Value of an NHL Player

The National Hockey League (NHL) consists of 30 teams which are located in all diverse types of markets around North America. With these teams being in different size markets, it is becoming more difficult to survive in the rigid economic times. With sports being a billion dollar industry, the NHL is an organization who is really struggling because of the lack of support from fans and sponsorships. With money being an issue, owners of these 30 NHL teams, have to make a decision whether they want to be a winning organization or a profitable organization. With this being said owners need to think about how much money their players are making. My research question is: What is the return on investment of NHL players? How does the return on investment compare to the value of a player? This research being performed will benefit the academic community because it will open up the job markets for the NHL. With moving the idea of using statistical data to determine a players worth, we are able to validate the idea of saber metrics in the NHL. This can add a whole new field of study in the academic community. It will also benefit the sport community, because it will give owners of sport organizations the knowledge needed to spend their money wisely when deciding to sign a player. Finance is a very important aspect in sports, and doing this research we can predict future values to find ways for NHL owners to make a profitable organization. With this being said, the players also want to make sure they are making what they are giving back to the organization

Returning lost heritage: A study of the suitability of the Maple River for the re-introduction of Arctic grayling

Rivers, Lakes, and WetlandsThe Arctic Grayling (Thymallus Arcticus) was once the dominant fish species in many watersheds of Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula, but were listed as extirpated in the 1930s following a long period of decline caused by overfishing, habitat destruction, and the introduction of non-native salmonids by anglers. Recent successes of conservation efforts in the Grayling's natural range in Montana has generated interest in re-stocking in some of the Michigan habitats of the Grayling. This study conducted tests to assess physical and biological factors such as macroinvertebrate population, substrata, and temperature. This study found that the East Branch of the Maple River is not suitable for Arctic Grayling, but that the West Branch might support populations of the Grayling, and would be worth studying in more detail with regards to possible re-stocking.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143562/1/McGinnis_2017.pd

Flexible Sigma Delta Time-Interleaved Bandpass Analog-to-Digital Converter

Conversion of analog signals to their digital equivalent earlier in a circuit’s topology facilitates faster and more efficient exploitation of the information contained within. Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) form the link between the analog and digital realms. In high frequency circuits ADCs must often be implemented further downstream after several stages of down-conversion, or through the use of more expensive technologies such as Bi-polar Junction Transistors or Gallium Arsenide. This thesis presents a technique to utilize Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor technology in a parallel time-interleaved architecture. This will reduce circuit complexity and allow the ADC to be placed further upstream reducing the need for large and expensive analog hardware. This thesis utilizes an architecture that allows for higher frequency input signals through the use of down-sampling, parallel processing, and recombination. This thesis will also present the use of sigma delta based modulation in order to increase the resolution of the digital output signal. Exploitation of oversampling and the resultant noise-shaping characteristics of the sigma delta modulator will enable the user to gain resolution without the increased cost of implementing more expensive ADC architectures such as Flash. This thesis also presents a flexible converter such that both the center frequency and resolution can be modified by manipulating inputs. Specifically, the input and output filters as well as the sampling frequency can be tuned such that the circuit will operate at a particular center frequency. Also, the circuit will have flexible resolution which can be controlled by the clock input. Proof of concept is accomplished with a Matlab® simulation followed by schematic implementation in Cadence®. The design is constructed using IBM® 0.13 µm technology with a rail voltage of 1.2 V. Results are evaluated through the calculation of the effective number of bits and the signal to noise ratio. Conclusions and guidance on future research are provided

Differential Tissue Response to Growth Hormone in Mice

Growth hormone (GH) has been shown to act directly on multiple tissues throughout the body. Historically, it was believed that GH acted directly in the liver and only indirectly in other tissues via insulin‐like growth hormone 1 (IGF‐1). Despite extensive work to describe GH action in individual tissues, a comparative analysis of acute GH signaling in key metabolic tissues has not been performed. Herein, we address this knowledge gap. Acute tissue response to human recombinant GH was assessed in mice by measuring signaling via phospho‐STAT5 immunoblotting. STAT5 activation is an easily and reliably detected early marker of GH receptor engagement. We found differential tissue sensitivities; liver and kidney were equally GH‐sensitive and more sensitive than white adipose tissue, heart, and muscle (gastrocnemius). Gastrocnemius had the greatest maximal response compared to heart, liver, white adipose tissue, and whole kidney. Differences in maximum responsiveness were positively correlated with tissue STAT5 abundance, while differences in sensitivity were not explained by differences in GH receptor levels. Thus, GH sensitivity and responsiveness of distinct metabolic tissues differ and may impact physiology and disease

Advancing Applications of IMUs in Sports Training and Biomechanics.

