Soccer players change direction repeatedly throughout a game, making agility an important component of their performance. The purpose of this project was to identify how anatomical and physical characteristics influence agility performance among soccer players. The influences of anthropometry, strength, and power on agility performance in soccer players were investigated. The participants were NCAA Division I soccer players (N = 65). Anthropometric measures included height, body mass, percent body fat, lean body mass. Strength was evaluated using an isometric mid-thigh pull, and power was measured by vertical jumps. In correlation analysis, agility performance showed a statistically significant correlation (p<0.05) with peak power (PP) from 0kg and 20kg counter-movement jumps (r=-.379 & r=-.364 respectively) for the male players. Also for the males, percent body fat showed significant correlations (p<0.05) with Average 2 (r=-.438), 3 (r=-.411), and All (r=-.436). I conclude that the anthropometric measures evaluated have little influence on agility performance.

Title: The effect of small sided games on agility performance in pre-adolescent soccer players Objectives: Evaluation of the impact of small sided games intervention on the agility performance. Comparison between agility performance and motor skills level. Comparison between increase of agility performance and motor skills level. Method: The measured group consisted of 44 players aged 11-13. During the testing, the players passed a battery of motor skills tests TGMD 2, then the agility tests Illinois and 505 R and L (pretest and posttest). The first group of players (22 players) were subjected an interrvention of small sided games (three times a week for 2 months as part of the training session). The 2nd group of players (22 players) had only regular training during this period without intentional intervention. The results: According to the results of the motor skills test TGMD 2, the probands were divided into 3 subgroups according to the achieved performance. In both groups (intervened and control groups) the hypothesis, that players with higher level of motor skills will achieve better results in agility tests, was partially confirmed. This hypothesis was confirmed in the Illinois test in its entirety. In the 505 R and L tests, a statistically significant difference in performance was measured...

This study examines if a relationship exists among three rich research streams, specifically the behavioral science of motivation, adult learning and leadership. What motivates adult professionals to continue learning and how is that connected to their style and efficacy as leaders? An extension of literature to connect Andragogy, Self-determination and Transformational Leadership Theory is explored. Responses to questions adapted from the Carré Model of Adult Orientation and Implication on Learning and Training Activities (Carré, 1997) and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Avolio & Bass, 2000) are compared among a sample of adult professionals in leadership positions. Results indicate that learning motivation orientation is predictive of and positively correlated with leadership style. How learning motivation can be used as a tool to predict leadership style, enhance leader selection, development and succession is discussed along with further implications of the “learner-leader” for the purposes of research, practice and higher education initiatives. This quantitative study can offer important insights into how the attribute of an intrinsic motivation to learn can act as an antecedent to Transformational leadership behavior, and the impact that Transformational leaders have upon their teams and organizations.

Software is one of the core elements that drive the modern economy, with visible use in areas such as personal computing, telecommunications and banking, and background use in areas such as aircraft traffic management, nuclear power generation, and automotive control systems. Organizations that build software are unique in that they span industrial domains, and at their core of what they do is codifying human knowledge. When we talk about software organizations, we think of organizations that work in the three broad areas of shrink wrapped application software, software-intensive systems, or software services.  By shrink wrapped application software, we refer to the software that one can buy in a retail store for use on his or her computer. Software-intensive systems are part of a larger system such as air traffic management, and software services focus on making software work for other organizations. This thesis uses studies of eight software organizations to understand how these organizations are able to identify changes to their environment, and create the required capabilities to meet those changes – in other words, how these organizations gain enterprise agility. To understand enterprise agility, we ask three simple questions, namely how does the organization improve what it currently does? What does the organization do? and Who does the work that the organization chooses to do? By answering each of these questions in the context of software organizations, we identify the three mechanisms of Software Process Improvement (SPI), Creating Systems of Innovation (CSI), and Leveraging Globally Available Capabilities (LGAC). These three mechanisms are interconnected and interdependent. By creating rich descriptions of how these mechanisms are implemented in the organizations that we studied in the thesis, we are able to build confidence that these mechanisms are an accurate representation of the approaches that organizations use. In addition to identifying the mechanisms, by analyzing across the cases, we identify the four organizational enablers of stakeholder alignment, employee empowerment, group &amp; organizational learning, and governance. Organizations can create enterprise agility by ensuring the presence of the four organizational enablers and leveraging some combination of the three mechanisms. While it is possible for the organization to create enterprise agility in the absence of these mechanisms, we believe that the agility generated is not sustainable. To survive in the tough economic conditions of today, software organizations need to be aware of, and actively manage both the enablers and the mechanisms for sustained success. This thesis is a first step in finding more effective ways to manage software organizations as a whole, rather than as a collection of individual projects. It presents a philosophy of thinking about software organizations that addresses the uniqueness of these organizations while at the same time leveraging best practices and thought leadership from the disciplines of software engineering, quality,  knowledge management, strategy, organizational theory, and stakeholder theory.

