The purpose of this research was to identify the legging features that athleisure consumers desire and the performance problems they frequently encounter. A non-probability sample (n=133) of college students who identified as female and wore leggings for non-athletic purposes were surveyed. The questionnaire was designed based upon examination of online product reviews and current complaints with legging products. The results of the survey were used to design and complete a laboratory evaluation. Laboratory samples and methods were then chosen to assess the performance qualities desired when purchasing leggings and the problems encountered when wearing leggings by the surveyed consumers. Three brands were identified by the survey as regularly consumed legging brands and included: Lululemon, Nike, and 90 Degree. All laboratory samples were a nylon, spandex blend fabric. Garments were laundered and evaluated after one, five, ten, and twenty washes. All evaluations were completed in a Textile Testing Laboratory according to AATCC and ASTM standard test methods.

Thesis (MPA)--University of Limpopo, 2009. / The democratic political breakthrough of 1994 in South Africa intensified debate on the delivery of quality public education among the teaching fraternity. This culminated in the promulgation of education legislation such as the South African Schools Act of 1996, the Education Employment Act of 1998 and finally the Collective Agreement Number 8 of 2003, which contains a section on the Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS).This was an attempt by the Department of Education to enhance the development of educators. The main purpose of the IQMS is to determine educators’ competence, to assess their strengths and areas in need of further development.What triggered the research was the fact that the Department of Education and teachers’unions were always at loggerheads regarding the implementation of the IQMS. This made the researcher investigate the feasibility, successes and shortcomings of the implementation of the IQMS. The researcher used questionnaires, interviews and a document study for the collection of data.The results indicated that the purpose, aim and objectives as enshrined in the Collective Agreement Number 8 of 2003 had not been realised in the implementation of the IQMS within Lebowakgomo circuit in Limpopo Province. Instead of being developed, educators were left demoralised and confused. The IQMS had lost its meaning in the sense that the monetary aspects were over-emphasized at the expense of the development aspects. The professional development of educators was ignored by the Department of Education, as it did not make in-service training or departmental support in any form available. The departmental officials never visited schools to effect the whole school evaluation required by Collective Agreement Number 8. Thus, educators simply completed the IQMS forms without proper evaluation just for the sake of the 1% salary increase. Lack of support by the Department of Education had indeed put the implementation of the IQMS in a crisis. Finally, recommendations were made. The key recommendation was the amendment of Collective Agreement No. 8 of 2003 so that the Development Support Groups are restructured. Furthermore, the review should take on board a reduction of the instruments that make up the IQMS. This is an attempt to streamline the IQMS and make it user-friendly.

Thesis (MPA.) --University of Limpopo, 2009. / Human Resource Development (Employer)

