Strategic Capacity and Organisational Capabilities: A Challenge for Universities

Are universities able to operate as strategic actors? An organisational sociology based approach supported by a comparative field research project identifies three types of social, cultural and cognitive processes that play a decisive role in building and implementing local capabilities required to mobilise a strategic capacity. The paper identifies how much these processes are present in the four ideal-types of universities defined by crossing their reputation and their metrics-based performance. Such a meso deterministic perspective suggests that universities may position themselves as proactive actors or principals, and not just as agents of national reforms and political demands. Nevertheless, their ability to do it varies according to their type. The paper also explores the implications of such findings for institutional leadership and steering policymakers.     

Unsustainable Growth,Hyper-Competition,and Worth in Life Science Research: Narrowing Evaluative Repertoires in Doctoral and Postdoctoral Scientists’ Work and Lives

There is a crisis of valuation practices in the current academic life sciences, triggered by unsustainable growth and “hyper-competition.” Quantitative metrics in evaluating researchers are seen as replacing deeper considerations of the quality and novelty of work, as well as substantive care for the societal implications of research. Junior researchers are frequently mentioned as those most strongly affected by these dynamics. However, their own perceptions of these issues are much less frequently considered. This paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of the interplay between how research is valued and how young researchers learn to live, work and produce knowledge within academia. We thus analyze how PhD students and postdocs in the Austrian life sciences ascribe worth to people, objects and practices as they talk about their own present and future lives in research. We draw on literature from the field of valuation studies and its interest in how actors refer to different forms of valuation to account for their actions. We explore how young researchers are socialized into different valuation practices in different stages of their growing into science. Introducing the concept of “regimes of valuation” we show that PhD students relate to a wider evaluative repertoire while postdocs base their decisions on one dominant regime of valuing research. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of these findings for the epistemic and social development of the life sciences, and for other scientific fields.     

A learning-based method to detect and segment text from scene images

This paper proposes a learning-based method for text detection and text segmentation in natural scene images. First, the input image is decomposed into multiple connected-components (CCs) by Niblack clustering algorithm. Then all the CCs including text CCs and non-text CCs are verified on their text features by a 2-stage classification module, where most non-text CCs are discarded by an attentional cascade classifier and remaining CCs are further verified by an SVM. All the accepted CCs are output to result in text only binary image. Experiments with many images in different scenes showed satisfactory performance of our proposed method.     

Bedingungen der Bindungswirkung inkrementeller Normen in Fußballvereinen

Sports clubs depend on the pooling of resources by their members. The supportive distribution of the resources within a club is facilitated in particular by the effectiveness of incremental standards. A basic prerequisite for a fair distribution of resources is a minimum of community spirit among the members. Based on a nationwide survey of football clubs and an ordinal logistic regression model, factors were determined that reflect the extent of the community spirit within a club. The opening up of the club by payment to players and perceived problems with acquiring and binding of volunteers are associated with a reduction of community spirit. In contrast, the perception that the club activities can be continued in the long term shows a positive correlation to a highly developed community spirit.     

Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation: An Approach/Avoidance Reformulation

The main purpose of this article is to advance an alternative perspective on the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and in particular to examine critically the assertion that these processes are antagonistic such that the will to learn for its own sake is inhibited by the presence of extrinsic, tangible rewards and incentives such as school grades. The presumption of an antagonistic relationship largely depends on the theoretical perspective adopted. An alternative interpretation based on need achievement theory leads to distinctly different conclusions. Exploring this new perspective allows one to identify both the conditions under which intrinsic motives may coexist with extrinsic motives as well as to consider some of the means by which intrinsic motives and caring about learning can be stimulated in their own right in school settings.     

A review of tennis racket performance parameters

The application of advanced engineering to tennis racket design has influenced the nature of the sport. As a result, the International Tennis Federation has established rules to limit performance, with the aim of protecting the nature of the game. This paper illustrates how changes to the racket affect the player-racket system. The review integrates engineering and biomechanical issues related to tennis racket performance, covering the biomechanical characteristics of tennis strokes, tennis racket performance, the effect of racket parameters on ball rebound and biomechanical interactions. Racket properties influence the rebound of the ball. Ball rebound speed increases with frame stiffness and as string tension decreases. Reducing inter-string contacting forces increases rebound topspin. Historical trends and predictive modelling indicate swingweights of around 0.030–0.035 kg/m² are best for high ball speed and accuracy. To fully understand the effect of their design changes, engineers should use impact conditions in their experiments, or models, which reflect those of actual tennis strokes. Sports engineers, therefore, benefit from working closely with biomechanists to ensure realistic impact conditions.     

