Heavenly Bodies RSVP

The purpose of the Heavenly Bodies RSVP project was to design and fabricate planet props, as well as a mechanism by which they could be raised and lowered in California Polytechnic State University’s Pavilion theater. The project team was comprised of four fourth year mechanical engineering students: Allison Turnbaugh, Braden Lockwood, Jack Boulware, and Justin Spitzer. We conducted extensive research to determine the ideal solution for the design problem brought to us by our sponsor. In our analysis, we discovered that the most important aspects of our design were the absolute reliability of the system, fire retardant material selection, and the overall aesthetics of the planets. These criteria along with our past product research allowed us to design a product that aligned with the vision of our sponsor. The system of planets was planned for use by the Music Department for the 25th installment of their annual diverse transmedia series entitled RSVP XXV: Call and Response. Sponsored by Dr. Antonio Barata, the show’s artistic director and producer, and professor in Cal Poly’s Music Department, the project featured design considerations unique to the location and nature of the production. For instance, the project had a hard completion deadline set for May 17, 2020, as stage construction would have been completed in preparation for rehearsals the following week. We determined that approximately 20 planets would be manufactured by the end of the project as well as a system to deploy them. Our objective was to make these planets safe, quiet, aesthetically pleasing, lightweight, and suitably reliable for use in the play. Though our design was unique to the needs of our sponsor, research of patented mechanisms provided inspiration for a system to raise and lower the planets. This information was utilized during ideation, which resulted in the creation of a few viable solutions, discussed later in this document. Working with our sponsor and advisor, the team finalized and tested a design, then created a structural prototype. However, due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the team was forced to forgo construction of a final product, as the production was cancelled. In response, the team devoted its remaining time to creating a set of online instructions to assist others in building and implementing the developed system

A Pilot Study Investigating the Effects of the Summer Rodeo Season on Functional Movement Screening Scores of College Rodeo Athletes

Rodeo is well known for its high-velocity, high-impact atmosphere where athletes compete against the clock and uncooperative livestock. Many rodeo competitive related injuries are associated with insufficient muscular synergy, endurance, strength, and limb flexibility. PURPOSE: The purpose of this investigation was to examine the difference between pre-summer rodeo functional movement screening (FMS) outcomes and post-summer rodeo FMS outcomes of rodeo athletes. METHODS: The researchers conducted pre-summer rodeo FMS assessments on collegiate rodeo athletes (n = 8). Athletes were instructed to complete their standard summer rodeo season without the integration of exercise modalities that may serve as corrective strategies for altered functional movement onset by the demands of rodeo performance. Rodeo athletes returned for post-summer rodeo season FMS testing upon the conclusion of their summer rodeo season. A paired-sample t-test (p \u3c 0.05) was employed to identify differences in pre- and post-summer rodeo FMS outcomes. RESULTS: The statistical analysis revealed no significant differences between pre- and post-summer rodeo season FMS scores. However, moderate effects sizes were identified between pre- and post-rotary stability (d = .725), pre- and post-deep squat (d = .725), and pre- and post-hurdle step (d = .725), and pre- and post-trunk stability (d = -.540). CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the intensity and volume of summer rodeo season performance may contribute to alterations in rodeo athlete’s functional movement abilities. An FMS utilized to identify movement compensations/limitation of rodeo athletes prior to summer rodeo season, and the integration of exercise modalities that serve as corrective strategies for the presented movement compensations may assist in decreasing the chance of non-impact injury sustainmen

Sex-Specific Difference of Functional Movement Screening Scores Among Rodeo Athletes

