Effect of central motor and neuromuscular impairment on freestyle swimming technique and performance

Evidence-based classification is required in Para swimming to ensure athletes are not disadvantaged when competing against others in their allocated class, but there is a dearth of research on how central motor and neuromuscular impairment (CMNI) impacts a swimmer’s movement in the water. CMNI encompasses brain injury, spinal cord injury, as well as other neuromuscular disorders which affect the ability to coordinate movement. This thesis aimed to improve understanding of how CMNI influences freestyle swimming technique and the impact it has on performance. In study 1, analysis of 223 race performances showed stroke length rather than stroke frequency was the main factor limiting CMNI freestyle performance. In studies 2–5, three-dimensional motion analysis was utilised to establish freestyle biomechanical characteristics of highly trained CMNI (30) and non-disabled (13) swimmers. Study 2 examined upper limb, lower limb and trunk kinematics in front crawl; study 3 investigated body roll kinematics; study 4 determined intra-cyclic speed fluctuation, Index of Coordination and Froude efficiency. The final study focused on the kinematics of double-arm backstroke, a specialist freestyle technique. Compared to the non-disabled group, CMNI swimmers displayed irregular hand and wrist positions, shallow and short hand trajectories, restricted elbow and shoulder range of motion, atypical body roll profiles, affected function of upper and lower limbs, and less horizontally aligned body orientations. More impaired swimmers exhibited higher body inclination angles, greater intra-cyclic speed fluctuation and lower swimming speed, stroke length and Froude efficiency than less impaired swimmers. These results indirectly highlight the impact of impaired active range of motion, poor coordination and affected strength on CMNI freestyle kinematics and indicate that CMNI swimmer performance is likely limited by a reduced ability to generate propulsion, minimise drag and swim economically. A high heterogeneity existed in their activity limitations due to the nature of CMNI comprised of various type and severity. This thesis has contributed to knowledge of the biomechanical determinants of CMNI freestyle and thus may inform the development of a more evidence-based Para swimming classification system

A Temporal Usage Pattern-based Tag Recommendation Approach

While social tagging can benefit Internet users managing their resources, it suffers the problems such as diverse and/or unchecked vocabulary and unwillingness to tag. Use of freely new tags and/or reuse of frequent tags have degraded coherence of corresponding resources of each tag that further frustrates people in retrieving information due to cognitive dissonance. Tag recommender systems can recommend users the most relevant tags to the resource they intend to annotate, and drastically transfer the tagging process from generation to recognition to reduce user’s cognitive effort and time. Prior research on tag recommendation has addressed the time-dependence issues of tags by applying a time decaying measure to determine the recurrence probability of a tag according to its recency instead of its usage pattern. In response, this study intends to propose the temporal usage pattern-based tag recommendation technique to consider the usage patterns and temporal characteristic of tags for making recommendations

EXPLORING E-LEARNING BEHAVIOR THROUGH LEARNING DISCOURSES

As many studies predict e-learning behaviors through intention, few of them investigate user’s learning behaviors directly. In addition to intention, individual’s e-learning behaviors may be influenced by technology readiness and group influences, such as social identity and social bond. This research-in-progress study explores how e-learning behaviors vary with intention, technology readiness, social identity and social bond. Our investigation was based on analyzing the speech acts embedded in fourteen learners’ online discourses in an eighteen-week e-learning course. We then compared how speech acts varied among groups with different degree of intention, technology readiness, social identity, and social bond. Our findings contribute e-learning research by clarifying how intention, technology readiness, social identity, and social bond influence learning behaviors in e-learning context

Imaging and Imagining Taiwan: Identity representation and cultural politics

Since the 1990s the issue of identity has been one of the most prominent and hotly-debated topics in Taiwan Studies. A rich corpus of literature has been produced in various fields in the attempt to address this problematic issue, examining questions of Taiwanese identity from political, social and cultural perspectives. Imaging and Imagining Taiwan takes a fresh approach to this important topic, examining Taiwanese identity from a visual perspective and exploring the ways in which the island is presented and imagined. In contrast to those studies that seek to address the issue of identity from an essentialist position, Imaging and Imagining Taiwan offers a new contextualization of identity, investigating the ways in which Taiwan has been represented in films, fine art, advertising, sport, and social spaces at different periods in history. Covering a diverse range of topics, the book aims to capture the fluidity, changeability, fragmentation and dynamism of Taiwanese identity as an imaginary and encompassing whole. Through seven case studies the book focuses on the ways in which Taiwan is represented, how this relates to identity politics, and how the island is imaged and imagined visually, socially, and symbolically. The essays comprising this collection are grouped into three sections, each of which focuses on a particular approach to the topic of Taiwanese identity. The first of these —Colonial Representation —deals with colonial subjectivity and traumatic experience. The second, entitled Imaging Difference, examines cultural practices in film, TV advertisements and fine art, and explores the boundaries between the inside and the outside, the difference marked by the process of othering, and the anxiety and alienation of the excluded. The third section—Identity and Place—focuses on the relationship between identity and the social construction of place, and examines the role of place-making in the new Taiwanese nation-building process. Interrogating the complex issue of Taiwanese identity from various standpoints, the seven contributors write from a range of disciplinary backgrounds (Literature, History, Film Studies, Linguistics, Anthropology and Cultural Studies) and geographical contexts (Taiwan, Europe and America). This combination of fresh perspectives and a range of disciplinary approaches offers a set of diverse yet complementary insights into how Taiwan has been envisioned and imagined, and how the Taiwanese have positioned and identified themselves at different times. By combining different themes and disciplinary approaches together in one publication, Imaging and Imagining Taiwan brings both nuance and depth to the discussion of the representation of Taiwanese identity. The book articulates and examines the complexity of identity, avoiding essentialist approaches to the topic, instead illustrating identity's multi-faceted nature and dynamic messiness. Thus, the book argues, the politics of identity is not only a politics of representation, but also a politics of positioning, whereby identity is formulated both by the construction of sameness and the inscription of difference. The interdisciplinary approach adopted by this book makes the discussion of Taiwanese identity of interest to those both studying and working in a range of subject disciplines, not limited to Taiwan Studies, but also in History, Film, Linguistics, Literary Studies, Nationalism Studies, and Urban Studies