Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2005. Graduate Programme in Kinesiology and Health Science. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 32-36). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss &rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR11750

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-48). Also available online (PDF file) by a subscription to the set or by purchasing the individual file.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-48).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 390-395). Also available online (PDF file) by a subscription to the set or by purchasing the individual file.

En 1920, les émigrés italiens représentaient la communauté la plus importante de New York : trois-cent-quatre-vingt-onze mille individus dont la plupart vivaient misérablement dans des tenements surpeuplés. Leurs conditions de vie difficiles nécessitaient que l’on s’occupât d’eux. Parmi les organisations caritatives qui vinrent en aide à la communauté italienne newyorkaise se distingua l’Italian Welfare League (IWL). Cette association était unique car elle était exclusivement composée de femmes, ce qui était rare au début du 20ème siècle aux États-Unis. Par ailleurs, ces femmes étaient les épouses de prominenti, atout essentiel pour assurer le bon fonctionnement de leur association. Enfin, elles prirent position pour une intégration progressive des immigrés italiens, s’opposant au mouvement d’américanisation qui demandait l’assimilation forcée des étrangers. À travers l’analyse des activités de l’IWL de 1920 à 1965, année qui vit l’abolition des lois sur les quotas, notre thèse cherche à démontrer la cohérence de la politique menée par l’association : pouvait-elle participer à l’assimilation des Italiens immigrés tout en freinant le processus de déculturation qui en découlerait inévitablement ? Il s’agit d’analyser le rôle d’intermédiaire entre la société américaine et les Italiens que s’efforça de remplir l’IWL, notamment lorsque la situation socio-économique des Italiens (lors de leur installation et au moment de la Dépression) ou le contexte politique (la montée du fascisme et la Seconde Guerre mondiale) amplifièrent le rapport de force entre les Anglo- Américains et les étrangers. L’association fut alors partagée entre sa mission de bienfaisance à travers une meilleure intégration des immigrés italiens dans le système social de leur société d’accueil et son souhait de préserver l’italianité de ces hommes et de ces femmes. / The Italian community was the most important in New York in 1920: there were three hundred and ninety-one thousand Italian immigrants in the city. Most of them lived in overcrowded tenements and their miserable living conditions required assistance. Among benevolent organizations, which helped Italian immigrants, was the Italian Welfare League (IWL) established in 1920 in New York. This association was unique because it was exclusively composed of women - that was not common in those days. These women were married to prominenti, which gave them opportunities to manage successfully their association. Lastly, the IWL favored the immigrants’ progressive assimilation and was opposed to the American policy of Americanization of foreigners. Through the analysis of the Italian Welfare League activities from 1920 to 1965 (the year quotas laws were abolished), our thesis aims at demonstrating how coherent was the association’s policy: could the IWL take part in Italian immigrants’ assimilation and, at the same time, prevent them from losing their cultural identity? We have analysed the IWL’s intermediary role between American society and Italians that the association tried to fulfil especially when the Italians’ socio-economic situation (when settling in America or during the Great Depression) or the political context (the growth of Fascim and World War II) intensified the conflict of power between the Anglo-Americans and the foreigners. The IWL was torn between its benevolent mission through a better assimilation of Italian immigrants within the social system of their host society, and its desire to retain the italianity of these men and women.

The purpose of this research was to see at which extent the game League of Legends, during the world championship, could be seen as a brand community. I have used a quantitative content analysis where the variables that were measured consisted of the elements from the theory of brand community. The elements were (1) consciousness of kind, (2) rituals and traditions, (3) moral responsibility. I used the following research issues: <ul type="disc">What physical evidence is there to support that the League of Legends scene is evolving? What qualitative, visual changes have been made over the years (in League of Legends world championship finals)? At what frequency does the elements of Brand Community, as an amount of mentions by the commentators, occur in League of Legends (E-sport, world championship finals)? My findings suggest that the League of Legends E-sport scene is a brand community that is evolving; according to the set criteria’s for a brand community; and that the world championship can be seen as a brand fest, a gathering of a brand community.

