The effects of male high school students’ participation in athletic sports on academic achievement

With the rapid and steady growth of athletic participation, it is important that student athletes excel in the classroom and on the playing field. However, as the pressures of being a high school athlete grow, educators must seek better ways of supporting student athletes and help them understand the importance of their education. The purpose of the study was to determine if male students who participated in athletics had higher academic achievement mean scores than male students who did not participate in athletics. The study focused on measuring the cumulative grade point averages (GPAs), Algebra I end-of-course (EOC) test scores, and English II end-of-course (EOC) test scores for all male students. A causal-comparative research design was used to examine the differences in the academic performance of the male students who participated in high school athletics and those who did not participate. The research study was conducted using existing data from three high schools in Mississippi for 234 male high school students. There were 118 non-athletes and 116 athletes. Findings from the study revealed there were no statistically significant differences in cumulative GPAs, Algebra I EOC mean test scores, and English II EOC mean test scores for athletes and non-athletes. However, there was a statistically significant difference between African American male students and White male students for the mean scores of the cumulative GPAs and English II EOC test scores. The findings of the study revealed academic achievement was not affected by athletic participation. Recommendations for future research include conducting focused research on African American males and other minority groups and the implementation of high school academic support programs for student athletes

MODELLING AND IN VIVO MONITORING OF THE TIME DEPENDENT MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF TISSUE ENGINEERING SCAFFOLDS

When organs and tissue fail either due to pre-existing disease progression or by accidental damage, current state of the art treatment involves the replacement of the damaged or diseased tissue with new donor derived organs/tissue. The limitations of these current approaches include a limited supply of tissue for treatments and the immune response of the patient’s own body against the new implanted tissue/organs. To solve these issues, tissue engineering aims to develop artificial analogs derived from a patient’s own cells instead of donor tissue/organs for treatment. To this end, a promising approach, known as scaffold-based tissue engineering, is to seed engineered constructs or scaffolds with cells to form artificial analogs, which then develop with time into new tissue/organs for implantation. The mechanical properties of the scaffold play a critical role in the success of scaffold-based treatments, as the scaffold is expected to provide a temporary support for the generation of new tissue/organs without causing failure at any time during the treatment process. It is noted that due to the degradation of scaffold in the treatment process, the mechanical properties of the scaffold are not constant but change with time dynamically. This raises two scientific issues; one is the representation of the time-dependent mechanical properties and the other one is the monitoring of these properties, especially in the in vivo environments (i.e., upon the implantation of scaffolds into animal/patient bodies). To address these issues, this research is aimed at performing a novel study on the modelling and in vivo monitoring of the time dependent mechanical properties of tissue engineering scaffolds. To represent the time-dependent mechanical properties of a scaffold, a novel model based on the concept of finite element model updating is developed. The model development involves three steps: (1) development of a finite element model for the effective mechanical properties of the scaffold, (2) parametrizing the finite element model by selecting parameters associated with the scaffold microstructure and/or material properties, which vary with scaffold degradation, and (3) identifying selected parameters as functions of time based on measurements from the tests on the scaffold mechanical properties as they degrade. To validate the developed model, scaffolds were made from the biocompatible polymer polycaprolactone (PCL) mixed with hydroxyapatite (HA) nanoparticles and their mechanical properties were examined in terms of the Young modulus. Based on the bulk degradation exhibited by the PCL/HA scaffold, the molecular weight was selected for model updating. With the identified molecular weight, the finite element model v developed was effective for predicting the time-dependent mechanical properties of PCL/HA scaffolds during degradation . To monitor and characterize scaffold mechanical properties in vivo, novel methods based on synchrotron-based phase contrast imaging and finite element modeling were developed. The first method is to represent the scaffold mechanical properties from the measured deflection. In this method, the phase contrast imaging is used to characterize the scaffold deflection caused by ultrasound radiation forces; and the finite element modelling is used to represent the ultrasonic loading on the scaffold, thus predicting the mechanical properties from the measured deflection. The second method is to characterize the scaffold degradation due to surface erosion, which involves the remote sensing of the time dependent morphology of tissue scaffolds by phase contrast imaging and the estimation of time dependent mass loss of the scaffolds from the sensed morphology. The last method is to relate the elastic mechanical property and nonlinear stress-strain behavior to the scaffold geometry, both changing with time during surface erosion. To validate the above methods, scaffolds was made from varying biomaterials (PLGA and PCL) and their mechanical properties (degradation, mass loss, and elastic modulus) were examined experimentally. The results obtained illustrate the methods developed in this research are effective to monitor and characterize scaffold mechanical properties. The significance of this research is that the model developed for the scaffold mechanical properties can be used in the design of scaffolds with the desired mechanical properties, instead of the trial and error methods typical in current scaffold design; and that these novel monitoring methods based on synchrotron imaging can be used to characterize the scaffold time-dependent mechanical properties in the in vivo environments, representing an important advance in tissue engineering

