Cricket fast bowling performance and technique and the influence of selected physical factors during an 8-over spell

The aims of this study were to determine the influence of an 8-over spell on cricket fast bowling technique and performance (speed and accuracy), and to establish the relationship of selected physical capacities with technique and performance during an 8-over spell. Fourteen first-grade fast bowlers with a mean age of 23 years participated in the study. Physical capacities assessed were abdominal strength, trunk stability, selected girth and skinfold measures. During the delivery stride, bowlers were filmed from an overhead and lateral perspective (50 Hz) to obtain two-dimensional data for transverse plane shoulder alignment and sagittal plane knee joint angle respectively. Ball speed was measured by a radar gun and accuracy by the impact point of each delivery on a zoned scoring target at the batter's stumps. Shoulder counter-rotation did not change significantly between overs 2 and 8 for all bowlers, but was significantly related to a more front-on shoulder orientation at back foot impact. When the front-on fast bowlers (n = 5) were isolated for analysis, shoulder counter-rotation increased significantly between overs 2 and 8. Ball speed remained constant while accuracy showed some non-significant variation during the spell. Shoulder counter-rotation was significantly related to accuracy scores during the second half of the 8-over spell. Chest girth and composition and body composition were significantly related to ball release speed at various times during the spell.     

俚语和成语,让你走出英语学习的黑暗

[接上期]Should Teachers Teach Naughty Words?After years of presenting to numerous teachers and leading discussion groups, I have found that the vast majority of teachers feel that familiarizing students with slang, idioms and even some vulgarities is much more desirable than having students pick up this type of language haphazardly on the street.     

Constructing Dysfunction: News Coverage of Teenagers and Social Media

Cultural storytellers such as journalists play a meaningful role in shaping how adults think about the role that social media play in teenagers’ lives. To better assess what adults might be learning, we employed a critical, qualitative approach to examine how contemporary news media constructed cultural understandings of teens’ relationship with social media. Our analysis of 339 print and online news articles from 2013–2014 found that the news media constructed a mediated reality that placed dysfunction as the defining characteristic of teens’ relationship with social media. The news articles consistently positioned teenagers and social media as at odds with one another, entwined in an unhealthy, frequently dangerous union. Discussions of the self-expressive, creative, and communicative practices of teen social media users were undermined or absent altogether. Altogether, the coverage created a mediated reality that denied teenage agency and obscured the diversity of teenagers’ experiences and social media practices.     

Towards a collaborative methodology: An ethnography of widening educational participation

This paper examines my attempts to develop a collaborative methodology, and critically considers the limitations and possibilities of this approach. It draws on a small-scale ethnography of widening educational participation undertaken for my doctoral degree. I worked with a group of access students in a UK further education college to develop the methods and methodology, to identify research questions and key areas of focus and, to a lesser extent, to analyse the data. Post/structural analytical tools enabled co-participants to deconstruct hegemonic neo-liberal discourses of widening participation. Feminist theory enabled the refashioning of radical discourses that are concerned with destabilising unequal relations of power in research and in education. In the paper I consider issues of power, research relationships, author-ity, reflexivity and ethics in collaborative methodology.