The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between movement competency and health related quality of life (HRQOL) in adults aged 55 to 75 years. Seventy-eight, male (40) and female (38), subjects completed the study. Their mean (SD) age, height, and mass were 64.9 (5.8) years and 63.6 (4.9) years, 1.8 (.08) m and 1.7 (.07) m, 82.6 (11.8) kg and 70.3 (17.9) kg, for male and female, respectively. Subjects completed several tests in 3 categories: movement competency (Functional Movement ScreenTM [FMS] [all 7 tests], sitting-rising test [SRT]); physical activity level (Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly [PASE]); and health related quality of life [HRQOL] (SF-36v2). A linear regression model was then developed to examine the relationship of a number of variables to quality of life. The strongest relationship to HRQOL was the FMS, with a positive correlation of 0.474 which is highly significant (p < 0.0001). Once the FMS score was accounted for, no other terms in the regression model were significant. The correlation between our two assessments of movement competency, the FMS and SRT was 0.644 which is highly significant (p < 0.0001). Our primary hypothesis was supported that those with better movement competency have a better health related quality of life. Our results suggest further research should be undertaken to see if properly administered individualized corrective therapeutic exercise programs could improve older adults' movement competency and thereby improve their quality of life.

By the 1960s-70s, most Western commentators agreed that Japan had rehabilitated itself from World War II, in the process becoming on the whole a reliable member of the international community. From the late 1970s onwards, however, as Japan’s economy continued to rise, this premise began to be questioned. By the late 1980s, a new ‘Japan Problem’ had been identified in Western countries, although the presentation of Japan as a dangerous ‘other’ was nevertheless familiar from past historical eras. The term ‘Japan-bashing’ was used by opponents of this negative view to suggest that much of the critical rhetoric about a ‘Japan Problem’ could be reduced to an unwarranted, probably racist, assault on Japan. This thesis argues that the invention and popularisation of the highly-contested label ‘Japan-bashing’, rather than averting criticism of Japan, perversely helped to exacerbate and transform the moderate anti-Japanese sentiment that had existed in Western countries in the late 1970s and early 1980s into a widely disseminated, heavily politicised and even encultured phenomenon in the late 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, when the term ‘Japan-bashing’ spread to Japan itself, Japanese commentators were quick to respond. In fact, the level and the nature of the response from the Japanese side is one crucial factor that distinguishes ‘Japan-bashing’ in the 1980s and 1990s from anti-Japanese sentiment expressed in the West in earlier periods. Ultimately, the label and the practice of ‘Japan-bashing’ helped to transform intellectual and popular discourses about Japan in both Western countries and Japan itself in the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, in doing so, it revealed crucial features of wider Western and Japanese perceptions of the global order in the late twentieth century. Debates about Japan showed, for example, that economic strength had become at least as important as military power to national discourses about identity. However, the view that Western countries and Japan are generally incompatible, and share few, if any, common values, interests or goals, has been largely discarded in the early twenty-first century, in a process that demonstrated just how constructed, and transitory, such views can be.