Synchronized lower limb kinematics with pelvis orientation achieves the non-rotational shot

A non-rotational (NR) shot is now a well-known scoring move in soccer. To execute the NR shot, it is necessary to deprive the ball of any rotational forces during the impact phase. To execute the NR shot, it is natural that the force vector acting from the foot would pass through the ball’s center of gravity; however, the coordinated motion of the lower limb joint’s angular displacement and the pelvis is still unclear. The aim of this study is to estimate the coordinated leg and pelvis motion during the NR shot as compared to that during instep kicking. Four right-leg dominant college league players were asked to perform a NR shot and an instep kick a total of 10 times each. Hip, knee, and ankle joint angular displacements in the sagittal plane and pelvis yaw and roll rotational motions during both types of kicks were calculated with 14 IR reflective markers using a 3D real-time motion analysis system with a 250-Hz sampling. The Euclidean distances of the joint space of the NR shot and the instep kick were also calculated to detect similarities in the coordinated motion of the lower limb. The results showed that the lower limb joint motions in the sagittal plane were not different; however, the pelvis roll and yaw motions were apparently different, and these phenomena could simulate a pendulum motion with changes in both the vertical and horizontal displacements. These results suggest that the coordinated motion of the lower limb joint’s angular displacement shows high similarity between the NR shot and the instep kick, and the pelvis roll and yaw synchronized orientation is essential for achieving the NR shot.     

Elite wheelchair rugby: a quantitative analysis of chair configuration in Australia

Limited recommendations of wheelchair configurations for court sports have been identified in the published literature. To accommodate the wide range of impairments in wheelchair rugby, players are given a point score that reflects their impairment. Players have regularly been grouped as high-, mid-, or low-point players in research, with high-point players having greater levels of muscle function compared with other classifications. This research documented the wheelchair configurations of elite Australian wheelchair rugby players across classification groups. Significant differences (p < 0.05) were found for increased seat height and decreased seat depth for high-point players compared with low- and mid-point groups, respectively. Low-point players displayed reduced wheelchair mass compared with high- and mid-point players, as well as increased frame length. Camber angles showed no significant differences across the classification groups. The incorporation of anthropometric measures, such as the elbow angle at the top dead center, was also investigated. While elbow angle showed no significant differences, seat height-to-total arm length ratio was higher for high-point players. Participants also completed surveys detailing their perception of the effect of altering wheelchair configurations. It is suggested that wheelchair configurations should consider an individual’s anthropometrics, impairment, training history, and court role to promote optimal performance, with predictive modeling having the potential to reduce the associated time and cost.     

One hundred and fifty years of sprint and distance running – Past trends and future prospects

Sprint and distance running have experienced remarkable performance improvements over the past century. Attempts to forecast running performances share an almost similarly long history but have relied so far on relatively short data series. Here, we compile a comprehensive set of season-best performances for eight Olympically contested running events. With this data set, we conduct (1) an exponential time series analysis and (2) a power-law experience curve analysis to quantify the rate of past performance improvements and to forecast future performances until the year 2100. We find that the sprint and distance running performances of women and men improve exponentially with time and converge at yearly rates of 4% ± 3% and 2% ± 2%, respectively, towards their asymptotic limits. Running performances can also be modelled with the experience curve approach, yielding learning rates of 3% ± 1% and 6% ± 2% for the women's and men's events, respectively. Long-term trends suggest that: (1) women will continue to run 10–20% slower than men, (2) 9.50 s over 100 m dash may only be broken at the end of this century and (3) several middle- and long-distance records may be broken within the next two to three decades. The prospects of witnessing a sub-2 hour marathon before 2100 remain inconclusive. Our results should be interpreted cautiously as forecasting human behaviour is intrinsically uncertain. The future season-best sprint and distance running performances will continue to scatter around the trends identified here and may yield unexpected improvements of standing world records.