This thesis examined the benefits of physiological and performance testing of elite swimmers. The study considered the following research questions: the degree to which physiological and performance measures in training contribute to swimming performance; sources and magnitude of variability in testing, training and competition performance; the magnitudes of changes in test measures during routine training; and the reliability, validity and utility of miniaturised and automated smart sensor technology to monitor the stroke and performance times of swimmers in training. The experimental approach involved the retrospective analysis of five years of physiological and performance testing of elite level swimmers, the development of a new accelerometry-based smart sensor device to monitor swimmers in the pool, a cross-sectional study comparing the physiological and performance responses of swimmers of different levels, and the effects of an intensive 14-day training program on submaximal physiological and performance measures. Collectively, the outcomes of these studies provide a strong justification for the physiological and performance testing of elite swimmers, a quantitative framework for interpreting the magnitude of changes and differences in test scores and sources of variation, and highlight the potential utility of new smart sensor technology to automate the monitoring of a swimmer�s training performance. The first study (Chapter 2) characterises the changes and variability in test performance, physiological and anthropometric measures, and stroke mechanics of swimmers within and between seasons over their elite competitive career. Forty elite swimmers (24 male, 16 female) performed a 7 x 200-m incremental swimming step test several times each 6-month season (10 � 5 tests, spanning 0.5 to 6.0 y). Mixed linear modeling provided estimates of change in the mean and individual responses for measures based on submaximal performance (fixed 4-mM lactate), maximal performance (the seventh step), and lean mass (from skinfolds and body mass). Submaximal and maximal swim speed increased within each season from the pre to taper phase by ~2.2% for females and ~1.5% for males (95% confidence limits �1.0%), with variable contributions from stroke rate and stroke length. Most of the gains in speed were lost in the off-season, leaving a net average annual improvement of ~1.0% for females and ~0.6% for males (�1.0%). For submaximal and maximal speed, individual variation between phases was �2.2% and the typical measurement error was �0.8%. In conclusion, step test and anthropometric measures can be used to confidently monitor progressions in swimmers in an elite training program within and between seasons. The second study (Chapter 3) quantified the relationship between changes in test measures and changes in competition performance for individual elite swimmers. The primary question addressed was whether test measures could predict a swimmers performance at the major end-of-season competition. The same sample group as in Study 1 was examined. A 7 x 200-m incremental swimming step-test and anthropometry were conducted in up to four training phases each season. Correlations of changes in step-test and anthropometric measures between training phases between and within seasons, with changes in competition performance between seasons, were derived by repeated-measures mixed modeling and linear regression. Changes in competition performance were best tracked by changes in test measures between taper phases. The best single predictor of competition performance was skinfolds for females (r = -0.53). The best predictor from the step-test was stroke rate at 4-mM lactate (females, r = 0.46; males, r = 0.41); inclusion of the second-best step-test predictor in a multiple linear regression improved the correlations marginally (females, r =0.52 with speed in the seventh step included; males, r = 0.58 with peak lactate concentration included). Changes in test measures involving phases other than the taper provided weak and inconclusive correlations with changes in performance, possibly because the coaches and swimmers took corrective action when tests produced poor results. In conclusion, a combination of fitness and techniques factors are important for competitive performance. The step test is apparently a useful adjunct in a swimmer�s training preparation for tracking large changes in performance. These initial studies identified stroke mechanics as a major determinant of a swimmer�s performance. Chapter 4 details the development of a small tri-axial accelerometry-based smart sensor device (the Traqua) that enables continual monitoring of various performance/stroke characteristics in swimming. The initial focus was to develop a device that automated the detection of a swimmer�s movements, specifically lap times, stroke rate and stroke count. The Traqua consists of a tri-axial accelerometer packaged with a microprocessor, which attaches to the swimmer at the pelvis to monitor their whole body movements while swimming. This study established the failure/error rate in the first generation algorithms developed to detect the swimming-specific movements of stroke identification, laps (start, turn and finish), and strokes (stroke count and stroke rate) in a cohort of 21 elite and sub-elite swimmers. Movements were analysed across a range of swimming speeds for both freestyle and breaststroke. These initial algorithms were reasonably successful in correctly identifying the markers representing specific segments of a swimming lap in a range of swimmers across a spectrum of swimming speeds. The first iteration of the freestyle algorithm produced error-rates of 13% in detection of lap times, 5% for stroke rate, and 11% for stroke count. Subsequent improvements of the software reduced the error rate in lap and stroke detection. This improved software was used in the following two studies. The next study (Chapter 5) evaluated the reliability and validity of the Traqua against contemporary methods used for timing, stroke rate and stroke count determination. The subjects were 14 elite and 10 sub-elite club-level swimmers. Each swimmer was required to swim seven evenly paced 200-m efforts on a 5-min cycle, graded from easy to maximal. Swimmers completed the test using their main competitive stroke (21 freestyle, 3 breaststroke). Timing was compared for each 50-m lap and total 200-m time by electronic touch pads, video coding, a hand-held manual stopwatch, and the Traqua. Stroke count was compared for video coding, self-reported counting, and the Traqua, while the stroke rate was compared via video coding, hand-held stopwatch, and the Traqua. Retest trials were conducted under the same conditions 7 d following the first test. All data from the Traqua presented in this and the subsequent studies were visually inspected for errors in the automated algorithms, where the algorithms had either failed to correctly identify the start, turn, finish or individual strokes and corrected prior to analysis. The standard error of the estimate for each of the timing methods for total 200 m was compared with the criterion electronic timing. These standard errors were as follows: Traqua (0.64 s; 90% confidence limits 0.60 � 0.69 s), Video (0.52 s; 0.49 � 0.55 s); Manual (0.63 s; 0.59 � 0.67 s). Broken down by 50-m laps, the standard error of the estimate for the Traqua compared with the electronic timing for freestyle only was: 1st 50-m 0.35 s; 2nd and 3rd 50-m 0.13 s; 4th 50-m 0.65 s. When compared with the criterion video-coding determination, the error for the stroke count was substantially lower for the Traqua (0.6 strokes.50 m-1; 0.5 � 0.6 strokes.50 m-1) compared to the self-reported measure (2.3 strokes.50 m-1; 2.5 � 2.9 strokes.50 m-1). However, the error for stroke rate was similar between the Traqua (1.5 strokes.min-1; 1.4 � 1.6 strokes.min-1) and the manual stopwatch (1.8 strokes.min-1; 1.7 � 1.9 strokes.min-1). The typical error of measurement of the Traqua was 1.99 s for 200-m time, 1.1 strokes.min-1 for stroke rate, and 1.1 strokes.50 m-1 for stroke count. In conclusion, the Traqua is comparable in accuracy to current methods for determining time and stroke rate, and better than current methods for stroke count. A substantial source of error in the Traqua timing was additional noise in the detection of the start and finish. The Traqua is probably useful for monitoring of routine training but electronic timing and video are preferred for racing and time trials. Having established the reliability and validity of the Traqua, Chapter 6 addressed the ability to discriminate the pattern of pacing between different levels of swimmers in the 7 x 200-m incremental step test. This study also sought to quantify the differences in pacing between senior and junior swimmers. Eleven senior elite swimmers (5 female, 6 male) and 10 competitive junior swimmers (3 female, 7 male) participated in this study. Each swimmer was required to swim seven evenly paced 200-m freestyle efforts on a 5-min cycle, graded from easy to maximal. The Traqua was used to measure time, stroke rate and stroke count. The senior swimmers were better able to descend in each of the 200-m efforts. Overall the senior swimmers were ~2-3 s per 50 m faster than the junior swimmers. Both groups were fastest in the first 50-m lap with the push start. The senior swimmers then descended the 50- m time for each of the subsequent laps, getting ~0.5 s faster per lap, with the final lap the fastest. In contrast, the junior swimmers swam a similar time for each of the subsequent laps. The junior swimmers were marginally more variable in their times (coefficient of variation: ~2%) compared with the senior swimmers (~1.8%). In comparison to junior swimmers, the senior swimmers in this study were faster, adopted a more uniform negative split strategy to pacing within a 200-m effort, and were more consistent in reproducing submaximal and maximal swimming speeds. The final study (Chapter 7) analysed the effect of 14-d of intensive training on the reproducibility of submaximal swimming performance in elite swimmers. Submaximal physiological and performance testing is widely used in swimming and other individual sports but the variability in test measures, and the effects of fatigue, during intensive training have surprisingly not been quantified systematically. Seven elite swimmers (3 male and 4 female) participated in an intensive 14-d training camp one month prior to the National championships. The aim of the study was to characterise the intra-session, daily and training block variability of submaximal swimming time, physiological and stroke characteristics in elite swimmers. The swimmers performed a specified submaximal 200-m effort in most sessions, after the warm-up and at the end of the session for both morning and afternoon sessions. During the efforts, swimming time and stroke mechanics were measured and physiological measures were recorded immediately on completion. The Traqua was worn by all swimmers in every training session. Mixed linear modeling was used to provide estimates of changes in the mean and individual responses (within-athlete variation as a coefficient of variation) for all measures. The swimmers were moderately slower (1.4%; �1.4%) over the 14-d training camp. The mean submaximal 200-m effort was very likely to be faster (0.7%; confidence limits �0.7%) in the afternoon compared with the morning session. The females were more variable in their submaximal performance times (CV=2.6%) than the male swimmers (1.7%). Blood lactate concentration was almost certainly lower (-23%; �10%) following higher volume in the previous session; however a higher intensity workout the previous session almost certainly leads to higher lactate (21%; �15%) in the current session. Considered together, these results indicate that the 200-m submaximal test is useful in monitoring submaximal physiological and performance measures and the negative effects of cumulative fatigue. In conclusion, changes in the physiological and performance measures derived from the poolbased progressive incremental step test are moderately correlated with changes in end-ofviii. season competition performance. The magnitudes of changes and differences in test measures between phases within a season, from season to season, and between males and females, established in this study can be applied to similar elite level swimmers preparing for major competition. The quantification of typical error of the same measures demonstrates that coaches and scientists can distinguish real and worthwhile improvements using the 7 x 200-m step test. Continual pool-based monitoring with the automated smart sensor Traqua device may provide more accurate and detailed information about a swimmer�s training adaptation than current fitness tests and monitoring methods. Finally, submaximal testing in trained swimmers is useful in monitoring progress in physiological and performance measures, and the impact of cumulative fatigue during an intensive period of training. Collectively, the outcomes of these studies indicate that routine physiological and performance testing can provide measurable benefits for elite swimmers and their coaches.

