A netball specific fitness test.

Performance analysis has been used for many applications including providing feedback to coaches and players, media applications, scoring of sports performance and scientific research into sports performance. The current study has used performance analysis to generate knowledge relating to the demands of netball competition which has been used in the development of a Netball Specific Fitness Test (NSFT). A modified version of the Bloomfield movement classification was used to provide a detailed analysis of player movement during netball competition. This was considered during a needs analysis when proposing the structure of the NSFT. A series of pilot versions were tested during an evolutionary prototyping process that resulted in the final version of the NSFT, which was found to be representative of movement in netball competition and it distinguished between recreational club players and players of university first team level or above. The test is incremental and involves forward, backward and sideways movement, jumping, lunging, turning and choice reaction.

Location, location, location: development of spatiotemporal sequence learning in infancy

We investigated infants' sensitivity to spatiotemporal structure. In Experiment 1, circles appeared in a statistically defined spatial pattern. At test 11-month-olds, but not 8-month-olds, looked longer at a novel spatial sequence. Experiment 2 presented different color/shape stimuli, but only the location sequence was violated during test; 8-month-olds preferred the novel spatial structure, but 5-month-olds did not. In Experiment 3, the locations but not color/shape pairings were constant at test; 5-month-olds showed a novelty preference. Experiment 4 examined "online learning": We recorded eye movements of 8-month-olds watching a spatiotemporal sequence. Saccade latencies to predictable locations decreased. We argue that temporal order statistics involving informative spatial relations become available to infants during the first year after birth, assisted by multiple cues.

Mind-reading difficulties in the siblings of people with Asperger's syndrome: evidence for a genetic influence in the abnormal development of a specific cognitive domain

Background: Previous research suggests that the phenotype associated with Asperger's syndrome (AS) includes difficulties in understanding the mental states of others, leading to difficulties in social communication and social relationships. It has also been suggested that the first-degree relatives of those with AS can demonstrate similar difficulties, albeit to a lesser extent. This study examined 'theory of mind' (ToM) abilities in the siblings of children with AS relative to a matched control group. Method: 2 7 children who had a sibling with AS were administered the children's version of the 'Eyes Test'(Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Stone, & Rutherford, 1999). The control group consisted of 27 children matched for age, sex, and a measure of verbal comprehension, and who did not have a family history of AS/autism. Results: A significant difference was found between the groups on the Eyes Test, the 'siblings' group showing a poorer performance on this measure of social cognition. The difference was more pronounced among female siblings. Discussion: These results are discussed in terms of the familial distribution of a neuro-cognitive profile associated with AS, which confers varying degrees of social handicap amongst first-degree relatives. The implication of this finding with regard to the autism/AS phenotype is explored, with some discussion of why this neuro-cognitive profile (in combination with corresponding strengths) may have an evolutionary imperative.

The application of affine projection to the development of a siren noise cancellation system

Emergency vehicles use high-amplitude sirens to warn pedestrians and other road users of their presence. Unfortunately, the siren noise enters the vehicle and corrupts the intelligibility of two-way radio voice com-munications from the emergency vehicle to a control room. Often the siren has to be turned off to enable the control room to hear what is being said which subsequently endangers people's lives. A digital signal processing (DSP) based system for the cancellation of siren noise embedded within speech is presented. The system has been tested with the least mean square (LMS), normalised least mean square (NLMS) and affine projection algorithm (APA) using recordings from three common types of sirens (two-tone, wail and yelp) from actual test vehicles. It was found that the APA with a projection order of 2 gives comparably improved cancellation over the LMS and NLMS with only a moderate increase in algorithm complexity and code size. Therefore, this siren noise cancellation system using the APA offers an improvement in cancellation achieved by previous systems. The removal of the siren noise improves the response time for the emergency vehicle and thus the system can contribute to saving lives. The system also allows voice communication to take place even when the siren is on and as such the vehicle offers less risk of danger when moving at high speeds in heavy traffic.

