Digital Commons Network^™

Staff Training In Aquatics For Individuals With Disabilities: The Quest, Susan J. Grosse

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

Trained instructors in general programs have the ability and resources to initiate and follow through with developing water safe individuals who are capable swimmers. Specific staff training to prepare individuals to facilitate aquatic participation for individuals with disabilities is currently extremely limited. The purpose of this article is to examine the barriers to specialized staff training in aquatics for individuals with disabilities, to suggest necessary staff training content, and to propose topics for further research in the area of staff training. Seeking development of quality staff training programs for those working in aquatics for individuals with disabilities is the quest.

Unanticipated Stressful And Rewarding Experiences Engage The Same Prefrontal Cortex And Ventral Tegmental Area Neuronal Populations, Alberto Del Arco, Junchol Park, Bita Moghaddam

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2020 Del Arco et al. Brain networks that mediate motivated behavior in the context of aversive and rewarding experiences involve the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and ventral tegmental area (VTA). Neurons in both regions are activated by stress and reward, and by learned cues that predict aversive or appetitive outcomes. Recent studies have proposed that separate neuronal populations and circuits in these regions encode learned aversive versus appetitive contexts. But how about the actual experience? Do the same or different PFC and VTA neurons encode unanticipated aversive and appetitive experiences? To address this, we recorded unit activity and local field …

Progression Magazine, 2020 Spring/Summer, Coastal Carolina University

Progression Magazine

Magazine of the College of Science at Coastal Carolina University.

Covid-19 Journal | D.J. Foster, D.J. Foster

COVID-19 Student Journal Project

No abstract provided.

Transformation Leadership And Youth Development Soccer Coaches: Behaviors That Enhance Coaching Performance, Diego Barros Dos Santos

Leadership Education Capstones

This quantitative study investigated the potential relationship between youth development soccer coaching style and transformational leadership behaviors. An anonymous survey was the source of data for this study. Participants responses were categorized into the four factors of transformational leadership which include (1) intellectual stimulation, (2) inspirational motivation, (3) idealized influence, and (4) individualized considerations. Recommendations for future research encompass expanding the demographics, sample size and field observations. Additionally, further research could include a contrast and comparison between coaches perspective x athletes perspective about transformational leadership behaviors. Furthermore, transformational leadership workshop and post survey intervention might expose how coaches leadership style …

Influences Of Coach Leadership Related To Nutrition On Collegiate Student Athletes Dietary Choices, Maria Fruechte

Leadership Education Capstones

The purpose of this study is to better understand how coach leadership related to nutritional information influences collegiate student athletes’ acquisition and application of nutrition. This will be followed up to consider how the information and expectations of coaches influences athletes’ knowledge and dietary choices.

A Phenomenological Approach On Communication Experiences Between Strength And Conditioning Coaches And Head Sport Coaches, Benjamin Charles

Leadership Education Capstones

This study investigates communication experiences between Strength and Conditioning Coaches and Head Sport Coaches using a phenomenological approach. Sixteen Strength and Conditioning Coaches were surveyed, via Qualtrics, to obtain basic demographics and answer open-ended questions to understand communication experiences and strategies Strength and Conditioning Coaches use to have effective relationships, teamwork, and athletic performance with Head Sport Coaches. Participants were required to be currently working for a DI-DIII 4-year University in the United States, have at least 1-year of Strength and Conditioning experience, an accredit certification related to training athletes at the college level, and be at least 21 years …

Exploring The Relationships Between Collegiate Sport Coaches’ Creative Productivity And Factors Of Creative Potential, Sean Flanders

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sport coaches are perceived as problem solvers who engage in creativity to handle the spontaneity of competitive activity and generate winning results. However, while creativity in athletes has been researched, little has been investigated regarding coaches. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine different aspects of creativity – person, process, press, and product – among collegiate team sport coaches in the United States. Specifically, how personality traits, ideational fluency, remote association ability, years of coaching experience, and work climate related to creative product impact and frequency. A modified creativity personality test was found to be positively …

Youth Tackle Football: A Parent's Decision, Steven Smallshaw

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

In this paper I will look at the statistics and likelihood of brain damage occurring in children who participate in full contact football, using a 2017 study done by Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center, where former football players were tested for the effects of sustained trauma they first received from playing tackle football at a young age. This paper seeks to explain why participation in youth tackle football is still so high despite studies from Boston University and others like it. This paper incorporates interviews from coaches and directors of youth football elaborating on their opinions of young children’s …

Golf Director Competencies, Human Resource Management Practices And Customer Retention Within The Malaysian Golf Clubs, Partanian Samira

Student Works (2020-2029)

