QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF CORE MUSCULATURE DURING TWO TYPES OF BASEBALL PITCHES: FASTBALL AND CHANGE-UP

Previous biomechanical studies have compared kinematic and kinetics of the fastball baseball pitch to the change-up, but there is yet to be a description of muscle activations between the two pitches. With the fastball being the most common baseball pitch and the change-up being the staple off-speed pitch, it is typical for a baseball pitcher to have these two pitches in his compilation of pitches. The change-up is thrown in attempt to mimic the fastball, however has a much lower velocity than the fastball. The intention of both pitches exhibiting the same delivery is an attempt to distract the batter. Therefore it was the purpose of this study to quantitatively analyze the core musculature attached to the pelvis during both the fastball and the change-up baseball pitches

Influence of single-neutron stripping on near-barrier ⁶He+²⁰⁸Pb and ⁸He+²⁰⁸Pb elastic scattering

The influence of single-neutron stripping on the near-barrier elastic scattering angular distributions for the 6,8He+208Pb systems is investigated through coupled reaction channels (CRC) calculations fitting recently published data to explore the differences in the absorptive potential found in the scattering of these two neutron-rich nuclei. The inclusion of the coupling reduces the elastic cross section in the Coulomb-nuclear interference region for 8He scattering, whereas for 6He its major impact is on the large-angle elastic scattering. The real and imaginary dynamic polarization potentials are obtained by inverting the CRC elastic scattering S-matrix elements. These show that the main absorptive features occur between 11 and 12 fm for both projectiles, while the attractive features are separated by about 1 fm, with their main structures occurring at 10.5 fm for 6He and 11.5 fm for 8He

Reaction channel contributions to the helion optical potential

Background: The well-established coupled channel and coupled reaction channel processes contributing to direct reactions make particular contributions to elastic scattering that are absent from local density folding models. Very little has been established concerning the contribution of these processes to the optical model potentials (OMPs) for 3He scattering. For studying such processes, spin-saturated closed shell nuclei such as 16O and 40Ca are particularly suitable target nuclei and the (3He, 4He) reaction is easily handled within conventional reaction theory because it avoids complications such as breakup.Purpose: To establish and characterize the contribution to the 3He-nucleus interaction generated by coupling to neutron pickup (outgoing 4He) channels; also to study the contribution of collective states and identify effects of dynamical nonlocality from these couplings.Methods: Coupled reaction channel (CRC) calculations, including coupling to collective states, will provide the elastic channel S-matrix Sl j resulting from the included processes. Inversion of Sl j will produce the local potential that yields, in a single channel calculation, the elastic scattering observables from the coupled channel calculation. Subtracting the bare potential from the CRC calculations yields a local and l-independent representation of the dynamical polarization potential (DPP). From the DPPs, because of a range of combinations of channel couplings, the influence of dynamically generated nonlocality can be identified.Results: Coupling to 4He channels systematically induces repulsion and absorption in the 3He OMP and also a reduction in the rms radius of the real part. The repulsion and absorption is less for 208Pb than for the lighter target nuclei although the qualitative effects, including the general undularity of the DPPs, are similar for all cases; therefore coupling to these channels cannot be represented by renormalizing folding model potentials. Evidence is presented for substantial dynamical nonlocality of the induced DPPs; for 40Ca this modifies direct reaction angular distributions. The local equivalent DPPs for individual couplings cannot be added to give the overall DPP for the complete set of couplings. For the 208Pb case, channel coupling reduces the reaction cross section although it increases it for 16O, with 40Ca an intermediate case. Conclusions: The DPPs established here strongly challenge the notion that folding models, in particular local density models, provide a satisfactory description of elastic scattering of 3He from nuclei. Coupling to neutron pickup channels induces dynamical nonlocality in the 3He OMP with implications for direct reactions involving 3He. Departures from a smooth radial form for the 3He OMP should be apparent in good fits to suitable elastic scattering data

Concept definition study for recovery of tumbling satellites. Volume 1: Executive summary, study results

The first assessment is made of the design requirements and conceptual definition of a front end kit to be transported on the currently defined Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) and the Space Transportation System Shuttle Orbiter, to conduct remote, teleoperated recovery of disabled and noncontrollable, tumbling satellites. Previous studies did not quantify the dynamic characteristics of a tumbling satellite, nor did they appear to address the full spectrum of Tumbling Satellite Recovery systems requirements. Both of these aspects are investigated with useful results

Concept definition study for recovery of tumbling satellites. Volume 2: Supporting research and technology report

