Needed Wildlife Research

Author Institution: Director of the Natural Resouces Institute of The Ohio State University and Executive Secretary of Ohio Biological Surve

The effectiveness of men\u27s lacrosse shoulder pads in the attenuation of linear impact forces

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Men’s lacrosse is a sport that is growing in popularity. The mandatory shoulder pads have no limit of use standards and are rarely studied. The purpose of the study was to measure peak impact force (IF) of new and used lacrosse shoulder pads. METHODS: Six lacrosse shoulder pads, three new models (Warrior MPG 8.0 shoulder pad, STX Jolt shoulder pad and Warrior Player’s Club Hitlyte shoulder pad) and three used models of the same shoulder pads with at least four seasons of use (Warrior MPG shoulder pad, STX Jolt shoulder pad and Warrior Player’s Club Hitlyte shoulder pad) were tested. A drop mechanism was built that released a weighted ball on the thorax region of the shoulder pads to replicate game-like forces. Peak IF was measured with a motion analysis system (Peak Motus version 6.0) via a Bertec force plate (#K00606, Bertec Columbus, OH, USA). ANALYSIS: To compare impact force between the pairs of new and used shoulder pads, three separate independent t-tests were run. A one-way ANOVA was run to determine if significant differences in IF exist among all six shoulder pads. Lastly, a one-way ANOVA was conducted to determine if price (as a latent variable) of shoulder pads differed by IF among the three new models. RESULTS: The new models of shoulder pads reduced peak IF more effectively with the most expensive pads performing the best followed by the cheapest shoulder pad then the moderately priced shoulder pads. CONCLUSION: New shoulder pads reduce peak IF better than older shoulder pads. Additionally, the cost of the shoulder pad may not be a true indicator of peak IF reduction

Introduction

Author Institution: Director, Natural Rescources Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus 10 ; Chariman, Department of Forestry, Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, Wooster, Ohi

Car path tracking in traffic flow networks with bounded buffers at junctions

This article deals with the modeling for an individual car path through a road network, where the dynamics is driven by a coupled system of ordinary and partial differential equations. The network is characterized by bounded buffers at junctions that allow for the interpretation of roundabouts or on-ramps while the traffic dynamics is based on first-order macroscopic equations of Lighthill-Whitham-Richards (LWR) type. Trajectories for single drivers are then influenced by the surrounding traffic and can be tracked by appropriate numerical algorithms. The computational experiments show how the modeling framework can be used as navigation device