Automatic detection of collisions in elite level rugby union using a wearable sensing device

Elite rugby union teams currently employ the latest technology to monitor and evaluate the physical demands of training and games on their players. Tackling has been shown to be the most common cause of injury in rugby union, yet current player monitoring technology does not effectively evaluate player tackling measurements. Currently, to evaluate measurements specific to player tackles, a time-consuming manual analysis of player sensor data and video footage is required. The purpose of this work is to investigate tackle modeling techniques which can be utilised to automatically detect player tackles and collisions using sensing technology already being used by elite international and club level rugby union teams. This paper discusses issues relevant to automatic tackle analysis, describes a technique to detect tackles using sensing data and validates the technique by comparing automatically detected collisions to manually labeled collisions using data from elite club and international level players. The results of the validation show that the system is able to consistently identify collisions with very few false positives and false negatives, achieving a recall and precision rating of 0.933 and 0.958, respectively. The aim is that the automatically detected tackles can provide coaching, medical and strength and conditioning staff with objective tackle-specific measurements, in real time, which can be used in injury prevention and rehabilitation strategies.     

How Web 2.0 is Changing the Nature of Museum Work

Abstract George Brown Goode, a former Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian in the late 1880s, said that the nature of museum work is not only knowledge creation, but also knowledge dissemination, and, ultimately, learning: “The museum likewise must, in order to perform its proper functions, contribute to the advancement of learning through the increase as well as through the diffusion of knowledge” (1991, 337). Elaine Heumann Gurian noted that: “The use of the Internet will inevitably change museums. How museums respond to multiple sources of information found on the Web and who on staff will be responsible for orchestrating this change is not yet clear. The change, when it comes, will not be merely technological but at its core philosophical” (2010, 95). The catalyst for this change—and for accelerating the pace of change—is Web 2.0.     

Voting Power on School Governing Boards: The Countenance of Proportionality

Acknowledging the realities and responsibilities of power is a precondition to using it wisely. The claim that there has been a shift in power away from the formal providers of education towards the individual consumer is one that needs closer investigation. This paper uses the mathematics of cooperative multiperson game theory to analyse the relative strengths of the various representative groupings on three different models of school governing bodies. Only a basic knowledge of mathematics is assumed as the various coalitions are analysed and compared, and conclusions drawn about the relative power of major and minor factions. Voting strategies, suggested payoffs for winning coalitions and implications for committee-forming are fully examined. The paper is based on the author's direct experience of school amalgamations in the border region of Ireland. An extended consideration of the theory of voting in multiperson games can be found in his book Decision-Making and Game Theory (2002, Cambridge University Press).     

DEVELOPMENT, EVALUATION, AND VALIDATION OF A PAPER-AND-PENCIL TEST FOR MEASURING TWO COMPONENTS OF BIOLOGY TEACHERS’ PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING THE “CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM”

One main focus of teacher education research concentrates on teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). It has been shown that teachers’ PCK correlates with teaching effectiveness as well as with students’ achievement gains. Teachers’ PCK should be analyzed as one of the main important components to evaluate professional development programs. On this account, it is necessary to develop standardized measures of biology teachers’ topic-specific PCK that are labor-efficient. This paper presents a study on the development, evaluation, and validation of a paper-and-pencil test to measure biology teachers’ declarative PCK on the topic of blood and the human cardiovascular system. The development of the test was based, among other considerations, on a review of research literature on PCK and an analysis of 50 videotaped biology lessons. The final test instrument was comprised of 15 items distributed across 2 scales. The findings of the main study—with 93 preservice and in-service biology teachers and 12 biologists—confirmed that this measure of biology teachers’ declarative PCK was reliable, objective, and valid. In-service biology teachers scored higher on the test than preservice teachers (effect size Cohen’s d, 0.65) on one hand and, also, than biologists (Cohen’s d, 1.00) on the other hand. Future versions of this test should explore enlarging the scales and measuring procedural aspects of PCK.     

大学里的德里达

本文解读了德里达对康德和席勒论现代大学起源的著作的阐述,表明那些试图监督和掌控当代大学的理论立场本身也不知不觉地遭到了解构和颠覆.接着,文章考察了当今两个把文科当作现代大学守卫者和监督者的例子.两者都成为德里达辨别出来的解构置换类型的牺牲品.文章还讨论了德里达本人对现代法国大学的制度性干预背后的不同理由.该讨论引向本文的结论,即我们应该像为社会科学和自然科学的纯粹研究辩护一样为人文科学中的纯粹研究辩护,但不应该把经典文科提升到享受特权的优越地位.     

Human Resource Development and Personnel in a Post-Katrina/Rita Environment

This article provides a pre- and post-Katrina snapshot of issues in the human resource arena with emphasis on resilience, persistence, and the overwhelming need for effective planning.     

A High Impact Practice that Works: Connecting Mentors From the Professional Community to Teacher Education Students

A high impact mentoring program at a community college connected professionals from the special education and early intervention fields with small groups of teacher education students. Two federal grants from U.S. Department of Education funded tuition scholarships and mentoring for 76 Special Education students and 78 Early Childhood Education/Early Intervention students in associate degree programs. The mentor programs consisted of individual monitoring by project staff, consistent contact with a mentor from the professional community and with other students in mentor groups, and structured monthly dinner meetings. Students who participated in the mentoring programs showed increased persistence and higher grade point average when compared with the general population of similar majors. Within each grant-funded population, students who showed low participation in the mentor programming presented lower retention rates and lower GPA than grant-funded students who took full advantage of the mentoring program.