Calculating football drag profiles from simulated trajectories

As a bluff object, a football experiences high aerodynamic drag when flow is laminar due to early boundary layer separation and a large low-pressure region. The length and depth of a football’s seams can influence the separation point by triggering a turbulent boundary layer at lower Reynolds numbers. Football manufacturers can control a football’s behaviour through careful design and material choice. However, assessing the aerodynamic performance of a football can be a lengthy and expensive process, traditionally requiring the use of a suitable wind tunnel. Measuring the drag force at varying Reynolds numbers gives a full aerodynamic profile which determines how the ball will behave during flight. Some studies have attempted to establish the aerodynamic properties of footballs using recorded trajectories, but these only ascertained average properties rather than a full aerodynamic profile. This paper describes a method which uses a series of recorded trajectories to calculate the full aerodynamic properties of a football. To assess the accuracy and robustness of this method, simulated trajectory data were used to which varying degrees of noise and aerodynamic lift were added. The assessment found that random noise does not affect the accuracy of the methodology significantly. At larger magnitudes, random aerodynamic lift makes the methodology ineffective (equivalent to ball spin >100 rpm). Future work will concentrate on assessing the effectiveness of the methodology using ball trajectories recorded using 3D high-speed video techniques.     

Biomechanics of the ski cross start indoors on a customised training ramp and outdoors on snow

An effective start enhances an athlete's chances of success in ski cross competitions. Accordingly, this study was designed to investigate the biomechanics of start techniques used by elite athletes and assess the influence of different start environments. Seven elite ski cross athletes performed starts indoors on a custom-built ramp; six of these also performed starts on an outdoor slope. Horizontal and vertical forces were measured by force transducers located in the handles of the start gate and a 12-camera motion capture system allowed monitoring of the sagittal knee, hip, shoulder, and elbow kinematics. The starting movement involved Pre, Pull, and Push phases. Significant differences between body sides were observed for peak vertical and resultant forces, resultant impulse, and peak angular velocity of the shoulder joint. Significantly lower peak vertical forces (44 N), higher resultant impulse (0.114 Ns/kg), and knee joint range of motion (12°) were observed indoors. Although movement in the ski cross start is generally symmetrical, asymmetric patterns of force were observed among the athletes. Two different movement strategies, i.e. pronounced hip extension or more accentuated elbow flexion, were utilised in the Pull phase. The patterns of force and movement during the indoor and outdoor starts were similar.     

Using developmental evaluation as a design thinking tool for curriculum innovation in professional higher education

This paper argues for the use of ‘developmental’ evaluation as a design-based research tool for sustainable curriculum innovation in professional higher education. Professional education is multi-faceted and complex with diverse views from researchers, professional practitioners, employers and the world of politics leaving little consensus about the nature of educational ‘problems’, let alone educational ‘solutions’. Developmental evaluation is an emerging approach to evaluating innovations and/or organisations that are in a continuous state of change; it asks the evaluators to not simply appraise a final design, but to work with designers through processes of rapid reconnaissance, mapping the territory and emergent modelling. This paper provides an account of how the adoption of the dispositions and approaches of developmental evaluation increased the trustworthiness of decision-making in the design of a new post-graduate teacher education degree in Australia. The principles of developmental evaluation as a design thinking approach have application in other complex curriculum settings.     

The future of the humanities in primary schools – reflections in troubled times

ABSTRACT

This article reflects on the implications for practitioners, researchers and policy-makers of the future of the humanities in primary schools in the light of the challenges facing future generations. There is wide divergence in the four jurisdictions of the UK. The humanities are perceived as important, in principle, though curriculum frameworks differ. However, the status of the humanities is often uncertain, in practice, given the current emphasis on outcomes in literacy and numeracy. There is a lack of robust research on how, and by whom, the humanities are taught. The more theoretical articles suggest that the humanities, broadly conceived, are an essential aspect of young children’s education – to enable a deeper understanding of human culture and identity, and to develop the qualities and values needed in a diverse world. Additionally, curricular breadth is required alongside a realisation that narrowly focusing on propositional knowledge is limiting. While this has implications for the whole curriculum, History, Geography and Religious Education have key roles in meeting these aims and in engaging and motivating young children. A stronger policy steer is called for, to ensure that schools give more priority to humanities education, with greater investment in professional development in Initial Teacher Education and beyond.     

Do Children with Autism Use the Speaker's Direction of Gaze Strategy to Crack the Code of Language?