Die Anforderungen des Marktes in Bezug auf Flexibilität und Geschwindigkeit, welchen sich Produktionsunternehmen stellen müssen, nehmen immer weiter zu. Die Kunden wollen in jeder Hinsicht individuell bedient werden. Sie wollen das Produkt nach ihren Vorstellungen konfigurieren können, es in kurzer Zeit zur Verfügung gestellt bekommen und trotzdem bei Bedarf individuelle Änderungen integrieren können. Aus diesem Grund muss ein Produktionsunternehmen sowohl in der Planungs- als auch in der Ausführungsphase flexibel auf Änderungen, die vom Kunden ausgelöst werden oder durch interne Ereignisse erforderlich sind, reagieren können. Studien unter produzierenden Unternehmen haben gezeigt, dass im Fall der Notwendigkeit nachträglicher Änderungen das Produktionsplanungs- und steuerungssystem oft nicht miteinbezogen wird, insbesondere dann, wenn die Änderungen sehr prozessnah stattfinden. Da Änderungen jedoch heutzutage keine Seltenheit mehr sind, führt dies dazu, dass die im System gehaltenen Daten häufig von dem tatsächlichen Produkti-onsablauf abweichen. Eine im Rahmen der Arbeit durchgeführte Analyse führender ERP-Systeme und MES hat gezeigt, dass dieses Problem auf Systemunzulänglichkeiten zurückzuführen ist. Auf Basis der Systemuntersuchung schlägt die Arbeit deshalb ein Konzept für ein flexibles Produktionspla-nungs- und -steuerungssystem vor: das PPS II-System. Dieses System soll gewährleisten, dass nachträgliche Änderungen, die durch interne oder externe Ereignisse ausgelöst werden, in die Produktionsplanung integriert werden können. Die Architektur des PPS II-Systems basiert auf der Idee, die starre Trennung zwischen den Planungs- und Steuerungssystemen der Fertigung aufzulösen. Um dies zu gewährleisten, besteht das PPS II-System aus lose gekoppelten Services, deren Zusammenwirken das Verhalten des Systems beschreibt. Die Funktionalität des PPS II-Systems orientiert sich am Konzept der prozessnahen Gestaltungsentscheidung, welches die Ausführungszeit, die zu verwendenden Materialien und die einzusetzenden Ressourcen auf Basis verschiedener Abstraktionen erst unmittelbar vor Produktionsbeginn bestimmt. Eine umfangreiche theoretische und praktische Evaluierung bestätigt, dass das PPS II-System auf diese Weise sehr flexibel auf Änderungen reagieren kann. / Today, production companies face big challenges, in particular with regards to flexibility and speed. Their customers want to be served individually in every respect. They want to configure the product individually and receive it as fast as possible. However, they also want to be able to integrate late changes. For this reason, a production company must be able to react to changes in the planning phase as well as in the production phase in a very flexible way. Such changes might be initiated by the customers or they might be necessary due to internal events. Surveys, which analyzed the processes of production companies, have revealed that their production planning and control systems are often not involved if late changes are necessary. This is particularly true, if the changes occur shortly before the production starts. Therefore, system data deviate from the real production procedure often already in the planning phase. An analysis of leading ERP systems and MES carried out in this thesis has shown that the reason for the problems is the limited flexibility of these systems. On the basis of the analysis, this thesis proposes a new concept for a flexible production and control system: the PPC II system. This system should ensure that late changes triggered by internal or external events can be integrated in the production schedule. The architecture of the PPC II system is based on the idea to eliminate the separation between the planning system and the control system. To reach this goal, the system consists of loosely coupled services that are flexibly orches-trated to control production processes. The PPC II system realizes the concept of late order freeze. Process-relevant decisions for the execution time, the used materials, and the resources are made shortly before production starts. A comprehensive theoretical and practical evaluation verifies that the PPC II system is able to react flexible to changes.