Golf is a popular sport worldwide. Many studies have described management competencies in several sport contexts and have revealed that human resource is the most common denominator for successful sports club practice. However, little work has been done to identify and explain contemporary Human Resource Management (HRM) practices of staff, including directors of golf clubs related to member retention. The purpose of this study was to examine the current level and the participants' quality perceptions in the relationship among competencies of directors, HRM practices of staff, and member retention within the Malaysian Golf Clubs to advance the causal relationships among …

Training Evaluation For Introductory Ocean Lifeguard Instruction: A Practical Example From California, William A. Koon, Ryan M. Gates, Jack Futoran

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

Ocean lifeguards have several responsibilities that require precise training. California State Parks is one of the largest providers of open water lifeguard services in the United States, and trains approximately 200 new lifeguards per year. As part of our lifeguard training section’s quality improvement efforts, we conducted a training needs assessment to help determine how well our introductory ocean lifeguard training curriculum prepared lifeguards to perform job related tasks upon successful completion of the training program. We surveyed both first year and seasoned lead lifeguards on operational needs, training gaps, and specific subject areas. We identified several areas where our …

Citizen Engagement In Aquatics Equity: The Case Of Winston Waterworks, Steven N. Waller Phd, James H. Bemiller Jd, Emliy J. Johnson, Chermaine D. Cole, Jason Scott Phd, Angela Wozencroft, Phd

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

Historically, swimming pools have been a source of inequity when it comes to the distribution of recreation services in the United States. Many of the problems that correlate with the inequitable allocation of recreation resources including public swimming pools began with ideas about race, geography, poor planning practices and faulty policymaking (Rothstein, 2017). Moreover, one of the primary outcomes of engaged, inclusive planning is equity in the provision of recreation programs and facilities. In this essay, we offer a summary of key legal cases that help address questions related resource allocation related to public swimming pools. Finally, we present a …

A Comprehensive Analysis Of Aquatic Programming At Historically Black Colleges And Universities (Hbcus), Tiffany Monique Quash, Knolan C. Rawlins, Shaun M. Anderson

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

This article provides a comprehensive examination of aquatic programming at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). HBCUs consist of public, private, 2-year, and 4-year institutions (U.S. Department of Education, 2018). Historically, HBCUs provided descendants of the enslaved access to higher education opportunities (Brown, Donahoo, & Bertrand, 2001). HBCUs now serve a more diverse community and the core focus remains on inclusion, social justice, diversity, empowerment, leadership, and cultural competence (Kennedy, 2012; Rawlins, 2018). Consequently, HBCUs may provide an ideal environment to address aquatic activity and the drowning disparity in the African American community. In the current study, researchers sent a …

Walking Kinematics In Young Children With Limb Loss Using Early Versus Traditional Prosthetic Knee Prescription Protocols, Mark Daniel Geil, Zahra Safaeepour, Brian Giavedoni, Colleen Coulter

Faculty Articles

The traditional treatment protocol for young children with congenital or acquired amputations at or proximal to the knee prescribes a prosthesis without a working knee joint, based in part on the assumption that a child learning to walk cannot properly utilize a passively flexing prosthetic knee component. An alternative to this Traditional Knee (TK) protocol is an “Early Knee” (EK) protocol, which prescribes an articulating prosthetic knee in the child’s first prosthesis, during development of crawling and transitioning into and out of upright positions. To date, no study has compared samples of children with limb loss at or proximal to …

Correlation Between Cognition And Balance Among Middle-Aged And Older Adults Observed Through A Tai Chi Intervention Program, Tao Xiao, Lin Yang, Lee Smith, Paul D. Loprinzi, Nicola Veronese, Jie Yao, Zonghao Zhang, Jane Jie Yu

Faculty and Student Publications

© Copyright © 2020 Xiao, Yang, Smith, Loprinzi, Veronese, Yao, Zhang and Yu. Background: Age-associated decline in cognition and balance may cause severe ability loss for daily living activities among middle-aged and older adults. The relationship between cognition and balance in this aging population remains to be explored. Objective: The present study Is exploratory in nature and aimed to examine the relationship between balance (both static and dynamic components) and global cognitive function among middle-aged and older adults through Tai Chi (TC) practice as a research avenue. Methods: A short-term (12 weeks) intervention of TC was conducted among middle-aged and …

A Comparison Of Motor Unit Control Strategies Between Two Different Isometric Tasks, Sunggun Jeon, William M. Miller, Xin Ye

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Background: This study examined the motor unit (MU) control strategies for non-fatiguing isometric elbow flexion tasks at 40% and 70% maximal voluntary isometric contraction. Methods: Nineteen healthy individuals performed two submaximal tasks with similar torque levels: contracting against an immovable object (force task), and maintaining the elbow joint angle against an external load (position task). Surface electromyographic (EMG) signals were collected from the agonist and antagonist muscles. The signals from the agonist were decomposed into individual action potential trains. The linear regression analysis was used to examine the MU recruitment threshold …

Temporal Trends In The Association Between Participation In Physical Education And Physical Activity Among U.S. High School Students, 2011-2017, Seungho Ryu, Paul Loprinzi, Heontae Kim, Minsoo Kang

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2020 by the author. The purpose of this study was to assess trends in physical education and physical activity among U.S. high school students from 2011 to 2017, respectively, and to evaluate temporal trends in the relationship between physical education class participation and physical activity levels. Data from a total of 51,616 high school students who participated in the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) from 2011 to 2017 were analyzed for this study. Physical education was measured as follows: In an average week when you are in school, on how many days do you go to physical education …

The Natural Environmental Factors Influencing The Spatial Distribution Of Marathon Event: A Case Study From China, Zhanbing Ren, Yifan Zuo, Yudan Ma, Mu Zhang, Lee Smith, Lin Yang, Paul D. Loprinzi, Qian Yu, Liye Zou

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of natural environmental factors on the spatial distribution of marathon events in China, and to identify the suitable natural environmental factors for the marathon events. Methods: Geographic information system (GIS) spatial analysis tools were used to perform coupling analysis, e.g. overlap, neighborhood, intersection and buffer for terrain, climate, air quality, mountains and water resources with 342 marathon events held in China in 2018. Results: The results indicate that the spatial distribution of marathon events in China is negatively correlated with …

Repeat Expansion Scanning Of The Notch2nlc Gene In Patients With Multiple System Atrophy, Pu Fang, Yanyan Yu, Sheng Yao, Shuyun Chen, Min Zhu, Yunqing Chen, Keji Zou, Lulu Wang, Huan Wang, Ling Xin, Tao Hong, Daojun Hong

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2020 The Authors. Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc on behalf of American Neurological Association. Objective: Trinucleotide GGC repeat expansion in the 5’UTR of the NOTCH2NLC gene has been recognized as the pathogenesis of neuronal intranuclear inclusion disease (NIID). Previous studies have described that some NIID patients showed clinical and pathological similarities with multiple system atrophy (MSA). This study aimed to address the possibility that GGC repeat expansion in NOTCH2NLC might be associated with some cases diagnosed as MSA. Methods: A total of 189 patients with probable or possible MSA were recruited to screen …

Is It Time To Rethink Our Weight Loss Paradigms?, Paulo Gentil, Ricardo Borges Viana, João Pedro Naves, Fabrício Boscolo Del Vecchio, Victor Coswig, Jeremy Loenneke, Claudio André Barbosa

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Strategies aiming to promote weight loss usually include anything that results in an increase in energy expenditure (exercise) or a decrease in energy intake (diet). However, the probability of losing weight is low and the probability of sustained weight loss is even lower. Herein, we bring some questions and suggestions about the topic, with a focus on exercise interventions. Based on the current evidence, we should look at how metabolism changes in response to interventions instead of counting calories, so we can choose more efficient models that can account for the …

How Does Arch Height Factor Into Running-Related Injuries?, Taylor M. Brown

Honors Thesis

Running is popular and injuries associated with it are common. It is hypothesized that there are connections between running related injuries and their causes, some of which point to the biomechanics or arch type of the individual. The structure and function of the foot’s arch is unique across individuals and different effects related to its function during running have been shown to be important. How all these aspects are related to one another have been compiled and discussed, in hopes that increased research will result. There are suspected patterns between the injuries runners sustain and their arch type. The purpose …

Spring 2020, Joëlle Walls

The Investigator Research Magazine

Dear readers,

We are proud to present the spring issue of The Investigator, giving you an inside look into the varied research and scholarly activities taking place at Kennesaw State.

In a new interview, President Pamela Whitten discusses KSU's growing research reputation and lessons learned from her own experiences as a researcher and mentor. Similarly, our cover story follows three First-Year Scholars as they explore the possibilities of research in Martin Hudson's lab through a new Office of Undergraduate Research initiative.

This publication would not have been possible without the contributions of the editorial team, including undergraduates Kaelyn Ireland, Geena …

Review Of Cerebral Palsy: The Various Intervention Techniques, Taylor Jo Schultz

Honors Thesis

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that results from a disruption in the development in the infantile or fetal brain. It affects over 17 million people worldwide. The goal of this review paper is to provide an in-depth literature review behind the causes, diagnosis, associated disorders of CP as well as the treatment interventions that would lead to a comprehensive treatment plan for CP patients. There are many possible causes of CP, contrary to the popular belief that CP is only caused by hypoxia or ischemia at birth. Diagnosis requires determining the motor function, part(s) of the body affected, …

Rethinking The Customer Experience: An Empirical Comparison Of Airbnb And Hotels, Jing Li