In the marine environment, relatively little is known about how the effects of climatic change will manifest into future patterns of biodiversity and community stability, with the exception of recent work on corals in tropical reef ecosystems. In this thesis, I examine quantitatively how patterns of coral reef biodiversity will respond to the impacts of climatic change and provide essential information (i) to address a critical knowledge gap in the understanding of coral reef biodiversity and (ii) predict how a wide range of sessile invertebrates from coral reef ecosystems will respond to a range of potential impacts of climatic change such as increased physical disturbance and rising sea level. An initial descriptive component of my thesis was required to determine the distribution and abundance of a diverse assemblages of sessile non-scleractinian invertebrates, found along gradients of increasing physical disturbance from wave action and increasing intertidal shore height. I also examined the source, intensity and frequency of disturbance along these environmental gradients. This information was used to derive testable hypotheses about the potential impacts of increasing physical disturbance and rising sea level associated with climatic change. I found that physical disturbance had a substantial influence on the types of species that are able to survive in these intertidal rubble habitats, with diversity decreasing at more exposed shores and further down the shore. Physical disturbance was more important for determining the composition of sessile assemblages than other biotic factors such as predation, which only had weak effects on these sessile assemblages. Increased frequency and intensity of waves and storms will increase rates of physical disturbances such as scraping and overturning of rubble plates, which will have a substantial negative impact on biodiversity in these tropical intertidal habitats. These effects may be more complicated that first thought when combined with the effects of rising sea level which will not only alter the extent of inundation, but may also allow wave energy to propagate further up the shore, which has the potential to modify interactions among species through changes to the supply and recruitment of larvae, predator-prey interactions, competition and survival in harsher environments. However, the magnitude of these impacts may depend on how increased physical disturbance and rising sea level affect established species, and whether they will have a substantial effect on larval mortality rates, which currently appears to be limited by physical disturbance. Declines in biodiversity as a result of climatic change over the next 100 years could have important implications for the future health and productivity of coral reef ecosystems, especially given the ecosystem services these organisms provide. A greater understanding of the processes that drive the distribution and abundance of many different types of organisms on coral reefs, and indeed in other ecosystems, will provide essential information that managers can use to better understand and maintain these important ecosystems for future generations.

Thesis (M. S.)--Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. / Committee Chair: Hodges, Dewey; Committee Member: Bauchau, Olivier; Committee Member: Sankar, Lakshmi. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

The 1916 Easter Rising was the watershed political moment of the modern Irish Nation. Padraig Pearse, along with his co-conspirators, initiated an event that dramatically affected the Celtic Revival literary movement. Prior to the rebellion, Pearse left a calculated literary legacy through pamphlets, broadsides, and poems. His most notable contribution to print nationalism was the text of The Easter Proclamation, but the poems he wrote prior to his execution are important contributions to the modern Irish elegiac tradition. Poets took to their work with renewed political fervor and used elegiac forms to mourn the dead and subvert the rhetoric of imperialism. This study focuses on the modern Irish elegy, but also records the creation and reception of Pearse’s documents and actions. Beginning with his political pamphlets, speeches, and poetry, this paper examines how Pearse’s legacy in print impacted the elegiac tradition in Ireland. While it would be impossible to examine every elegy directly influenced by the Easter Rising in this short paper, it is useful to examine disparate elegiac viewpoints on this historical event. Initially tracing the historical production of The Easter Proclamation and Pearse’s series of separatist pamphlets, this exploration shifts to Pearse’s self-elegies and the elegies written by his acquaintances and contemporaries. Yeats is the obvious starting point for Republican elegies, but I will also explore the shifting poetics and elegiac tropes present in the poems of AE (George Russell), and Francis Ledwidge. This paper does not seek to ignore or discredit the print legacy of the other leaders of the Rising (notably Connolly, MacDonagh, and Markiewicz), but focuses on Pearse because of his print legacy and political importance. / text

No description available.

By the 1960s-70s, most Western commentators agreed that Japan had rehabilitated itself from World War II, in the process becoming on the whole a reliable member of the international community. From the late 1970s onwards, however, as Japan’s economy continued to rise, this premise began to be questioned. By the late 1980s, a new ‘Japan Problem’ had been identified in Western countries, although the presentation of Japan as a dangerous ‘other’ was nevertheless familiar from past historical eras. The term ‘Japan-bashing’ was used by opponents of this negative view to suggest that much of the critical rhetoric about a ‘Japan Problem’ could be reduced to an unwarranted, probably racist, assault on Japan. This thesis argues that the invention and popularisation of the highly-contested label ‘Japan-bashing’, rather than averting criticism of Japan, perversely helped to exacerbate and transform the moderate anti-Japanese sentiment that had existed in Western countries in the late 1970s and early 1980s into a widely disseminated, heavily politicised and even encultured phenomenon in the late 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, when the term ‘Japan-bashing’ spread to Japan itself, Japanese commentators were quick to respond. In fact, the level and the nature of the response from the Japanese side is one crucial factor that distinguishes ‘Japan-bashing’ in the 1980s and 1990s from anti-Japanese sentiment expressed in the West in earlier periods. Ultimately, the label and the practice of ‘Japan-bashing’ helped to transform intellectual and popular discourses about Japan in both Western countries and Japan itself in the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, in doing so, it revealed crucial features of wider Western and Japanese perceptions of the global order in the late twentieth century. Debates about Japan showed, for example, that economic strength had become at least as important as military power to national discourses about identity. However, the view that Western countries and Japan are generally incompatible, and share few, if any, common values, interests or goals, has been largely discarded in the early twenty-first century, in a process that demonstrated just how constructed, and transitory, such views can be.