Normal toddlers infer the referent of a novel word by consulting the Speaker's direction of Gaze. That is, they use the Speaker's Direction of Gaze (SDG) strategy. This is a far more powerful strategy than the alternative, the Listener's Direction of Gaze (LDG) strategy. In Study 1 we tested if children with autism, who have well-documented impairments in joint attention, used the SDG or the LDG strategy to learn a novel word for a novel object. Results showed that although 70.6% of children with mental handicap passed the test by making the correct mapping between a novel word and a novel object, via the SDG strategy, only 29.4% of children with autism did so. Instead, their reliance on the LDG strategy led to mapping errors. In Study 2 a group of normal children, whose chronological age (24 months old) was eqated with the verbal mental age of the 2 clinical groups in Study I, was tested using a similar procedure. Results showed that 79% of this normal group passed the test by making the correct mapping between a novel word and a novel object using the SDG strategy. Taken together, the results from both studies suggest that children with autism are relatively insensitive to a speaker's gaze direction as an index of the speaker's intention to refer . This result is consistent with previous findings showing that children with autism are relatively "blind" to the mentalistic significance of the eyes. Discussion centers on how the absence of an SDG strategy might disrupt specific aspects of language development in autism.     

University Leaders’ Strategies in the Global Environment: A Comparative Study of Universitas Indonesia and the Australian National University

In a global environment in which global, national and local nodes relate freely within common networks, all research universities must pursue strategies for building global capacity and facilitating cross-border staff and student movement and research collaboration. The study compares readings of the global environment, global and international activities and relationships, and global capacity and strategy, in two leading national universities, one in a middle level developing country (Indonesia) and the other in a middle level developed country (Australia). The main tool of investigation was interviews with parallel groups of institutional leaders and leaders of academic units and research centres, in conjunction with study of the national and local contexts. It was apparent that in both cases, while global elements are increasingly important in university strategy, mission and identity, resource capacity remains highly dependant on national government and students. This belies the romantic myth of the ‘stand-alone’ corporate university in the global marketplace. The two cases also differ in some respects. While both universities are peak national institutions, and each respects the other, the Australian university is more strongly placed in the global environment and practical dealings between them are asymmetrical. The study helps to illuminate the dynamics of global stratification and hierarchy between developed and developing nations and institutions in higher education.     

Early impact and outcomes of an institutionally aligned,student focused learning perspective on teaching quality assurance1

This paper describes an evidence‐based quality assurance system for teaching and learning, which takes as its starting point a well‐researched theoretical perspective on student learning in higher education. We argue this explicit use of a relevant theoretical base promotes coherence between quality assurance and improvement processes. We outline the principal features of our university's quality assurance strategy, systems and processes, and describe how the university's teaching quality assurance policy and systems have been implemented. We then consider the extent to which the project has achieved its goals of fostering an evidence‐based approach to teaching consistent with the student learning perspective on which the policy and systems are based. We also present data on student learning experiences showing reliable changes in the quality of the student learning experience. We discuss the applied significance of these changes, with a particular focus on changes in the experiences of commencing first year university students.     

Sailing into the Wind: New disciplines in Australian higher education

Much is made of the potential of lifelong learning for individuals and organisations. In this article we tend to make much less of it, certainly with respect to its use in universities to discipline academics. Nevertheless, we argue that academics now need to re-learn the positions they occupy and the stances they take in response to the marketisation of Australian universities. In particular, we suggest that the position of (pure) critique no longer commands attention in Australian contexts of higher education, although the paper does not suggest a disregard for a critical stance purely for the sake of participation. It is in understanding the interconnections between position and stance , and how they might be strategically performed during the everyday practices of academics, that a more promising way of engaging with the venalities of the market is envisaged; a strategy that could be described as 'sailing into the wind'. In discussing these matters, the paper draws on semi-structured interviews with academics located in university faculties/departments/schools of education along Australia's eastern seaboard.     

Insights into Vocational Learning from an Applied Learning Perspective

A theoretical framework for understanding applied learning processes is now warranted given the frequency with which these processes are now being utilised. Drawing in part from the literature on applied education in schools as well as theories of vocational learning such a framework is offered here that seeks to explain these learning processes in terms of the interplay of multiple accounts of influences at micro, meso and macro levels. This framework integrates current and emerging theories around practical learning, and provides insights into vocational and workplace education processes. We clarify how features of our framework complement broader current debates and concepts in the literature on vocational and work-related learning, particularly focusing on influences for that learning at the micro level of individuals’ experiences and understandings entailed in embodied cognition, or knowing through practice. Moreover, the value of this framework is demonstrated through its application to two very different case studies of learning processes in workplace settings. In conclusion, some implications for further theoretical and practical work in this area are advanced.