6,817 research outputs found

    Empire Fighting Chance: boxing based mentoring: feasibility and pilot trial report

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    What does this project involve? Empire Fighting Chance (EFC) aim to use non-contact boxing programmes accompanied with personal development support to reduce anti-social and criminal behaviour amongst at risk young people. Their programmes combine physical activity sessions with one-to-one or group mentoring support, where coaches encourage children to work on personal development points designed to improve behaviour. Why did YEF fund this project? As the YEF’s toolkit explains, sports programmes are associated with a high average impact on reducing serious youth violence and crime. However, there are considerable gaps in the evidence, particularly relating to robust evaluations conducted in an English or Welsh context. YEF, therefore, funded a feasibility and pilot evaluation of EFC’s programmes. The feasibility study examined several EFC’s interventions. It aimed to ascertain whether these programmes achieved their intended outputs for their intended target groups, explore the barriers and facilitators to delivery, detail how much of the interventions young people received, and assess quality, responsiveness, and reach. To explore these questions, programme monitoring data on 831 participants and an online satisfaction survey undertaken by 204 young people were analysed. Interviews were also conducted with 10 project staff, and 6 participants and their parents. 10-14 year olds who were at risk of involvement in crime and anti-social behaviour were targeted by the programmes, and the feasibility study ran from November 2019 to June 2021. The pilot study then evaluated a new, school-based, boxing mentoring programme, which combined elements of EFC programmes examined by the feasibility study. This new programme aimed to deliver a 12-week mentoring intervention in schools, where weekly physical activities (including skipping, circuit training, punch pads and boxing techniques) were delivered by an EFC coach. While leading these sessions, the coach would discuss ‘Personal Development Points’ with children (such as the importance of regulating mood, eating well, and taking responsibility for your actions). The programme targeted pupils in Year 8 and 9, who had demonstrated behavioural difficulties, poor attendance, and an interest in sport. The pilot evaluation aimed to assess how feasible an efficacy randomised controlled trial of the programme may be, inform the design of a future evaluation, and assess whether there is any preliminary evidence of promise. To explore these questions the evaluator analysed quantitative project delivery data, administered questionnaires featuring validated measures (such as the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Problem Behaviour Frequency Scale (PBFS)), and interviewed 17 pupils, five project staff and six teachers. Of the 91 children in the pilot study, 64% identified as White, 13% as Black, 11% as Mixed Ethnicity and 9% as Asian. The pilot commenced in September 2021 and concluded in June 2022. Both the feasibility and pilot studies took place during the coronavirus pandemic, requiring both the delivery and evaluation teams to adapt to challenging circumstances

    Standardized Exclusion: A Theory of Barrier Lock-In

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    The United States has relaxed antitrust scrutiny of private standard-setting organizations in recognition of their potential procompetitive benefits. In the meantime, however, the growing importance of network industries—and the coinciding move toward vendor-led standards consortia—has welcomed new, insidious anticompetitive risks. This Note proffers one such risk: barrier lock-in. A theory of barrier lock-in recognizes that dominant vendors can capture and control standards consortia to keep standardized equipment complex and costly. These practices are exclusionary. This Note situates barrier lock-in within the existing antitrust literature and jurisprudence, provides a potential example of barrier lock-in in the 5G network equipment standardization process, and proposes two solutions for future legislative, executive, and judicial action against misbehaving standard-setters

    Evaluating footwear “in the wild”: Examining wrap and lace trail shoe closures during trail running