Miniature inertial measurement units (IMUs) have become popular in the field of biomechanics as an alternative to expensive and cumbersome video-based motion capture (MOCAP). IMUs provide three-axis sensing of angular velocity and linear acceleration in lieu of position data provided by MOCAP. The research presented herein further explores the use of IMUs in five applications for sports training and clinical biomechanics. The first study focuses on the sports of baseball and softball and yields estimates of the release velocity of a pitched ball within 4.6% of MOCAP measurements. The ball angular velocity further distinguishes and quantifies different types of pitches. The second study enables estimates of angular velocity during free-flight based solely on data from an embedded tri-axial accelerometer. Doing so eliminates angular rate gyros, which are often range limited, yet yields angular velocity estimates accurate to within 2%. We further exploit this technique to reveal the rotational stability of rigid bodies in free-flight. The third study extends the use of IMUs to assess the speed of an athlete estimated from a torso-mounted IMU. The speed estimates remain highly correlated with those obtained by MOCAP (r=0.96, slope=0.99) for motions characteristic of explosive sports (e.g., basketball). Moreover, the accurate speed estimation algorithm (mean RMSE=0.35 m/s) does not require data from GPS or magnetometers rendering it valuable and usable in any environment (indoor or outdoor). The remaining studies advance the use of IMU arrays to estimate joint reactions in multibody systems. The fourth study establishes the accuracy of this method using experiments on an instrumented double pendulum. Estimated reaction forces and moments remain within 5.0% and 5.9% RMS respectively of values measured via load cells. The final study addresses the companion need to measure the location of joint centers. A method employing a single IMU yields the center of rotation (CoR) of a spherical joint to within 3 mm as established by a coordinate measuring machine. The simplicity and accuracy of this method may render it attractive for broad use in field, laboratory or clinical applications requiring non-invasive, rapid estimates of joint CoR.PHDMechanical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97947/1/ryanmcg_1.pd

The Effect of target speed and verbal instruction on NPC measures in a young, healthy, and active population

Purpose: Evaluate the effect of target speed and verbal instruction on near point of convergence (NPC) measurements in a young, healthy, and active population. Methods: NPC was measured in 20 individuals with three target speeds and two sets of verbal instruction. The target speeds used were 1 cm/s, 3 cm/s, 5 cm/s, and participant self-paced. The verbal instruction given was either to indicate when the target became “double” or “blurry”. Results: Paired-samples t-tests revealed significant differences between 5 cm/s (5.44 ± 2.01) and 1 cm/s (6.72 ± 2.39, p = .003), 3 cm/s (6.10 ± 2.36, p = .030) and self-paced (6.63 ± 2.26, p = .005). A significant difference (p < .001) was also found between the “double” (6.72 ± 2.39) and “blurry” (10.82 ± 3.08) conditions Conclusion: For young, healthy and active individuals, target speed and verbal instruction matter when measuring NPC

Wearable Sensors Outperform Behavioral Coding as Valid Marker of Childhood Anxiety and Depression

There is a significant need to develop objective measures for identifying children under the age of 8 who have anxiety and depression. If left untreated, early internalizing symptoms can lead to adolescent and adult internalizing disorders as well as comorbidity which can yield significant health problems later in life including increased risk for suicide. To this end, we propose the use of an instrumented fear induction task for identifying children with internalizing disorders, and demonstrate its efficacy in a sample of 63 children between the ages of 3 and 7. In so doing, we extract objective measures that capture the full six degree-of-freedom movement of a child using data from a belt-worn inertial measurement unit (IMU) and relate them to behavioral fear codes, parent-reported child symptoms and clinician-rated child internalizing diagnoses. We find that IMU motion data, but not behavioral codes, are associated with parent-reported child symptoms and clinician-reported child internalizing diagnosis in this sample. These results demonstrate that IMU motion data are sensitive to behaviors indicative of child psychopathology. Moreover, the proposed IMU-based approach has increased feasibility of collection and processing compared to behavioral codes, and therefore should be explored further in future studies

Inertial Sensors—Applications and Challenges in a Nutshell

This editorial provides a concise introduction to the methods and applications of inertial sensors. We briefly describe the main characteristics of inertial sensors and highlight the broad range of applications as well as the methodological challenges. Finally, for the reader’s guidance, we give a succinct overview of the papers included in this special issue

The Homeodomain Resource: a comprehensive collection of sequence, structure, interaction, genomic and functional information on the homeodomain protein family

The Homeodomain Resource is a curated collection of sequence, structure, interaction, genomic and functional information on the homeodomain family. The current version builds upon previous versions by the addition of new, complete sets of homeodomain sequences from fully sequenced genomes, the expansion of existing curated homeodomain information and the improvement of data accessibility through better search tools and more complete data integration. This release contains 1534 full-length homeodomain-containing sequences, 93 experimentally derived homeodomain structures, 101 homeodomain protein–protein interactions, 107 homeodomain DNA-binding sites and 206 homeodomain proteins implicated in human genetic disorders

Elbow joint variability for different hand positions of the round off in gymnastics.

The aim of the present study was to conduct within-gymnast analyses of biological movement variability in impact forces, elbow joint kinematics and kinetics of expert gymnasts in the execution of the round-off with different hand positions. Six international level female gymnasts performed 10 trials of the round-off from a hurdle step to a back-handspring using two hand potions: parallel and T-shape. Two force plates were used to determine ground reaction forces. Eight infrared cameras were employed to collect the kinematic data automatically. Within gymnast variability was calculated using biological coefficient of variation (BCV) discretely for ground reaction force, kinematic and kinetic measures. Variability of the continuous data was quantified using coefficient of multiple correlations (CMC). Group BCV and CMC were calculated and T-test with effect size statistics determined differences between the variability of the two techniques examined in this study. The major observation was a higher level of biological variability in the elbow joint abduction angle and adduction moment of force in the T-shaped hand position. This finding may lead to a reduced repetitive abduction stress and thus protect the elbow joint from overload. Knowledge of the differences in biological variability can inform clinicians and practitioners with effective skill selection