A virtual coaching environment for improving golf swing technique

As a proficient golf swing is a key element of success in golf, many golfers make significant effort improving their stroke mechanics. In order to help enhance golfing performance, it is important to identify the performance determining factors within the full golf swing. In addition, explicit instructions on specific features in stroke technique requiring alterations must be imparted to the player in an unambiguous and intuitive manner. However, these two objectives are difficult to achieve due to the subjective nature of traditional coaching techniques and the predominantly implicit knowledge players have of their movements. In this work, we have developed a set of visualisation and analysis tools for use in a virtual golf coaching environment. In this virtual coaching studio, the analysis tools allow for specific areas require improvement in a player's 3D stroke dynamics to be isolated. An interactive 3D virtual coaching environment then allows detailed and unambiguous coaching information to be visually imparted back to the player via the use of two virtual human avatars; the first mimics the movements performed by the player; the second takes the role of a virtual coach, performing ideal stroke movement dynamics. The potential of the coaching tool is highlighted in its use by sports science researchers in the evaluation of competing approaches for calculating the X-Factor, a significant performance determining factor for hitting distance in a golf swing

Spatial Filtering Pipeline Evaluation of Cortically Coupled Computer Vision System for Rapid Serial Visual Presentation

Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) is a paradigm that supports the application of cortically coupled computer vision to rapid image search. In RSVP, images are presented to participants in a rapid serial sequence which can evoke Event-related Potentials (ERPs) detectable in their Electroencephalogram (EEG). The contemporary approach to this problem involves supervised spatial filtering techniques which are applied for the purposes of enhancing the discriminative information in the EEG data. In this paper we make two primary contributions to that field: 1) We propose a novel spatial filtering method which we call the Multiple Time Window LDA Beamformer (MTWLB) method; 2) we provide a comprehensive comparison of nine spatial filtering pipelines using three spatial filtering schemes namely, MTWLB, xDAWN, Common Spatial Pattern (CSP) and three linear classification methods Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Bayesian Linear Regression (BLR) and Logistic Regression (LR). Three pipelines without spatial filtering are used as baseline comparison. The Area Under Curve (AUC) is used as an evaluation metric in this paper. The results reveal that MTWLB and xDAWN spatial filtering techniques enhance the classification performance of the pipeline but CSP does not. The results also support the conclusion that LR can be effective for RSVP based BCI if discriminative features are available

Implications of heterogeneous fracture distribution on reservoir quality; an analogue from the Torridon Group sandstone, Moine Thrust Belt, NW Scotland

This research was funded by a NERC CASE studentship (NERC code NE/I018166/1) in partnership with Midland Valley. Midland Valley's Move software was used for cross section construction and strain modelling. 3D Field software is acknowledged for contour map creation. Mark Cooper is thanked for constructive comments. Steven Laubach and Bill Dunne are thanked overseeing the editorial process and Magdalena Ellis Curry, Bertrand Gauthier and Arthur Lavenu are thanked for constructive reviews.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A PCP Characterization of AM

We introduce a 2-round stochastic constraint-satisfaction problem, and show that its approximation version is complete for (the promise version of) the complexity class AM. This gives a `PCP characterization' of AM analogous to the PCP Theorem for NP. Similar characterizations have been given for higher levels of the Polynomial Hierarchy, and for PSPACE; however, we suggest that the result for AM might be of particular significance for attempts to derandomize this class. To test this notion, we pose some `Randomized Optimization Hypotheses' related to our stochastic CSPs that (in light of our result) would imply collapse results for AM. Unfortunately, the hypotheses appear over-strong, and we present evidence against them. In the process we show that, if some language in NP is hard-on-average against circuits of size 2^{Omega(n)}, then there exist hard-on-average optimization problems of a particularly elegant form. All our proofs use a powerful form of PCPs known as Probabilistically Checkable Proofs of Proximity, and demonstrate their versatility. We also use known results on randomness-efficient soundness- and hardness-amplification. In particular, we make essential use of the Impagliazzo-Wigderson generator; our analysis relies on a recent Chernoff-type theorem for expander walks.Comment: 18 page

Influence of structural position on fracture networks in the Torridon Group, Achnashellach fold and thrust belt, NW Scotland

Acknowledgements This research is funded by a NERC CASE studentship (NERC code NE/I018166/1) in partnership with Midland Valley. The authors thank Midland Valley for use of FieldMove Clino software for fracture data collection, and Move software for cross section construction, and strain modelling. 3D Field software is acknowledged for contour map creation. We also thank Toru Takeshita for overseeing the editorial process, and Catherine Hanks and Ole Petter Wennberg for constructive reviews.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

What’s behind School Choice? Middle-Class Parents in France, Race, and Decisions over Public Middle Schools