<p>E-business provides important opportunities of trade for businesses, and the supporting business system must handle this environment efficiently. One current trend in business systems is to move business logic, such as business processes and business rules, out from the application logic and into separate support systems. The reason to make this separation is to increase the agility of the business, to make the system able to change more rapidly when the business situation changes.</p><p>This report focus on business rules enforced in business rule engines. Specific interest is on how such rule engines meet the requirements of the e-business domain. The report presents an overview of business rule engines. Five general categories of characteristics are proposed. The proposed characteristics are then used in a comparison of three business rule engines.</p>

Les organisations d’aujourd’hui ont besoin d’être plus agiles afin de survivre dans des marchés fluctuants et instables. C’est le cas particulier des processus de résolution de problèmes. La résolution de problèmes est une activité clé que les entreprises réalisent quotidiennement afin d’améliorer leur qualité et de réussir l’amélioration continue globale. Ces processus sont construits à partir des standards cadrés tels que le Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA), Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control (DMAIC), ou le 8 Disciplines (8D)/ 9 Steps (9S). Dans ces méthodes, la généralisation et la réutilisation des connaissances sont facilitées par la standardisation. Cependant, les standards ayant tendance à contraindre fortement les processus, il est parfois difficile de réagir face à des évènements imprévus ou même de s’écarter pour mieux répondre aux besoins. Ainsi, le besoin de processus de résolution de problèmes suffisamment structurés mais pas sur-contraints par des standards apparaît. Un tel processus doit pouvoir être reconfiguré et adapté à des situations inattendues et se baser sur des méthodes de retour d’expérience. Cette thèse décrit la proposition d’un processus agile de résolution de problèmes guidé par le retour d’expériences et les connaissances. A cet effet, le cycle de vie d’un processus agile de résolution de problèmes, basé sur les principes du Case-Based Reasoning (CBR), est proposé. Au travers des cinq étapes d’un cycle de vie agile, le processus peut être défini, réalisé et stocké dans des bases d’expériences et de connaissances spécifiques à des fins de réutilisation. L’application du modèle à un processus de résolution de problèmes dans une entreprise de traitement de surface est présentée. Le processus est analysé en déployant le cycle de vie agile. Il est montré comment la méthode standard de résolution de problèmes utilisée au sein de l’entreprise peut devenir plus agile grâce à l’application de notre méthode. / In order to survive to the unstable and highly changing market-place, modern organisations need to adapt their business processes to be more agile. Such is, particularly, the case of problem solving processes. Problem solving is a key activity that companies perform on a daily basis to improve quality and to obtain sustainable and continuous improvement. Such processes are built following standard rigid frameworks as Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA), Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control (DMAIC), or 8 Disciplines (8D)/ 9 Steps (9S). In these methods, the generalization and reuse of knowledge is facilitated by standardization. However, it is sometimes difficult to react to unexpected events due to over-constrained standards. Then, a need arises to define a problem solving process sufficiently structured but not over constrained by standards, which can be reconfigured and adapted to unexpected situations, and that is based on experience feedback principles. This thesis work describes a proposition of an agile problem solving process driven by the reuse of experiences and knowledge. For this purpose, based on Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) principles, the complete lifecycle of an agile problem solving process is proposed. Following the five steps that compose the agile lifecycle, the agile process can be defined, executed and stored in a dedicated knowledge and experience base. An application of the model to a specific problem solving process of a surface treatment company is presented. The process is analysed, deploying the complete agile lifecycle. It is shown how the standard problem solving method used within the company could become more agile through the application of our method.