New Bounds on Quotient Polynomials with Applications to Exact Divisibility and Divisibility Testing of Sparse Polynomials

A sparse polynomial (also called a lacunary polynomial) is a polynomial that has relatively few terms compared to its degree. The sparse-representation of a polynomial represents the polynomial as a list of its non-zero terms (coefficient-degree pairs). In particular, the degree of a sparse polynomial can be exponential in the sparse-representation size. We prove that for monic polynomials $f, g \in \mathbb{C}[x]$ such that $g$ divides $f$, the $\ell_2$-norm of the quotient polynomial $f/g$ is bounded by $\lVert f \rVert_1 \cdot \tilde{O}(\lVert{g}\rVert_0^3\text{deg}^2{ f})^{\lVert{g}\rVert_0 - 1}$. This improves upon the exponential (in $\text{deg}{ f}$) bounds for general polynomials and implies that the trivial long division algorithm runs in time quasi-linear in the input size and number of terms of the quotient polynomial $f/g$, thus solving a long-standing problem on exact divisibility of sparse polynomials. We also study the problem of bounding the number of terms of $f/g$ in some special cases. When $f, g \in \mathbb{Z}[x]$ and $g$ is a cyclotomic-free (i.e., it has no cyclotomic factors) trinomial, we prove that $\lVert{f/g}\rVert_0 \leq O(\lVert{f}\rVert_0 \text{size}({f})^2 \cdot \log^6{\text{deg}{ g}})$. When $g$ is a binomial with $g(\pm 1) \neq 0$, we prove that the sparsity is at most $O(\lVert{f}\rVert_0 ( \log{\lVert{f}\rVert_0} + \log{\lVert{f}\rVert_{\infty}}))$. Both upper bounds are polynomial in the input-size. We leverage these results and give a polynomial time algorithm for deciding whether a cyclotomic-free trinomial divides a sparse polynomial over the integers. As our last result, we present a polynomial time algorithm for testing divisibility by pentanomials over small finite fields when $\text{deg}{ f} = \tilde{O}(\text{deg}{ g})$

Predictors of paralysis in the rheumatoid cervical spine in patients undergoing total joint arthroplasty.

BACKGROUND: Rheumatoid arthritis is sometimes associated with radiographic evidence of instability of the cervical spine, most commonly an abnormal subluxation between vertebrae. When this instability compromises the space that is available for the spinal cord, it may be predictive of paralysis. However, the prevalence of radiographic signs of instability that are predictive of paralysis among patients with nonspinal orthopaedic manifestations of rheumatoid arthritis is unknown. METHODS: Radiographs of the cervical spine of patients with rheumatoid arthritis who had undergone total joint arthroplasty over a five-year period were retrospectively reviewed. The radiographs were evaluated for predictors of paralysis (a posterior atlantodental interval of\u3c14 \u3emm) and were compared with traditional parameters of instability (an anterior atlantodental interval of \u3e3 mm or subaxial subluxation of \u3e3 mm). RESULTS: Forty-nine of the sixty-five patients who were identified had flexion and extension lateral radiographs available for review. Only one of these patients had a posterior atlantodental interval of \u3c14 \u3emm, and only three had a space available for the cord that measuredcomparison, twenty patients had radiographic evidence of instability on the basis of traditional parameters. CONCLUSIONS: Although nearly one-half of the patients in the present study had radiographic evidence of cervical instability on the basis of traditional measurements, only four patients (8%) had a radiographic finding that was predictive of paralysis. Thus, while radiographic evidence of cervical instability was not infrequent in this population of patients who underwent total joint arthroplasty for rheumatoid arthritis, radiographic predictors of paralysis were much less common

Committee V.1: Accidental Limit States

Concern for accidental scenarios for ships and offshore structures and for their structural components leading to limit states. Types of accidental scenarios shall include collision, grounding, dropped objects, explosion, and fire. Attention shall be given to hazard identification, accidental loads and nonlinear structural consequences including strength reduction, affecting the probability of failure and related risks. Uncertainties in the use of accidental scenarios for design and analysis shall be highlighted. Consideration shall be given to the practical application of methods and to the development of ISSC guidance for quantitative assessment and management of accidental risks

Modelling of ductile fracture in single point incremental forming using a modified GTN model

