Fish-Bicycle Shirt at International Women's Year march

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Developmental Paths and Activities of Successful Sport Coaches

The purpose of this research report is to present an overview of an ongoing, international project designed to chart the developmental paths and activities of sport coaches. This brief report includes three sections: (a) conceptual framework used to guide the project, (b) project design and methodology, and (c) results from pilot studies with a sample of 15 successful coaches working in different sport contexts in the United States Unlike the findings for athletic profiles, where several trends across coaching contexts were evident, only one trend was found in how these diverse groups of coaches invested their time in coach developmental activities. In relation to other coaching activities very little time was devoted to formal coach education on an annual basis. The results reinforce the need to consider the coaching context when examining coach development and when designing coach development initiatives.

Identical Origins, Divergent Paths: Filial Responsibility Laws in Canada and the United States

This dissertation examines the origins of filial responsibility laws in Canada and the United States, laws which prescribe that adult children have an obligation of support which is owed to their parents. Filial responsibility laws enable an indigent parent, or an institution providing medical treatment and care to an indigent parent, to seek financial support from that parent’s adult children through the use of litigation. While those who favour these rarely-used laws claim that they bring many benefits to both the family and the state, there is little evidence to suggest that such benefits are actualized. The development and use of the laws in Canada and the United States make it clear that the limitation of the expenditure of government funds was the primary motive for these laws and the support of families a distant secondary motive.

The effect of changing the built environment on physical activity: a quantitative review of the risk of bias in natural experiments.

BACKGROUND:
Evidence regarding the association of the built environment with physical activity is influencing policy recommendations that advocate changing the built environment to increase population-level physical activity. However, to date there has been no rigorous appraisal of the quality of the evidence on the effects of changing the built environment. The aim of this review was to conduct a thorough quantitative appraisal of the risk of bias present in those natural experiments with the strongest experimental designs for assessing the causal effects of the built environment on physical activity.

METHODS:
Eligible studies had to evaluate the effects of changing the built environment on physical activity, include at least one measurement before and one measurement of physical activity after changes in the environment, and have at least one intervention site and non-intervention comparison site. Given the large number of systematic reviews in this area, studies were identified from three exemplar systematic reviews; these were published in the past five years and were selected to provide a range of different built environment interventions. The risk of bias in these studies was analysed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Assessment Tool: for Non-Randomized Studies of Interventions (ACROBAT-NRSI).

RESULTS:
Twelve eligible natural experiments were identified. Risk of bias assessments were conducted for each physical activity outcome from all studies, resulting in a total of fifteen outcomes being analysed. Intervention sites included parks, urban greenways/trails, bicycle lanes, paths, vacant lots, and a senior citizen's centre. All outcomes had an overall critical (n = 12) or serious (n = 3) risk of bias. Domains with the highest risk of bias were confounding (due to inadequate control sites and poor control of confounding variables), measurement of outcomes, and selection of the reported result.

CONCLUSIONS:
The present review focused on the strongest natural experiments conducted to date. Given this, the failure of existing studies to adequately control for potential sources of bias highlights the need for more rigorous research to underpin policy recommendations for changing the built environment to increase physical activity. Suggestions are proposed for how future natural experiments in this area can be improved.

Bicycle Facilities Network Identification Handbook, 1995

Manual was developed to assist metropolitan planning organizations and regional planning affiliations identify a bicycle and pedestrian facilities network for their respective planning areas.

Consumerism in urban Russia in the 1880s and 90s: Exploring conceptions of time, space, and modernity through bicycle and watch advertisements

This paper discusses the urban consumer culture in Moscow and Petersburg during the 1880s and 1890s and uses the consumption of bicycles and watches as a lens through which to explore changing perceptions of time and space within the experience of modernity at the end of the nineteenth century. Specifically, I argue that the way in which consumers and merchants constructed a dialogue of meaning around particular objects; the way in which objects are consumed by a culture gives insight into the values, morals, and tenure of that culture. The paper preferences newspaper ads and photographs as the mouthpieces of merchants and consumers respectively as they constructed a dialogue in the language of consumerism, and explores the ways in which both parties sought to assign meaning to objects during the experience of modernity. I am particularly interested in the way consumers perform elements of cultural modernity in photographs and how these instances of performance relate to their negotiation of modernity. The paper takes as its focus large section of the urban Russian population, much of whom can traditionally be called “middle class” but whose diversity has led me to the adoption of the term “consumer community,” and whose makeup is described in detail. The paper contributes to the continuing scholarly discourse on the makeup of the middle class in Russia and the social boundaries of late tsarist society. It speaks to the the developing sensibilities and values of a generation struggling to define itself in a rapidly changing world, to the ways in which conceptualizations of public and private space, as well as feminine and masculine space were redefined, and to the developing visual culture of the Russian consumer society, largely predicated on the display of objects to signify socially desirable traits. Whereas other explorations of consumer culture and advertisements have portrayed the relationship between merchants and consumers as a one-sided monologue in which merchants convince consumers that certain objects have cultural value, I emphasis the dialogue between merchants and consumers, and their mutual negotiation of cultural meaning through objects.

Paths to peace: conflict management trajectories in militarized interstate disputes

When multiple third-parties (states, coalitions, and international organizations) intervene in the same conflict, do their efforts inform one another? Anecdotal evidence suggests such a possibility, but research to date has not attempted to model this interdependence directly. The current project breaks with that tradition. In particular, it proposes three competing explanations of how previous intervention efforts affect current intervention decisions: a cost model (and a variant on it, a limited commitments model), a learning model, and a random model. After using a series of Markov transition (regime-switching) models to evaluate conflict management behavior within militarized interstate disputes in the 1946-2001 period, this study concludes that third-party intervention efforts inform one another. More specifically, third-parties examine previous efforts and balance their desire to manage conflict with their need to minimize intervention costs (the cost and limited commitments models). As a result, third-parties intervene regularly using verbal pleas and mediation, but rely significantly less frequently on legal, administrative, or peace operations strategies. This empirical threshold to the intervention costs that third-parties are willing to bear has strong theoretical foundations and holds across different time periods and third-party actors. Furthermore, the analysis indicates that the first third-party to intervene in a conflict is most likely to use a strategy designed to help the disputants work toward a resolution of their dispute. After this initial intervention, the level of third-party involvement declines and often devolves into a series of verbal pleas for peace. Such findings cumulatively suggest that disputants hold the key to effective conflict management. If the disputants adopt and maintain an extreme bargaining position or fail to encourage third-parties to accept greater intervention costs, their dispute will receive little more than verbal pleas for negotiations and peace.

Paths in remnant movement: A single solution to three problems in the Polish OVS syntax

On the one hand it has been advanced that remnant movement (RM) serves as a replacement for head movement and leads to certain permutations in word order while it disallows some others (e.g. Cinque (2005)), on the other hand, little attention has been devoted to the consequences RM has for clausal syntax. In this work, I illustrate one such consequence, namely the rise of crossing and nesting movement dependencies and their reflexes. In particular, I make a case for the existence of massive RM that involves entire clausal subtrees in Polish. The analysis provides a uniform solution to three robust puzzles in the Polish OVS construction in a straightforward way.

Semen profiles of young men involved as bicycle taxi cyclists in Mangochi District, Malawi: A case-control study

Aim The purpose of this study was to evaluate the semen profiles of bicycle taxi cyclists and healthy controls in Mangochi district, Malawi. Methods Semen samples were collected from young bicycle taxi cyclists after two to three days of sexual abstinence. A control group, comprising young men who were not bicycle taxi operators also submitted semen samples. Samples were left to liquefy for 30 minutes before measurements were conducted of volume, concentration, total motility, and progressive motility. This was followed by preparation of morphology slides. Light microscopy was used for sperm analysis. Results Semen parameters such as volume (1.66 ± 0.18 mL vs. 3.64 ± 0.17 mL; p = 0.0001), concentration (28.31 ± 4.33 x 106/mL vs. 54.95 ± 5.93 x 106/ mL; p = 0.02) , total motility (56.98% ± 8.22% vs. 56.98% ± 8.22%; p = 0.03), progressive motility (22.57% ± 3.35% vs. 59.69% ± 4.82%; p = 0.004), and morphology (6.98% ± 3.23% vs. 19.73% ± 2.32%; p = 0.006) were significantly reduced in the bicycle taxi cyclists compared to the healthy controls. Conclusion In this case-control study, bicycle taxi operators had lower semen volume, concentration, total motility, and progressive motility, as well as a higher concentration of abnormally shaped spermatocytes, compared to healthy controls.

Network Development with Bicycle Lanes

Bicycling as an active mode of transport can offer great individual and societal benefits. Allocating space for bicycle facilities is the key to promoting cycling as bicyclists perceive better safety and convenience in separate bikeways. In this thesis, a method is proposed for optimizing the selection and scheduling of capacity enhancements in road networks while also optimizing the allocation of road space to bicycle lanes. The goal is to determine what fraction of the available space should be allocated to bicycles, as the network evolves, in order to minimize the present value of the total cost of the system cost. The allocation method is combined with a genetic algorithm to select and schedule road expansion projects under certain budget constraints.

Estudio y optimización de las infraestructuras de los carriles para bicicletas

La necesidad cotidiana de los ciudadanos de desplazarse para realizar diferentes actividades, sea cual fuere su naturaleza, se ha visto afectada en gran medida por los cambios producidos. Las ventajas generadas por la inclusión de la bicicleta como modo de transporte y la proliferación de su uso entre la ciudadanía son innumerables y se extienden tanto en el ámbito de la movilidad urbana como del desarrollo sostenible. En la actualidad, hay multitud de programas para la implantación, fomento o aumento de la participación ciudadana relacionado con la bicicleta en las ciudades. Pero en definitiva, todos y cada uno de estas iniciativas tienen la misma finalidad, crear una malla de vías cicladles eficaz y útil. Capaces de permitir el uso de la bicicleta en vías preferentes con unas garantías de seguridad altas, incorporando la bicicleta en el modelo de intermodalidad del transporte urbano. Con la progresiva implantación del carril bici, muchas personas han empezado a utilizarlas para moverse por la ciudad. Pero todo lo nuevo necesita un periodo de adaptación. Y, la realidad es que la red de viales destinados para estos vehículos está repleta de obstáculos para el ciclista. La actual situación ha llevado a cuestionar qué cantidad de kilómetros de carriles bici son necesarios para abastecer la demanda existente de este modo de transporte y, si las obras ejecutadas y proyectadas son las correctas y suficientes. En este trabajo se presenta una herramienta, basada en un modelo de programación matemática, para el diseño óptimo de una red destinada a los ciclistas. En concreto, el sistema determina una infraestructura para la bicicleta adaptada a las características de la red de carreteras existentes, con base en criterios de teoría de grafos ponderados. Como una aplicación del modelo propuesto, se ofrece el resultado de estos experimentos, obteniéndose un número de conclusiones útiles para la planificación y el diseño de redes de carriles bici desde una perspectiva social. Se realiza una aplicación de la metodología desarrollada para el caso real del municipio de Málaga (España). Por último se produce la validación del modelo de optimización presentado y la repercusión que tiene éste sobre el resultado final y la importancia o el peso del total de variables capaces de condicionar el resultado final de la red ciclista. Se obtiene, por tanto, una herramienta destinada a la mejora de la planificación, diseño y gestión de las diferentes infraestructuras para la bicicleta, con capacidad de interactuar con el modelo de red vial actual y con el resto de los modos de transportes existentes en el entramado urbano de las ciudades.

Optimization of Energy Distribution in Solar Panel Array Configurations by Graph Theory and Minkowski’s Paths

Nowadays, the development of the photovoltaic (PV) technology is consolidated as a source of renewable energy. The research in the topic of maximum improvement on the energy efficiency of the PV plants is today a major challenge. The main requirement for this purpose is to know the performance of each of the PV modules that integrate the PV field in real time. In this respect, a PLC communications based Smart Monitoring and Communications Module, which is able to monitor at PV level their operating parameters, has been developed at the University of Malaga. With this device you can check if any of the panels is suffering any type of overriding performance, due to a malfunction or partial shadowing of its surface. Since these fluctuations in electricity production from a single panel affect the overall sum of all panels that conform a string, it is necessary to isolate the problem and modify the routes of energy through alternative paths in case of PV panels array configuration.

BIKE – Bicycle Knowledge Explorer (Palm Beach)

This route planner, funded by the Palm Beach Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), is a joint effort by Florida International University GIS Center and University of Florida Geomatics Program at Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center. It is designed as a planning tool for bicyclists. Assistance was received from the Palm Beach County Bicycle, Greenways, Pedestrian Advisory Committee.

BIKE – Bicycle Knowledge Explorer [Miami-Dade]

This route planner, funded by the Miami-Dade Metropolitan Planning Organization(MPO), is a joint effort by Florida International University GIS Center and University of Florida Geomatics Program at Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center. It is designed as a planning tool for bicyclists. Assistance was received from the Miami-Dade County Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee and various cyclists and transportation professionals.