The current study evaluated the effects of self-monitoring by swimmers to improve their performance at practice and assessed the effects of reactivity to observer presence on their performance. Additionally, it investigated the accuracy of the swimmers' self-reports. Seven public high school swim team members used program boards to self-monitor in order to increase the number of assigned laps completed at practice. Reactivity to observer presence was assessed by having a confederate record the number of laps completed during observer absent conditions. A series of AB replications and an ABAB reversal design were used. The percentage of assigned laps completed increased during the self-monitoring phases. The self-monitoring and feedback phase showed an additional increase in the percentage of assigned laps completed, and also showed an increase in the mean level of reporting accuracy by the participants. The effects from the reactivity assessment were mixed; the percentage of assigned laps completed was lower on days that the observer was absent compared to the days the observer is present for only some of the participants. More research is needed to examine reactivity effects in sport settings.

SUMMARY The amount of disabled people of working age is icreasing in Lithuania. In the second place in the structure of primary disablement are connective tissue and muscle-skeleton diseases. In 2002 for the first time recognized as invalids were 2898 persons, in 2003 – 3448 persons. Part of inhabitants are becoming invalids because of the joint diseases. The most effective and modern treatment of hip arthrosis and some other hip joint diseases is total hip arthroplasty. In 2003 the State Patient’s Cash has received 4704 requests for total hip arthroplasty. This problem becoms more and more urgent (State Patient’s Cashies, 2004). Kinesitherapy in the gym and in the swimming pool are the main means used in the restoring of functional abilities of the patients after total hip arthroplasty. One can find the data about the efficiency of kinesitherapy for the patients after total hip replacement, but there is no separate data about efficiency of the kinesitherapy in the swimming pool. The aim of the research: to evaluate the efficiency of the kinesitherapy in the swimming pool for the patients after total hip replacement. The tasks: 1. To evaluate the change of functional abilities of the patients, who received the kinesitherapy in the gym. 2. To evaluate the change of functional abilities of the patients, who received the kinesitherapy in the gym and in the swimming pool. 3. To compare the change of functional abilities between the patients of both groups. 4. To establish the... [to full text]

The UK Health & Safety Executive are responsible for advising on ways to ensure the safety of employees within the workplace. One of the main areas of concern is the potential problem of unwanted fire, and it has been identified that within the area of large-scale storage in warehouses, there is an uncertainty posed by large quantities of thermoplastic. Some forms of thermoplastic exhibit melt-flow behaviour when heated, and a large vertical array exposed to a fire may melt and ignite forming a pool fire in addition to a wall fire. This project is largely experimental, and aimed at quantifying the effect of a growing pool fire fuelled by a melting wall on overall fire growth rate. The pool fire has been found to increase melting and burning rates, producing a much faster growing fire. It has also been found that - 80% of flowing and burning material will enter a potential pool fire, with only 20 - 25% of total mass loss actually burning from the original array. During the project 400+ small-scale tests and several medium-scale experiments have been undertaken at both Edinburgh University and the HSE's Fire & Explosion Laboratory, Buxton. The experiments have confirmed the main parameters governing pool fire development are molecular weight degradation rate and mechanism, which control flow viscosity. There have also been investigations into other influences, the most significant of which was found to be flooring substrate. These parameters then form the basis of a simple 1-D model. A semi-infinite heat transfer approximation is used to determine temperature profile through a thermoplastic exposed to its own flame flux, with extrapolated temperature dependant material properties. The derived profile is then inserted into a gravity driven flow model, to produce estimates of flow rate and quantity for plastics undergoing either random or end chain scission thermal degradation processes. The model identifies property data which are required to permit its use as a hazard assessment tool.

Tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum (Schreb.) Darbysh.) is a cool-season perennial grass used in pastures throughout the Southeastern United States. The grass can harbor a fungal endophyte (Epichloë coenophiala) thought to provide the plant with enhanced resistance to biotic and abiotic stress. However, the alkaloids produced by the common variety of the endophyte cause severe animal health issues resulting in a considerable amount of research focused on eliminating the toxic class of alkaloids while retaining the positive abiotic and biotic stress tolerance attributes of the other alkaloids. In doing so, very little attention has been paid to the direct influence the fungal-plant symbiosis has on rhizosphere processes. Therefore, my objectives were to study the influence of this relationship on plant biomass production, root exudate composition, and soil biogeochemical processes using tall fescue cultivars PDF and 97TF1 without an endophyte (E-), or infected with the common toxic endophyte (CTE+), or with two novel endophytes (AR542E+, AR584E+). I found that root exudate composition and plant biomass production were influenced by endophyte status, tall fescue cultivar, and the interaction of cultivar and endophyte. Cluster analysis showed that the interaction between endophyte and cultivar results in a unique exudate profile. These interactions had a small but perceptible impact on soil microbial community structure and function with an equally small and perceptible impact on carbon and nitrogen cycling in soils from rhizobox and field sites. These studies represent the first comprehensive analysis of root exudate chemistry from common toxic and novel endophyte infected tall fescue cultivars and can be used to help explain in part the observed changes in C and N cycling and storage in pastures throughout the Southeast U.S..

