Title: Targets used at the first modern Olympic Games and in the period of the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries. Aim of Thesis: The aim of this thesis is to describe the development in individual targets in the period of the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries. The climax should feature the discovery and description of target evaluation at the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Method: The thesis subject is an analysis of shooting evaluation in a defined period. The methods used for this analysis are data secondary analysis, induction and abduction. Results: Based on the above mentioned methods there were totally five targets of five concentric circles discovered. These targets could have been used for rifle disciplines at the first modern Olympic Games. The values of individual targets were as follows: 1st (10, 21, 33, 46, 60), 2nd (11, 23, 36, 50, 65), 3rd (12, 25, 39, 54, 70), 4th (13, 27, 42, 58, 75), 5th (14, 29, 45, 62, 80). Keywords: shooting sport, pistol disciplines, rifle disciplines

Title: The effect of the place of the match on the shooting success in handball. Objectives: The main objective of this work is to find out whether the place where the match is taking place affects the shooting success from individual player areas, and also the overall shooting success of the selected team. Another objective was to find out whether the place has got an effect on the result of the match. Methods: For data collection we used the methods of direct observation, indirect observation and analytical method in our work. The results were processed using the Mann Whitney test, Wilcoxon test and Mc Nemar test. Results: We found out that the place at which the match is taking place does not affect the overall percentage success rate of shooting of the selected team. Also it was not statistically proved, that the place affects the percentage success rate of shooting even from one of the basic areas of player functions for the attack. Keywords: handball, shooting, percentage success rate, place, game performance

The purpose of this thesis is to develop an interpretable model that gives predictions for what factors impacted a shooter’s results. Experiment is our chosen research method. Our three independent variables are weapon movement, trigger pull force and heart rate. Our dependent variable is shooting accuracy. A random forest regression model is trained with the experiment data to produce predictions of shooting accuracy and to show correlation between independent and dependent variables. Our method shows that an increase in weapon movement, trigger pull force and heart rate decrease the predicted accuracy score. Weapon movement impacted shooting results the most with 53.61%, while trigger pull force and heart rateimpacted shooting results 22.20% and 24.18% respectively. We have also shown that LIME can be a viable method to give explanations on how the measured factors impacted shooting results. The results from this thesis lay the groundwork for better training tools for target shooting using explainable prediction models with sensors.

This paper deals with the subject of expressions of masculinity in relation to nationalism and citi-zenship, focusing on how these expressions played a role in the shaping of the masculine ideal in the Civil Guard in Vaasa and Västerbotten's Shooting Association during the period of 1918 to 1944. The focus of the study lies on how masculinity, nationalism, and citizenship were connected in the two movements and how they contributed to an idea of an ideal masculinity and a male role as defender and protector of the nation. To accomplish this George L. Mosses’ theory of the evolu-tion of a modern masculine stereotype has been applied, in connection with theoretical concepts of nationalism and citizenship. The material has been subjected to a qualitative analysis with a herme-neutic approach, to be able to interpret and understand it in relation to the above mentioned theoreti-cal concepts. A comparative method has also been applied to the material, to enable placing these two local groups in a larger context by comparing them to one another. This paper argues that these two groups were based on an ideal of the masculine protector and citizen of the nation. A strong sense of duty to the nation followed closely the idea of a male citizen, whose task of maintaining skills of shooting and bodily fitness played a role in creating the ideal man of the nation. The three concepts of masculinity, nationalism, and citizenship played a crucial role in this process and there-fore they were interrelated. This study shows that shooting was viewed as preparation for war in a politically unstable environment during the examined time period. In both movements, the fear of conflict and/or war was present in varying degrees and the general political situation in Europe gave rise to a strong sense of vigilance. Class conflict was present in both countries and affected the two groups as well, though the situation in Finland was more on edge and culminated in the Finnish Civil War of 1918. Shooting was a way of creating strong, able, and well-adjusted citizens. It was also important that young boys and men were introduced to shooting in particular and sports in gen-eral. The Swedes and the Finns in their respective groups arranged shooting competitions together and established a close contact with one another in some form of mutual exchange. Efforts were made in shaping the male body both on the inside and outside, especially in the Finnish group where bodily strength and appearance was of great importance.

