Investigating environmental factors that contribute to disparities in utilization across different sections of a 10-mile urban trail

textThe purpose of this study was to identify barriers that contribute to a disparity in utilization across different segments of an urban trail. To achieve this aim, subjective ratings of trail characteristics for high-use areas (western sections of the trail) were compared to subjective ratings of lower-use areas (eastern sections of the trail). These ratings were compared between those who reported primarily traveling the western, high-use sections vs. those who primarily travel the eastern, low-use sections. Data were collected through self-report and a cross-sectional analysis based on sections of primary use. Ratings for each trail characteristic from an online survey were compared for different trail segments as a function of these groups. Comparisons were conducted through ANOVA and showed that perceptions of trail characteristics varied strongly as a function of which sections of the trail were used most by the respondents. Users of the high-traffic, western sections held significantly more negative views of the eastern sections. In contrast, users of the low-traffic, eastern sections held similar views of the eastern and western sections. Objective measurements of trail characteristics were conducted on all six segments of trail to compare to user perceptions. A trail count and researcher evaluation/audit of all trail characteristics provided data for comparison. A descriptive analysis of the differences between trail user perceptions and objective measures was reported. The trail count and survey results showed similar patterns of usage. The western sections exhibited the highest number of trail users representing 80% of the people on the trail. The central sections contained 14% and the eastern sections 6%. Mode of travel observed was 94% walking or running and 6% cycling. In addition, these numbers are similar to those of the earlier, pilot study (TEMBA, 2011). Given the similarities between the online survey, and both the objective trail count for usage and the earlier TEMBA study, it is hoped that the online sample is representative of the population of regular trail users. A comparison of subjective and objective ratings revealed different patterns of agreement depending on east vs. west group membership. Overall, west users are misinformed about crime and amenities on the east side but are in general agreement on other characteristics. This suggests that their concerns about trail continuity, directional clarity, and loop options may be warranted. Overall, east users showed general agreement with objective measures on the west side except for exposure to traffic, which they rated more poorly than objective measures.Kinesiology and Health Educatio

Converting rituals: the worship of nineteenth-century camp meetings and the growth of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New England

This thesis examines the practice of the camp meeting as a significant factor in the growth of the Methodist Episcopal Church in nineteenth-century New England. Such a comprehensive investigation into camp meetings in New England has never been done before. Also, with the exception of one book and one other recent dissertation, the general history of Methodism in New England is a topic that was overlooked for nearly a century. This research helps to fill those gaps. Many scholars give credit to camp meetings for fostering conversion, though the focus has generally been on camps held in the American South and the western frontier. After briefly recounting the rise of Methodism and camp meetings in the United States, the thesis turns to a more specific focus on the rise of Methodism and camp meetings in New England prior to 1823. Zion's Herald newspaper provides a steady and previously untapped source of primary information about camp meetings in New England from its first appearance in 1823 to well into the twentieth century. After discussion of some key developments of New England Methodism relevant to camp meetings between 1823 and 1871, a thick description of one camp meeting in 1823 is presented to show how the many parts worked together. This is followed by an account of aspects of the camp meetings that might be classified broadly as ritual, how these changed over time, and the impact they had on the process of identity formation at the camps. The spotlight is then directed toward the liturgical aspects of camp meetings as practiced in New England. These include components of worship practices common to Methodist congregations of the period as they gathered for prayer meetings, Sunday worship and quarterly conferences, such as preaching, praying, singing, and love feasts, and also those acts of worship developed specifically for camp meetings such as dedicating the grounds, and the closing ritual procession and "parting hand." As with the ritual practices, attention is again given both to how these worship practices influenced worshippers, and how they changed over time. Finally the interpretive framework of "poetic discourse" offered by Stephen Cooley is used to analyze the most potent ritual elements involved in the process of conversion and church growth in conversation with contemporary scholars in the fields of sociology and ritual studies. In the end this study shows not only the factors that fostered conversions and church growth, but also how the camp meetings gradually lost their potency as they changed over time.2017-01-01T00:00:00

Modelling Clustering of Wireless Sensor Networks with Synchronised Hyperedge Replacement

This paper proposes Synchronised Hyperedge Replacement (SHR) as a suitable modelling framework for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). SHR facilitates explicit modelling of WSNs applications environmental conditions (that significantly affect applications performance) while providing a sufficiently high level of abstraction for the specification of the underling coordination mechanisms. Because it is an intractable problem to solve in distributed manner, and distribution is important, we propose a new Nutrient-flow-based Distributed Clustering (NDC) algorithm to be used as a working example. The key contribution of this work is to demonstrate that SHR is sufficiently expressive to describe WSNs algorithms and their behaviour at a suitable level of abstraction to allow onward analysis

A Language-Independent Static Checking System for Coding Conventions

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.Despite decades of research aiming to ameliorate the difficulties of creating software, programming still remains an error-prone task. Much work in Computer Science deals with the problem of specification, or writing the right program, rather than the complementary problem of implementation, or writing the program right. However, many desirable software properties (such as portability) are obtained via adherence to coding standards, and therefore fall outside the remit of formal specification and automatic verification. Moreover, code inspections and manual detection of standards violations are time consuming. To address these issues, this thesis describes Exstatic, a novel framework for the static detection of coding standards violations. Unlike many other static checkers Exstatic can be used to examine code in a variety of languages, including program code, in-line documentation, markup languages and so on. This means that checkable coding standards adhered to by a particular project or institution can be handled by a single tool. Consequently, a major challenge in the design of Exstatic has been to invent a way of representing code from a variety of source languages. Therefore, this thesis describes ICODE, which is an intermediate language suitable for representing code from a number of different programming paradigms. To substantiate the claim that ICODE is a universal intermediate language, a proof strategy has been developed: for a number of different programming paradigms (imperative, declarative, etc.), a proof is constructed to show that semantics-preserving translation exists from an exemplar language (such as IMP or PCF) to ICODE. The usefulness of Exstatic has been demonstrated by the implementation of a number of static analysers for different languages. This includes a checker for technical documentation written in Javadoc which validates documents against the Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) Coding Conventions and a checker for HTML pages against a site-specifc standard. A third system is targeted at a variant of the Python language, written by the author, called python-csp, based on Hoare's Communicating Sequential Processes