Master of Science / Department of Statistics / Thomas M. Loughin / Traditionally, major-league scouts have evaluated young “position players,” those who are not pitchers, using the “Five Tools”: hitting for average, hitting for power, running, throwing, and fielding. However, “sabermetricians,” those who study the science of baseball, e.g. Bill James, have been trying to evaluate position players using quantifiable measures of performance. In this study, a factor analysis was used to determine underlying characteristics of minor-league hitters. The underlying factors were determined to be slugging ability, lead-off hitting ability, “patience” at the plate, and pure-hitting ability. Additionally, an ordinal response was created from the number of at-bats and on-base plus slugging percentage in the majors during the 2002-05 seasons. The underlying characteristics along with other variables such as a player’s age, position, and level in the minors are used in a cumulative logit logistic regression model to predict a player’s probability of notable success in the majors. The model is built upon data from the 2002 minor-league season and data from the 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 major-league seasons.

Using data from the 2014-2016 Major League Soccer (MLS) seasons, this paper finds evidence for nationality discrimination in the MLS. In particular, foreign players receive a wage premium of 15.97 percent, ceteris paribus. Foreign players also receive an additional bump in their salary based on performance. Finally, using an Oaxaca (1973) decomposition, I find that 22-26% of the differences in wages between foreign and domestic players is largely due to discrimination.

Concussions are a problem in competitive sports with growing concern over the acute and long-term consequences of repetitive head trauma. Participation in sport increases risk of concussion, particularly contact sports including rugby, hockey and football (Harmon et al., 2013). In rugby league, there are between 8.0-17.5 concussions/1000 player hours, representing roughly 10-15% of all injuries in the sport (Gardner et al., 2015). Shoulder, head, hip and knee are reported to be the most common regions that impact the head and are responsible for the greatest number of concussive injuries in rugby (Cusimano et al., 2013; Fuller et al., 2010; Gardner et al., 2014; Toth, Mcneil, & Feasby, 2005). In each of the common injury events reported in elite men’s rugby, there are unique combinations of impact conditions which include effective mass, compliance, velocity and location of impact. The head-to-head event represents a low mass, low compliance event, whereby the hip and shoulder-to-head collisions represents high mass, high compliance events. Scientists have conducted research in an effort to describe incidence and mechanisms of concussive injury in rugby, however, little is known about the biomechanics of head injury in the sport (Fréchède & Mcintosh, 2009; Fréchède & McIntosh, 2007; McIntosh et al., 2000). The purpose of this thesis is to characterize dynamic response and brain tissue deformation for (1) hip-to-head, (2) shoulder-to-head, (3) knee-to-head, and (4) head-to-head concussion events in men’s rugby. Twenty-nine (29) impact videos of diagnosed concussive injuries associated with the four common injury events were reconstructed in the Neurotrauma Impact Science Lab. Head-to-head impacts were reconstructed in this study using a pendulum system, while hip, shoulder and knee to head impacts were reconstructed using the pneumatic linear impactor. Results of this study demonstrate that the common injury events resulting in concussion in elite men’s rugby have different dynamic response characteristics. Head-to-head events produced significantly greater peak linear and peak rotational acceleration, however no significant differences in maximum principal strain between the injury events. Results of this study can be useful in reducing rates and severity of concussive injury in rugby.

This study examined the development of the first professional ice hockey league, the International Hockey League, and its relationships with amateur and professional leagues and ideals, in both Canada and the United States, during the first decade of the twentieth century. Following the historical method, relying primarily on newspapers reports from the towns involved with the League during that period, a chronological-thematic narrative was written to analyze the following hypotheses: a) the League played an important role in the development of professional hockey in Canada, b) the League and its members reflected and affected attitudes toward professional hockey in Canada and the U.S., c) the operations and play levels of the League were the direct result of several influential individuals and events. The study was arranged into three distinct parts: an examination of background conditions existing in eastern Canada and ice hockey prior to the formation of the l.H.L.; a descriptive narrative of the l.H.L.s towns, operations and influential individuals; and an interpretation of selected issues. The study revealed that the formation and operations of the l.H.L. provided a significant influence on the trend toward the acceptance of professionalism in the Canadian senior hockey leagues. It was also determined that the factors associated with that acceptance led to the demise of the l.H.L. / Education, Faculty of / Kinesiology, School of / Graduate