The effect of complex training on horizontal power production in rugby union players : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at Massey University

The use of strength and power training regimes is common place among elite and recreational athletes. However, the application of such methods as direct determinants of improvement in sporting performance is a controversial and much debated topic because the degree of transfer from the training exercise to the sporting application is unknown. In recent years combining strength and sport specific training methods into one training session (complex training) has been promoted as a method to enhance training transfer. The purpose of this project was to examine the effect of complex training on horizontal power production in rugby players. 9 participants completed two four week phases of training (complex and standard) in a randomized order. Participant performance in 5RM squat, horizontal force and horizontal power was tested prior to and at the end of each training phase. A number of significant improvements were observed following complex training: maximum slope of the horizontal force curve increased by 12.29 ±33.59%, maximum power increased by 15.13 ±7.49%, width of the power curve increased by 28.30 ±18.16%, and maximum velocity during the horizontal power test improved by 20.63 ±14.21%. The improvements were significantly different from the respective standard training measures (p ≤.05). It is concluded that power gains were a product of an enhanced ability to produce force at higher velocities. No significant weight gain or significant improvement in 5RM force production was associated with the improvement in maximum power. Therefore it is inferred that neural mechanisms accounted for the difference following complex training. The results presented here suggest that complex training not only improves horizontal power production but also transfers performance improvements to an untrained task by improving the rate of force development in the horizontal force condition. It appears that the complex training regime has in some way created a persistent change in the control mechanisms regulating the performance of both the horizontal strength and power conditions

Mayoral views on economic incentives: valuable tools or a bad use of resources?

Mayoral Views on Economic Incentives: Valuable Tools or a Bad Use of Resources? explores which types of cities and mayors embrace – or reject – tax concessions and subsidies to attract or retain business. The authors find considerable variation in how individual mayors think about these issues; personal traits of the mayor (e.g., party and time in office) and city level characteristics (e.g., economic performance) do not predict their views on economic incentives. The absence of clear patterns suggests to the authors that the supposedly omnipresent pressure to provide inducements to business investment is not the recurring, vivid presence in the lives of mayors that we might expect.Citi Community Development and The Rockefeller Foundatio

Quantification of over-speed risk in wind turbine fleets

The effective life management of large and diverse fleets of wind turbines is a new problem facing power system utilities. More specifically, the minimization of over-speed risk is of high importance due to the related impacts of possible loss of life and economic implications of over-speed, such as a loss of containment event. Meeting the goal of risk minimization is complicated by the large range of turbine types present in a typical fleet. These turbines may have different pitch systems, over-speed detection systems and also different levels of functional redundancy, implying different levels of risk. The purpose of this work is to carry out a quantitative comparison of over-speed risk in different turbine configurations, using a Markov process to model detection of faults and repair actions. In the medium-long term, the risk associated with different assets can used as a decision making aid. For example if the operator is a utility, it may want to avoid purchasing high risk sites in the future, or may need to develop mitigation strategies for turbines at high risk of over speed

From where does the Red Tory speak?, Phillip Blond, theology and public discourse

This is the author's pdf version of an article published in Political Theology. The article can be found at www.politicaltheology.com/PT/This journal examines the role of theology in the public discourse of Philip Blond

On the growth of the Betti sequence of the canonical module

We study the growth of the Betti sequence of the canonical module of a Cohen-Macaulay local ring. It is an open question whether this sequence grows exponentially whenever the ring is not Gorenstein. We answer the question of exponential growth affirmatively for a large class of rings, and prove that the growth is in general not extremal. As an application of growth, we give criteria for a Cohen-Macaulay ring possessing a canonical module to be Gorenstein.Comment: 12 pages. version 2: includes omitted author contact informatio

Holonomy and Projective Equivalence in 4-Dimensional Lorentz Manifolds

A study is made of 4-dimensional Lorentz manifolds which are projectively related, that is, whose Levi-Civita connections give rise to the same (unparameterised) geodesics. A brief review of some relevant recent work is provided and a list of new results connecting projective relatedness and the holonomy type of the Lorentz manifold in question is given. This necessitates a review of the possible holonomy groups for such manifolds which, in turn, requires a certain convenient classification of the associated curvature tensors. These reviews are provided.Comment: Comments: 23 pages, LaTeX; typos corrected, page 9 last line corrected to $g'=e^{2\chi}a^{-1}

The readability of Australia’s taxation laws and supplemetary materials: an empirical investigation

Australian taxation law has been criticised for many years for its difficulty to read and understand. The Tax Law Improvement Project (TLIP) was established in December 1993 to rewrite in plain language Australia’s income tax legislation. The primary purpose of this study is to test empirically the effectiveness of attempts at simplifying the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 as amended. The study utilises empirical measures in analysing the level of readability of Australia’s taxation laws. In doing so, it builds on earlier research, which applied similar methods in examining the New Zealand taxation simplification process. It was found that the sections of Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 sampled were slightly more readable than corresponding sections of Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 as amended, which is consistent with Wallschutzky’s (1995) findings. Nevertheless, the results fall well short of acceptable bench-marks, suggesting that the goal of simplification has not been achieved.

Gaugino-Assisted Anomaly Mediation

We present a model of supersymmetry breaking mediated through a small extra dimension. Standard model matter multiplets and a supersymmetry-breaking (or ``hidden'') sector are confined to opposite four-dimensional boundaries while gauge multiplets live in the bulk. The hidden sector does not contain a singlet and the dominant contribution to gaugino masses is via anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking. Scalar masses get contributions from both anomaly mediation and a tiny hard breaking of supersymmetry by operators on the hidden-sector boundary. These operators contribute to scalar masses at one loop and in most of parameter space, their contribution dominates. Thus it is easy to make all squared scalar masses positive. As no additional fields or symmetries are required below the Planck scale, we consider this the simplest working model of anomaly mediation. The gaugino spectrum is left untouched and the phenomenology of the model is roughly similar to anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking with a universal scalar mass added. We identify the main differences in the spectrum between this model and other approaches. We also discuss mechanisms for generating the mu term and constraints on additional bulk fields.Comment: LaTeX, 26 pages, 8 eps figure

Determining Energy Balance in the Flaring Chromosphere from Oxygen V Line Ratios

The impulsive phase of solar flares is a time of rapid energy deposition and heating in the lower solar atmosphere, leading to changes in the temperature and density structure of the region. We use an O V density diagnostic formed of the 192 to 248 line ratio, provided by Hinode EIS, to determine the density of flare footpoint plasma, at O V formation temperatures of 250,000 K, giving a constraint on the properties of the heated transition region. Hinode EIS rasters from 2 small flare events in December 2007 were used. Raster images were co-aligned to identify and establish the footpoint pixels, multiple-component Gaussian line fitting of the spectra was carried out to isolate the diagnostic pair, and the density was calculated for several footpoint areas. The assumptions of equilibrium ionization and optically thin radiation for the O V lines were found to be acceptable. Properties of the electron distribution, for one event, were deduced from earlier RHESSI hard X-ray observations and used to calculate the plasma heating rate, delivered by an electron beam adopting collisional thick-target assumptions, for 2 model atmospheres. Electron number densities of at least log n = 12.3 cm-3 were measured during the flare impulsive phase, far higher than previously expected. For one footpoint, the radiative loss rate for this plasma was found to exceed that which can be delivered by an electron beam implied by the RHESSI data. However, when assuming a completely ionised target atmosphere the heating rate exceeded the losses. A chromospheric thickness of 70-700 km was found to be required to balance a conductive input to the O V-emitting region with radiative losses. The analysis shows that for heating by collisional electrons, it is difficult, or impossible to raise the temperature of the chromosphere to explain the observed densities without assuming a completely ionised atmosphere.Comment: Accepted to A&A 14th September 201