Playing at Sevens: The Impulse Load and Movement Demands of Men’s Collegiate Rugby

Rugby sevens is a widely practiced sport that combines high-speed anaerobic activity with positional specific play and many body impacts. Despite its popularity and its intense physical demands on the body, many of these demands have not been fully explored. An investigation into the specifics of these physical demands can aid coaches and athletes in training and preparation for future matches. The purpose of this study was to quantify the Impulse Load and movement dynamics placed on American rugby players during competition. With this data, position specific information was compared to determine differences in physical demands. Fourteen male collegiate rugby sevens players were assigned a microsenor device and bioharness prior to testing. Time motion analysis data was collected using these microsenor devices. Acceleration data was used to calculate Impulse Load and GPS data was used to quantify total distance and distance in six speed zones. The devices were placed on each player, securely fastened around the chest, and worn for the duration of the warm-up and two competitive matches, for a period of 1 hour and 47 minutes. Players were monitored using 5Hz global positioning systems (GPS) and 100Hz triaxial accelerometers. Players were further analyzed and divided by playing position (forwards and backs). The contrasts in physical demands based on position can provide feedback to coaches on position-specific training.Faculty Advisor: Brandi Eveland-Sayer

Regulatory modules controlling maize inflorescence architecture

Genetic control of branching is a primary determinant of yield, regulating seed number and harvesting ability, yet little is known about the molecular networks that shape grain-bearing inflorescences of cereal crops. Here, we used the maize (Zea mays) inflorescence to investigate gene networks that modulate determinacy, specifically the decision to allow branch growth. We characterized developmental transitions by associating spatiotemporal expression profiles with morphological changes resulting from genetic perturbations that disrupt steps in a pathway controlling branching. Developmental dynamics of genes targeted in vivo by the transcription factor RAMOSA1, a key regulator of determinacy, revealed potential mechanisms for repressing branches in distinct stem cell populations, including interactions with KNOTTED1, a master regulator of stem cell maintenance. Our results uncover discrete developmental modules that function in determining grass-specific morphology and provide a basis for targeted crop improvement and translation to other cereal crops with comparable inflorescence architectures

Making sense of policy choices: understanding the roles of value predispositions, mass media, and cognitive processing in public attitudes toward nanotechnology

Using a nationally representative telephone survey of 1,015 adults in the United States, this study examines how value predispositions, communication variables, and perceptions of risks and benefits are associated with public support for federal funding of nanotechnology. Our findings show that highly religious individuals were less supportive of funding of nanotech than less religious individuals, whereas individuals who held a high deference for scientific authority were more supportive of funding of the emerging technology than those low in deference. Mass media use and elaborative processing of scientific news were positively associated with public support for funding, whereas factual scientific knowledge had no significant association with policy choices. The findings suggest that thinking about and reflecting upon scientific news promote better understanding of the scientific world and may provide a more sophisticated cognitive structure for the public to form opinions about nanotech than factual scientific knowledge. Finally, heuristic cues including trust in scientists and perceived risks and benefits of nanotech were found to be associated with public support for nanotech funding. We conclude with policy implications that will be useful for policymakers and science communication practitioners

High light and temperature reduce photosynthetic efficiency through different mechanisms in the C4 model Setaria viridis.

Funder: start-up funding from Donald Danforth Plant Science CenterC4 plants frequently experience high light and high temperature conditions in the field, which reduce growth and yield. However, the mechanisms underlying these stress responses in C4 plants have been under-explored, especially the coordination between mesophyll (M) and bundle sheath (BS) cells. We investigated how the C4 model plant Setaria viridis responded to a four-hour high light or high temperature treatment at photosynthetic, transcriptomic, and ultrastructural levels. Although we observed a comparable reduction of photosynthetic efficiency in high light or high temperature treated leaves, detailed analysis of multi-level responses revealed important differences in key pathways and M/BS specificity responding to high light and high temperature. We provide a systematic analysis of high light and high temperature responses in S. viridis, reveal different acclimation strategies to these two stresses in C4 plants, discover unique light/temperature responses in C4 plants in comparison to C3 plants, and identify potential targets to improve abiotic stress tolerance in C4 crops

Political Expression and Action on Social Media:Exploring the Relationship Between Lower- and Higher-Threshold Political Activities Among Twitter Users in Italy

Scholars and commentators have debated whether lower‐threshold forms of political engagement on social media should be treated as being conducive to higher‐threshold modes of political participation or a diversion from them. Drawing on an original survey of a representative sample of Italians who discussed the 2013 election on Twitter, we demonstrate that the more respondents acquire political information via social media and express themselves politically on these platforms, the more they are likely to contact politicians via e‐mail, campaign for parties and candidates using social media, and attend offline events to which they were invited online. These results suggest that lower‐threshold forms of political engagement on social media do not distract from higher‐threshold activities, but are strongly associated with them

Watching People Making Decisions: A Gogglebox on Online Consumer Interaction

This paper presents a research study, using eye tracking technology, to measure participant cognitive load when encountering micro-decision. It elaborates and improves on a pilot study that was used to test the experiment design. Prior research that led to a taxonomy of decision constructs faced in online transactional processes is discussed. The main findings relate to participants’ subjective cognitive load and task error rates

Supplier-induced demand for psychiatric admissions in Northern New England

The development of hospital service areas (HSAs) using small area analysis has been useful in examining variation in medical and surgical care; however, the techniques of small area analysis are underdeveloped in understanding psychiatric admission rates. We sought to develop these techniques in order to understand the relationship between psychiatric bed supply and admission rates in Northern New England. Our primary hypotheses were that there would be substantial variation in psychiatric admission across geographic settings and that bed availability would be positively correlated with admission rates, reflecting a supplier-induced demand phenomenon. Our secondary hypothesis was that the construction of psychiatric HSAs (PHSAs) would yield more meaningful results than the use of existing general medical hospital service areas

Barley <i>SIX-ROWED SPIKE3</i> encodes a putative Jumonji C-type H3K9me2/me3 demethylase that represses lateral spikelet fertility

The VRS genes of barley control the fertility of the lateral spikelets on the barley inflorescence. Here, Bull et al. show that VRS3 encodes a putative Jumonji C-type histone demethylase that regulates expression of other VRS genes, and genes involved in stress, hormone and sugar metabolism

The next generation of training for arabidopsis researchers: Bioinformatics and Quantitative Biology

It has been more than 50 years since Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) was first introduced as a model organism to understand basic processes in plant biology. A well-organized scientific community has used this small reference plant species to make numerous fundamental plant biology discoveries (Provart et al., 2016). Due to an extremely well-annotated genome and advances in high-throughput sequencing, our understanding of this organism and other plant species has become even more intricate and complex. Computational resources, including CyVerse,3 Araport,4 The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR),5 and BAR,6 have further facilitated novel findings with just the click of a mouse. As we move toward understanding biological systems, Arabidopsis researchers will need to use more quantitative and computational approaches to extract novel biological findings from these data. Here, we discuss guidelines, skill sets, and core competencies that should be considered when developing curricula or training undergraduate or graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty. A selected case study provides more specificity as to the concrete issues plant biologists face and how best to address such challenges