Rational expectations? Developer behaviour and development cycles in the central London office market

Purpose – Expectations of future market conditions are acknowledged to be crucial for the development decision and hence for shaping the built environment. The purpose of this paper is to study the central London office market from 1987 to 2009 and test for evidence of rational, adaptive and naive expectations. Design/methodology/approach – Two parallel approaches are applied to test for either rational or adaptive/naive expectations: vector auto-regressive (VAR) approach with Granger causality tests and recursive OLS regression with one-step forecasts. Findings – Applying VAR models and a recursive OLS regression with one-step forecasts, the authors do not find evidence of adaptive and naïve expectations of developers. Although the magnitude of the errors and the length of time lags between market signal and construction starts vary over time and development cycles, the results confirm that developer decisions are explained, to a large extent, by contemporaneous and historic conditions in both the City and the West End, but this is more likely to stem from the lengthy design, financing and planning permission processes rather than adaptive or naive expectations. Research limitations/implications – More generally, the results of this study suggest that real estate cycles are largely generated endogenously rather than being the result of large demand shocks and/or irrational behaviour. Practical implications – Developers may be able to generate excess profits by exploiting market inefficiencies but this may be hindered in practice by the long periods necessary for planning and construction of the asset. Originality/value – This paper focuses the scholarly debate of real estate cycles on the role of expectations. It is also one of very few spatially disaggregate studies of the subject matter.

The case for property in the long run: a cointegration test

The benefits of property in the mixed asset portfolio has been the subject of a number of studies both in the UK and around the world. The traditional way of investigating this issue is to use MPT with the results suggesting that Property should play a significant role in the mixed asset portfolio. These results are not without criticism and generally revolve around quality and quantity of the property data series. To overcome these deficiencies this paper uses cointegration methodology which examines the longer term time series behaviour of various asset markets using a very long run desmoothed data series. Using a number of different cointegration tests, both pair-wise and multivariate, the results show, in unambiguous terms, that there is no contemporous cointegration between the major asset classes Property, Equities and Bonds. The implications of which are that Property does indeed have a risk reducing place to play in the long-run strategic mixed-asset portfolio. A result of particular relevance to institutions such as pension funds and life insurance companies who would wish to hold investments for the long-term.

A reappraisal of blood clotting response tests for anticoagulant resistance and a proposal for a standardised BCR test methodology

Blood clotting response (BCR) resistance tests are available for a number of anticoagulant rodenticides. However, during the development of these tests many of the test parameters have been changed, making meaningful comparisons between results difficult. It was recognised that a standard methodology was urgently required for future BCR resistance tests and, accordingly, this document presents a reappraisal of published tests, and proposes a standard protocol for future use (see Appendix). The protocol can be used to provide information on the incidence and degree of resistance in a particular rodent population; to provide a simple comparison of resistance factors between active ingredients, thus giving clear information about cross-resistance for any given strain; and to provide comparisons of susceptibility or resistance between different populations. The methodology has a sound statistical basis in being based on the ED50 response, and requires many fewer animals than the resistance tests in current use. Most importantly, tests can be used to give a clear indication of the likely practical impact of the resistance on field efficacy. The present study was commissioned and funded by the Rodenticide Resistance Action Committee (RRAC) of CropLife International.

Development of a dense SNP-based linkage map of an apple rootstock progeny using the Malus Infinium whole genome genotyping array

Background A whole-genome genotyping array has previously been developed for Malus using SNP data from 28 Malus genotypes. This array offers the prospect of high throughput genotyping and linkage map development for any given Malus progeny. To test the applicability of the array for mapping in diverse Malus genotypes, we applied the array to the construction of a SNPbased linkage map of an apple rootstock progeny. Results Of the 7,867 Malus SNP markers on the array, 1,823 (23.2 %) were heterozygous in one of the two parents of the progeny, 1,007 (12.8 %) were heterozygous in both parental genotypes, whilst just 2.8 % of the 921 Pyrus SNPs were heterozygous. A linkage map spanning 1,282.2 cM was produced comprising 2,272 SNP markers, 306 SSR markers and the S-locus. The length of the M432 linkage map was increased by 52.7 cM with the addition of the SNP markers, whilst marker density increased from 3.8 cM/marker to 0.5 cM/marker. Just three regions in excess of 10 cM remain where no markers were mapped. We compared the positions of the mapped SNP markers on the M432 map with their predicted positions on the ‘Golden Delicious’ genome sequence. A total of 311 markers (13.7 % of all mapped markers) mapped to positions that conflicted with their predicted positions on the ‘Golden Delicious’ pseudo-chromosomes, indicating the presence of paralogous genomic regions or misassignments of genome sequence contigs during the assembly and anchoring of the genome sequence. Conclusions We incorporated data for the 2,272 SNP markers onto the map of the M432 progeny and have presented the most complete and saturated map of the full 17 linkage groups of M. pumila to date. The data were generated rapidly in a high-throughput semi-automated pipeline, permitting significant savings in time and cost over linkage map construction using microsatellites. The application of the array will permit linkage maps to be developed for QTL analyses in a cost-effective manner, and the identification of SNPs that have been assigned erroneous positions on the ‘Golden Delicious’ reference sequence will assist in the continued improvement of the genome sequence assembly for that variety.

