The Relationship Between Offseason Testing and Game Performance of Division I Collegiate Football Players

Offseason football strength programs consist of three distinct areas of training: speed/agility/quickness (SAQ); strength/power; and flexibility. These areas have been predetermined to be of most relation to football (Sawyer, Ostarello, Suess, & Dempsey, 2002). The results of these tests determine which players are the best athletes, subsequently labeling them with the potential to be the best football players. Personal football experience has revealed that excellent players may not test well and excellent testers may not perform well in games. It was hypothesized that offseason testing results would not be strongly related to game performance, but the 40-yard dash and the vertical jump would be the best indicators of how players perform. The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between offseason testing results and game performance of Division I Collegiate Football players. The football strength staff at East Carolina gave a test battery to the players during the offseason. This study used the data collected to form correlations with game performance from the 2016 East Carolina Football season. Each category of testing was evaluated to determine if certain tests are better indicators of game performance than others. The research focused on a specific position group, defensive backs, in order to improve reliability of results. The hypothesis was not fully supported because the vertical jump produced a strong correlation to game performance (r = 0.76), rejecting the first part of the hypothesis that no offseason test would strongly correlate. The second part of the hypothesis was supported because the vertical jump was the best indicator of game performance. The data suggests previous literature was correct in providing an indication of the results from which the vertical jump test was the strongest correlated offseason test with game performance. The broad jump and flexibility were tests that produced moderate correlations. Z-scores were calculated for all player testing to provide a normalized indication of athletic performance. These correlations could be specific to the defensive back position and other position groups may yield different results

Lifetimes in \u3csup\u3e124\u3c/sup\u3eTe: Examining Critical-Point Symmetry in the Te Nuclei

The Doppler-shift attenuation method following inelastic neutron scattering was used to determine the lifetimes of nuclear levels to 3.3-MeV excitation in 124Te. Level energies and spins, γ-ray energies and branching ratios, and multipole-mixing ratios were deduced from measured γ-ray angular distributions at incident neutron energies of 2.40 and 3.30 MeV, γ-ray excitation functions, and γγ coincidence measurements. The newly obtained reduced transition probabilities and level energies for 124Te were compared to critical-point symmetry model predictions. The E(5) and β4 potential critical-point symmetries were also investigated in 122Te and 126Te

Interrelation between the isoscalar octupole phonon and the proton-neutron mixed-symmetry quadrupole phonon in near spherical nuclei

The interrelation between the octupole phonon and the low-lying proton-neutron mixed-symmetry quadrupole phonon in near-spherical nuclei is investigated. The one-phonon states decay by collective E3 and E2 transitions to the ground state and by relatively strong E1 and M1 transitions to the isoscalar 2+ state. We apply the proton-neutron version of the Interacting Boson Model including quadrupole and octupole bosons (sdf-IBM-2). Two F-spin symmetric dynamical symmetry limits of the model, namely the vibrational and the \gamma-unstable ones, are considered. We derive analytical formulae for excitation energies as well as B(E1), B(M1), B(E2) and B(E3) values for a number of transitions between low-lying states.Comment: 25 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX, epsfig. Nucl. Phys. A (in press

Collective Quadrupole Behavior in \u3csup\u3e106\u3c/sup\u3ePd

Excited states in 106Pd were studied with the (n,n′γ) reaction, and comprehensive information for excitations with spin ≤6ℏ was obtained. The data include level lifetimes in the femtosecond regime, spins and parities, transition multipolarities, and multipole mixing ratios, which allow the determination of reduced transition probabilities. The E2 decay strength to the low-lying states is mapped up to ≈2.4 MeV in excitation energy. The structures associated with quadrupole collectivity are elucidated and organized into bands

Extended M1 sum rule for excited symmetric and mixed-symmetry states in nuclei

A generalized M1 sum rule for orbital magnetic dipole strength from excited symmetric states to mixed-symmetry states is considered within the proton-neutron interacting boson model of even-even nuclei. Analytic expressions for the dominant terms in the B(M1) transition rates from the first and second $2^+$ states are derived in the U(5) and SO(6) dynamic symmetry limits of the model, and the applicability of a sum rule approach is examined at and in-between these limits. Lastly, the sum rule is applied to the new data on mixed-symmetry states of 94Mo and a quadrupole d-boson ratio $nd(0^+_1)/nd(2^+_2) \approx 0.6$ is obtained in a largely parameter-independent wayComment: 19 pages, 3 figures, Revte

DESCANT and β-Delayed Neutron Measurements at TRIUMF

The DESCANT array (Deuterated Scintillator Array for Neutron Tagging) consists of up to 70 detectors, each filled with approximately 2 liters of deuterated benzene. This scintillator material o_ers pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities to distinguish between neutrons and γ-rays interacting with the scintillator material. In addition, the anisotropic nature of n – d scattering allows for the determination of the neutron energy spectrum directly from the pulse height spectrum, complementing the traditional time-of-flight (ToF) information. DESCANT can be coupled either to the TIGRESS (TRIUMF-ISAC Gamma-Ray Escape Suppressed Spectrometer) γ-ray spectrometer [1] located in the ISAC-II [2] hall of TRIUMF for in-beam experiments, or to the GRIFFIN (Gamma-Ray Infrastructure For Fundamental Investigations of Nuclei) γ-ray spectrometer [3] located in the ISAC-I hall of TRIUMF for decay spectroscopy experiments

E0 transitions in 106Pd:Implications for shape coexistence

Level lifetimes in 106Pd were measured with the Doppler-shift attenuation method following inelastic neutron scattering, and electric monopole transition strengths between low-lying 2+ states were deduced. The large $\rho^{2}$(E0) values obtained provide evidence for shape coexistence, extending observation of such structures in the N = 60 isotones. Included in these results is the first determination of the E0 transition strength in the Pd nuclei between levels with K = 2

