TRUNK MOTION DURING THE GOLF SWING OF ELITE GOLFERS

The key requirement of a successful golf swing is an accurate impact. The body and arm motions dur,ing the backward and forward swings must be executed in such a way that an accurate impact is secured. Novice golfers experience difficulties in coordinating the arm and body motions due to the complexity of the mobility system formed by the trunk and arms. Differentiation of the abnormal swings causing inaccurate impact from normal swings through in-depth trunk motion analysis is thus of importance. The purpose of this study was to provide a biomechanical profile of the normal go'lf swing in te~ms of trunk motion ranges and patterns with the aim of establishing baseline data for comparative studies

The Effect of Matching on Firm Earnings Components

Using a sample of all U.S. firms listed on the U.S. major stock exchanges for the period covering 1988 through 2014, we investigate the relation between firm earnings components and matching. Following the methodology of Hui et al. (2016), we decompose earnings into industry-wide and firm-specific earnings. Then, we partition them into cash flows and accruals, four earnings components. As our matching measure, we use the correlation between revenues and expenses over the five-year rolling period. We investigate how matching affects the persistence of each earnings component and our results indicate that matching enhances the persistence of earnings components. Furthermore, our study shows that the effect is more outstanding on firm-specific accruals, which are more prone to the management discretion, than cash flows.JEL Codes - G14; M4

Stock Return Synchronicity and Analysts’ Forecast Properties

Using stock return synchronicity as a measure of a firm’s information environment, our research investigates how the firms’ stock return synchronicity affects analysts’ forecast properties for the accuracy and optimism of the analysts’ annual earnings forecasts. Stock return synchronicity represents the degree to which market and industry information explains firm-level stock return variations. A higher stock return synchronicity indicates the higher quality of a firm’s information environment, because a firm’s stock price reflects more market-level and industry-level information relative to firm-specific information. Our study shows that stock return synchronicity positively affects the forecast properties. Our finding shows that when stock return synchronicity is high, analysts’ annual earnings forecasts are more accurate and less optimistically biased

Stock Return Synchronicity and Analysts’ Forecast Properties

Using stock return synchronicity as a measure of a firm’s information environment, our research investigates how the firms’ stock return synchronicity affects analysts’ forecast properties for the accuracy and optimism of the analysts’ annual earnings forecasts. Stock return synchronicity represents the degree to which market and industry information explains firm-level stock return variations. A higher stock return synchronicity indicates the higher quality of a firm’s information environment, because a firm’s stock price reflects more market-level and industry-level information relative to firm-specific information. Our study shows that stock return synchronicity positively affects the forecast properties. Our finding shows that when stock return synchronicity is high, analysts’ annual earnings forecasts are more accurate and less optimistically biased

Minimax particle filtering for tracking a highly maneuvering target

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/152473/1/rnc4785_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/152473/2/rnc4785.pd

CSGM Designer: a platform for designing cross-species intron-spanning genic markers linked with genome information of legumes.

BackgroundGenetic markers are tools that can facilitate molecular breeding, even in species lacking genomic resources. An important class of genetic markers is those based on orthologous genes, because they can guide hypotheses about conserved gene function, a situation that is well documented for a number of agronomic traits. For under-studied species a key bottleneck in gene-based marker development is the need to develop molecular tools (e.g., oligonucleotide primers) that reliably access genes with orthology to the genomes of well-characterized reference species.ResultsHere we report an efficient platform for the design of cross-species gene-derived markers in legumes. The automated platform, named CSGM Designer (URL: http://tgil.donga.ac.kr/CSGMdesigner), facilitates rapid and systematic design of cross-species genic markers. The underlying database is composed of genome data from five legume species whose genomes are substantially characterized. Use of CSGM is enhanced by graphical displays of query results, which we describe as "circular viewer" and "search-within-results" functions. CSGM provides a virtual PCR representation (eHT-PCR) that predicts the specificity of each primer pair simultaneously in multiple genomes. CSGM Designer output was experimentally validated for the amplification of orthologous genes using 16 genotypes representing 12 crop and model legume species, distributed among the galegoid and phaseoloid clades. Successful cross-species amplification was obtained for 85.3% of PCR primer combinations.ConclusionCSGM Designer spans the divide between well-characterized crop and model legume species and their less well-characterized relatives. The outcome is PCR primers that target highly conserved genes for polymorphism discovery, enabling functional inferences and ultimately facilitating trait-associated molecular breeding

