An exercise device used to achieve bone formation metrics for the strengthening of the proximal femur.

Lateral falls often lead to hip fracture particularly in the elderly who have low bone mineral density. These fractures frequently lead to indirect mortality soon after injury. Normal use over the course over a lifetime leads to optimized adaptation of the bone in the proximal femur according to normal loading. A lateral fall generates non-normal, lateral loading at the proximal hip where the bone has not adapted to withstand such loading. The resulting fracture is generated by reversed strains on the bone tissue in the femoral neck in the hip in contrast to vertical, quotidian loading. Modern practices for preventing hip fractures are largely supplements or medications while standard exercise and vibration therapies are also used. Preventative measures such as these may help but it is apparent that more is needed. A supplementary exercise device intended to stimulate lateral, localized bone formation at the hip while providing user quality feedback could be a promising solution to overcoming such high hip fracture rates. The device consists of: a main body in the form a lap plate, two adjustable pad arms that optimally position two impact pads adjacent to the user’s lateral proximal femur, and a knee plate that helps maintain the device in the optimal position on the lap relative to the hip joint. Anabolic thresholds for strain magnitude and strain rate are both shown to be critical metrics for stimulating bone remodeling such as what occurs in the femoral neck. The objectives of this second-generation prototype are to design, fabricate, and validate a versatile device with user performance feedback to allow the user to comfortably achieve the biological thresholds for appropriate anabolic bone remodeling in the femoral neck. The prototype design was based on anthropometric data representing the typical archetype. Strength of key elements was analyzed via manual calculations and finite element analysis (FEA). Ideal sensor placement was also analyzed via FEA to maximize sensitivity. Quasi-static testing in an MTS machine across the breadth of relevant user settings is performed to translate strain gage output to pad force. The discrete results of this testing were then used to generate a 95% two-sided regression model of continuous predictors for accurate force measurement based on user-specific setting inputs. Custom software was developed to process the raw data and provide user feedback. Additional accelerometer data was processed as a potentially simpler alternative to strain data for feedback to the user regarding proper exercise effort. Dynamic testing was collected on 10 volunteers who perform a swift hip abduction using the prototype which creates three-point bending in the femur that generates strain in the femoral neck. Additional tests were performed to optimize data outcome based on user factors. Pad force rate was converted to theoretical bone strain rate based on data provided by the first-generation device study. Strain and strain rate data were compared to the accepted biological thresholds to stimulate remodeling taken from the prevailing bone biomechanics literature. A prototype was successfully fabricated after calculations were used to validate design integrity. This device was proven functional in acquiring dynamic data via custom software after use by volunteers of varying anthropometry. Before this dynamic data was acquired, preferred strain gage placement was determined to provide the most sensitive measure of pad impact force by calculating stress profiles at minimum and maximum settings and the regression model was validated via four-in-one plot analysis with an R2 of 99.97%. Ideal instruction and performance of the exercise using the device were refined though a series of sub-studies evaluating data acquisition and data metrics. These sub-studies suggested optimal feedback is achieved through an appropriate knee arm setting and a narrow pad arm setting using extra padding under the instruction to swiftly drive through the pad to a 60 beats per minute metronome without pushing down on the plate. Volunteer data revealed an average peak value of 499.5 N surpassing the 350 N minimum and 450 N suggested force to achieve strain magnitudes above the 1000 µε osteogenic threshold. Similarly, the average strain rate of the volunteers averaged 21509.6 µε/s far exceeding the 10000 µε/s bone remodeling threshold. These findings suggest that this device has the potential induce anabolic bone remodeling at the hip, thus encouraging more study toward aims of reduced hip fracture rates. Acceleration data did not prove to be an alternative to strain data for user feedback

Panoptic Schooling’s Confused Lessons: A Philosophical Investigation of Discipline in the School

How does the school instruct us? What is it like for a student to learn in a school? The following thesis construes the school as a site for disciplinary technology purportedly oriented toward educating students. My conceptual analysis rests on the intersection between the sociohistorical practice of schooling and the lived experience of students. I contrast schooling (the organization of a primary planned environment for instruction) and education (an existential facet of growth and social connectedness) at the center of the essay. My argument has three parts. First, I examine Michel Foucault’s concept of disciplinary technology as it pertains to the school. Second, I develop the existential presuppositions of Foucault’s argument through evidence from the field of phenomenology. Third, I sketch a normative conception of education, supported by the philosophy of John Dewey and elaborate on the dangers of discipline through a reading of Martin Heidegger’s “The Question Concerning Technology.” While this thesis thoroughly problematizes a central aspect of modern pedagogy, it does not provide simple solutions and merely hopes to examine the complicated intersection between “disciplinary” pedagogy and lived experience in order to deepen our understanding of each of these fields