Understanding the deformation and failure mechanisms in single point incremental forming (SPIF) is of great importance for achieving improved formability. Furthermore, there will be added benefits for more in depth evaluation of the effect of localised deformation to the fracture mechanism in SPIF. Although extensive research has been carried out in recent years, questions still remain on the shear and particularly its effect to the formability in SPIF processes. In this work, a modified Gurson–Tvergaard-Needleman (GTN) damage model was developed with the consideration of shear to predict ductile fracture in the SPIF process due to void nucleation and coalescence with results compared with original GTN model in SPIF. A combined approach of experimental testing and SPIF processing was used to validate finite element results of the shear modified Gurson–Tvergaard-Needleman damage model. The results showed that the shear modified GTN model improved the modelling accuracy of fracture over the original GTN model under shear loading conditions. Furthermore, the shear plays a role under meridional tensile stress to accelerate fracture propagation in SPIF processes

The Sandia Fracture Challenge: blind round robin predictions of ductile tearing

Existing and emerging methods in computational mechanics are rarely validated against problems with an unknown outcome. For this reason, Sandia National Laboratories, in partnership with US National Science Foundation and Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division, launched a computational challenge in mid-summer, 2012. Researchers and engineers were invited to predict crack initiation and propagation in a simple but novel geometry fabricated from a common off-the-shelf commercial engineering alloy. The goal of this international Sandia Fracture Challenge was to benchmark the capabilities for the prediction of deformation and damage evolution associated with ductile tearing in structural metals, including physics models, computational methods, and numerical implementations currently available in the computational fracture community. Thirteen teams participated, reporting blind predictions for the outcome of the Challenge. The simulations and experiments were performed independently and kept confidential. The methods for fracture prediction taken by the thirteen teams ranged from very simple engineering calculations to complicated multiscale simulations. The wide variation in modeling results showed a striking lack of consistency across research groups in addressing problems of ductile fracture. While some methods were more successful than others, it is clear that the problem of ductile fracture prediction continues to be challenging. Specific areas of deficiency have been identified through this effort. Also, the effort has underscored the need for additional blind prediction-based assessments

Systematic, continental scale temporal monitoring of marine pelagic microbiota by the Australian Marine Microbial Biodiversity Initiative

Sustained observations of microbial dynamics are rare, especially in southern hemisphere waters. The Australian Marine Microbial Biodiversity Initiative (AMMBI) provides methodologically standardized, continental scale, temporal phylogenetic amplicon sequencing data describing Bacteria, Archaea and microbial Eukarya assemblages. Sequence data is linked to extensive physical, biological and chemical oceanographic contextual information. Samples are collected monthly to seasonally from multiple depths at seven sites: Darwin Harbour (Northern Territory), Yongala (Queensland), North Stradbroke Island (Queensland), Port Hacking (New South Wales), Maria Island (Tasmania), Kangaroo Island (South Australia), Rottnest Island (Western Australia). These sites span ~30° of latitude and ~38° longitude, range from tropical to cold temperate zones, and are influenced by both local and globally significant oceanographic and climatic features. All sequence datasets are provided in both raw and processed fashion. Currently 952 samples are publically available for bacteria and archaea which include 88,951,761 bacterial (72,435 unique) and 70,463,079 archaeal (24,205 unique) 16 S rRNA v1-3 gene sequences, and 388 samples are available for eukaryotes which include 39,801,050 (78,463 unique) 18 S rRNA v4 gene sequences.Additional Authors: Bronwyn Holmes, Guy C.J. Abell, Pascal Craw, Tim Kahlke, Swan Li San Sow, Kirsty McAllister, Jonathan Windsor, Michele Skuza, Ryan Crossing, Nicole Patten, Paul Malthouse, Paul D. van Ruth, Ian Paulsen, Jed A. Fuhrman, Anthony Richardson, Jason Koval, Andrew Bissett, Anna Fitzgerald, Tim Moltmann & Levente Bodross

Investigation of the effect of forming parameters in incremental sheet forming using a micromechanics based damage model

The incremental sheet forming (ISF) process is considered as a feasible solution for forming a variety of small batch and even customised sheet components. The quality of an ISF product is affected by various process parameters, e.g. sheet material, step-down, feed rate, tool diameter and lubricant. To produce an ISF part of sufficient quality and accuracy without defects, optimal parameters of the ISF process should be selected. In the present work, experiments and FE analyses were conducted to evaluate the influence of the main ISF process parameters including the step-down, feed rate and tool diameter on the formability and fracture of two types of pure Ti (grade 1 and 2). The Gurson–Tvergaard-Needleman (GTN) damage constitutive model with consideration of stress triaxiality was developed to predict ductile fracture in the ISF process due to void nucleation, growth and coalescence. It was found that the ISF parameters have varying degrees of effect on the formability and fracture occurrence of the two types of pure Ti, and grade 2 pure Ti sheet is more sensitive than grade 1 Ti sheet to the forming parameters due to low ductility