<p>In the last decade, we have seen an explosive growth in the deployment of multimedia applications on the Internet. However, the transport service provided over the Internet is not always feasible for these applications, since the network was originally designed for other types of applications. One way to better accommodate the service requirements of some of these applications is to provide a partially reliable transport service. A partially reliable transport service does not insist on recovering all, but just some of the packet losses, thus providing a lower transport delay than a reliable transport service. The work in this thesis focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a partially reliable transport protocol called PRTP. PRTP has been designed as an extension to TCP in order to show that such a service could be effectively integrated with current protocol standards. An important feature of PRTP is that all modifications for PRTP are restricted to the receiver side, which means that it could be very easily deployed. The thesis presents performance results from various experiments on a Linux implementation of PRTP. The results suggest that transfer times can be decreased significantly when using PRTP as opposed to TCP in networks in which packet loss occurs. Furthermore, the thesis includes a study that investigates how users perceive an application that is based on a partially reliable service. Specifically, how users select the trade-off between image quality and latency when they download Web pages is explored. The results indicate that many of the users in the study could accept less than perfect image quality</p><p>if the latency could be shortened.</p>

<p>The emergence of real-time applications, like Voice over IP and video conferencing, in IP networks implies a challenge to the underlying infrastructure. Several real-time applications have requirements on timeliness as well as on reliability and are accompanied by signaling applications to set up, tear down and control the media sessions. Since neither of the traditional transport protocols responsible for end-to-end transfer of messages was found suitable for signaling traffic, the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) was standardized. The focus for the protocol was initially on telephony signaling applications, but it was later widened to serve as a general purpose transport protocol. One major new feature to enhance robustness in SCTP is multihoming, which enables for more than one path within the same association.</p><p>In this thesis we evaluate some of the mechanisms affecting transmission performance in case of a switchover between paths in a multihomed SCTP session. The major part of the evaluation concerns a failure situation, where the current path is broken. In case of failure, the endpoint does not get an explicit notification, but has to react upon missing acknowledgements. The challenge is to distinguish path failure from temporary congestion to decide  when to switch to an alternate path. A too fast switchover may be spurious, which could reduce transmission performance, while a too late switchover also results in reduced transmission performance. This implies a tradeoff which involves several protocol as well as network parameters and we elaborate among these to give a coherent view of the parameters and their interaction. Further, we present a recommendation on how to tune the parameters to meet  telephony signaling requirements, still without violating fairness to other traffic.</p><p>We also consider another angle of switchover performance, the startup on the alternate path. Since the available capacity is usually unknown to the sender, the transmission on a new path is started at a low rate and then increased as acknowledgements of successful transmissions return. In case of switchover in the middle of a media session the startup phase after a switchover could cause problems to the application. In multihomed SCTP the availability of the alternate path makes it feasible for the end-host to estimate the available capacity on the alternate path prior to the switchover. Thus, it would be possible to implement a more efficient startup scheme. In this thesis we combine different switchover scenarios with relevant traffic. For these combinations, we analytically evaluate and quantify the potential performance gain from utilizing an ideal startup mechanism as compared to the traditional startup procedure.</p>

The purpose of this study was to test a hypothesized model of aurally perceived performer-controlled musical factors that influence assessments of performance quality. Previous research studies on musical performance constructs, musical achievement, musical expression, and scale construction were examined to identify the factors that influence assessments of performance quality. A total of eight factors were identified: tone, intonation, rhythmic accuracy, articulation, tempo, dynamics, timbre, and interpretation. These factors were categorized as either technique or musical expression factors. Items representing these eight variables were chosen from previous research on scale development. Additional items, along with researcher created items, were also chosen to represent the variables of technique, musical expression and overall perceptions of performance quality. The 44 selected items were placed on the Aural Musical Performance Quality (AMPQ) measure and paired with a four-point Likert scale. The reliability for the AMPQ measure was reported at .977. A total of 58 volunteer adjudicators were recruited to evaluate four recordings that represented one of each instrumental category of interest: brass, woodwind, voice, and string. The resulting performance evaluations (N = 232) were analyzed using statistical regression and path analysis techniques. The results of the analysis provide empirical support for the existence of the model of aurally perceived performer-controlled musical factors. Technique demonstrated significant direct effects on overall perceptions of performance quality and musical expression. Musical expression also demonstrated a significant direct effect on overall perceptions of performance quality. The results of this study are consistent with hypothesized model of performer-controlled musical factors.

