During the design of sports equipment, the main focus is usually on physical performance attributes, neglecting key subjective factors such as feel and comfort. The personal protective equipment worn in sport is a typical example, where injury prevention has taken precedence over user comfort, but it is anticipated that with a new approach to the design process, comfort can be improved without sacrificing protection. Using cricket leg guards and taekwondo chest guards as an example, this study aimed to develop a systematic method for assessing user perceptions and incorporating them into the design process. Players perceptions of the factors that influence the comfort of cricket leg guards and taekwondo chest guards were elicited through the use of co-discovery sessions, focus groups and individual interviews, and analysed through an inductive process to produce a comfort model. The relative importance of each different comfort dimension was identified through the use of an online questionnaire utilising the analytical hierarchy process method. Through the combination of these methods, six general dimensions were identified with a weighting regarding the amount to which each one determines a user's perceived comfort. For both cricket and taekwondo, the majority of players ranked Fit as the most important factor affecting comfort. Experimental procedures were developed to objectively test the Fit of cricket leg guards, with regards to batting kinematics, running performance and contact pressure. These methods were combined with subjective assessments of leg guard performance, to determine if there was a relationship between users perceived comfort and objective test results. It was found that shot ROM and performance were not significantly affected by cricket leg guards, despite perceptions of increased restriction whilst wearing certain pads. Wearing cricket leg guards was found to significantly decrease running performance when compared to running without pads (p<0.05). In addition, it was found that the degree of impedance depended on pad design and could not solely be attributed to additional mass. These results correlated with the subjective assessment of three different leg guards, with respondents identifying the pad which had the largest influence on their running biomechanics and impeded their performance the most, as the most restrictive pad. Contact pressure under the pad and straps was also measured for four different leg guards whilst running. The results found that the top strap applied the greatest amount of pressure to the leg, especially at the point of maximum knee flexion. The peak pressure under the top strap was found to reach up to three times that of any other area of the pad. These results were reflected in the subjective assessment of the leg guards, with all nine subjects identifying the top strap as an area of discomfort for certain pads. The results also suggested there was a preference for pads with a larger more consistent contact area, as pad movement was perceived to increase when contact area variation was greater. Finally the results from this research were used to develop a product design specification (PDS) for a cricket leg guard, specifying size, mass, contact pressure and shape. The PDS was used to develop a concept design which would maximise comfort, whilst maintaining protection.

M.Phil. (Sport Management) / The purpose of this study was to investigate the management of cricket coaching programmes at u/19 level in the Gauteng Province. Specifically, this study attempted to determine the current situation regarding management of coaching programmes and the delivery of in-school driven programmes in the province. Data was collected from schools offering cricket as a sport from both the Gauteng Lions and Northerns Cricket Union franchises. There were 10 schools in the Northerns franchise and 14 first-team players from these schools were selected as respondents. There were 10 schools in the Gauteng Lions franchise and 14 first-team players from these schools were selected as respondents. The managers and coaches were selected to respond to a questionnaire as their portfolios make them the foremost sources of information regarding programmes, and they could locate records containing relevant information. Executive committee members from the boards of Gauteng Lions and Northerns Cricket Union were also questionnaire respondents as their primary role is the implementation of policies. Chairpersons of the high schools committees were also respondents and an official from Cricket South Africa (CSA) participated. A total of 324 (n=324) questionnaires were distributed 162 (n=162) to the Gauteng Lions franchise and 162 (n=162) to the Northerns franchise. One questionnaire was sent to CSA, making a grand total of 325 (n=325) questionnaires. From the 162 questionnaires submitted to Northerns, only 111 (n=111) respondents returned their questionnaires; these 111 participants comprised of white (n=70), black (n=25), coloured (n=10), indians (n=2) and chinese (n=4). From the 162 questionnaires submitted to the Gauteng Lions franchise (162), the 96 respondents who returned their questionnaires were white (n=44), black (n=30), coloured (n=12), indians (n=9) and 1 chinese (n=1). The results revealed that the majority of players involved in u/19 programmes come from the white population group. The results revealed that the Gauteng Lions participate in inter-provincial weeks with a very small number of players that have caps at u/19 level (5.2%) and this reduces their chances of being selected to represent the SA u/19 team. Both franchises indicated financial challenges, but the Gauteng Lions have even bigger challenges ...

The main purpose of this study was to determine: * If there is a relationship between certain personality traits and participation in sport. * Whether cricket players possess certain personality traits in general and with regard to levels of play, playing positions and age. The literature study indicated that the study of personality tend to be complex and showed a relationship between personality traits and participation in sport. Furthermore the literature study showed that personality is not static, but dependant on acquired traits and responses. The empirical study revealed that certain personality traits in cricket players figure stronger than others regarding levels of play, playing positions and age, for example cricket players on club level tend to have more self control than school players and bowlers tend to show a larger tendency to disregard social rules and tend to be more enthusiastic, and greater risk-takers than batsmen and wicketkeepers. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Guidance and Counselling)

Thesis (M Sport Sc (Sport Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / The ability to execute a powerful throw is an essential skill for netball and cricket players. Numerous accurate, powerful throws are being made during the course of a match. It is thus necessary to focus on the development of excellent technique, as well as the development of the physical aspects that might contribute to the effectiveness and efficiency of the throwing action. The aim of the study was to determine which specific physical factors play a significant role in the distance that netball and cricket players can throw a ball. The distance of the thrown ball was also seen as an indirect measure of the power with which the throw was executed, with a greater distance implying more power. A group of volunteer subjects was drawn from the local netball and cricket clubs from the Stellenbosch area. Thirty nine injury-free, club level subjects participated in the study, of whom twelve (n=12) were male and twenty four (n=24) were female. Various physical factors were selected that give an indication of its contribution to a powerful throw for distance. Range of motion assessments involved the range of the shoulder joint, as well as the elbow joint, wrist joint and the back. The strength of the internal rotators was compared to the strength of the external rotators in the shoulder joint. Core stability was assessed by doing two different tests, with one involving shoulder stability as well. The relationship between upper-limb length and the throwing distance was assessed. Various anthropometric measurements were done, including height, weight, skinfolds, and the “wing span”. Throwing for distance was measured while the subjects remained seated on a chair. This throwing position was chosen in an attempt to eliminate the contribution of the kinetic chain that generates momentum in the lower extremities which get transferred to the upper extremities. It was thus an attempt to only focus on the involvement of the upper extremities. This seated throwing position is also often used as a test for throwing ability in athletes. Throwing for distance was also done with the subject strapped onto the chair to exclude the involvement of the core in the transfer or generation of energy. Results from this study showed that there were very few physical factors that had significant correlations in both groups. In the cricket players, factors from the isokinetic testing played a significant roll, but not in the netball players. There was a significant correlation which was positive with the average peak torque concentric/concentric 180 degrees/second with external rotation seated on the chair (r=0.46; p=0.03). There is also a tendency towards a significant correlation when the subject was seated in average peak torque concentric/concentric at 90 degrees/second both with internal (r=0.52; p=0.06) and external rotation (r=0.62; p=0.05). The peak torque concentric/concentric at 90 degrees/second during external rotation (r=0.61; p=0.06) and the peak torque concentric/concentric at 90 degrees/second during internal rotation (r=0.49; p=0.06). Both tended to a correlation but were not significant. There was found to be a few positive and statistical significant factors the average power concentric/concentric contractions at 90 degrees/second during external rotation when seated on the chair (r=0.64 and p=0.03) and average power concentric/concentric contractions at 180 degrees/second during external rotation when seated on chair (r=0.58; p=0.04) as well as strapped in on chair (r=0.06; p=0.03). It cannot be concluded there are any specific physical factors that would influence the distance thrown in both the netball and the cricket players. It can thus be assumed that a number of other factors might play a more important role in the execution of a powerful throw for distance, such as the involvement of the total well-coordinated kinetic chain, and the throwing techniques.

The main purpose of this study was to determine: * If there is a relationship between certain personality traits and participation in sport. * Whether cricket players possess certain personality traits in general and with regard to levels of play, playing positions and age. The literature study indicated that the study of personality tend to be complex and showed a relationship between personality traits and participation in sport. Furthermore the literature study showed that personality is not static, but dependant on acquired traits and responses. The empirical study revealed that certain personality traits in cricket players figure stronger than others regarding levels of play, playing positions and age, for example cricket players on club level tend to have more self control than school players and bowlers tend to show a larger tendency to disregard social rules and tend to be more enthusiastic, and greater risk-takers than batsmen and wicketkeepers. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Guidance and Counselling)