Human welders have long been able to monitor a weld pool and adjust welding parameters accordingly. Automated welding robots can provide consistent movement during the welding process, but lack the ability to monitor the weld pool. A vision system attached to the welding robot could provide a way to monitor the weld pool substantially faster than a human being. Previous vision systems to monitor weld pool surfaces have been developed, but their uses are limited since the system is fixed in place. The compact vision system developed in this research attaches directly to the welding torch, which provides no limitations in weld pool monitoring. This system takes advantage of the specular surface of a molten weld pool by reflecting a pattern of laser beams from the weld pool surface. The deformation of the laser beam after it reflects from the weld pool surface can provide clues to the weld pool shape, and thus the penetration of the weld. Image processing techniques and geometric optics are used to reconstruct a weld pool surface shape based on the image captured of the deformed laser pattern.

<p>In an era of 'global' oceans crisis, marine conservationists have issued a resounding call to increase the spatial scale of ocean conservation. This dissertation examines the drivers and implications of recent efforts to scale up ocean conservation in places simultaneously celebrated for their revival of community-based conservation: the Pacific Islands region, the Micronesian sub-region, and the nation of Palau. Toward this end, this research engages and advances critical human geography theory on scalar politics and institutional theory on the governance of common pool resources to address the overarching questions: why and how are state and non-state actors rescaling ocean conservation, and with what social, political, and institutional consequences? These questions are approached empirically through a multi-sited case study that ethnographically tracks institutions, actors, funding, and agendas from the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to five Pacific Island nations and territories, revealing the links among macro and micro level processes in diverse political and geographical spaces. </p><p> This research conceptualizes the rescaling of ocean conservation as an integral component of social struggles for empowerment. Results illustrate how state and non-state actors pursue their contextually specific goals by working together to scale up the objects of ocean conservation. The means through which they achieve rescaling include discursive framings, performative acts, and institutional changes. Most significantly, these `scalar practices' have resulted in empowerment of environmental non-governmental organizations and Pacific Island governments within multi-level conservation governance processes; accumulation of international attention and funding at the regional level in Micronesia; and reduced local autonomy for conservation governance in Palau.</p><p> Overall, this work contributes an empirically grounded, theoretically engaged, and policy-relevant analysis of the scalar politics and institutional dynamics that are reshaping the actors, objectives, and institutions of contemporary ocean conservation across multiple levels of governance. Conclusions advance theory on the scalar dimensions of environmental governance by conceptualizing regions as strategically constructed tools of environmental politics; expanding understanding of the form and function of multi-level regimes for the governance of large common pool resources; and advancing constructive theoretical dialogue between critical human geographers and institutional theorists. This work may also inform policy discussions by illuminating complex tradeoffs that result from scalar rearrangements.</p> / Dissertation

A combination of DGPS/GIS mapping, invertebrate surveys and environmental monitoring over one year (July 2004--July 2005) were used to examine the recovery of permanent tidal pools on a salt marsh in the lower Bay of Fundy which underwent an unmanaged restoration after breach of the dyke over 50 years ago. The results are compared to those of a nearby relatively undisturbed reference marsh. / Pools were found to represent a substantial portion of the marsh habitat, comprising 13% of the total marsh area in the recovering marsh and 4.8% in the natural marsh. Observations indicate ice may be an important mechanism of pool formation and growth in these marshes. Water temperature in the pools ranged from freezing (-2°C) to a maximum of 36°C with ice covering pools for up to one month in the winter. Salinity of the pools ranged from near freshwater (4) to hypersaline (41). Environmental variability was mainly driven by climatic conditions with increased tidal flooding of pools at low elevations tending to make the conditions more stable. / A total of 42 macroinvertebrate taxa were identified in pools of the two marshes, with species richness (S) of individual pools ranging from 13 to 23. An estimated 50 years since dyke failure, the invertebrate fauna of pools in the recovering marsh is indistinguishable from that of the reference marsh. No significant differences in macroinvertebrate communities were detected between sampling dates, pool size or pool depth. Non metric multidimentional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis supported separating the pool invertebrate communities of this study into those occurring in regularly flooded pools, and those occurring in irregularly flooded pools. Average production of pool macroinvertebrates ranged from 1.79 to 4.03 g dry wt m-2, depending on the amount of vegetative cover in the pools. The pools are characterized by low equitability in species abundance and biomass. The numerically dominant organisms of the pools were mites (Acarina), the gastropod Hydrobia tottentei, Tubificidae oligochaetes, and Chironomus sp. larvae as well as copepods and ostracods.