Theses and Dissertations

Experience is at the heart of the tourism and hospitality industry. One of the fundamental objectives of this sector is to create memorable customer experiences. For years, the sharing economy has been an essential industry phenomenon. Distinct from the traditional sector, Airbnb emerged as a disruptive innovation and a dominant online sharing-economy platform and has had a significant impact on the traditional industry. Despite growing interest in customers’ experiences in tourism and hospitality, limited research has provided insight into what constitutes the customer experience with Airbnb, how it can be conceptualized, and how it should be measured. In addition, Airbnb …

The Effects Of Exercise On Mental Health, Xavier A. Pinex

Honors Thesis

Exercise is an extremely important aspect towards positive mental health. Multiple studies have been done previously that show one benefit or another that exercise has towards mental health, but previously there had been no attempt to summarize the findings of these studies. The benefits that exercise has to an individual’s mental health are numerous, but despite this exercise is an underutilized tool in the quest for better mental health. There are many variables that affect the benefits of exercise to an individual’s mental health and it is important to understand all these variables to understand how to properly exercise to …

Adora2a C Allele Carriers Exhibit Ergogenic Responses To Caffeine Supplementation, Jozo Grgic, Craig Pickering, David J. Bishop, Juan Del Coso, Brad J. Schoenfeld, Grant M. Tinsley, Zeljko Pedisic

Publications and Research

Caffeine's ergogenic effects on exercise performance are generally explained by its ability to bind to adenosine receptors. ADORA2A is the gene that encodes A2A subtypes of adenosine receptors. It has been suggested that ADORA2A gene polymorphisms may be responsible for the inter-individual variations in the effects of caffeine on exercise performance. In the only study that explored the influence of variation in ADORA2A—in this case, a common polymorphism (rs5751876)—on the ergogenic effects of caffeine on exercise performance, C allele carriers were identified as “non-responders” to caffeine. To explore if C allele carriers are true “non-responders” to the ergogenic effects of …

A Practical Method For Assessing Lip Compression Strengthening In Healthy Adults, Takashi Abe, Zachary W. Bell, Vickie Wong, Robert W. Spitz, Ricardo B. Viana, Yujiro Yamada, Raksha N. Chatakondi, Jeremy P. Loenneke

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2020 by the authors. There is no practical and accessible assessment method to evaluate lip muscle compression strength. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the standard method (i.e., Iowa Oral Performance Instrument) and a practical method in healthy adults. In order to achieve our research purpose, ninety-eight healthy adults (18-40 years) completed lip compression strength measurements (standard method) and lip grasping performance tests using a standard recyclable plastic water bottle (practical method). In the overall sample, the mean and standard deviation for standard method and practical method was 26.7 (7.0) kPa and 255 (119) …

Hypothesized Mechanisms Through Which Exercise May Attenuate Memory Interference, Lindsay K. Crawford, Hong Li, Liye Zou, Gao Xia Wei, Paul D. Loprinzi

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. In this paper we introduce a mechanistic model through which exercise may enhance episodic memory, specifically via attenuating proactive and retroactive memory interference. We discuss the various types of memory, different stages of memory function, review the mechanisms behind forgetting, and the mechanistic role of exercise in facilitating pattern separation (to attenuate memory interference).

Application Of Rigour And Credibility In Qualitative Document Analysis: Lessons Learnt From A Case Study, Leanne M. Wood, Bernadette Sebar, Nerina Vecchio

The Qualitative Report

This paper probes functions and processes of qualitative document analysis (QDA), a method widely used in case study research. It firstly demonstrates the application of a QDA framework to inform a case study of women entrepreneurs in rural Australia; and provides insights into the lessons learnt, including strengths and limitations of QDA. Secondly, the paper provides guidelines for novice researchers seeking to use thematic analysis in a QDA process, arguing for rigour in naming assumptions and explicitness about the procedures employed. The paper contributes to discussion in the literature that positions QDA not only as a convenient tool, but as …

The Effects Of Acute Resistance Exercise On Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry Measure Of Body Composition, John W. Barker, Timothy Berreth, Robert Fox, Megan Maldonado, Chase Vancleave, Rachel Wong, Javier Zaragoza, Matthias Tinnin, Grant M. Tinsley, Lemuel W. Taylor Iv, Kindyle Brennan

International Journal of Exercise Science: Conference Proceedings

Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry (DXA) is a reference laboratory method for estimating body composition but there are questions concerning the pre-testing guidelines that should be followed to increase validity and reliability of this methodology. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine if acute, localized resistance exercise disrupts the validity of DXA total body composition estimates. METHODS: In a crossover design, 18 healthy, resistance-trained, college-aged adults, including 7 females (age: 22.7 ± 1.9 y; height: 165.4 ± 8.4 cm; body mass: 62.1 ± 10.9 kg; body fat: 25.9 ± 7.3%) and 11 males (age: 24.2 ± 4.1 …