Esta pesquisa se propõe a compreender como a utilização das tecnologias móveis pode ser explorada para o ganho de agilidade na captação e repasse dos sinais fracos (SF) no ambiente organizacional. Os sinais fracos, apesar de, isoladamente, se apresentarem como incertos e imprecisos, se analisados sistematicamente, contém potencial estratégico relevante para as organizações. O crescente uso de tecnologias móveis e sem fio, que permeia a realidade das organizações, permite uma maior agilidade por parte das empresas, sob as perspectivas de acesso a informação, comunicação e tempo. Através da realização de estudos de caso múltiplos, contando com 10 respondentes exercendo funções multidisciplinares em diferentes organizações, buscamos relacionar essas perspectivas de agilidade provenientes da utilização das tecnologias móveis nas organizações – levantadas através de revisão bibliográfica – às etapas de captação e repasse de sinais fracos, adotadas no modelo de Inteligência Estratégica Antecipativa e Coletiva (IEAc). Com relação à captação dos sinais fracos, entende-se que o volume de informações trocado e a disponibilidade dessas informações (ambos decorrentes do uso das tecnologias de informação móveis e sem fio) podem aumentar a chance de identificação de um sinal fraco nas três perspectivas analisadas. Contudo, essa percepção dos sinais fracos é vinculada também às características do profissional, que deve assumir uma atitude proativa e atenta no sentido de perceber e interpretar essas informações. A respeito do repasse de informação, entende-se que o ganho de agilidade pelo uso das TIMS pode ser explorado, dado que a redução das barreiras geográficas permite ganhos no processo em relação ao tempo, à comunicação e ao acesso à informação. / This research aims to understand how the use of mobile technologies can be exploited to gain agility in the capture and transfer of weak signals in the organizational environment. When weak signals are analysed singly, they are uncertain and imprecise. However, when systematically analyzed, they contain relevant strategic potential for organizations. The increasing use of mobile technologies and wireless, that permeates the reality of organizations, allows greater flexibility for companies, on the prospects of access to information, communication and time. By performing multiple case studies, with 10 respondents which work in different functions and different organizations, we seek to relate these agility prospects arising from the adoption of mobile technologies in organizations - raised through literature review - to the stages of capture and transfer of weak signals, adopted in Strategic, Anticipative and Collective Intelligence. Regarding the capture of weak signals, is meant that the volume of information exchanged and the availability of this information (both resulting from TIMS) may increase the chance of identifying a weak signal in the three perspectives analyzed. However, this perception of weak signals is also linked to the characteristics of each professional, who should take a proactive and attentive attitude towards perceive and interpret this information. Regarding the transfer stage of weak signals information, is observed that the gain agility through the use of TIMS can be exploited, given that the reduction of geographical barriers allows gains over time, related to communication and access to information.