Novel Algorithms for Signal Classification and Security in Wireless Networks

In an increasingly congested and contested spectral environment, it is absolutely critical for a radio to both sense and discern its spectral environment and to make intelligent decisions based on this sensing to achieve various design requirements. In the field of cognitive radio (CR), the direction for decades has been in developing sensing techniques and intelligent agents for the purpose of increasing spectral efficiency, particularly in the context of dynamic spectrum access (DSA) networks where secondary users attempt to fill “spectral holes” left by the primary, licensed users [1]. However, with the scale, scope, and frequency of cybercrime reaching the level of making worldwide news several times per year, many of the existing designs are now being re-examined in the face of such a prominent threat. The cyberattacks that typically make headlines tend to involve an exploitation of vulnerabilities that are specific to particular applications, whereas, for wireless networks, more attention is recently placed on developing security in the physical layer, where both the intended receiver and other radios have unrestricted access to the same wireless medium. In the interest of fulfilling the design requirements of secure systems, engineers are using existing technologies in wireless communications, such as beamforming [2], in a novel way to analyze the capabilities of malicious users. Much of the research conducted on the efficacy of a malicious eavesdropper or jammer is performed in specific contexts in which the eavesdropper or jammer has capabilities similar to those of the radios participating in a network. However, at a time when it is relatively easy to deploy custom radios due to the proliferation of software-defined radios (SDR), understanding the threat of radios that have different capabilities is critical to the security of future wireless networks. With this aim, several stand-alone works, when combined, present a more holistic framework through which all the challenges that malicious users may face in fulfilling their objectives can be understood. Starting with a receiver that can digitize a bandwidth that is an order of magnitude larger than incumbent signals and has no a-priori knowledge, many novel techniques are presented to isolate, classify, and characterize all the activity in a spectrum from the physical layer and beyond. Without a-priori knowledge, it can be said that the eavesdropper is operating in a blind fashion. The first stage of the system tackles the problem of isolating several signals that may exist together in a large digitized bandwidth. This problem is not generally handled blindly, but is performed by exploiting the properties of waveforms that are designed for specific purposes of enabling a receiver to separate signals, such as spreading codes, instead. It is shown here that signals can be separated, using a combination of spectral estimation techniques, polyphase filter banks, and independent component analysis, under the relatively loose assumption that the data carried by each signal are statistically independent of each other and channel conditions are not overly severe. This particular part of the system is generally ignored in the works that are associated with understanding the capabilities of malicious users, but is critical for understanding under what conditions malicious users can even detect a signal that is meant to be protected. After detection and isolation, another challenge is that of identifying the type of signal that has been detected so tht further appropriate analysis can be done. For example, prior to examining the data present in a signal it is necessary to discern how data is being conveyed through this signal, often called modulation, is being used. For many decades, research that examined the problem of modulation classification was dominated by likelihood approaches, as they are statistically optimal in performance but are difficult, if not impossible, to implement in a blind system due to their inability to handle large sets of modulations or rich channel models. Classifying signals based on theoretically derived features is long seen as a more viable alternative for implementation as opposed to the likelihood approaches, but these techniques have also faced a limitation in regards to the richness of the channel models in which they can be applied. In that vein, this dissertation demonstrates the usage of a few common expert features in combination with modern machine learning techniques that can be used to classify a set of 10 entirely different modulations in channel models, which include common radio impairments that are often left out of both of the two previously mentioned approaches. In addition, along with the recent development of deep-learning techniques developed in the computer-vision community, it is shown how a set of 29 different modulations can be classified using only 128 complex samples. A subsequent problem after classification is related to decision-making based on the actual data present in the signals. Jamming (also called denial of service attacks) and eavesdropping have been studied extensively in the context of wired networks but have recently received more attention as a result of several works that demonstrate how encryption techniques can be bypassed by eavesdroppers, capturing the so-called side-channel information (SCI) [2]. The limitation of most current research in intelligent jamming and eavesdropping lies in their dependence on being able to accurately read the information in a physical layer frame. This work is justified in many cases because the physical layer headers, which contain the modulation being used in a frame, are often not encrypted. However, this practice of keeping the headers unencrypted may stand to change in the interest of security [3]. Therefore, in this section, a technique is demonstrated that can be used to accomplish intelligent jamming while assuming that the bits in a packet are encrypted and/or obfuscated to the point that their meaning is useless. This technique represents the beginning of an exploration of how even layers above the physical layer may need to be adjusted in order to prevent attacks from malicious users

FEATURE SELECTION FOR CYCLOSTATIONARY-BASED SIGNAL CLASSIFICATION

Cognitive radio (CR) is a concept that imagines a radio (wireless transceiver) that contains an embedded intelligent agent that can adapt to its spectral environment. Using a software defined radio (SDR), a radio can detect the presence of other users in the spectrum and adapt accordingly, but it is important in many applications to discern between individual transmitters and this can be done using signal classification. The use of cyclostationary features have been shown to be robust to many common channel conditions. One such cyclostationary feature, the spectral correlation density(SCD),hasseenlimiteduseinsignalclassificationuntilnowbecauseitisacomputationally intensive process. This work demonstrates how feature selection techniques can be used to enable real-time classification. The proposed technique is validated using 8 common modulation formats that are generated and collected over the air.International Foundation for TelemeteringProceedings from the International Telemetering Conference are made available by the International Foundation for Telemetering and the University of Arizona Libraries. Visit http://www.telemetry.org/index.php/contact-us if you have questions about items in this collection