Faculty Recital: Trey Wright Trey Wright (feat. Laura Coyle and Sean Thrower )

KSU faculty guitarist, Trey Wright and vocalist, Laura Coyle present an eclectic mix of music. Special appearance by guitarist and KSU Artist in Residence, Sean Thrower.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/2312/thumbnail.jp

On the foundations of legal reasoning in international law

Issues pertaining to the "foundations" of legal reasoning in international law break down into several discrete questions: what do statements about law mean; how do they get their meaning: to what do legal terms refer; in what does knowledge of law consist; how do we reason with legal concepts; what constitutes a criterion for argumentative success; how do bodies of legal concepts combine to form systems; is the conceptual organisation of different types of legal system, such as municipal law and international law, necessarily (or even factually) the same at some fundamental level?... This thesis is concerned with some measure with all of these questions, but the focus throughout is on those of the meaning of what we say about law, of legal knowledge, and of topological issues regarding legal systems (that is, how various types of legal system stand, conceptually, to one another). The thesis falls into two parts. The first, which is critical in nature, looks at some of the ways in which modern positivism has attempted to supply answers to these questions. It shall be argued that underlying those attempts is a particular view about the foundations of legal reasoning which has remained fairly constant in modern legal theory, not only among the positivists but also commonly among their sceptic rivals. Several difficulties with this view are raised and explored, all of which have contributed to the notion that international law is, when viewed through the spectacles of a municipal lawyer, at best a primitive system of law. The heart of Part I is a discussion of the character of legal knowledge. This takes place in the context of an account of the "Institutional Theory of Law" (ITL), as propounded by Neil MacCormick and Ota Weinberger. The argument that emerges is one broadly in favour of ITL, though critical of the methodological and philosophical assumptions on the basis of which the main edifice of the theory rests. It is submitted that such assumptions are the result of misplaced views about semantics and the nature of reference. Part I ends with the suggestion of an alternative, and hopefully more stable, strategy for generating the account of legal knowledge for which ITL strove. Part II comprises a positive thesis about the foundations of legal reasoning in international law, developed on the back of the strategy in Part I

Natural law and goodness in Thomistic ethics

The purpose of the essay is to recover a correct conception of natural law and goodness in the ethics of Saint Thomas Aquinas. It suggests that the dominant interpretation of Thomism known by legal philosophers—that of John Finnis—is importantly at variance with Aquinas’s true account. Against the dominant interpretation, a true account of natural law must (i) differentiate between natural law and ethics in the full sense (moral theology), and (ii) interpret references to human good as references to virtuous goodness rather than non-moral goodness. The main body of the essay explores the place of these concepts in Aquinas’s account of ethics.</jats:p

Harnessing brain power at NUI Maynooth

The Department of Electronic Engineering at NUI Maynooth is involved in exciting interdisciplinary work in the biomedical, digital signal processing, control and electronic systems areas. Here Tomas Ward, Seán McLoone and Shirley Coyle highlight three specific projects

The effect of pre-exercise galactose and glucose ingestion on high-intensity endurance cycling.

This study evaluated the effects of the pre-exercise (30 minutes) ingestion of galactose (Gal) or glucose (Glu) on endurance capacity as well as glycemic and insulinemic responses. Ten trained male cyclists completed 3 randomized high-intensity cycling endurance tests. Thirty minutes before each trial, cyclists ingested 1 L of either 40 g of glucose, 40 g of galactose, or a placebo in a double-blind manner. The protocol comprised 20 minutes of progressive incremental exercise (70-85% maximal power output [Wmax]); ten 90-second bouts at 90% Wmax, separated by 180 seconds at 55% Wmax; and 90% Wmax until exhaustion. Blood samples were drawn throughout the protocol. Times to exhaustion were longer with Gal (68.7 ± 10.2 minutes, p = 0.005) compared with Glu (58.5 ± 24.9 minutes), with neither being different to placebo (63.9 ± 16.2 minutes). Twenty-eight minutes after Glu consumption, plasma glucose and serum insulin concentrations were higher than with Gal and placebo (p < 0.001). After the initial 20 minutes of exercise, plasma glucose concentrations increased to a relative hyperglycemia during the Gal and placebo, compared with Glu condition. Higher plasma glucose concentrations during exercise, and the attenuated serum insulin response at rest, may explain the significantly longer times to exhaustion produced by Gal compared with Glu. However, neither carbohydrate treatment produced significantly longer times to exhaustion than placebo, suggesting that the pre-exercise ingestion of galactose and glucose alone is not sufficient to support this type of endurance performance