A number of areas of research and laboratory experiments were identified which could lead to development of a cost efficient remote, disable satellite recovery system. Estimates were planned of disabled satellite motion. A concept is defined as a Tumbling Satellite Recovery kit which includes a modular system, composed of a number of subsystem mechanisms that can be readily integrated into varying combinations. This would enable the user to quickly configure a tailored remote, disabled satellite recovery kit to meet a broad spectrum of potential scenarios. The capability was determined of U.S. Earth based satellite tracking facilities to adequately determine the orientation and motion rates of disabled satellites

Coupled-channels effects in elastic scattering and near-barrier fusion induced by weakly bound nuclei and exotic halo nuclei

The influence on fusion of coupling to the breakup process is investigated for reactions where at least one of the colliding nuclei has a sufficiently low binding energy for breakup to become an important process. Elastic scattering, excitation functions for sub-and near-barrier fusion cross sections, and breakup yields are analyzed for $^{6,7}$Li+$^{59}$Co. Continuum-Discretized Coupled-Channels (CDCC) calculations describe well the data at and above the barrier. Elastic scattering with $^{6}$Li (as compared to $^{7}$Li) indicates the significant role of breakup for weakly bound projectiles. A study of $^{4,6}$He induced fusion reactions with a three-body CDCC method for the $^6$He halo nucleus is presented. The relative importance of breakup and bound-state structure effects on total fusion is discussed.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figure

State education as high-yield investment: human capital theory in European policy discourse

Human Capital Theory has been an increasingly important phenomenon in economic thought over the last 50 years. The central role it affords to education has become even more marked in recent years as the concept of the ‘knowledge economy’ has become a global concern. In this paper, the prevalence of Human Capital Theory within European educational policy discourse is explored. The paper examines a selection of policy documents from a number of disparate European national contexts and considers the extent to which the ideas of Human Capital Theory can be seen to be influential. In the second part of the paper, the implications of Human Capital Theory for education are considered, with a particular focus on the possible ramifications at a time of economic austerity. The paper argues that Human Capital Theory risks offering a diminished view of the person, a diminished view of education, but that with its sole focus on economic goals leaves room for educationists and others to argue for the educational, social, and moral values it ignores, and for the conception of the good life and good society it fails to mention

Simultaneous Optical Model Analyses of Elastic Scattering, Breakup, and Fusion Cross Section Data for the 6^{6}He + 209^{209}Bi System at Near-Coulomb-Barrier Energies

Based on an approach recently proposed by us, simultaneous $\chi^{2}$-analyses are performed for elastic scattering, direct reaction (DR) and fusion cross sections data for the $^{6}$He+$^{209}$Bi system at near-Coulomb-barrier energies to determine the parameters of the polarization potential consisting of DR and fusion parts. We show that the data are well reproduced by the resultant potential, which also satisfies the proper dispersion relation. A discussion is given of the nature of the threshold anomaly seen in the potential

Wildfire selectivity for land cover type: does size matter ?

Previous research has shown that fires burn certain land cover types disproportionally to their abundance. We used quantile regression to study land cover proneness to fire as a function of fire size, under the hypothesis that they are inversely related, for all land cover types. Using five years of fire perimeters, we estimated conditional quantile functions for lower (avoidance) and upper (preference) quantiles of fire selectivity for five land cover types - annual crops, evergreen oak woodlands, eucalypt forests, pine forests and shrublands. The slope of significant regression quantiles describes the rate of change in fire selectivity (avoidance or preference) as a function of fire size. We used Monte-Carlo methods to randomly permutate fires in order to obtain a distribution of fire selectivity due to chance. This distribution was used to test the null hypotheses that 1) mean fire selectivity does not differ from that obtained by randomly relocating observed fire perimeters; 2) that land cover proneness to fire does not vary with fire size. Our results show that land cover proneness to fire is higher for shrublands and pine forests than for annual crops and evergreen oak woodlands. As fire size increases, selectivity decreases for all land cover types tested. Moreover, the rate of change in selectivity with fire size is higher for preference than for avoidance. Comparison between observed and randomized data led us to reject both null hypotheses tested (a = 0.05) and to conclude it is very unlikely the observed values of fire selectivity and change in selectivity with fire size are due to chance.Funding: This paper was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia Ph.D. Grant SFRH/BD/40398/2007. JMCP participated in this research under the framework of research projects ‘‘Forest fire under climate, social and economic changes in Europe, the Mediterranean and other fire-affected areas of the world (FUME)’’, EC FP7 Grant Agreement No. 243888. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscrip