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Analysis of Gait Parameters and Knee Angles in Ultimate Frisbee Players: Implications for Balance and Injury
Get PDFBiomechanics research investigating gait and balance of ultimate frisbee players is an unexplored topic. Ultimate requires a wide range of motions that could improve balance and is also a sport prone to frequent injury. This study explores the impact of playing ultimate on gait parameters associated with balance and knee angles associated with joint injury. Gait trials were conducted on 8 ultimate players and 8 control participants between the ages of 18 and 23 to obtain total double support time, stance phase time, single support time, load response time, abduction-adduction (AA) angles, internal-external (IE) rotation angles, and flexion angles of the dominant leg’s knee. Knee angles were obtained through the application of a Triangular Cosserat Point Element (TCPE) analysis for Soft-Tissue Artifact (STA) correction of knee kinematics. The gait parameters and knee angles were compared between ultimate players and control group participants using two-sample t tests. The results indicated that (1) playing ultimate may be used to improve balance, and (2) playing ultimate may reduce the range of IE rotation angles
A WUI-based Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard
Get PDFThe problem at hand. Between 2003 and 2021, the top 10 costliest wildland fires in the United States all occurred in California. One in four Californians live in an area considered high risk for wildfires. Given the impact of catastrophic fires in western states, the need exists for increasing Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) fire resilience through assessing and managing local land use, mitigation and adaptation plans. Most California jurisdictions produce and follow many different types of plans (e.g., General Plan with required Safety Element; Hazard Mitigation Plan, Community Wildfire Protection Plan), each with its own set of policies and implementation scheme; generally, these are “siloed” and lack integration. This is especially true with regard to hazards, and in particularly the WUI fire hazard that is addressed by several agencies and plans, but without sufficient collaboration and spatial understanding of the heterogeneous effects of policy across a community.
A proposed solution. To address the many-plan-little-integration dilemma, this project focuses on applying the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ (PIRS) method to California jurisdictions that are subject to the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) fire hazard. This a method that spatially evaluates networks of plans to strengthen a jurisdiction’s resilience and reduce vulnerability to hazards. It provides a pathway to systematically evaluate and then adjust multiple policies to improve the focus and coordination of plans on building resilience in the most vulnerable locations. The process aims to harmonize a jurisdiction’s network of plans to support community priorities that lower risk from hazards.
With support from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and an initial focus on flood hazards, the PIRS™ method was first applied in several East and Gulf Coast cities and in the Netherlands. FEMA later used the process to conduct vulnerability analysis in the Southern U.S., and the American Planning Association (APA) has adopted it and developed an online course to teach PIRS™ to its members. NOAA recently provided support for urban heat island hazard analysis using the PIRS™ method for a pilot in several cities.
WUI fire presents a special challenge in that the hazard itself stems from the dynamics of fuel variables (natural and built) interacting with climate and human variables. Through building a scorecard supported by a spatial framework, policies that support risk reduction are made visible, while that those are in conflict with a risk reduction strategy are called out. . This network is unique to a jurisdiction, in that it spans departmental objectives. Finally, physical and social vulnerability are determined for each of the districts and compared to the policy scores. Conceptualizing how WUI fire, as a hazard, becomes part of the land use planning process will be of this project’s main contributions.
The project team will work with four California jurisdictions over a two-year period, using a multidisciplinary team of faculty associated with the Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo WUI Fire Institute and the Texas A&M Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation provides support for this effort
Black Feminist Pedagogy In White Southern Spaces
Get PDFIn Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks situates the classroom as “the most radical space of opportunity in academia” (hooks 1994,), as it is within this space that we might challenge and transcend ways of knowing centered in patriarchy, sexism and racism. But what happens when the classroom is located in spaces loyal to the historical frameworks that buttress white supremacist heteropatriarchy? This article examines my twelve years of experience in teaching undergraduate courses in political science at a small liberal arts college in the mid-South. At its center are critical reflections on attempts to formulate and employ a black feminist teaching pedagogy positioned around hooks’ theory of “teaching to transgress”, in a setting and a discipline in which teaching and learning expectations are anchored to traditional notions of pedagogy and professorial authority. I interrogate whether teaching to transgress can transcend disciplinary boundaries an effective black feminist pedagogy in non GWS disciplines and suggest that the ability to teach to transgress is shaped by place and discipline but is nonetheless possible
Developments in Construction Insurance and their Effects on General Contractors
Get PDFBefore a construction project can begin, insurance must be purchased by each involved construction player to ensure the financial and physical health of the project and those working to complete it. The necessity of construction insurance on every project has turned it into a behemoth of a market sector, one that significantly affects the construction industry as well as a plethora of others. Although many are unaware, developments and shifts in construction insurance deeply affect the well-being of the public, from the roads they drive on to the buildings they live and work in. This research piece will delve into the primary developments that are transforming the construction insurance industry. A combination of academic papers and interviews with construction insurance professionals are used to obtain the necessary research for this project. In this accumulation of knowledge, it becomes evident the two primary developments in the construction insurance industry are the popularization of Single-Parent and Group Captive Insurance Entities. The inner workings and benefits of these developments to both the construction and insurance industry are explored to explain their increasingly widespread adoption