Treading Water Research Articles

Physicians' lifelong learning journeys: A narrative analysis of continuing professional development struggles.

Despite tenacious efforts of continuing professional development (CPD) developers and educators, physician engagement in CPD is fraught with challenges. Research suggests that these educational interventions and the maintenance of professional competence systems that mandate them are often seen as impractical, decontextualized and check-box activities by participants. This study explores physicians' learning post graduate medical education (GME) training across their CPD journey to understand how they (a) conceive of themselves as learners and (b) engage in lifelong learning across the course of their professional careers. Using narrative inquiry and holistic narrative analysis situated within a social constructivist orientation, we carried out individual interviews with physicians from across a large children's hospital network including academic hospitals, community hospitals and primary care practices. Timelines and story arcs were used to support the narrative analysis's re-storying. Twelve physicians from six different sub-specialties were interviewed. We identified three noteworthy challenges as particularly salient across participants' re-storied narratives: (i) train-on-a-track to treading water, (ii) learning takes a backseat, and (iii) learning through foraging or hunting and gathering. Participants described significant change when transitioning from GME to CPD learning. While participants identified as learners, they described the disorienting impact of losing GME's formal supports and structures. They articulated that patient care trumped learning as their top priority. They lamented having limited insight into their learning needs (e.g. little feedback data) and so resorted to engaging in CPD activities that were readily at hand-but not necessarily relevant-and to finding learning resources that might not be formally recognised for CPD credit. Physicians' learning journeys post-GME are challenging, and the systems created to support that learning are ill equipped to meet the needs of physicians transitioning from GME to CPD. To encourage meaningful learning, the complex interplay of factors impeding CPD engagement should inform future innovations.

Energetic and Cognitive Demands of Treading Water: Effects of Technique and Expertise.

Being able to tread water effectively can improve the likelihood of survival following accidental immersion. People tread water in various ways, ranging from rudimentary 'doggy-paddle' to more elaborate techniques like the eggbeater, but little is known about the energetic and cognitive requirements of treading water. We therefore aimed to measure the demands of treading water techniques for people of different experience levels. Three cohorts, comprising 21 adult water treading experts (water polo players), 15 intermediate swimmers and 16 inexperienced swimmers, treaded water for 3 min each using four different techniques while cognitive and energetic economy measures were taken. For inexperienced swimmers, the flutter kick and breaststroke patterns produced the lowest self-reported physical and task load (rating of perceived exertion, NASA task load index), while cognitive (probe reaction time), cardiac (heart rate) and metabolic (oxygen consumption) load did not differ between techniques. In contrast, for expert water treaders, both breaststroke and eggbeater patterns produced lower cognitive, cardiac and metabolic loads. For intermediate swimmers, breaststroke resulted in the lowest cardiac and metabolic loads, as well as self-reported task load. Probe reaction time was highest while performing the eggbeater technique, indicating that this technique was challenging to coordinate and cognitively demanding. While the energetic demands of antiphase kicking patterns (such as eggbeater in experts or flutter kick in beginners) may be similarly low, the symmetric coordination of upright breaststroke may explain why this pattern's cognitive economy was favourable for all groups. As the eggbeater can be challenging to perform for many people, an upright breaststroke technique is an adequate alternative to adopt in survival situations.

"We're treading water as best we can": A qualitative study of parental resilience during COVID-19.

This Ontario-based study utilized modified grounded theory to consider the potential burden of chronic stressors on parents of young children during the COVID-19 crisis, as well as parental experiences of coping and resilience. Cross-sectional interviews at a single point in time do not reveal change and adaptation during an evolving pandemic; for this reason, this study conducted one interview at the end of the first wave of the pandemic in Ontario and a second interview a year and a half later. Twenty parents participated in two interviews, and findings are presented using Bonanno's (2004, 2005) mental health trajectory model following life disruption. The recovery trajectory details parental stressors and challenges that returned to baseline; the chronic stress trajectory notes parental experiences of unremitting stressors; and the resilience trajectory describes helpful behaviors, beliefs, and conditions that supported parental mental wellness across both interviews. Findings reveal that the resilience and recovery trajectories were dominant among this cohort, and descriptions of both problem-based and emotional-based coping through creativity and parental innovation are presented, as well as unforeseen positive impacts of the pandemic on families. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Application of Machine Learning Models to the Analysis of Skid Resistance Data

This paper evaluates the ability of some state-of-the-art Machine Learning models, namely SVM (support vector machines), DT (decision tree) and MLR (multiple linear regression), to predict pavement skid resistance. The study encompasses both regression and classification tasks. In the regression task, the aim is to predict the coefficient of friction values, while the classification task seeks to identify three classes of skid resistance: good, intermediate and bad. The dataset used in this work was gathered through an extensive test campaign that involved a fifth-wheel device to measure the coefficient of friction at different slip ratios on different road surfaces, vehicle speeds, tire tread depths and water depths. It was found that the RBF-SVM model, due to its ability to capture non-linear relationships between the features and the target for a relatively small dataset, is the most adapted tool compared with, on one side, MLR, linear SVM and DT models for the regression task and, on the other side, linear SVM and DT models for the classification task. The paper also discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the investigated models based on the underlying physical phenomena related to skid resistance.

Exploring the lived experience of secure patients during COVID-19

PurposeIn 2019, the world was hit by a life threatening severe acute respiratory syndrome causing a global pandemic; Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). In the UK, a nationwide “lockdown” of public isolation and reduced social contact followed. The experience of COVID-19 and the lockdown for forensic secure mental health patients is yet to be understood. This study aims to explore this phenomenon from the patients’ perspective.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative approach was taken. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with six patients from a low secure unit in the UK, between November 2020 and March 2021.FindingsInterpretive phenomenological analysis generated three superordinate themes from the data, providing insight into patients’ experience: “treading water”; how they managed: “learning to swim”; and what was helpful during this time: “in the same boat”.Practical implicationsFurther consideration should be given to creating a sense of safety in wards, along with ways to continue to address the power imbalance. Interestingly, social connection may be cultivated from within the hospital setting and would benefit from further research.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore secure patients’ experience of COVID-19 from the patients’ perspective, within a population often neglected within recovery research.

Respite. Quiet. A House of Dreams.

Respite. Quiet. A House of Dreams.

Fixing the System: Strategies to Support Women in Academic Medicine.

"It feels like we are constantly treading water to just stay afloat and get by." (Female, Parent, Faculty, 6-10 years in practice)1 Gender disparities are well documented in academic medicine, including the representation of women in authorship, speaking opportunities, and other measures of academic productivity.2,3 Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated this gender divide,4 which threatens women's career advancement and risks accelerating the attrition of women from academic medicine.5 Women faculty with children are particularly vulnerable and more likely than faculty without children to consider departing academic medicine.6 Although the societal view of women as caregivers is not new, the increased demands placed on caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic have been unprecedented. In this month's issue of Hospital Pediatrics, Sharp et al. describe a survey study revealing that women pediatricians who were parents were significantly more likely to report decreased academic productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to men with children.1 The authors' qualitative thematic analysis of free text responses provides further insight into key stress points for women physicians during the pandemic. While the focus of Sharp et al.'s survey was on childcare, the highlighted points of stress likely also apply to women in other caregiving roles, such as caring for elderly parents. The authors call for intentional change from institutions, grant funding agencies, medical societies, journals, and leaders to support all women in medicine. We review key strategies that each of these stakeholders can take to promote meaningful and sustainable change.

Poster 113: Epidemiology of Illnesses and Injuries in NCAA Water Polo Players

Objectives:Water polo is a sport with highly unique physical demands, some of which include treading water, swimming speed and endurance, wrestling strength, and ball coordination. It is an Olympic sport with variable popularity around the globe, with a notable following in regions of Europe. In the United States, water polo is most popular on the west coast, and Pac-12 teams have dominated NCAA water polo for decades. Partially owing to the sport’s scattered distribution around the world, there is a paucity of rigorous data on injuries and illnesses suffered by elite water polo players. The objective of this study is therefore to characterize health events in a large sample of NCAA Pac-12 water polo players over a period of 4.5 years, in order to better understand common pathology and be more equipped to prevent and manage injuries and illnesses in the future.Methods:Deidentified data was acquired from the Pac-12 Health Analytics Program database on all recorded health events from 4 men’s water polo teams and 5 women’s water polo teams from January 2017 to June 2021. Events were first sorted into injury and illness categories, followed by further analysis into body part, diagnosis, return-to-play, and injury event/general mechanism. Additional analysis includes injury/illness rates as percentage of totals, estimated athlete yearly risk, and risk ratios comparing male versus female risks with accompanying 95% confidence intervals for determining statistically significant differences.Results:For our sample of 142 male athletes and 165 female athletes, 917 health events were recorded over our 4.5-year observation period, with 729 being classified as injuries and 188 as illnesses. The shoulder was the most commonly injured body part (150 events, 20.6%), followed by the head/face (137 events, 18.8%), hand/wrist/forearm (85 events, 11.7%), and groin/hip/pelvis/buttock (83 events, 11.4%). Males had an estimated yearly risk of a shoulder injury of 15.7% compared to 11.6% for females, though this did not reach statistical significance (RR 1.35, 95% CI 0.96-1.9). Male water polo players were significantly more likely than females to injure their spine/neck (RR 2.1, 95% CI 1.2-3.5). The five most common diagnoses were concussion (83 events), shoulder strain/spasm (57 events), shoulder tendinopathy/impingement (52 events), groin/hip strain/spasm (42 events), and finger sprain (37 events). For all these injuries besides concussions, the majority of athletes lost no time away from sport. For concussions however, 75.9% lost time and returned later in the season, and 4.7% lost time and either returned the following season or were unable to return. Males were significantly more likely than females to suffer a concussion in practice (RR 3.3, 95% CI 1.2-8.8) and via contact with another player (RR 2.9, CI 1.3-6.4), though there was no significant difference in concussion risk overall (RR 1.2, CI 0.8-1.9). For illnesses, non-COVID-19 respiratory tract infection was the most common health event (61 events, 32.5% of illnesses, estimated yearly risk of 6.4%), followed by symptomatic COVID-19 (17 events, 9.0% of illnesses), and skin/soft tissue infection (13 events, 6.9% of illnesses). 12 males had symptomatic COVID-19 compared to 5 females, which was statistically significant (RR 2.8, 95% CI 1.01-7.7), however there was no significance difference in asymptomatic COVID-19 (6 males vs. 6 females, RR 1.2, 95% CI 0.4-3.5).Conclusions:This study sheds much-needed light on the epidemiology of injuries and illnesses in a large sample of elite NCAA water polo players. Some of the highlights include relatively high rates of shoulder, face, and finger injuries, as well as groin injuries, corresponding to exposed above-water body parts and water-treading demands respectively. Other notable findings include a high burden of time loss due to concussions compared to other common injuries, and a high rate of concussions occurring in practice and via player contact for men, representing a prospective target for reducing these injuries. Finally, this study equips players, coaches, trainers, and physicians with a broad outline of injuries and illnesses suffered by water polo players, allowing them to more efficiently manage injuries and develop prevention strategies in the future.

