range of application, especially in weight sensitive structures like aircraft, spacecraft. Laminated plates used in these structures are subjected to dynamic loads. These plates with numerous circular cut outs are either used to lessen the mass of the whole structure or to expand the inspection. The presence of cut outs in the plates changes the stress distribution of the plates and makes the analysis complex. When an external system vibrates has exactly the same natural frequency as the internal system, resonance follows producing considerable deflections. Specific plans can minimise these unnecessary failures. Hence the analysis of the modal characteristics of these plates is significant. First an isotropic circular plate’s behaviour is studied and then a circular orthotropic plate has been considered for this study. The material properties have been fixed. The natural frequencies have been computed for different boundary condition, hole-radius ratio, and thickness to radius ratio, and fibre orientation, asymmetric and symmetric holes. The effects of these variables on the nature of vibration have been analysed and discussed. ANSYS 13.0 is used for the computation of natural frequencies

A Measurement of the CMB Temperature Power Spectrum and Constraints on Cosmology from the SPT-3G 2018 TT/TE/EE Data Set

We present a sample-variance-limited measurement of the temperature power spectrum ($TT$) of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) using observations of a $\sim\! 1500 \,\mathrm{deg}^2$ field made by SPT-3G in 2018. We report multifrequency power spectrum measurements at 95, 150, and 220GHz covering the angular multipole range $750 \leq \ell < 3000$. We combine this $TT$ measurement with the published polarization power spectrum measurements from the 2018 observing season and update their associated covariance matrix to complete the SPT-3G 2018 $TT/TE/EE$ data set. This is the first analysis to present cosmological constraints from SPT $TT$, $TE$, and $EE$ power spectrum measurements jointly. We blind the cosmological results and subject the data set to a series of consistency tests at the power spectrum and parameter level. We find excellent agreement between frequencies and spectrum types and our results are robust to the modeling of astrophysical foregrounds. We report results for $\Lambda$CDM and a series of extensions, drawing on the following parameters: the amplitude of the gravitational lensing effect on primary power spectra $A_\mathrm{L}$, the effective number of neutrino species $N_{\mathrm{eff}}$, the primordial helium abundance $Y_{\mathrm{P}}$, and the baryon clumping factor due to primordial magnetic fields $b$. We find that the SPT-3G 2018 $T/TE/EE$ data are well fit by $\Lambda$CDM with a probability-to-exceed of $15\%$. For $\Lambda$CDM, we constrain the expansion rate today to $H_0 = 68.3 \pm 1.5\,\mathrm{km\,s^{-1}\,Mpc^{-1}}$ and the combined structure growth parameter to $S_8 = 0.797 \pm 0.042$. The SPT-based results are effectively independent of Planck, and the cosmological parameter constraints from either data set are within $<1\,\sigma$ of each other. (abridged)Comment: 35 Pages, 17 Figures, 11 Table