Towards a multidimensional healthy ageing phenotype

Purpose of review: There is great interest in developing tools to measure healthy ageing and to identify early stages of health impairment, which may guide the implementation of interventions to prevent or delay the development of disease, disability, and mortality. Here, we review the most recent developments directed to operationalize, and test, definitions of healthy ageing. Recent findings: There is lack of consensus about how to define healthy ageing and, unsurprisingly, diversity in the instruments for its measurement. However, progress is being made in describing and in devising tools to capture the healthy ageing phenotype. Attempts to measure healthy ageing have relied primarily on cross-sectional data collected in older people. More recent studies have assessed the healthy ageing phenotype using markers of multiple functional domains and have used longitudinal data to model the dynamics and trajectories of healthy ageing. Summary: Given the complexity of the ageing process, no single measure is able to predict the ageing trajectory. Current attempts to operationalize the healthy ageing phenotype have relied on markers and data from earlier cohort studies and are limited by the tools used to collect data in those studies. Such data are often unsuitable to detect early subtle declines in function and/or are inappropriate for use in younger old adults. Future studies employing more objective and novel markers of healthy ageing are likely to offer opportunities to define and operationalize the healthy ageing phenotype

Perceived Effects of Menopause Among Women Master Swimmers

This study assessed female master swimmers’ perceptions of the influence of menopause on their swimming. Using a cross-sectional design, 183 women completed an internet-based survey. Measures related to menopause status, physical activity levels, perceived effect of menopause on swimming and attitudes to swimming and menopause. Perimenopausal women reported the least physical activity and the greatest reduction in intensity of swimming training due to menopause, relative to other menopause groups. A quarter of women reported that the intensity of their swimming had reduced due to menopause. Additionally, a quarter reported that menopausal symptoms, particularly weight gain and sleeplessness, negatively affected their swimming. A third said that their confidence for competing at swimming had reduced due to menopause and that their swimming improved once menopause stopped. These findings suggest that menopause may have some detrimental effects on female master swimmers

Virtual machine warmup blows hot and cold

Virtual Machines (VMs) with Just-In-Time (JIT) compilers are traditionally thought to execute programs in two phases: first the warmup phase determines which parts of a program would most benefit from dynamic compilation and JIT compiles them into machine code; after compilation has occurred, the program is said to be at peak performance. When measuring the performance of JIT compiling VMs, data collected during the warmup phase is generally discarded, placing the focus on peak performance. In this paper we first run a number of small, deterministic benchmarks on a variety of well known VMs, before introducing a rigorous statistical model for determining when warmup has occurred. Across 3 benchmarking machines only 43.3–56.5% of (VM, benchmark) pairs conform to the traditional view of warmup and none of the VMs consistently warms up

Hydrologic Response and Watershed Sensitivity to Climate Warming in California's Sierra Nevada

This study focuses on the differential hydrologic response of individual watersheds to climate warming within the Sierra Nevada mountain region of California. We describe climate warming models for 15 west-slope Sierra Nevada watersheds in California under unimpaired conditions using WEAP21, a weekly one-dimensional rainfall-runoff model. Incremental climate warming alternatives increase air temperature uniformly by 2°, 4°, and 6°C, but leave other climatic variables unchanged from observed values. Results are analyzed for changes in mean annual flow, peak runoff timing, and duration of low flow conditions to highlight which watersheds are most resilient to climate warming within a region, and how individual watersheds may be affected by changes to runoff quantity and timing. Results are compared with current water resources development and ecosystem services in each watershed to gain insight into how regional climate warming may affect water supply, hydropower generation, and montane ecosystems. Overall, watersheds in the northern Sierra Nevada are most vulnerable to decreased mean annual flow, southern-central watersheds are most susceptible to runoff timing changes, and the central portion of the range is most affected by longer periods with low flow conditions. Modeling results suggest the American and Mokelumne Rivers are most vulnerable to all three metrics, and the Kern River is the most resilient, in part from the high elevations of the watershed. Our research seeks to bridge information gaps between climate change modeling and regional management planning, helping to incorporate climate change into the development of regional adaptation strategies for Sierra Nevada watersheds

Nebulin regulates the assembly and lengths of the thin filaments in striated muscle

In many tissues, actin monomers polymerize into actin (thin) filaments of precise lengths. Although the exact mechanisms involved remain unresolved, it is proposed that “molecular rulers” dictate the lengths of the actin filaments. The giant nebulin molecule is a prime candidate for specifying thin filament lengths in striated muscle, but this idea has never been proven. To test this hypothesis, we used RNA interference technology in rat cardiac myocytes. Live cell imaging and triple staining revealed a dramatic elongation of the preexisting thin filaments from their pointed ends upon nebulin knockdown, demonstrating its role in length maintenance; the barbed ends were unaffected. When the thin filaments were depolymerized with latrunculin B, myocytes with decreased nebulin levels reassembled them to unrestricted lengths, demonstrating its importance in length specification. Finally, knockdown of nebulin in skeletal myotubes revealed its involvement in myofibrillogenesis. These data are consistent with nebulin functioning as a thin filament ruler and provide insight into mechanisms dictating macromolecular assembly