The study of stress on police task performance is important as this relationship can positively or negatively impact encounters with the public. This study focused on protective factors of positive psychology within the measured construct of dispositional optimism as a possible mediator of stress effects on physical task performance. The cognitive processing models used were the performance efficiency theory and attentional control theory as they apply in perceptual motor skill. Using a mediation model, the research question asked whether dispositional optimism mediated the relationship between stress and a pistol performance accuracy task. This study used a limited data set collected by a law enforcement training center (N = 80). The survey instruments used to measure stress and dispositional optimism were the Perceived Stress Scale and the Life Orientation Test - Revised, respectively. Correlation and multiple regression were used to analyze the significance of the mediation model. Ultimately, the results were unable to detect significance between dispositional optimism (p > .05) and stress (p > .05) on pistol accuracy outcomes. However, a significant relationship was found between dispositional optimism and stress (p < .05). Future research recommendations include an intervention protocol with several levels of pistol shooting difficulty and biological stress measurements. Implications for social change include further understanding of how to better manage stress for increased accuracy in pistol performance tasks along with increased mental processing and increased positive outcomes. Overall, better education and training for the officer will contribute to more positive encounters with the public.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of muscle fatigue on shooting accuracy in male handball players. Sixteen elite young male handball players (age: 17.12&plusmn / 1.74 year / height: 185.26&plusmn / 7.17 / body mass: 78.93&plusmn / 11.07) volunteered to participate in the study. The study composed of laboratory and field test sessions. In the laboratory test, maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) obtained from treadmill running test, blood lactate concentration, heart rate monitoring at resting and every 3 minutes during running were measured. Running speed equal to 75% speed at VO2max values of participants was used as initial velocity for 30-15 intermittent fitness test (30-15IFT). In the field tests, after determined the optimum shooting velocity of each participant, they shots to each targets placed at the four corner of the handball goal 4 times, totally 16 times. Blood lactate concentration was measured from the earlobe of participant who completed shooting to target test session. Then, 30-15IFT was applied as fatigue protocol and at the end of the test, blood lactate concentration was measured again and participant repeated shooting to target test session immediately after fatigue protocol. During all shooting procedures, acceleration of wrist and speed of ball were recorded. Blood lactate concentration over 8mmol/L, v 90% of HRmax, respiratory exchange ratio&gt / 1 and exhaustion of participant accepted ending criteria for the tests. As a result, no significant differences were found between pre-fatigue and post-fatigue protocols in terms of accurate and inaccurate shots. Shooting consistency, ball speed, response time, X, Y, Z axis of wrist acceleration variables highly correlated each other in terms of shooting accuracy both in pre and post fatigue conditions. Shooting consistency has an effect on accurate shots. Ball velocity has effect on inaccurate shots in pre-fatigue condition. However, none of variable has effect on accurate and inaccurate shots in post-fatigue conditions. In pre-fatigue conditions, right to left motion of wrist (X axis) was the most important motion, back to forward motion (y axis) was became more important in post fatigue condition.

Kinematic analysis of basketball shooting is evolving, however the effects of fatigue on free throw shooting have not been studied. Therefore the effects of fatigue on the kinematics of free throw shooting among elite male basketball players was assessed. Ten healthy male collegiate basketball players participated in the study. Resting and fatigue heart rates of the participants were measured. After a 15 minute warm-up period, markers were placed on seven locations on the shooting arm&rsquo / s side upper and lower extremities. The free throw shots were recorded with two digital cameras at a speed of 60 frames/s at a stereoscopic position. Data were analyzed with the photogrammetry technique. Each participant performed free throw shots (pre-fatigue condition) until the two successful and two unsuccessful shots were collected. Then participants completed a fatigue protocol, which included sprints and squat jumping, until reaching their volitional exhaustion and free throw shots were repeated (post-fatigue condition). The elbow, trunk, knee and ankle joint angles were measured. Successful and unsuccessful shots were compared for pre- and post-fatigue conditions. The results demonstrated that fatigue did not affect free throw shooting and there was no significant joint angle difference (p&gt / .05) between successful and unsuccessful shots (p&gt / .05). It was concluded that fatigue does not affect the kinematics of free throw shooting of healthy male collegiate basketball players and there were no differences in the kinematics of selected joint angles for successful and unsuccessful free throw shots.

In this study, a MATLAB&reg / code based on the Shooting and Bouncing Ray (SBR) algorithm is developed to compute the Radar Cross Section (RCS) of complex targets. SBR is based on ray tracing and combine Geometric Optics (GO) and Physical Optics (PO) approaches to compute the RCS of arbitrary scatterers. The presented algorithm is examined in two parts / the first part addresses a new aperture selection strategy named as &ldquo / conformal aperture&rdquo / , which is proposed and formulated to increase the performance of the code outside the specular regions, and the second part is devoted to testing the multiple scattering and shadowing performance of the code. The conformal aperture approach consists of a configuration that gathers all rays bouncing back from the target, and calculates their contribution to RCS. Multiple scattering capability of the algorithm is verified and tested over simple shapes. Ray tracing part of the code is also used as v a shadowing algorithm. In the first instance, simple shapes like sphere, plate, cylinder and polyhedron are used to model simple targets. With primitive shapes, complex targets can be modeled up to some degree. Later, patch representation is used to model complex targets accurately. In order to test the whole code over complex targets, a Computer Aided Design (CAD) format known as Stereo Lithography (STL) mesh is used. Targets that are composed in CAD tools are imported in STL mesh format and handled in the code. Different sweep geometries are defined to compute the RCS of targets with respect to aspect angles. Complex targets are selected according to their RCS characteristics to test the code further. In addition to these, results are compared with PO, Method of Moments (MoM) and Multilevel Fast Multipole Method (MLFMM) results obtained from the FEKO software. These comparisons enabled us to improve the code as possible as it is.

No description available.

Two multiscale continuum models for simulating protein dynamics are developed which allow for resolution of protein peptide planes in a beam-like finite element. A curvature and strain based finite element formulation is utilized. This formulation is advantageous in simulating proteins since amino acid chains may be described by a single element, even when the protein segment considered exhibits large curvature and twist such as the alpha-helical shapes prominent in many proteins. Specifically, concurrent and hierarchical multiscale models are developed for the curvature and strain based beam formulation. The hierarchical multiscale continuum model utilizes a novel shooting method to calculate the deformed configuration of the protein. An optimization algorithm determines the requisite stiffness parameters by varying the beam stiffness used in the shooting method until deformed configurations of test cases correspond to those produced by the LAMMPS molecular dynamics software. Additionally, a concurrent multiscale method is detailed for evaluating protein inter-atomic potential parameters from the curvature and strain degrees of freedom employed in the model. This allows internal forces and moments to be calculated using nonlinear protein potentials. Proof of concept testing and model verification for both models includes comparing the multiscale techniques to all-atom molecular dynamics solutions. Specifically, the models are verified by simulating a polypeptide in a vacuum and comparing the predicted results to those computed using LAMMPS.