Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection

Aging is a universal process that every being encounters on their journey of life. The effect of dance as a form of improvement of physical and well-being on the aging body brings upon the question of the impact of somatic-based movement, specifically gestural movement on the perceptions of aging within older and younger adults through a bi-cultural lens of the United States and India. This was investigated using a series of creative partnership workshops that included listening, drawing, and culminating movement activities, followed by a group discussion about the creative process. There were four different participant groups: a group of college students taking an Aging in American Culture collegiate class, a Somatic Practices collegiate dance class, a group of older adults at the Tempe Multigenerational Center, and a group of older adults in Bangalore, India. Inter-generational and cross-cultural observations were discussed, and it was seen that the workshops were able to foster feelings of community and camaraderie among participants depending on the group’s relationship to dance-making. From the research, a dance performance was developed and performed specifically with women of color in ASU’s Dance program with the choreographic process discussed in detail, along with key takeaways about facilitating a multi-dimensional experience for the dancers and choreographer. Future directions for the work include working with intergenerational populations and researching community effects on gendered aging experiences across cultures in the dance world.

This thesis reviewed variables of baseball mechanics and performance as discussed in current literature. This included investigating factors of biomechanics, the health of players, and comparisons across demographics. At the biomechanical level, components of the kinetic chain were observed as the energy transferred from the lower body to the upper body. Additionally, the upper body appeared to compensate for deficits in the rotation of the trunk. Injuries to the abdominal and low back were correlated with trunk rotation, while arm injuries were traced back to overuse and fatigue. When considering experience level, variation tended to decrease. Youth players demonstrated different patterns of fatigue and different injury correlates compared to adults. At a geographic level, American pitchers may be associated with an increased risk of elbow injuries, with Japanese and Korean pitchers to shoulder injuries; these differences are thought to be due to differences in instruction. Applying this research and findings to current baseball players may help guide training and performance or continue research.

Recovery from exercise has become an evolving aspect of all sports performance. Increased research has led numerous individuals to understand and utilize the modalities that have become available. Methods such as Cold Water Immersion (CWI), Contrast Water Therapy (CWT), and Hot Water Immersion (HWI) are some of the modalities growing in popularity as well as utilization by athletes across all sports. This paper aims to examine and analyze evidence across several research journals that evaluate the effectiveness and also application of these recovery methods. Cold and heat exposures on the body can have a drastic positive impact on athletic performance. However, without the correct knowledge and guidance, these methods can augment, mitigate, and even diminish the effects of adaptation and exercise. This thesis aims to examine research journals and extract specific practices based on empirical evidence. This is to form proper deliverables and protocols for athletes to use for ideal adaptations and recovery for performance.

Classification in machine learning is quite crucial to solve many problems that the world is presented with today. Therefore, it is key to understand one’s problem and develop an efficient model to achieve a solution. One technique to achieve greater model selection and thus further ease in problem solving is estimation of the Bayes Error Rate. This paper provides the development and analysis of two methods used to estimate the Bayes Error Rate on a given set of data to evaluate performance. The first method takes a “global” approach, looking at the data as a whole, and the second is more “local”—partitioning the data at the outset and then building up to a Bayes Error Estimation of the whole. It is found that one of the methods provides an accurate estimation of the true Bayes Error Rate when the dataset is at high dimension, while the other method provides accurate estimation at large sample size. This second conclusion, in particular, can have significant ramifications on “big data” problems, as one would be able to clarify the distribution with an accurate estimation of the Bayes Error Rate by using this method.