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.

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The purpose of this research was to develop three real-time adaptive temperature controllers for hyperthermia heating systems. Each scheme is made adaptive by using a transient Gaussian estimation routine to estimate the tissue blood perfusion and by then using these estimated values either in an optimizing routine, or in an observer, or in both. The optimizing routine uses a steady-state Gaussian estimation technique to optimize the power distribution until the best possible match is obtained between the steady-state temperatures predicted by a treatment model and a prespecified ideal temperature distribution. The observer uses a treatment model to control unmeasured locations. The first adaptive control scheme uses the optimizing routine alone, the second uses the observer alone and the third uses both the optimzing routine and observer. The performance of each of the adaptive control schemes is compared to a standard proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control scheme for one-dimensional simulations of typical treatments. Results comparing the deviation of the controlled temperature distribution to the ideal desired temperature distribution for all locations and all times indicate that the adaptive schemes perform better than the PID scheme. It can be concluded that adaptive control yields improved performance if good a priori knowledge of the treated region tissue and perfusion region boundaries is available. While these control schemes were designed for eventual implementation on a scanned focused ultrasound hyperthermia treatment system, the techniques are applicable to any system with the capability to vary specific power with respect to location and with an unknown distributed energy sink proportional to the temperature elevation.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 17-20, 1994 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / Fairchild is presently developing a high-rate telemetry collection and formatting component for one of NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth’s key missions. Because of the complexity and new technology involved, discrete event simulation tools have played a key role in the development process. This paper serves as a brief introduction to this component and to the model developed with the simulation tools.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Electrical and Electronic Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Conservation / Master / Master of Science in Conservation

published_or_final_version / Business / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy