Direct Election of the President Without a Constitutional Amendment: A Call for State Action

This article will suggest that this focus on the constitutional amendment process for changing the electoral college has been misdirected. The states, without federal action, possess the capability of implementing the direct popular election of the President. This article will examine the background of electoral college reform and will propose a National Vote Plan to achieve direct popular presidential election independently of the constitutional amendment process

A procedure for the change point problem in parametric models based on phi-divergence test-statistics

This paper studies the change point problem for a general parametric, univariate or multivariate family of distributions. An information theoretic procedure is developed which is based on general divergence measures for testing the hypothesis of the existence of a change. For comparing the accuracy of the new test-statistic a simulation study is performed for the special case of a univariate discrete model. Finally, the procedure proposed in this paper is illustrated through a classical change-point example

Wearable technology in sport: Protocol for a scoping review

Introduction: Wearable technology has grown rapidly over the last decade and exists within sport in many forms such as smart jewellery (e.g., watches, wristbands, and rings), body-mounted sensors and smart clothing. Technologies placed on the skin can measure physiological variables such as heart rate, breathing rate, and blood glucose. With the exponential expansion of wearable technology, there remains a large degree of uncertainty regarding the breadth and depth of available technologies with applications to sporting activities. The objective of the scoping review is to investigate which wearable technologies placed on the skin have been developed or are in development for use in sporting activities to measure physiological variables.   Methods: The review will be conducted in accordance with the Joanna Briggs Institute and reported according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) extension for scoping reviews known as the PRISMA-ScR. Four databases (i.e., Pub-Med, Scopus, SPORTDiscus and Web of Science), two grey literature databases (i.e., Open Grey and EthOS) and conference proceedings (i.e., IEEE International Workshop on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks) will be searched. Two independent reviewers will initially screen the title and abstracts, before then assessing the full text of the remaining articles. The relevant data will be extracted and presented in tabular form with a narrative summary.   Dissemination: The scoping review will summarise the available literature that utilises wearable technology applicable for sport, with the findings used to direct future sensors and research. The authors aim to publish the review in a peer-reviewed journal and present the findings at a relevant conference

The Internal and External Characteristics of Netball Match-Play: Protocol for a Systematic Review

Introduction: Netball is a game that includes frequent, multidirectional, intermittent movement patterns during match-play. The particular rules and positions of netball impose unique external (e.g., distances covered, frequency and magnitude of accelerations/ decelerations, and changes of direction) and internal (e.g., heart rate, rate of perceived exertion) characteristics during match-play compared to other sports. The objective of this systematic review is to examine the internal and external characteristics during female netball match-play, as analysed through player tracking systems and notational video analysis. Methods: The review will be reported according to the Preferred Reporting for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Four databases (i.e., PubMed, Scopus, SPORTDiscus and Web of Science) will be searched. Two independent reviewers (NT and TDS) will initially screen the title and abstracts, following assessing the full text of remaining articles. Relevant data will be extracted, quality assessed, and presented in tabular form with a explanatory, chronological summary. Dissemination: The systematic review will summarise the available literature pertaining to external and internal characteristics during netball match-play. The findings will direct the methodological considerations, future research, and evidence-based insights to optimise training, recovery, and performance strategies tailored to the unique demands of netball match-play. The authors aim to publish the review in a peer-reviewed journal

The effect of physical contact on changes in fatigue markers following rugby union field-based training.

Repeated physical contact in rugby union is thought to contribute to post-match fatigue; however, no evidence exists on the effect of contact activity during field-based training on fatigue responses. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effect of contact during training on fatigue markers in rugby union players. Twenty academy rugby union players participated in the cross-over study. The magnitude of change in upper- and lower-body neuromuscular function (NMF), whole blood creatine kinase concentration [CK] and perception of well-being was assessed pre-training (baseline), immediately and 24 h post-training following contact and non-contact, field-based training. Training load was measured using mean heart rate, session rating of perceived exertion (sRPE) and microtechnology (Catapult Optimeye S5). The inclusion of contact during field-based training almost certainly increased mean heart rate (9.7; ±3.9%) and sRPE (42; ±29.2%) and resulted in likely and very likely greater decreases in upper-body NMF (-7.3; ±4.7% versus 2.7; ±5.9%) and perception of well-being (-8.0; ±4.8% versus  -3.4; ±2.2%) 24 h post-training, respectively, and almost certainly greater elevations in [CK] (88.2; ±40.7% versus 3.7; ±8%). The exclusion of contact from field-based training almost certainly increased running intensity (19.8; ±5%) and distance (27.5; ±5.3%), resulting in possibly greater decreases in lower-body NMF (-5.6; ±5.2% versus 2.3; ±2.4%). Practitioners should be aware of the different demands and fatigue responses of contact and non-contact, field-based training and can use this information to appropriately schedule such training in the weekly microcycle

Does presence of a mid-ocean ridge enhance biomass and biodiversity?

In contrast to generally sparse biological communities in open-ocean settings, seamounts and ridges are perceived as areas of elevated productivity and biodiversity capable of supporting commercial fisheries. We investigated the origin of this apparent biological enhancement over a segment of the North Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) using sonar, corers, trawls, traps, and a remotely operated vehicle to survey habitat, biomass, and biodiversity. Satellite remote sensing provided information on flow patterns, thermal fronts, and primary production, while sediment traps measured export flux during 2007-2010. The MAR, 3,704,404 km 2 in area, accounts for 44.7% lower bathyal habitat (800-3500 m depth) in the North Atlantic and is dominated by fine soft sediment substrate (95% of area) on a series of flat terraces with intervening slopes either side of the ridge axis contributing to habitat heterogeneity. The MAR fauna comprises mainly species known from continental margins with no evidence of greater biodiversity. Primary production and export flux over the MAR were not enhanced compared with a nearby reference station over the Porcupine Abyssal Plain. Biomasses of benthic macrofauna and megafauna were similar to global averages at the same depths totalling an estimated 258.9 kt C over the entire lower bathyal north MAR. A hypothetical flat plain at 3500 m depth in place of the MAR would contain 85.6 kt C, implying an increase of 173.3 kt C attributable to the presence of the Ridge. This is approximately equal to 167 kt C of estimated pelagic biomass displaced by the volume of the MAR. There is no enhancement of biological productivity over the MAR; oceanic bathypelagic species are replaced by benthic fauna otherwise unable to survive in the mid ocean. We propose that globally sea floor elevation has no effect on deep sea biomass; pelagic plus benthic biomass is constant within a given surface productivity regime.Peer reviewe

The modelling of feedback in star formation simulations

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: James E. Dale, ‘The modelling of feedback in star formation simulations’, New Astronomy Reviews, Vol. 68, pp. 1-33, October 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The final, published version is available online at doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newar.2015.06.001. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.I review the current state of numerical simulations of stellar feedback in the context of star formation at scales ranging from the formation of individual stars to models of galaxy formation including cosmic reionisation. I survey the wealth of algorithms developed recently to solve the radiative transfer problem and to simulate stellar winds, supernovae and protostellar jets. I discuss the results of these simulations with regard to star formation in molecular clouds, the interaction of different feedback mechanisms with each other and with magnetic fields, and in the wider context of galactic- and cosmological-scale simulations.Peer reviewe

Land use not litter quality is a stronger driver of decomposition in hyperdiverse tropical forest

Funded by Natural Environment Research Council. Grant Number: NE/K016253/1Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Search for squarks and gluinos with the ATLAS detector in final states with jets and missing transverse momentum using √s=8 TeV proton-proton collision data

A search for squarks and gluinos in final states containing high-p T jets, missing transverse momentum and no electrons or muons is presented. The data were recorded in 2012 by the ATLAS experiment in s√=8 TeV proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, with a total integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb−1. Results are interpreted in a variety of simplified and specific supersymmetry-breaking models assuming that R-parity is conserved and that the lightest neutralino is the lightest supersymmetric particle. An exclusion limit at the 95% confidence level on the mass of the gluino is set at 1330 GeV for a simplified model incorporating only a gluino and the lightest neutralino. For a simplified model involving the strong production of first- and second-generation squarks, squark masses below 850 GeV (440 GeV) are excluded for a massless lightest neutralino, assuming mass degenerate (single light-flavour) squarks. In mSUGRA/CMSSM models with tan β = 30, A 0 = −2m 0 and μ > 0, squarks and gluinos of equal mass are excluded for masses below 1700 GeV. Additional limits are set for non-universal Higgs mass models with gaugino mediation and for simplified models involving the pair production of gluinos, each decaying to a top squark and a top quark, with the top squark decaying to a charm quark and a neutralino. These limits extend the region of supersymmetric parameter space excluded by previous searches with the ATLAS detector