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    Trail running participation has grown over the last two decades. As a result, there have been an increasing number of studies examining the sport. Despite these increases, there is a lack of understanding regarding the effects of footwear on trail running biomechanics in ecologically valid conditions. The purpose of our study was to evaluate how a Wrap vs. Lace closure (on the same shoe) impacts running biomechanics on a trail. Thirty subjects ran a trail loop in each shoe while wearing a global positioning system (GPS) watch, heart rate monitor, inertial measurement units (IMUs), and plantar pressure insoles. The Wrap closure reduced peak foot eversion velocity (measured via IMU), which has been associated with fit. The Wrap closure also increased heel contact area, which is also associated with fit. This increase may be associated with the subjective preference for the Wrap. Lastly, runners had a small but significant increase in running speed in the Wrap shoe with no differences in heart rate nor subjective exertion. In total, the Wrap closure fit better than the Lace closure on a variety of terrain. This study demonstrates the feasibility of detecting meaningful biomechanical differences between footwear features in the wild using statistical tools and study design. Evaluating footwear in ecologically valid environments often creates additional variance in the data. This variance should not be treated as noise; instead, it is critical to capture this additional variance and challenges of ecologically valid terrain if we hope to use biomechanics to impact the development of new products

    Biosimilars in Europe

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    This reprint examines regulatory, pricing and reimbursement issues related to the market access and uptake of off-patent biologics, biosimilars, next-generation biologics and competing innovative medicines in European countries

    Accounting ensure of business management in the conditions of martial law and Ukraine’s national economic recovery

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    In this monograph, the authors summarized and supplemented the results of many scientific justifications and developments. Considerable attention is paid to the study of accounting and taxation issues in the context of modern management concepts and risks of martial law in Ukraine

    Mars delivery service - development of the electro-mechanical systems of the Sample Fetch Rover for the Mars Sample Return Campaign

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    This thesis describes the development of the Sample Fetch Rover (SFR), studied for Mars Sample Return (MSR), an international campaign carried out in cooperation between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA). The focus of this document is the design of the electro-mechanical systems of the rover. After placing this work into the general context of robotic planetary exploration and summarising the state of the art for what concerns Mars rovers, the architecture of the Mars Sample Return Campaign is presented. A complete overview of the current SFR architecture is provided, touching upon all the main subsystems of the spacecraft. For each area, it is discussed what are the design drivers, the chosen solutions and whether they use heritage technology (in particular from the ExoMars Rover) or new developments. This research focuses on two topics of particular interest, due to their relevance for the mission and the novelty of their design: locomotion and sample acquisition, which are discussed in depth. The early SFR locomotion concepts are summarised, covering the initial trade-offs and discarded designs for higher traverse performance. Once a consolidated architecture was reached, the locomotion subsystem was developed further, defining the details of the suspension, actuators, deployment mechanisms and wheels. This technology is presented here in detail, including some key analysis and test results that support the design and demonstrate how it responds to the mission requirements. Another major electro-mechanical system developed as part of this work is the one dedicated to sample tube acquisition. The concept of operations of this machinery was defined to be robust against the unknown conditions that characterise the mission. The design process led to a highly automated robotic system which is described here in its main components: vision system, robotic arm and tube storage