The series of experiments comprising this thesis investigate how neural inputs arising from higher motor centres (e.g., the motor cortex) and the periphery are translated into a variety of activation patterns of alpha motoneurones during the performance of various muscle contraction types. The thesis consists of six chapters, with the first chapter providing an introduction to the research program, and the final chapter giving a summary of the main research findings. Chapter 2 to 5 each represent stand-alone scientific works. The study presented in Chapter 2 examined whether the soleus (SOL) H-reflex is modulated during shortening contractions in a manner that has been observed for isometric contractions. It was revealed that no significant correlation was found between the SOL H-reflex and increasing plantar flexion torque during shortening contractions (ρ = −0.07, P = 0.15), while a strong positive correlation was observed for the isometric conditions (ρ = 0.99, P < 0.01). Furthermore, no modulation in the H-reflexes via paired stimuli in voluntary shortening contractions suggested that the level of homosynaptic post-activation depression (HPAD) did not change in response to the varying levels of activation in voluntary shortening contractions. Therefore, Ia-excitatory input is likely to be reduced during shortening contractions at increasing intensities, possibly due to a centrally regulated increase in presynaptic inhibition. The study described in Chapter 3 investigated corticospinal-evoked responses in triceps surae muscles during voluntary contractions at varying strengths. Motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) and cervicomedullary motor-evoked potentials (CMEPs) were elicited in the SOL and medial gastrocnemius (MG) muscles using magnetic stimulation over the motor cortex and cervicomedullary junction during voluntary plantar flexions with the torque ranging from 0 to 100% of a maximal voluntary contraction (MVC). In both SOL and MG, MEP and CMEP amplitudes [normalized to maximal M wave (Mmax)] showed an increase, followed by a plateau, over the greater part of the contraction range with responses increasing from 0.2 to 6% of Mmax for SOL and from 0.3 to 10% of Mmax for MG. It was suggested that increases in the evoked responses from the triceps surae muscle over a greater range of contraction strengths than for upper limb muscles, probably stems from differences in the pattern of motor unit recruitment and rate coding for these muscles, and the strength of the corticospinal input. In Chapter 4, in an attempt to investigate how the recruitment and rate coding of motor unit organisation can affect the responsiveness of gross evoked potentials to artificial excitatory stimuli, a computer simulation was performed based upon a physiologically plausible model of the motoneurone. The simulation revealed that the force level where the evoked response commences to decline corresponds approximately to the upper limit of recruitment of motor units. This observation was consistent no matter whether firing rates for low-threshold units exceed those for high-threshold units. Since the simulated results were consistent with previous observations in both individual (single motor unit) and population (motoneurone pool) terms, the proposed model is physiologically plausible and can be useful to predict the evoked EMG response via artificial stimulation protocols, thereby inferring the underlying neural mechanisms occurring at the motoneurone pool during voluntary movements. The study presented in Chapter 5 determined the recruitment range and discharge behaviours in the SOL motor units, and examined the possible influence of persistent inward currents (PICs) on SOL motor unit recruitment and discharge rates. Forty-two clearly identified motor units from five subjects revealed that soleus motor units are recruited progressively from rest to contraction strengths close to 95% of MVC, with low-threshold motor units discharging action potentials slower at their recruitment and with a lower peak rate than later recruited high-threshold units. This observation is in contrast to the ‘onion skin phenomenon’ often reported for the upper limb muscles. Based on positive correlations of the peak discharge rates, initial rates and recruitment order of the units with the magnitude of the onset-offset hysteresis (i.e., a difference in discharge rate between recruitment and de-recruitment) and not PIC contribution, we conclude that discharge behaviours among motor units appear to be related to a variation in an intrinsic property other than PICs.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Worcester Polytechnic Institute. / Keywords: suppression; drop size; high flash point pool fire. Includes bibliographical references (p. 210-218).

Thesis (M.S.)--Wisconsin State University at La Crosse.