Assessment of an international breaststroke swimmer using a race readiness test

Competitive swimmers routinely undertake a 7 x 200-m incremental step test to evaluate their fitness and readiness to compete.An exercise protocol more closely replicating competition swimming speeds may provide further insight into the swimmer’s physiological and technical readiness for competition. This case study reports data over a 3-year period from 11 Race Readiness Tests, which were completed, in addition to the 7 x 200-m test, as an attempt to provide the swimmer and coach with a fuller assessment. For this individual, data provided objective information from which to assess training status and race readiness following a transition from 200-m to 100-m race training. Data also raised a question as to whether a 100-m maximal effort 10 minutes before another one actually enhances performance owing to a priming effect

Did somebody say Neoliberalism? On the uses and limitations of a critical concept in media and communication studies

This paper explores the political-economic basis and ideological effects of talk about neoliberalism with respect to media and communication studies. In response to the supposed ascendancy of the neoliberal order since the 1980s, many media and communication scholars have redirected their critical attentions from capitalism to neoliberalism. This paper tries to clarify the significance of the relatively new emphasis on neoliberalism in the discourse of media and communication studies, with particular reference to the 2011 phone hacking scandal at The News of the World. Questioning whether the discursive substitution of ‘neoliberalism’ for ‘capitalism’ offers any advances in critical purchase or explanatory power to critics of capitalist society and its media, the paper proposes that critics substitute a Marxist class analysis in place of the neoliberalism-versus-democracy framework that currently dominates in the field

Why Not to Do Two-Species Comparative Studies: Limitations on Inferring Adaptation

Claims about adaptation are commonly made from comparative studies involving only two species (or only two populations of a single species). Our main purpose here is to alert practitioners to several logical and statistical problems associated with using two-species comparisons for studying adaptation and to outline some alternative approaches. Multispecies comparisons are one such alternative. However, data from multiple species may not be independent or identically distributed in the statistical sense, which violates assumptions of ordinary statistical methods (Harvey and Pagel 1991). We therefore also discuss one phylogenetically based statistical method that can be employed for valid hypothesis testing with comparative data, Felsenstein’s (1985) method of phylogenetically independent contrasts. We discuss briefly how such methods can be employed, even with incomplete phylogenetic information, and also how data for multiple populations within species can enhance comparative analyses. Phylogenetically based analyses come in a variety of flavors, and our penultimate section discusses some differences in perspectives regarding statistical hypothesis testing in a phylogenetic context. We conclude by pointing out that many of our criticisms of two-species comparisons apply also to comparisons aimed at discovering mechanisms underlying physiological differences between species

Investigation into the influence of magnetic field structure on the dynamical and spatial properties of plasma edge turbulence in the stellarator TJ-K

Nuclear fusion could provide the solution to our rising energy demands in a world where greenhouse gas emissions must be rapidly reduced (Germany plans a 55 % reduction by 2030, compared to 1990 levels). In order to have sufficient rates of fusion a high-temperature, relatively dense plasma is required. Containing such a plasma for long enough for fusion to occur at sufficient rates is challenging. One solution is to confine the plasma with strong toroidal magnetic fields. Whilst this drastically improves the confinement, particles and heat are still transported towards the reactor walls, reducing the temperature and density, and posing a threat to wall components. The main contribution to outward transport in fusion-relevant reactors comes from turbulent fluctuations in the plasma potential and density. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the effect of magnetic field geometry on the spatial, statistical and dynamical properties of turbulence in the confined region of the plasma, dominated by drift-wave turbulence, and the region close to the reactor wall (scrape-off layer), where the turbulence has an intermittent character due to outward-travelling high-amplitude pressure perturbations, often called blobs. A high proportion of scrape-off layer transport towards the reactor wall is due to blob filaments. The generation of blobs is known to be linked to drift-wave turbulence, and so the intermittent nature of scrape-off layer turbulence could have its origin in the confined plasma. To gain an understanding of the intermittent properties of drift-wave turbulence, simulations were carried out with a simple slab geometry model and compared to experimental measurements at the stellarator TJ-K. It was found that the density fluctuations become more intermittent with increasing plasma collisionality, due to a progressive decoupling of density and potential fluctuations. An extended version of the model, accounting for magnetic curvature, predicted more intermittent density fluctuations on the outboard side of the reactor, where the normal curvature is negative. Experiments showed that the most intermittent fluctuations are in fact shifted into the region where the normal curvature is negative but the geodesic curvature is positive. This shift could be understood by considering the spatial properties of the turbulence, which enter into the density-potential coupling terms in the model. Furthermore, the local magnetic shear was found to have a damping effect on drift-wave turbulence, which locally reduces the cross-sectional areas of turbulent structures. Blob dynamics were studied using a three-dimensional gyrofluid model, in which blob filaments are generated self-consistently. An effect of the magnetic curvature was found not only on the radial blob speeds, which is well known, but also on the binormal velocity component. This result was also found in experiments at TJ-K, where the geodesic curvature drive was shown to contribute significantly to poloidal blob speeds. In addition, the structure of blob filaments was studied in the experiment. It was found that the magnetic shear does not have a deforming effect, and that blobs retain the filamentary form that they have near their generation region

Computer Aided Bucking on a Mechanized Harvester

During June 1989, researchers from the Forest Engineering Department at Oregon State University evaluated the feasibility of using the computer program BUCK® to aid the Hahn Harvester operator in determining the best bucking cuts. The computer was able to increase the total value by 7.5%. This is about US $6.40 per tree for the 38-cm [15-in] diameter trees we processed. This increase was from improved log quality and increased scaling volume when Scribner rules were used. The computer solution cuts roughly 16% more logs. The computer solution increased the volume in the best export sort by 8%. The computer solution could increase the total value by 19.6% if more accurate tree quality information were sent to the computer before the bucking cuts were made

Fathers' Attitudes Concerning Father-Son Interaction

Family Relations and Child Developmen

On the convergence of Kac-Moody Eisenstein series

Let $G$ be a representation-theoretic Kac--Moody group associated to a nonsingular symmetrizable generalized Cartan matrix. We first consider Kac-Moody analogs of Borel Eisenstein series (induced from quasicharacters on the Borel), and prove they converge almost everywhere inside the Tits cone for arbitrary spectral parameters in the Godement range. We then use this result to show the full absolute convergence everywhere inside the Tits cone (again for spectral parameters in the Godement range) for a class of Kac-Moody groups satisfying a certain combinatorial property, in particular for rank-2 hyperbolic groups.Comment: 24 page

The utilization of energy at different levels of protein intake

Publication authorized September 24, 1936."Submitted by S.R. Johnson in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the University of Missouri, 1935"--P. [5].Digitized 2007 AES.Includes bibliographical references (pages 45-48)