OBJECTIVES To compare the incidences and severities of pain experienced by healthy volunteers undergoing spinal immobilization in the neutral position with and without occipital padding. To compare the incidence of pain when immobilized in the neutral position with the incidence in a nonneutral position. METHODS Thirty-nine healthy volunteers over the age of 18 years who had no acute pain or ...

BACKGROUND Concussion is a serious problem in many contact sports, including rugby union football. The study's primary aim was to measure the efficacy of padded headgear in reducing the rates of head injury or concussion. METHODS A cluster randomized controlled trial with three arms was conducted with rugby union football teams as the unit of randomization. Teams consisted of males participat...

Abstract Padded clothing (shoulder padding) is worn in Rugby Union to give players an opportunity protect themselves. A performance specification for padded has been set out by World ™ , with the intention that only protects against lacerations and abrasions. Test protocols this provide assessment of impact force attenuative properties material, itself will not indicate what injuries they may h...

It has been shown previously that sorting n items into n locations with a polynomial number of processors requires (log n= log log n) time. We sidestep this lower bound with the idea of Padded Sorting, or sorting n items into n+o(n) locations. Since many problems do not rely on the exact rank of sorted items, a Padded Sort is often just as useful as an unpadded sort. Our algorithm for Padded So...

OBJECTIVE In this study, the potential of currently available padded soccer goalkeeper shorts to prevent hip injuries sustained in side jumps was investigated. DESIGN Within the scope of this study, a survey among professional and amateur goalkeepers, trainers and the medical staff was performed. In addition, commercially available shorts were impact-tested using an artificial hip model. The ...

In the studies related to multiple description coding (MDC), applying zero padding not only improves the spatial correlation between descriptions but also increases their sizes. However, as we pad more zeros, the spatial correlation does not improve linearly. Therefore, the distortion is not reduced as the same amount when the size increases. In this paper, we focus on how to efficiently find a...

BACKGROUND Rugby union has a high rate of injury. The increased use of protective equipment may help mitigate these injuries. This study investigated the injury prevention effectiveness of the protective equipment used in rugby union. METHODS A cohort of 304 rugby players in Dunedin, New Zealand was followed weekly during the 1993 club season to assess protective equipment use, participation ...