Title: Influence of small side games and runs on sprint performance and agility in football players. Purpose: The aim of the thesis is to find out the influence of selected movement interventions (small side games versus runs) on sprint performance and agility in elite football players in U14 category during the preseason period. Methods: The 30-meter Sprint was used to rate speed-strength performance. Players have executed 2 sprints at 30m. Sprint time was measured at 5, 10 and 30m. Agility tests included: test 505 and three-step test. Players also have executed 2 tries (one of each leg). A set of photocells (Alge Timing GmbH, Lustenau, Austria) was used to measure the time of all tests. Results: Both groups significantly improved in the three-step test (p <0.05; r> 0.5). The SSG group, after a two-month intervention, significantly deteriorated in the sprint to 5, 10 and 30m (r = 0.38 - 0.69). The race group did not significantly improve in sprints at 5, 10 and 30m. In the agility test, we saw a significant improvement only in the Run groups and only on the left leg (r = 0.42). Based on the findings, we believe that the training units of the linear speed and speed with the change of direction maintain the level of player's speed during the season. Therefore, I recommend that they should appear in...

La dynamique de l’offre et de la demande des produits manufacturiers ainsi que leraccourcissement de leurs cycles de vie obligent les entreprises industrielles à se doter de processus dedéveloppement produit dynamiques et agiles. Nos travaux se positionnement sur le supportinformatisé de ces processus de développement qui sont actuellement gérés par les systèmes PLM.L’objectif d’un support informatisé est d’accélérer le processus en automatisant la notification et ladiffusion des informations. Il permet également de garder trace des opérations et décisions effectuéeset d’accroître la standardisation des processus. Face à la rigidité des solutions actuellement proposéespour gérer les processus vis-à-vis des modifications survenant dans le processus, notre objectif est deproposer une approche permettant de modifier un processus en cours d’exécution sans devoir leredéfinir et le relancer dans son ensemble. Pour y parvenir, nous avons proposé, une approche quidécline une orientation services inspirée des architectures orientées services (SOA). Ces architecturespermettent de définir des applications modulaires, en utilisant des services faiblement couplés. Notreobjectif est de décliner une telle architecture exploitée essentiellement pour les systèmes logiciels et leWeb, au niveau métier de l’entreprise afin de modéliser et d’exécuter de manière flexible desprocessus de conception de produits par composition de services réutilisables. Nous proposons unedémarche d'identification des services du domaine métier des processus de conception produit et dudomaine fonctionnel du PLM. Ces services sont organisés dans deux catalogues de services métiers etfonctionnels. Notre approche s'inscrit dans le cadre de l'Ingénierie Dirigée par les Modèles (IDM) avecune architecture de réference à trois niveaux et des mécanismes d’alignement entre les niveaux métier,fonctionnel et logiciel. Ces mécanismes d'alignement entre les niveaux permettent d’intégrerl’évolution et d'automatiser le déploiement d’un processus de conception du niveau métier auxniveaux fonctionnel et logiciel. / To cope with market dynamic and shortened time to market, industrial companies need toimplement an effective management of their design processes (DPs) and product information.Unfortunately, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems which are dedicated to support designactivities are not efficient as it might be expected. Indeed, DPs are changing, emergent and nondeterministic, due to the business environment under which they are carried out. The aim of this workis to propose an alternative approach for flexible process support within PLM systems to facilitate thecoupling with the environment reality. The purpose of a support system is to accelerate the process byautomating the notification and dispatching of information and activities between actors. It also allowsto keep track of transactions and decisions made and to increase processes standardization. Our goal isto propose a solution which allows process change at run-time without having to redefine and restartthe whole of process activities. To achieve this, we proposed an approach based on service-orientedarchitectures (SOA). These architectures allow defining modular applications, using loosly coopledservices. They are mainly exploited for software systems and Web development. Our goal is to declinesuch architectures at the business level of a company in order to perform flexible DPs deploymentbased on services reuse and composition. We propose an identification approach for business levelservices (product design services) and functional PLM services. These services are organized in twocatalogs of business and functional services. Our approach is based on Model Driven Approach withthree levels which propose alignment mechanisms between business, functional and technical levels.These alignment mechanisms between levels allow integrating change and automating design processdeployment.