THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MAXIMAL STRENGTH AND PLYOMETRIC ABILITY IN RUGBY PLAYERS

This study examined the role of maximal strength in plyometric exercise performance in twenty strength-trained rugby players. Players’ maximal leg strength was assessed using a 3 or 5RM barbell back squat strength testing procedure. Plyometric ability was assessed using ground contact times and the reactive strength index variable during depth jumps from a variety of box heights (12, 36 and 51cm) performed on a force plate. The data indicated a strong positive relationship between strength levels and plyometric ability. Stronger subjects achieved better reactive strength indices than weaker counterparts and are more capable of performing depth jumps at higher intensities. Stronger athletes may benefit more from fast SSC plyometric training than their weaker counterparts

Probabilistic forecasting of shallow, rainfall-triggered landslides using real-time numerical weather predictions

A project established at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in New Zealand is aimed at developing a prototype of a real-time landslide forecasting system. The objective is to predict temporal changes in landslide probability for shallow, rainfall-triggered landslides, based on quantitative weather forecasts from numerical weather prediction models. Global weather forecasts from the United Kingdom Met Office (MO) Numerical Weather Prediction model (NWP) are coupled with a regional data assimilating NWP model (New Zealand Limited Area Model, NZLAM) to forecast atmospheric variables such as precipitation and temperature up to 48 h ahead for all of New Zealand. The weather forecasts are fed into a hydrologic model to predict development of soil moisture and groundwater levels. The forecasted catchment-scale patterns in soil moisture and soil saturation are then downscaled using topographic indices to predict soil moisture status at the local scale, and an infinite slope stability model is applied to determine the triggering soil water threshold at a local scale. The model uses uncertainty of soil parameters to produce probabilistic forecasts of spatio-temporal landslide occurrence 48~h ahead. The system was evaluated for a damaging landslide event in New Zealand. Comparison with landslide densities estimated from satellite imagery resulted in hit rates of 70–90%

Design of 370-ps Delay Floating-Voltage Level Shifters With 30-V/ns Power Supply Slew Tolerance

A new design method for producing high-performance and power-rail slew-tolerant floating-voltage level shifters is presented, offering increased speed, reduced power consumption, and smaller layout area compared with previous designs. The method uses an energy-saving pulse-triggered input, a high-bandwidth current mirror, and a simple full latch composed of two inverters. A number of optimizations are explored in detail, resulting in a presented design with a dVdd slew immunity of 30 V/ns, and near-zero static power dissipation in a 180-nm technology. Experimental results show a delay of below 370 ps for a level-shift range of 8-20 V. Postlayout simulation puts the energy consumption at 2.6 pJ/bit at 4 V and 7.2 pJ/bit at 20 V, with near symmetric rise and fall delays

Counter Machines and Distributed Automata: A Story about Exchanging Space and Time

We prove the equivalence of two classes of counter machines and one class of distributed automata. Our counter machines operate on finite words, which they read from left to right while incrementing or decrementing a fixed number of counters. The two classes differ in the extra features they offer: one allows to copy counter values, whereas the other allows to compute copyless sums of counters. Our distributed automata, on the other hand, operate on directed path graphs that represent words. All nodes of a path synchronously execute the same finite-state machine, whose state diagram must be acyclic except for self-loops, and each node receives as input the state of its direct predecessor. These devices form a subclass of linear-time one-way cellular automata.Comment: 15 pages (+ 13 pages of appendices), 5 figures; To appear in the proceedings of AUTOMATA 2018