This dissertation addresses the role of race in school choice among French middle-class parents. It finds that institutional policies and individual practices combine to foster school segregation, which among immigrants may only be seen as racism. This qualitative study involves semi-structured interviews of 29 parents at three typical schools in the Parisian suburbs where a confluence of geographic and policy factors grants school choice impetus despite official restrictions. In building on a model from Ball (2003), the parents fall into four qualitative types in actions on school choice. Conducted amid a period of terrorist, political, and economic incidents in 2016 and 2017, the study also inquired on the effects of global risk, drawing on an alternative theory of Beck (1992; 2002). Little in parental accounts indicate that class anxiety and risk are salient in school choice, however. The racial inquiry is framed by Omi and Winant (2015), Bonilla-Silva (2013), and Lamont and Molnár (2002). The study finds that ideology and conventions weigh heavily on how race is understood. Though parents see commonalities between the United States and France on segregation, they explain it as a social class effect, keeping with Marxian stratification. These accounts correspond more with Lamont and Molnár than with the critical theories of Bonilla-Silva and Omi and Winant. Nevertheless, by paying attention to racial ideas, language, and outcomes, as Bonilla-Silva urges, what emerges from parental accounts is a “how you see it, how you don’t” view of race rather than a “now you see it, now you don’t” view as in the United States. Moreover, instead of blaming the victim, the parents point to social and economic conditions, not personal failure. The model of school choice and race that emerges shows that race becomes obscured in the school choice process. The racial coin has two faces. On one face are the parents acting in the “best” interests of society and children. On the other face are the acted-upon, immigrants with their own racial scripts. On that face is what to immigrants may be readily understood from institutional policies and individual practices as racism

Immunologic, Hematologic, and Endocrine Responses to Subacute and Subchronic Exposures to Graded, Subanesthetic Levels of Nitrous Oxide in CD-1 Mice

Nitrous oxide (N2O) oxidizes vitamin B12. disrupting deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) synthesis. Occupational exposures to subanesthetic levels of the gas have been documented that may result in suppressed proliferative cell activities. Male CD-I mice were exposed to 0, 50, 500, and 5000 parts of N2O per million parts of air (ppm) for 6 hr/day, 5 days/week for 2 and 13 weeks. Splenic lymphocytes were assayed for responsiveness to mitogens and for the ability to produce interleukin-2 (lL-2) . Tritiated-thymidine ([3H]-TdR) uptake was measured in CD-I splenic lymphocytes cultured in a mixed-lymphocyte culture (MLC). Cytolytic cell activity was measured by 51chromium release assay. Antibody-mediated immunocompetency was determined for sheep red blood cell (SRBC)-sensitized animals by plaque-forming cell (PFC) assay and sera anti-SRBC antibody titer. Deoxyuridine suppression tests (dUdRST) were performed on bone marrow cells. Serum adrenocorticotropic hormone and corticosterone levels were determined. There was significantly decreased splenic lymphocyte uptake of [3H)-TdR by cells cultured with mitogenic substances and in MLC following 2-week animal exposures to 5000 ppm. After 13-week exposures, the animals\u27 splenic lymphocytes showed decreased [3H]-TdR uptake following low N20 dosing and nonsignificantly increased responsiveness at the higher gas exposures in both the blastogenic and MLC assays. Compared to control animals, the 5000- ppm-exposure group had significantly depressed PFC activity and circulating anti-SRBC immunoglobulin M levels following 13-week gas exposures, and all three subchronic exposure groups demonstrated both decreased liver weights and leukopenia. Bone marrow activity at these dosing levels was dose-responsively depressed following subchronic gas exposures.No hormonal effect appears to be attributable to N20 exposure

Living Together: Conservative Protestants and Cohabitation

Recent research finds that conservative Protestants are cohabiting in no small numbers. Given the strict moral orientation of conservative Protestants, that outcome appears paradoxical. This thesis explains that paradox through the culture in action models of Swidler (1986), given the social and economic location of conservative Protestants. The thesis employs pooled General Social Survey data from 1993 to 2008 in which a question is asked that indicates cohabitation. The thesis finds that the social and economic location of conservative Protestants is related to their cohabiting. Though conservative Protestant cohabitors have lessened religiosity, much of the decline in religiosity compared to married conservative Protestants is due to the factors leading to cohabitation. But views and practices on premarital sex are the greatest factor in reducing that difference. The evidence in this thesis lends support to Swidler’s models of settled and unsettled lives in explaining cohabitation among conservative Protestants

A Delineation of Mesenchymal Stromal Cell Therapeutic Action in New Models of Acute and Chronic Graft versus Host Disease

The potent immune regulatory capacity of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) has been extensively characterised in terms of T cells, natural killer cells and dendritic cells suppression; however the ability of MSC to modulate B cell biology is not fully understood. This immune suppressive ability has led to the development of MSC therapy for the treatment of inflammatory and auto-immune disease, and has already demonstrated beneficial effects during GvHD and Crohn’s disease. However, the mechanisms employed by MSC therapy to modulate disease progression have not been identified. The key goals for this thesis were (1) to determine how MSC effect B cell function and to identify the mechanisms by which this effect is mediated, and (2) the development of novel mouse models of chronic and acute GvHD to elucidate the mechanism of action by which MSC attenuate disease progression. This study demonstrated than MSC support the activation, proliferation and survival of human CD19+ peripheral B cells in vitro. MSC support of B cell survival was mediated through the cell contact dependent up-regulation of VEGF production by the MSC. Soluble VEGF bound by B cells induced AKT phosphorylation, inhibited caspase 3 cleavage and reduced apoptosis. The second part of this thesis focused on developing murine models of chronic and acute GvHD and to investigate the efficacy of xenogeneic MSC therapy in these models. In addition, a robust humanised model of aGvHD was developed to investigate mechanism of MSC protection. MSC therapy significantly increased survival of aGvHD mice and this protection correlated with significantly reduced TNF-α production and significantly increased numbers of regulatory T cells in aGvHD target organs. These findings further the understanding of the immune regulation capacity of MSC in vitro and provide a robust and clinically relevant model of aGvHD from which the mechanisms behind MSC modulation can be investigated