Ruthenium anchored on carbon nanotube electrocatalyst for hydrogen production with enhanced Faradaic efficiency

Developing efficient and stable electrocatalysts is crucial for the electrochemical production of pure and clean hydrogen. For practical applications, an economical and facile method of producing catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is essential. Here, we report ruthenium (Ru) nanoparticles uniformly deposited on multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as an efficient HER catalyst. The catalyst exhibits the small overpotentials of 13 and 17 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm(-2) in 0.5M aq. H2SO4 and 1.0M aq. KOH, respectively, surpassing the commercial Pt/C (16 mV and 33 mV). Moreover, the catalyst has excellent stability in both media, showing almost "zeroloss" during cycling. In a real device, the catalyst produces 15.4% more hydrogen per power consumed, and shows a higher Faradaic efficiency (92.28%) than the benchmark Pt/C (85.97%). Density functional theory calculations suggest that Ru-C bonding is the most plausible active site for the HER

Treatment for the Lumbosacral Soft Tissue Defect after Spine Surgery

The lumbosacral area is one of the most frequently operated spine regions because of the prevalence of disease in that area. Although a lumbosacral soft tissue defect after surgery due to inflammation and other causes is rare, such soft tissue defects are difficult to treat. Therefore, suitable methods for treating lumbosacral soft tissue defects are necessary. Therefore, this study introduces a case-treated with a transverse lumbosacral rotational flap

Design for Sharing Emotional Touches during Phone Calls: A Quantitative Evaluation of Four Tactile Representations

Background As the importance of mobile phones as an emotional communication medium is growing, non-verbal behaviors such as facial expressions, touching behaviors and gestures ought to be considered to enhance phone conversations. Among various non-verbal signals, we focus on sharing specific touches that could be used for exchanging contextual and emotional cues. Along with this, to make the new phone conversation involving touching more natural, we consider maintaining natural audio conversation with phones by keeping the receiver on the ear and the transmitter on the mouth while holding the phone to the cheek. Methods In this paper, we focus on investigating ways to deliver four touches: pat, slap, tickle and kiss with sound and tactile feedback while holding the phone to the cheek as in typical phone calls. The interaction technique is called CheekTouch, and it is based on enabling users to share touches by representing finger gestures on one phone screen to the other party???s cheek using a vibrotactile display and sound stimulations. We asked the 30 students who participated to put the device on their cheek and wear earphones, and we provided them with 24 different stimulations. Results An evaluation was conducted to propose the most appropriate type of stimulation to deliver a pat, slap, tickle and kiss using CheekTouch. We showed that the best way to deliver a pat was to use a vibrotactile display combined with sound; however, a tickle was best delivered with only the vibrotactile display. A kiss and slap, on the other hand, were best delivered when there was only sound. Conclusions Considering the trends in sharing delicate emotions during phone-mediated communications, it is significant to investigate ways to convey touches during phone conversations beyond sharing visual emoticons. Here, we focused on findings ways to pat, slap, tickle and kiss by using existing phone technologies (vibrotactile motors and sound). Through the quantitative evaluation of those four touches, we discovered which stimulation type is best for delivering each of the touches. The results do not show whether those touches can deliver emotions, however, we believe CheekTouch and the findings from the evaluation can be used for sharing different types of non-verbal signals during audio-based phone conversations and enable further studies in the field of remote tactile interaction.clos

Total Gastrectomy in Gastric Conduit Cancer

We report a very rare case of surgery on gastric conduit cancer. A 67-year-old male patient underwent esophagectomy and intrathoracic esophagogastrostomy for squamous cell carcinoma of the lower thoracic esophagus 27 months ago. Upon follow-up, a gastric carcinoma at the intra-abdominal part of the gastric conduit was found on an esophagogastroduodenoscopy. We performed total gastrectomy and esophagocolonojejunostomy in the manner of Roux-en-Y anastomosis. The postoperative course was not eventful and an esophagogram on the 10th postoperative day showed no leakage or stenosis of the passage. The patient was discharged on the 17th day with no complications