COMPARISON OF SINGLE- AND MULTILAYER MATERIALS USED AS DAMPENING ELEMENTS IN KNEE-PROTECTORS

The purpose of this study was to identify characteristics of protectors and materials used to assemble protectors, which can be used to create a ranking and proof that a protector has the effects wanted. Single layer neoprene of increasing material strength (n=7) was compared to prototype multilayer materials (n=18) and different commercially available knee protectors (n=18). The test object was attached to a realistic knee dummy, and a fall to the floor was recorded, both kinematically and kinetically. Maximum acceleration and pressure on a single sensor was calculated at the time of the impact, as well as the height of the first rebounce after impact. For single layer materials, results showed a linear correlation of material strength and all three measured parameters. While max. acceleration and pressure both decreased with growing material strength, bounce height increased. This behaviour cannot be observed in multilayer systems. For our test materials as well as fully assembled protectors, pressure values were almost identical, while bounce height varied in a wide range. Different protectors showed great difference in their effectiveness to reduce maximum acceleration

Easing the survey burden: Quantitative assessment of low-cost signal surveys for indoor positioning

© 2016 IEEE. Indoor positioning through signal fingerprinting is a popular choice since it requires little or no additional infrastructure. However, the initial creation and subsequent maintenance of the signal maps remains a challenge since traditional manual surveying is not scalable. In this work we look at the use of path surveys, which attempt to construct the signal maps from a sparse set of fingerprints collected while a person walks through a space. As such, the survey points rarely provide a uniform coverage of the space of interest. We quantitatively evaluate path surveys with reference to a detailed manual survey using smartphone-grade equipment. We compare both the individual maps (generated using Gaussian Process regression) and their collective positioning performance. Our results are for both WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy signals. We show that a path survey can provide maps of equivalent quality to a manual survey if a series of guidelines we provide are followed

Using Bibliometric Big Data to Analyze Faculty Research Productivity in Health Policy and Management

Bibliometric big data and social media tools provide new opportunities to aggregate and analyze researchers' scholarly impact. The purpose of the current paper is to describe the process and results we obtained after aggregating a list of public Google Scholar profiles representing researchers in Health Policy and Management or closely-related disciplines. We extracted publication and citation data on 191 researchers affiliated with health administration programs in the U.S. With these data, we created a publicly available listing of faculty that includes each person's name, affiliation, year of first citation, total citations, h-index, and i-10 index. The median of total citations per individual faculty member was 700, while the maximum was 46,363. The median h-index was 13, while the maximum was 91. We plan to update these statistics and add new faculty to our public listing as new Google Scholar profiles are created by faculty members in the field. This listing provides a resource for students and faculty in our discipline to easily compare productivity and publication records of faculty members in their own and other departments. Similarly, this listing provides a resource for faculty, including department chairs and deans, who desire discipline-specific context for promotion and tenure processes

ANXIOLYTIC ACTIVITY OF MARINE MACROALGAE SARGASSUM ILICIFOLIUM AND PADINA TETRASTOMATICA IN MICE

Objective: The present study was designed to investigate an anxiolytic effect of chloroform and ethanol extract of Sargassum ilicifolium (SI) and Padina tetrastomatica (PT) in mice.Methods: Acute toxicity study was done as per OECD 423 guidelines. Based on acute toxicity studies, doses of 200, 400 and 600 mg/kg of SI and PT extracts were selected, and the anxiolytic activity was assessed using Elevated plus maze (EPM) and light/dark exploration (L/DE) tests.Results: Diazepam (2 mg/kg), the ethanol extract of SI (400 mg/kg) as well as ethanol extract of PT (600 mg/kg) significantly increased time spent and entries into the open arm in EPM test. In L/DE test Diazepam, chloroform extract (600 mg/kg) and ethanol extract (400 mg/kg) of SI as well as chloroform extract (600 mg/kg) and ethanol extract (600 mg/kg) of PT significantly increased time spent in light box and transition between the boxes.Conclusion: in the present investigation, ethanol extract at 400 and chloroform extract at 600 mg/kg of Sargassum ilicifolium as well as ethanol extract at 400 and 600 mg/kg and chloroform extract at 600 mg/kg of Padina tetrastomatica exhibited an anxiolytic effect in the experimental model of anxiety. However, additional research will be necessary to investigate the mechanism underlying this anxiolytic activity. Keywords: Sargassum ilicifolium, Padina tetrastomatica, Brown algae, Anxiolytic activit

Not only teachers: What do health administration faculty members do?

Researchers have long been interested in how university faculty allocate their time between professional tasks. This study uses multiple years of Health Administration (HA) faculty survey data to examine how work activity has changed over time, and how work activity relates to faculty rank and the type of school in which a faculty member is employed. We report on faculty time allocation to research, teaching, and administration by survey year, faculty rank, and type of school. We also examine factors related to faculty's status as a principal investigator, teaching load, and research funding. On average, HA faculty spent 43% of their time teaching, 31% doing research, 20% in administrative activities, and 5% in other activities. Full professors spent significantly less time teaching, had lighter teaching loads, and spent more time on administration than other faculty. Faculty in schools of health professions, business, and other schools spent more time in teaching and had lower research funding expectations than faculty in schools of public health and medicine. These findings may help faculty identify jobs that best align with their interests and benchmark their work against industry norms. These findings may also help administrators in HA programs set appropriate expectations for their faculty

LOWER LIMB JOINT KINETICS IN THE SPRINT START PUSH-OFF

Previous studies have analysed lower limb joint kinetics during sprint performance, but not addressed the earliest contact out of the blocks. The aim of this study was to report lower limb joint moments and powers during the first stance phase of the sprint push-off. One competitive male sprinter performed 10 maximal sprint starts. An automatic motion analysis system (CODA, 200 Hz) with synchronised force plate data (1000 Hz) were used to collect kinematic profiles at the hip, knee and ankle and ground reaction forces for the first stance phase. Cluster markers defined the orientation of the lower limb segments in 3D. Knee and hip kinetics differed to the later phases of sprint, whereas similarities were found at the ankle. This study highlights the need for the push-off phase to be considered separately from both research and practical perspectives

Semi-Automated Signal Surveying Using Smartphones and Floorplans

Location fingerprinting locates devices based on pattern matching signal observations to a pre-defined signal map. This paper introduces a technique to enable fast signal map creation given a dedicated surveyor with a smartphone and floorplan. Our technique (PFSurvey) uses accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer data to estimate the surveyor’s trajectory post-hoc using Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping and particle filtering to incorporate a building floorplan. We demonstrate conventional methods can fail to recover the survey path robustly and determine the room unambiguously. To counter this we use a novel loop closure detection method based on magnetic field signals and propose to incorporate the magnetic loop closures and straight-line constraints into the filtering process to ensure robust trajectory recovery. We show this allows room ambiguities to be resolved. An entire building can be surveyed by the proposed system in minutes rather than days. We evaluate in a large office space and compare to state-of-the-art approaches. We achieve trajectories within 1.1 m of the ground truth 90% of the time. Output signal maps well approximate those built from conventional, laborious manual survey. We also demonstrate that the signal maps built by PFSurvey provide similar or even better positioning performance than the manual signal maps