    Quality of explosively welded steel plates using demex explosive

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    Заваривање експлозивом се често користи када конвенционалне методе заваривања не могу да обезбеде заварени спој два различита материјала, али и када треба заварити неку специфичну геометрију или велике површине металних плоча. Остваривање споја код заваривања експлозивом се заснива на динамичком дејству великог притиска створеног екплозијом. У ту сврху најчешће се користе индустријски експлозиви ниских параметара детонације, а један од њих је DEMEX, произвођача TRAYAL, из Србије. У овом истраживању DEMEX је примењен за заваривање плоча две различите врсте челика. Пре експерименталног поступка заваривања одабраних металних плоча, експлозив добијен од произвођача је подвргнут улазној контроли квалитета: мерењу његове насипне густине и брзине детонације, коришћењем оптичких сонди и фотодетектора повезаног са електронским бројачем. Експериментална поставка за заваривање била је следећа: експлозив DEMEX у прашкастом стању нанесен је у равномерном слоју преко горње челичне плоче, која је хоризонтално постављена преко доње плоче од друге врсте челика, у паралелном положају, са малим дрвеним дистанцерима ивично постављеним између њих. Активација је извршена електродетонирајућом капислом и малим бустером од пластичног експлозива. Заварени спој је испитан применом метода ултразвучне дефектоскопије, течним пенетрантима и микроструктурне анализе завареног споја. Микроструктурне анализе попречног пресека заварених плоча урађене су на стерео и оптичом микроскопу како би се анализирала зона завареног споја.Explosion welding is often used when conventional welding methods cannot provide welded joint of two dissimilar materials, but also when some specific geometry should be welded, or large surfaces of metal plates. The formation of a joint in explosive welding is based on the dynamic effect of the high pressure created by the explosion. For this purpose, most often some industrial explosives of low detonation parameters are used, and one of them is DEMEX, produced by TRAYAL, Serbia. In this research DEMEX was applied to weld plates of two different types of steel. Prior to the experimental procedure of welding, the selected metal plates, the explosive obtained from the producer was subjected to initial quality control: measurement of its bulk density and detonation velocity, using optical probes and a photodetector connected with an electronic counter. The experimental setup for welding was as follows: explosive DEMEX in powdery state was applied in a uniform layer over the upper plate, which was horizontally placed over the lower plate, in parallel position, with small wooden spacers, marginally placed between them. Activation was performed by an electro-detonating cap and a small booster of plastic explosive. The welded joint was examined using methods of ultrasonic defectoscopy, liquid penetrants testing and microstructural analysis of the welded joint. Cross-sectional microstructural analyses of the welded plates were performed using a stereo and optical microscope to analyze the weld zone

    Developing a fire robustness index for the built environment

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    In recent years, resilience in fire has been recognised as a potential complement in risk assessments to achieve a more sustainable future. Robustness is a key component of resilience, in order to avoid the structure’s disproportionate failure to the original cause. The aim of this project is to develop an assessment methodology for the fire robustness of buildings, in the form of a risk index. The lack of available metrics, the relative immaturity of the discipline, rapid developments in the field of fire safety regulation, and issues around the potential liability of users and developers rendered this project a challenging endeavour. In the first part of this work, insurance rating methods were investigated. Their mechanics, development history, and impact are outlined, given their thematic relativity to the focus of this work. Fire risk indexing, which is a multi-attribute evaluation to produce a single ordinal measure of risk, and its existing body of knowledge was reviewed. This clarified issues of terminology and navigated concepts that up until now were convoluted, all in a harmonised body of work. Finally, modern fire risk indexing methods were presented in an exhaustive historical order, explaining the motivation for their creation, links with other methods, developmental tools used, along with their utility and impact. The dearth of information available in the published literature led to a series of interviews with past developers to address knowledge gaps and document unpublished findings. This is presented in a dedicated chapter. The review in the first part of this thesis, with the collation of the unpublished information, allowed for a historical highlighting of patterns and tendencies in the employment of fire risk indexing in fire safety, placing even this project within this pattern. This can inform practitioners and developers of potential pitfalls that have been repeated historically, yet remained unrecognised prior to this analysis In the last part of the work, tools from Decision Theory are explained and employed, expanding the existing scientific base of fire risk indexing approaches as it was suggested in existing works, but also highlighting their limitations. Prior to outlining an assessment methodology, a review of resilience and robustness is conducted, to link these concepts to the fire safety practice. A discussion on the practicalities of each available metric to quantify robustness is presented, supporting the developmental decisions of this work. Using these tools, a proposed fire robustness index structure is conceptualised, but the principles followed remain of value for building methods assessing any design objective that future developers would need to address. Following this approach is intended to improve the transparency of the decision-making in the design process, allow the comparison of different solutions, potentially reduce costs, and eventually lead to safer and more robust buildings while avoiding unintended consequences and pitfalls of the past. The assessment of a structure’s fire robustness through this method can facilitate an easier communication to stakeholders of different backgrounds, using this method as a means to promote fire safety in the design process
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