By the 1960s-70s, most Western commentators agreed that Japan had rehabilitated itself from World War II, in the process becoming on the whole a reliable member of the international community. From the late 1970s onwards, however, as Japan’s economy continued to rise, this premise began to be questioned. By the late 1980s, a new ‘Japan Problem’ had been identified in Western countries, although the presentation of Japan as a dangerous ‘other’ was nevertheless familiar from past historical eras. The term ‘Japan-bashing’ was used by opponents of this negative view to suggest that much of the critical rhetoric about a ‘Japan Problem’ could be reduced to an unwarranted, probably racist, assault on Japan. This thesis argues that the invention and popularisation of the highly-contested label ‘Japan-bashing’, rather than averting criticism of Japan, perversely helped to exacerbate and transform the moderate anti-Japanese sentiment that had existed in Western countries in the late 1970s and early 1980s into a widely disseminated, heavily politicised and even encultured phenomenon in the late 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, when the term ‘Japan-bashing’ spread to Japan itself, Japanese commentators were quick to respond. In fact, the level and the nature of the response from the Japanese side is one crucial factor that distinguishes ‘Japan-bashing’ in the 1980s and 1990s from anti-Japanese sentiment expressed in the West in earlier periods. Ultimately, the label and the practice of ‘Japan-bashing’ helped to transform intellectual and popular discourses about Japan in both Western countries and Japan itself in the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, in doing so, it revealed crucial features of wider Western and Japanese perceptions of the global order in the late twentieth century. Debates about Japan showed, for example, that economic strength had become at least as important as military power to national discourses about identity. However, the view that Western countries and Japan are generally incompatible, and share few, if any, common values, interests or goals, has been largely discarded in the early twenty-first century, in a process that demonstrated just how constructed, and transitory, such views can be.

By the 1960s-70s, most Western commentators agreed that Japan had rehabilitated itself from World War II, in the process becoming on the whole a reliable member of the international community. From the late 1970s onwards, however, as Japan’s economy continued to rise, this premise began to be questioned. By the late 1980s, a new ‘Japan Problem’ had been identified in Western countries, although the presentation of Japan as a dangerous ‘other’ was nevertheless familiar from past historical eras. The term ‘Japan-bashing’ was used by opponents of this negative view to suggest that much of the critical rhetoric about a ‘Japan Problem’ could be reduced to an unwarranted, probably racist, assault on Japan. This thesis argues that the invention and popularisation of the highly-contested label ‘Japan-bashing’, rather than averting criticism of Japan, perversely helped to exacerbate and transform the moderate anti-Japanese sentiment that had existed in Western countries in the late 1970s and early 1980s into a widely disseminated, heavily politicised and even encultured phenomenon in the late 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, when the term ‘Japan-bashing’ spread to Japan itself, Japanese commentators were quick to respond. In fact, the level and the nature of the response from the Japanese side is one crucial factor that distinguishes ‘Japan-bashing’ in the 1980s and 1990s from anti-Japanese sentiment expressed in the West in earlier periods. Ultimately, the label and the practice of ‘Japan-bashing’ helped to transform intellectual and popular discourses about Japan in both Western countries and Japan itself in the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, in doing so, it revealed crucial features of wider Western and Japanese perceptions of the global order in the late twentieth century. Debates about Japan showed, for example, that economic strength had become at least as important as military power to national discourses about identity. However, the view that Western countries and Japan are generally incompatible, and share few, if any, common values, interests or goals, has been largely discarded in the early twenty-first century, in a process that demonstrated just how constructed, and transitory, such views can be.

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-130).