Statistical evaluation of the early-stage development of Jatropha energy plantations in Northeastern Mexico

A systematic evaluation of agricultural factors affecting the adaptation of the tropical oil plant Jatropha curcas L. to the semi-arid subtropical climate in Northeastern Mexico has been conducted. The factors studied include plant density and topology, as well as fungi and virus abundances. A multiple regression analysis shows that total fruit production can be well predicted by the area per plant and the total presence of fungi. Four common herbicides and a mechanical weed control measure were established at a dedicated test array and their impact on plant productivity was assessed.

Empirical test of an agricultural landscape model: the importance of farmer preference for risk aversion and crop complexity

Developing models to predict the effects of social and economic change on agricultural landscapes is an important challenge. Model development often involves making decisions about which aspects of the system require detailed description and which are reasonably insensitive to the assumptions. However, important components of the system are often left out because parameter estimates are unavailable. In particular, measurements of the relative influence of different objectives, such as risk, environmental management, on farmer decision making, have proven difficult to quantify. We describe a model that can make predictions of land use on the basis of profit alone or with the inclusion of explicit additional objectives. Importantly, our model is specifically designed to use parameter estimates for additional objectives obtained via farmer interviews. By statistically comparing the outputs of this model with a large farm-level land-use data set, we show that cropping patterns in the United Kingdom contain a significant contribution from farmer’s preference for objectives other than profit. In particular, we found that risk aversion had an effect on the accuracy of model predictions, whereas preference for a particular number of crops grown was less important. While nonprofit objectives have frequently been identified as factors in farmers’ decision making, our results take this analysis further by demonstrating the relationship between these preferences and actual cropping patterns.

Development of novel methods to determine crystalline glucose content of honey based on DSC, HPLC, and viscosity measurements and their use to examine the setting propensity of honey

Crystallization must occur in honey in order to produce set or creamed honey; however, the process must occur in a controlled manner in order to obtain an acceptable product. As a consequence, reliable methods are needed to measure the crystal content of honey (φ expressed as kg crystal per kg honey), which can also be implemented with relative ease in industrial production facilities. Unfortunately, suitable methods do not currently exist. This article reports on the development of 2 independent offline methods to measure the crystal content in honey based on differential scanning calorimetry and high-performance liquid chromatography. The 2 methods gave highly consistent results on the basis of paired t-test involving 143 experimental points (P > 0.05, r**2 = 0.99). The crystal content also correlated with the relative viscosity, defined as the ratio of the viscosity of crystal containing honey to that of the same honey when all crystals are dissolved, giving the following correlation: μr = 1 + 1398.8∅**2.318. This correlation can be used to estimate the crystal content of honey in industrial production facilities. The crystal growth rate at a temperature of 14 ◦C—the normal crystallization temperature used in practice—was linear, and the growth rate also increased with the total glucose content in the honey.

(PDF, 406 KB) On L3 acquisition and phonological permeability: a new test case for debates on the mental representation of non-native phonological systems

The goal of this article is to make an epistemological and theoretical contribution to the nascent field of third language (L3) acquisition and show how examining L3 development can offer a unique view into longstanding debates within L2 acquisition theory. We offer the Phonological Permeability Hypothesis (PPH), which maintains that examining the development of an L3/Ln phonological system and its effects on a previously acquired L2 phonological system can inform contemporary debates regarding the mental constitution of postcritical period adult phonological acquisition. We discuss the predictions and functional significance of the PPH for adult SLA and multilingualism studies, detailing a methodology that examines the effects of acquiring Brazilian Portuguese on the Spanish phonological systems learned before and after the so-called critical period (i.e., comparing simultaneous versus successive adult English-Spanish bilinguals learning Brazilian Portuguese as an L3).

Development of a wind gust model to estimate gust speeds and their return periods

Spatially dense observations of gust speeds are necessary for various applications, but their availability is limited in space and time. This work presents an approach to help to overcome this problem. The main objective is the generation of synthetic wind gust velocities. With this aim, theoretical wind and gust distributions are estimated from 10 yr of hourly observations collected at 123 synoptic weather stations provided by the German Weather Service. As pre-processing, an exposure correction is applied on measurements of the mean wind velocity to reduce the influence of local urban and topographic effects. The wind gust model is built as a transfer function between distribution parameters of wind and gust velocities. The aim of this procedure is to estimate the parameters of gusts at stations where only wind speed data is available. These parameters can be used to generate synthetic gusts, which can improve the accuracy of return periods at test sites with a lack of observations. The second objective is to determine return periods much longer than the nominal length of the original time series by considering extreme value statistics. Estimates for both local maximum return periods and average return periods for single historical events are provided. The comparison of maximum and average return periods shows that even storms with short average return periods may lead to local wind gusts with return periods of several decades. Despite uncertainties caused by the short length of the observational records, the method leads to consistent results, enabling a wide range of possible applications.

Development of speech fluency over a short period of time: effects of pedagogic intervention

This study investigates the effects of a short-term pedagogic intervention on the development of L2 fluency among learners studying English for Academic purposes (EAP) at a university in the UK. It also examines the interaction between the development of fluency, and complexity and accuracy. Through a pre-test, post-test design, data were collected over a period of four weeks from learners performing monologic tasks. While the Control Group (CG) focused on developing general speaking and listening skills, the Experimental Group (EG) received awareness-raising activities and fluency strategy training in addition to general speaking and listening practice i.e following the syllabus. The data, coded in terms of a range of measures of fluency, accuracy and complexity, were subjected to repeated measures MANOVA, t-tests and correlations. The results indicate that after the intervention, while some fluency gains were achieved by the CG, the EG produced statistically more fluent language demonstrating a faster speech and articulation rate, longer runs and higher phonation time ratios. The significant correlations obtained between measures of accuracy and learners’ pauses in the CG suggest that pausing opportunities may have been linked to accuracy. The findings of the study have significant implications for L2 pedagogy, highlighting the effective impact of instruction on the development of fluency.

Training on the use of a bespoke continuing professional development framework improves the quality of CPD records

BACKGROUND: Using continuing professional development (CPD) as part of the revalidation of pharmacy professionals has been proposed in the UK but not implemented. We developed a CPD Outcomes Framework (‘the framework’) for scoring CPD records, where the score range was -100 to +150 based on demonstrable relevance and impact of the CPD on practice. OBJECTIVE: This exploratory study aimed to test the outcome of training people to use the framework, through distance-learning material (active intervention), by comparing CPD scores before and after training. SETTING: Pharmacy professionals were recruited in the UK in Reading, Banbury, Southampton, Kingston-upon-Thames and Guildford in 2009. METHOD: We conducted a randomised, double-blinded, parallel-group, before and after study. The control group simply received information on new CPD requirements through the post; the active intervention group also received the framework and associated training. Altogether 48 participants (25 control, 23 active) completed the study. All participants submitted CPD records to the research team before and after receiving the posted resources. The records (n=226) were scored blindly by the researchers using the framework. A subgroup of CPD records (n=96) submitted first (before-stage) and rewritten (after-stage) were analysed separately. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Scores for CPD records received before and after distributing group-dependent material through the post. RESULTS: Using a linear-regression model both analyses found an increase in CPD scores in favour of the active intervention group. For the complete set of records, the effect was a mean difference of 9.9 (95% CI = 0.4 to 19.3), p-value = 0.04. For the subgroup of rewritten records, the effect was a mean difference of 17.3 (95% CI = 5.6 to 28.9), p-value = 0.0048. CONCLUSION: The intervention improved participants’ CPD behaviour. Training pharmacy professionals to use the framework resulted in better CPD activities and CPD records, potentially helpful for revalidation of pharmacy professionals. IMPACT: • Using a bespoke Continuing Professional Development outcomes framework improves the value of pharmacy professionals’ CPD activities and CPD records, with the potential to improve patient care. • The CPD outcomes framework could be helpful to pharmacy professionals internationally who want to improve the quality of their CPD activities and CPD records. • Regulators and officials across Europe and beyond can assess the suitability of the CPD outcomes framework for use in pharmacy CPD and revalidation in their own setting.