Changes in long jump take-off technique with increasing run-up speed

The aim of this study was to determine the influence of run-up speed on take-off technique in the long jump. Seventy-one jumps by an elite male long jumper were recorded in the sagittal plane by a high-speed video camera. A wide range of run-up speeds was obtained using direct intervention to set the length of the athlete's run-up. As the athlete's run-up speed increased, the jump distance and take-off speed increased, the leg angle at touchdown remained almost unchanged, and the take-off angle and take-off duration steadily decreased. The predictions of two previously published mathematical models of the long jump take-off are in reasonable agreement with the experimental data

Native American Identity: A Review of Twenty-first Century Research

The purpose of this literature review is to exam research on Native American identity within the social sciences in the twenty-first century in order to identify trends in research topics, various perspectives, and potential future studies, through the review of a sample of 86 publications relating to the topic of Native American identity. The sample was retrieved utilizing three scholarly databases across a wide range of fields of study. Publications are examined by area of focus and publication year

From Politics to “Popular”: Commercialization of Broadway Musicals and How It Affects the Public Sphere

Theaters have been used for centuries as places where people can critically discuss the nature of their lives, but a recent rise in mega musicals that focus on spectacle degrades the purposes of theatre. To ensure theatre’s place in the present and future public sphere, an examination of current theatrical production must occur. In this project I discuss how the commercialization of theatre is detrimental to the public sphere by using the musical Wicked as an example. I compare the musical to its supposed source material, Gregory Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, to show how musicals are adapted to entertain mainstream audiences. To understand why commercialization is debasing theatre’s position, I use public sphere theory along with theories of spectacle to explain theatre’s past and present situation in the public sphere. I perform a content analysis of the musical Wicked’s characters, plot, and theme in comparison to the same elements in the novel. These differences support the claim that musicals are not critical pieces of drama in comparison to other forms of media. The results support the claim that musicals do not contribute as much to the realm of critical and rational debate as straight plays do. This is due to the general nature of the musical: structure, characters, and themes are reused, and as a result there are limited alternative viewpoints. This trend is also due to the ridiculous amount of spectacle in musicals, which often outweighs the plot, characters, and themes. When spectacle overcomes character and plot, there is less room for critical discussion of any kind since the production focuses on entertainment rather than informing. Wicked’s abundant use of elements from The Wizard of Oz movie from 1939 illustrates how musical creators manipulate an audience to increase ticket sales. The rise of the mega musical in American culture has led to a deterioration of theatre within the public sphere. Mass audiences have been trained to enjoy these musicals and to expect certain structural elements, such as heterosexual romances and characters that break out into song and dance. The audiences involved in the musical theatre world have become disconnected and lazy, disregarding rich thematic story elements in exchange for more spectacle. Broadway musicals are becoming larger and therefore need more money to be produced. This means less money for critically engaging pieces of theatre to be produced on a nationallyrecognized venue. This small-scale public sphere issue may be reflective of a larger commercialized culture in which spectacle overcomes substance

Loving the Fourteeners to Death

The author investigates a number of possible ways in which we may attempt to alleviate the anthropogenic problems on fourteeners

The transcriptome of the invasive eel swimbladder nematode parasite Anguillicola crassus

BACKGROUND: Anguillicola crassus is an economically and ecologically important parasitic nematode of eels. The native range of A. crassus is in East Asia, where it infects Anguilla japonica, the Japanese eel. A. crassus was introduced into European eels, Anguilla anguilla, 30 years ago. The parasite is more pathogenic in its new host than in its native one, and is thought to threaten the endangered An. anguilla across its range. The molecular bases for the increased pathogenicity of the nematodes in their new hosts is not known. RESULTS: A reference transcriptome was assembled for A. crassus from Roche 454 pyrosequencing data. Raw reads (756,363 total) from nematodes from An. japonica and An. anguilla hosts were filtered for likely host contaminants and ribosomal RNAs. The remaining 353,055 reads were assembled into 11,372 contigs of a high confidence assembly (spanning 6.6 Mb) and an additional 21,153 singletons and contigs of a lower confidence assembly (spanning an additional 6.2 Mb). Roughly 55% of the high confidence assembly contigs were annotated with domain- or protein sequence similarity derived functional information. Sequences conserved only in nematodes, or unique to A. crassus were more likely to have secretory signal peptides. Thousands of high quality single nucleotide polymorphisms were identified, and coding polymorphism was correlated with differential expression between individual nematodes. Transcripts identified as being under positive selection were enriched in peptidases. Enzymes involved in energy metabolism were enriched in the set of genes differentially expressed between European and Asian A. crassus. CONCLUSIONS: The reference transcriptome of A. crassus is of high quality, and will serve as a basis for future work on the invasion biology of this important parasite. The polymorphisms identified will provide a key tool set for analysis of population structure and identification of genes likely to be involved in increased pathogenicity in European eel hosts. The identification of peptidases under positive selection is a first step in this programme

Perceptions of Stress and Coping in Traditional Age First-year College Students

This qualitative research study examined the perceptions of stress and coping in traditional-age, first-year college students. This study sought to form an understanding of the participants’ lived experiences relating to stress and coping throughout their first semester of college. Five participants’ were separately interviewed twice for the purposes of data collection. The findings from the data analysis process showed that these first-year college students experienced stress as a result of new and challenging academic expectations while also trying to navigate interpersonal relationships. Further, participants’ in this study experienced stress as a result from interacting with social media. These traditional-age, first-year college students also utilized various coping strategies to deal with the stressors in their lives. These coping strategies included both effective and ineffective techniques. Recommendations are offered for student affairs professionals and areas for future research. Adviser: Corey Ruman

The Impact of a Peer-Tutoring Model on the Academic Performance of Secondary Students

The Impact of A Peer-Tutoring Model on the Academic Performance of Secondary Students describes the impact of a peer-tutoring model in a secondary introductory computer science classroom, Information Technology Foundations (ITF), at a Midlands High School (MHS) (pseudonym), a suburban high school located in the Midlands region of South Carolina. The course is required for graduation and student-participants in the study were diverse in their ages and learning abilities. Matching one peer-tutor with five or six peer-tutees enabled student-participants to work through a Google Drive unit that was designed by the teacher-researcher. The research question: What is the impact of a peer-tutoring model on a group of heterogeneous multi-aged high school students with diverse learning abilities? drove the study. Action research methods were used to collect data with 17 students over a seven-week period in the Fall 2017 semester. Quantitative data in the form of a pre and post test and qualitative data in the form of semi-structured interviews, journals, and classroom observations were used to answer the research question. An action plan was designed to enable other teachers with heterogeneous, multi-aged groupings of students in their courses, to implement a peer-tutoring model for greater academic gains and student relationship building