Modern research being conducted on Mental Toughness is now shifting away from efforts aimed at developing definitions for the construct and instead moving toward efforts at understanding its development. This particular research study focuses on the development and implementation of a Mental Toughness programme designed specifically for, and tailored exclusively to, the needs of schoolboy cricket at Kingswood College in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape. The programme development was an intricate process and the research procedure was guided by the Organisational Development Process model. Data from a focus group as well as various individual interviews were integrated with currently existing Mental Toughness literature and theory to devise this particular Mental Toughness programme. The programme entails educating the athletes on six specific mental skills and incorporates elements of practical application as well as awareness of the importance and influence of Mental Toughness and mental training in a sporting sphere. The programme took the form of mental skills workshops held over a three week period. An analysis was conducted post-programme to document the experience of the athletes as a result of exposure to the programme. Results drawn from the array of analysis procedures were used to help identify the level of success of the Mental Toughness intervention as well as help validify current Mental Toughness models. In addition to highlighting the benefits as a result of the programme experience, various recommendations were drawn in order to shed light on the programme limitations and assist future researchers with understanding the intricacies behind better and more efficient programme implementation.

<p>The production of insects for protein is projected to reach a market share of 1.33 billion USD, a rapid increase from the estimated 144 million USD share of 2019 market. The isolation of insect protein produces by-products, including chitin. Currently chitin is extracted from aquaculture by-products, such as shrimp and crab shells, and used to produce chitosan for various applications in the supplement and food industry. With the insect market expected to continue its growth, the feasibility of sourcing commercial chitin and chitosan from reared crickets’, and the application properties of its counterpart, chitosan, was investigated in this dissertation. In the first part of this dissertation, chitin from two commonly reared crickets in the Unites States, <i>Acheta domesticus</i> and <i>Gryllodes sigillatus</i>, was successfully extracted, purified, and identified as a commercially viable option for chitin and chitosan. Extensive crustacean chitin studies served as the foundation of purification steps, however durations were adjusted to account for intrinsic differences between insects and crustacean exoskeletons. Furthermore, cricket chitosan was prepared and optimized with varying degrees of deacetylation. As expected, cricket chitosan had lower molecular but did not have a detectable effect on the bioactive properties tested. All cricket chitosan produced had similar lipid binding capacity <i>in vitro</i>. Additionally, the microbial inhibition of cricket chitosan and commercial chitosan (~70% DDA) were not significantly different when evaluated against <i>L. innocua</i> and <i>E. coli</i>. High DDA cricket chitosan showed greatest bacterial inhibition as expected. In the second part of this dissertation, cricket derived chitosan showed similar and improved food packaging properties, when evaluated against commercial shrimp chitosan. microstructure analysis provided by scanning electron microscopy showed greater compaction and agglomeration of cricket chitosan films. The change in microstructure may be attributed to the increased complexity generally attributed to insect chitosan materials, a result of remaining melanin and protein in close association with insect exoskeleton chitosan. As a result, cricket films had similar or increased tensile strengths but decreased elongation percentages when compared to shrimp films. Water vapor permeability of cricket films was decreased due to tortuosity. Residual melanin likely played an important role in increasing cricket film surface hydrophobicity and providing enhanced light barrier properties. Overall, this dissertation successfully shows the potential of crickets as insect derived chitin and chitosan, and its effectiveness as a lipid binding and antibacterial agent, as well as its potential use in biobased food packaging. </p>

Animals detect, recognize and localize relevant objects in noisy, multi-source environments. Female crickets locate potential mates in choruses of simultaneously calling males using acoustic signals, a behaviour termed phonotaxis. The mechanisms underlying cricket phonotaxis are now understood across multiple levels: biophysical, neurobiological and behavioural. Phonotaxis has, however, rarely been tested in the complex real-world acoustic environments and no attempts have been made to predict acoustic orientation behaviour in these conditions despite our extensive understanding of its underlying mechanisms. In this thesis, I first characterized the acoustic environments faced by female crickets of the species Plebeiogryllus guttiventris in the field. Phonotaxis behaviour of females was then characterized under laboratory conditions using two sound sources. The data obtained were used to develop a simulation that predicted this behaviour. The predictions of the simulation were then tested against the phonotaxis behaviour of females in realistic, multi-source conditions in the field. My field studies of male behaviour showed that males of this species produced complex and variable songs in choruses where multiple males called simultaneously. The acoustic ranges of males in these choruses overlapped extensively and females performing phonotaxis in such choruses would hear multiple males simultaneously. The acoustic interactions of simultaneously calling males were also characterized for their timing relationships with each other and the changes they made to the temporal patterns of their songs. Males did not either synchronise or alternate their chirps, however they made changes to the temporal patterns of song in a way that is likely to make them more attractive to females. I then characterized the closed-loop walking phonotaxis behaviour of P. guttiventris females in the presence of two active sound sources playing conspecific song. Both the baseline and relative SPLs of the two speakers were systematically varied and female phonotactic paths were obtained. Females were found to preferentially approach louder songs. Several aspects of this behaviour were characterized, in particular orientation ability and motor behaviour under varied conditions of stimulus intensity. A stochastic simulation of closed-loop walking phonotaxis behaviour was developed using both current understanding of field cricket physiology and my data on closed-loop walking phonotaxis. The simulation was demonstrated to both qualitatively and quantitatively recapture female behaviour. It was also able to qualitatively recapture female behaviour in two previously published classical experiments in which the hearing of female crickets was disrupted. Female phonotaxis was then tested under real-world multi-source conditions. The behaviour of real females was compared to the predictions of the simulation. The simulation was found to recapture both female preference and phonotactic path forms at the population level. To my knowledge, this is the first study to both examine and successfully predict phonotaxis behaviour in complex real-world acoustic conditions.

Darwinian sexual selection predicts that males with the most extravagant secondary sexual traits suffer elevated mortality. Although correlative evidence has generally not borne this idea out, recent research, including a field cricket study, showed that investment in sexually selected traits is costly to survival. I investigated male survival, ornamentation (song) and mating success in a North American grylline, Gryllus pennsylvanicus, to test the generality of previous work and highlight the importance of ecology differences to resource allocation. As the calling songs of older male G. pennsylvanicus are highly attractive to females, in Chapter 2 I tested whether male age correlated with calling song and found a weak but statistically significant correlation, thus leaving open the possibility that choosy females use an age-based indicator mechanism. In Chapter 3, I tested the condition dependence of male survival and calling effort. In contrast to previous work, I found that high condition males both called more and lived longer than low condition males, although there was no trade-off between survival and calling effort. The substantial condition dependence of calling effort suggests that calling effort is under strong directional selection. In Chapter 4 I tested whether female mating preferences resulted in strong selection on male calling effort. I also tested for the condition dependence of female mating preferences. I found that female choosiness was condition-dependent, but the rank of preferred male songs (preference function) was not. Both low and high condition females preferred high calling effort over low calling effort song. In Chapter 5 I tested for evidence of nonlinear selection on male survival that might explain the nonlinear pattern of male investment in survival seen in Chapter 3 (i.e. male survival leveled-off with increasing condition). I found that socially experienced females, but not virgin and naive females, exerted linear selection on male age. I discuss these and the other results of my thesis in the context of previous work on field crickets and condition-dependent ornamentation. Finally, Appendix A reports results that confirm ancient Chinese cultural knowledge that large headed male crickets are more successful in male-male combat.

Darwinian sexual selection predicts that males with the most extravagant secondary sexual traits suffer elevated mortality. Although correlative evidence has generally not borne this idea out, recent research, including a field cricket study, showed that investment in sexually selected traits is costly to survival. I investigated male survival, ornamentation (song) and mating success in a North American grylline, Gryllus pennsylvanicus, to test the generality of previous work and highlight the importance of ecology differences to resource allocation. As the calling songs of older male G. pennsylvanicus are highly attractive to females, in Chapter 2 I tested whether male age correlated with calling song and found a weak but statistically significant correlation, thus leaving open the possibility that choosy females use an age-based indicator mechanism. In Chapter 3, I tested the condition dependence of male survival and calling effort. In contrast to previous work, I found that high condition males both called more and lived longer than low condition males, although there was no trade-off between survival and calling effort. The substantial condition dependence of calling effort suggests that calling effort is under strong directional selection. In Chapter 4 I tested whether female mating preferences resulted in strong selection on male calling effort. I also tested for the condition dependence of female mating preferences. I found that female choosiness was condition-dependent, but the rank of preferred male songs (preference function) was not. Both low and high condition females preferred high calling effort over low calling effort song. In Chapter 5 I tested for evidence of nonlinear selection on male survival that might explain the nonlinear pattern of male investment in survival seen in Chapter 3 (i.e. male survival leveled-off with increasing condition). I found that socially experienced females, but not virgin and naive females, exerted linear selection on male age. I discuss these and the other results of my thesis in the context of previous work on field crickets and condition-dependent ornamentation. Finally, Appendix A reports results that confirm ancient Chinese cultural knowledge that large headed male crickets are more successful in male-male combat.