The Productivity Measurement and Enhancement System (ProMES) is a human resource intervention that provides feedback to members of an organizational unit via a measurement system constructed by the unit personnel. The unit constructs the system by defining their objectives, identifying productivity indicators for each objective, and developing utility curves or contingencies for each indicator, specifying the overall and relative value to the organization of different performance levels on each indicator. Over the years, it has produced very positive results upon implementation. However, there has been great variability in the effectiveness of ProMES. This study attempted to identify the factors that contributed to this variability. Three major factors were proposed to influence the success of the intervention: feedback quality, the degree to which units prioritized their actions on the feedback, and the organizational social context. Additionally, the individual effects of the components of the organizational social context factor were analyzed; these components included the degree of employee participation in the intervention, unit attitudes towards productivity improvement, organizational support for the intervention, and organizational stability. Three productivity indices were used as dependent variables: the unit d-score (the difference between feedback productivity and baseline productivity divided by the pooled standard deviation), the rate of productivity change over the first third of the feedback stage, and the degree to which units were able to sustain prior productivity improvements over the last two thirds of the feedback stage. The degree of match with the original ProMES methodology was proposed as a moderator in the relationship between the three major factors and the criteria, and the degree of feedback interpretation training given to the unit was proposed as a moderator between the units? action on feedback and the criteria. Drawing on a database of 74 units from different industries and countries, scales were constructed to operationalize the factors. Results from multiple regression analyses indicated that favorable attitudes towards productivity improvement were associated with faster productivity improvements. Additionally, feedback quality and the action taken on feedback significantly predicted greater and faster productivity improvements. The implications for human resource professionals and researchers in industrial/organizational psychology are discussed.

The majority of current internet traffic is based on TCP. With the emergence of new applications, especially new multimedia applications, however, UDP-based traffic is expected to increase. Furthermore, multimedia applications have sparkled the development of protocols responding to congestion while behaving differently from TCP. As a result, network traffc is expected to become more and more diverse. The increasing link capacity further stimulates new applications utilizing higher bandwidths of future. Besides the traffic diversity, the network is also evolving around new technologies. These trends in the Internet motivate our research work. In this dissertation, modeling and estimation techniques of heterogeneous traffic at a router are presented. The idea of the presented techniques is that if the observed queue length and packet drop probability do not match the predictions from a model of responsive (TCP) traffic, then the error must come from non-responsive traffic; it can then be used for estimating the proportion of non-responsive traffic. The proposed scheme is based on the queue length history, packet drop history, expected TCP and queue dynamics. The effectiveness of the proposed techniques over a wide range of traffic scenarios is corroborated using NS-2 based simulations. Possible applications based on the estimation technique are discussed. The implementation of the estimation technique in the Linux kernel is presented in order to validate our estimation technique in a realistic network environment.

In this thesis, we are interested in the modelling of queueing networks with finite buffers and with general service time distributions. Queueing networks models have shown to be very useful tools to evaluate the performance of complex systems in many application fields (manufacturing, communication networks, traffic flow, etc.). In order to analyze such networks, the original distributions are most often transformed into tractable distributions, so that the Markov theory can then be applied. Our main originality lies in this step of the modelling process. We propose to discretize the original distributions by probability mass fitting (PMF). The PMF discretization is simple: the probability masses on regular intervals are computed and aggregated on a single value in the corresponding interval. PMF has the advantage to be simple, refinable, and to conserve the shape of the distribution. Moreover, we show that it does not require more phases, and thus more computational effort, than concurrent methods. From the distributions transformed by PMF, the evolution of the system can then be modelled by a discrete Markov chain, and the performance of the system can be evaluated from the chain. This global modelling method leads to various interesting results. First, we propose two methodologies leading to bounds on the cycle time of the system. In particular, a tight lower bound on the cycle time can be computed. Second, probability mass fitting leads to accurate approximation of the performance measures (cycle time, work-in-progress, flow time, etc.). Together with the bounds, the approximations allow to get a good grasp on the exact measure with certainty. Third, the cycle time distribution can be computed in the discretized time and shows to be a good approximation of the original cycle time distribution. The distribution provides more information on the behavior of the system, compared to the isolated expectation (to which other methods are limited). Finally, in order to be able to analyze larger networks, the decomposition technique can be applied after PMF. We show that the accuracy of the performance evaluation is still good, and that the ability of PMF to accurately estimate the distributions brings an improvement in the application of the decomposition. In conclusion, we believe that probability mass fitting can be considered as a valuable alternative in order to build tractable distributions for the analytical modelling of queueing networks.