Faulty movement patterns, especially in elite athletes, can lead to neuromuscular imbalances. Rodeo is an example of an injury prone sport that requires optimal muscular synergy, endurance, strength, and limb flexibility to succeed in rodeo performance. The Functional Movement Screening (FMS) test has shown validity in identifying various neuromuscular imbalances, and subsequently, scientific findings support the FMS threshold score (less ≤ 14) as valid for injury risk screening in collision and team sports, firefighters, and the tactical professions. If an athlete has a composite score of 14 or less in conjunction with a previous injury, they are 15 times more likely to sustain an injury. FMS studies have indicated women are more proficient in lower leg raise, while men possess greater trunk stability. However, both men and women overall report no significant differences in mean scores for FMS. However, identifying FMS outcome differences between male and female rodeo athletes has yet to be examined. PURPOSE: The purpose of the current investigation was to identify sex-specific FMS outcomes for rodeo athletes. METHODS: Collegiate rodeo athletes (n = 85; 25 men, 60 women) completed a Functional Movement Screening Test to establish athlete specific movement pattern efficiencies. A MANOVA (p \u3c .05) was employed to examine differences in FMS outcomes between male and female rodeo athletes. RESULTS: Statistically significant main effect was reported between sex in overall FMS outcomes of rodeo athletes, F(8, 76) = 5, p \u3c .001; Wilks’ Λ = .655, η2 = .345. Specifically, a significant between-subjects effect recognized sex differences when performance Active Straight Leg Raise (p \u3c .001), Shoulder Mobility (p = .012), Truck Stability (p = 005), In-Line Lunge (p = 005), and Deep Squat (p = .029). No significant differences being identified between the sexes when assessing the Hurdle Step (p = .201), Rotary Stability (p = .739), nor Total FMS score (p = .820). CONCLUSION: These results suggest differences in FMS outcomes between sexes may be present among different rodeo events. Additionally, and specific to rodeo, FMS outcomes may be attributed to different physical demands associated with sex-specific events of rodeo. This information may also provide future researchers and practitioners insight into potential injury associated with low FMS scores of rodeo athletes

Differences in Functional Movement Screening Score between College Rodeo Events

The sport of rodeo is recognized as a high velocity/intensity activity, with a wide range of varying dynamic movements occurring across difference rodeo events. High velocities and extreme dynamic range of motion movements, compound with uncooperative livestock, contribute to elevated risk of injury. While these factors generally attribute to rodeo injuries, little is known in regards to movement limitations of rodeo athletes. PURPOSE: Therefore, the purpose of the current investigation was to identify movement pattern differences among rodeo events using the Functional Movement Screening (FMS) test. METHODS: College rodeo athletes (n = 85) from a mid-size university in the southwest region were selected as participants for this study. Athletes were categories according to their respected rodeo event: Steer Wrestling (n = 7), Breakaway Roping (n = 28), Goat Tying (n = 11), Barrel Racing (n = 20), Saddle Bronc Riding (n = 9), Tie Down Roping (n = 4), Bull Riding (n = 2), or Team Roping (n = 4). Following, all rodeo athletes completed an FMS test to establish movement efficiencies. A MANOVA was utilized to differentiate FMS scores between rodeo events. RESULTS: There was a statistically significant main effect between rodeo event and FMS outcomes of rodeo athletes, F(56, 382.72) = 1.777, p = .001; Wilk’s Λ = .288, partial η2 = .163. LSD Post hoc test revealed significant differences between various events for all dependent variables except the Hurdle Step Test. CONCLUSION: These results suggest different rodeo event specific movement pattern may affect FMS test results. Additionally, for the practitioner, these differences may serve as valid precursors to injuries per rodeo event

Scalable Scheduling Policy Design for Open Soft Real-Time Systems

Open soft real-time systems, such as mobile robots, must respond adaptively to varying operating conditions, while balancing the need to perform multiple mission specific tasks against the requirement that those tasks complete in a timely manner. Setting and enforcing a utilization target for shared resources is a key mechanism for achieving this behavior. However, because of the uncertainty and non-preemptability of some tasks, key assumptions of classical scheduling approaches do not hold. In previous work we presented foundational methods for generating task scheduling policies to enforce proportional resource utilization for open soft real-time systems with these properties. However, these methods scale exponentially in the number of tasks, limiting their practical applicability. In this paper, we present a novel parameterized scheduling policy that scales our technique to a much wider range of systems. These policies can represent geometric features of the scheduling policies produced by our earlier methods, but only require a number of parameters that is quadratic in the number of tasks. We provide empirical evidence that the best of these policies are competitive with exact solution methods in small problems, and significantly outperform heuristic methods in larger ones

A Pilot Study Examining the Relationship between Functional Movement Screening Scores and Rodeo Performance Outcomes

Research has identified diverse levels of flexibility among different sports and the athletes that compete within them. Rodeo, in particular, is a high intensity, high velocity sport, that requires substantial dynamic range of motion during competition. Functional Movement Screening (FMS) is a comprehensive set of tests that is recognized as a valid precursor to identifying potential injury and has established mobility norms for various sports. However, no studies have explored the FMS profile of rodeo athletes and the relationship between FMS and rodeo performance. PURPOSE: This investigation was designed to establish FMS norms for rodeo athletes per event (i.e., rough stock and timed events) and determine the impact of mobility on event specific performance. METHODS: Pre-season FMS was conducted on 29 collegiate rodeo athletes. Rodeo performance outcomes was collected upon the conclusion of the regular spring season rodeo. A spearman\u27s rank order correlation was employed to assess the relationship between FMS scores and rodeo performance outcomes. Alpha levels were set at p \u3c 0.05. RESULTS: Descriptive FMS results (M ± SD) are as follows: Tiedown Ropers (n = 2) 15 ± 1.41; Saddle Bronc Riders (n = 2) 15.5 ± 0.71; Steer Wrestlers (n = 5) 16.6 ± 2.70; Breakaway Ropers (n = 13) 16.6 ± 2.43; Goat Tiers (n = 5) 17.2 ± 1.79; Barrel Racers (n = 6) 16.2 ± 2.14. Strong, significant negative correlations were recognized between Barrel Racers Average Time and Shoulder Mobility (rs(6) = -.878, p = .021), Rotary Stability (rs(5) = -.845, p = .034), Deep Squat (rs(5) = -.878, p = .021), and Total FMS Score (rs(5) = -.812, p = .050). Marginal correlations were identified between Shoulder Mobility and Catch Percentage (rs(5) = .783, p = .118) and In-line Lunge and Average Time (rs(5) = -.707, p = .182) for Steer Wrestlers. A marginal correlation was identified between Hurdle Step and Average Time (rs(13) = -.536, p = .059), and Rotary Stability and Average Time (rs(5) = -.707, p = .182) for Breakaway Ropers. CONCLUSION: These results provide a novel perspective regarding the FMS status of rodeo athletes and highlights the influence sufficient dynamic mobility has on rodeo performance outcomes

Foam Diagram Summation at Finite Temperature

We show that large-$N$ $\phi ^4$ theory is not trivial if one accepts the presence of a tachyon with a truly huge mass, and that it allows exact calculation. We use it to illustrate how to calculate the exact resummed pressure at finite temperature and verify that it is infrared and ultraviolet finite even in the zero-mass case. In 3 dimensions a residual effect of the resummed infrared divergences is that at low temperature or strong coupling the leading term in the interaction pressure becomes independent of the coupling and is 4/5 of the free-field pressure. In 4 dimensions the pressure is well-defined provided that the temperature is below the tachyon mass. We examine how rapidly this expansion converges and use our analysis to suggest how one might reorganise perturbation theory to improve the calculation of the pressure for the QCD plasma.Comment: 18 pages plain tex, with 8 figures embedded with epsf. Equation (2.15) has been corrected and the consequent changes made to the figures. A further analytic result has been added to the 3-dimensional calculatio

When and Why Do Controllers Mark Flight Progress Strips? a Look at Live Traffic

Subject matter experts were employed to record observations of flight progress strip marking across 5 en route ATC facilities. Approximately 220 hours of ATC observations were recorded establishing a group of high frequency/high importance markings. These markings were perceived by controllers to provide performance benefits through externalizing memory and communication. The results are discussed in relation to possible electronic alternatives to flight progress strips.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Characteristic polynomials of complex random matrix models

We calculate the expectation value of an arbitrary product of characteristic polynomials of complex random matrices and their hermitian conjugates. Using the technique of orthogonal polynomials in the complex plane our result can be written in terms of a determinant containing these polynomials and their kernel. It generalizes the known expression for hermitian matrices and it also provides a generalization of the Christoffel formula to the complex plane. The derivation we present holds for complex matrix models with a general weight function at finite-N, where N is the size of the matrix. We give some explicit examples at finite-N for specific weight functions. The characteristic polynomials in the large-N limit at weak and strong non-hermiticity follow easily and they are universal in the weak limit. We also comment on the issue of the BMN large-N limit

On matrix model partition functions for QCD with chemical potential

Partition functions of two different matrix models for QCD with chemical potential are computed for an arbitrary number of quark and complex conjugate anti-quark flavors. In the large-N limit of weak nonhermiticity complete agreement is found between the two models. This supports the universality of such fermionic partition functions, that is of products of characteristic polynomials in the complex plane. In the strong nonhermiticity limit agreement is found for an equal number of quark and conjugate flavours. For a general flavor content the equality of partition functions holds only for small chemical potential. The chiral phase transition is analyzed for an arbitrary number of quarks, where the free energy presents a discontinuity of first order at a critical chemical potential. In the case of nondegenerate flavors there is first order phase transition for each separate mass scale