“It's hard to find balance when you're broken”: Exploring female endurance athletes’ psychological experience of recovery from relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S)

IntroductionThis study aimed to explore qualitatively the psychological experience of recovery from relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S). More specifically, it sought to understand: how RED-S is experienced from a psychological perspective; sources of psychological conflict in the ongoing management of energy availability (EA); and athlete responses to psychological conflict in the pursuit of optimal EA. MethodsEight female endurance athletes identifying as “in recovery” or “recovered” from RED-S (M age = 29.78 years) participated in this integrated methods multiple case-study. Participants engaged in an initial topical life history interview, before completing an online diary over a 21-day period, taking photographs of psychological triggers for seven days, and participating in a follow-up interview. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. ResultsThe theme in too deep and treading water captured the significant psychological implications of RED-S. Seven sources of psychological conflict reported while managing EA were identified. The theme a constant tug of war represented the responses to these sources of psychological conflict in the ongoing management of EA. Within this theme, the subthemes in two minds and an emotional rollercoaster illustrated the cognitive and affective responses to psychological conflict, while giving in and the only way is through represented the adaptive and maladaptive behavioural responses during recovery, respectively. ConclusionThis study offers novel insights into the complex nature of recovery from RED-S and highlights the importance of considering psychological factors underpinning improved physiological functioning and overall wellbeing during RED-S recovery.

A Multidisciplinary Comparison of Different Techniques Among Skilled Water Treaders.

In an immersion incident, a person may be required to tread water for extended periods of time in order to survive. Treading water, or maintaining a stable head position above the water surface, can be achieved in several different ways. Determining which treading water techniques are economic (energetically and cognitively) is an important first step in approaching evidence-based water safety instruction. The present study investigated the cognitive and metabolic demands associated with four main techniques for treading water in experienced water treaders. Skilled water treaders (n=21) performed four common treading techniques for 3min each: “running” in the water, “flutter kick” with hands sculling, “upright breaststroke,” and “egg-beater.” Self-reported rate of perceived exertion (RPE) and task load index (TLX) score, as well as objective measures of probe reaction time (PRT; i.e., response to auditory cues while treading), oxygen consumption and heart rate were assessed. The “egg-beater” technique and the “upright breaststroke” technique were linked to significantly lower cognitive and energetic demands compared to the other techniques (VO2: p<0.001 – “Running” M=29.02, SD=7.40/“Flutter kick” M=29.37, SD=8.56, “Breaststroke” M=23.47, SD=7.28, and “Eggbeater” M=23.18, SD=6.31). This study lays the groundwork for future research that may establish the ideal movement behavior in drowning situations and investigate movement instruction to less experienced treaders.

The Danger of Developing Then Dashing Expectations: The Lesson from Lehman?

In the economy expectations exercise enormous effects. Indeed, in finance prices and yields predominantly reflect current expectations about future cash flows and future interest rates. Change those expectations, prices and yields change as well. Change expectations radically enough, the change in prices and yields may be large enough to impact financial markets and the economy at large. The failure of Lehman in September 2008 is a case in point. Prior to its bankruptcy on 15 September 15, 2008, the economy was treading water. Thereafter it sank like a stone, until the massive stimulus programs put in place by governments and central banks began to pull the economy up again.This paper suggests that what made the Great Recession great was the entry of Lehman into bankruptcy. This suddenly swung market expectations concerning government policy from “too big to fail” to “let the chips fall where they may”. Following Lehman’s declaration of bankruptcy, panic ensued, as market participants rushed to adjust to the new situation. This set off a downward debt-deflation spiral that caused the world economy contract rapidly. Only massive monetary and fiscal stimulus, together with explicit government support to systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) arrested the decline and turned what might have become the Great(er) Depression into the Great Recession. This weakened economies around the world, leading to further crises and changing the political landscape.In concept therefore, allowing implicit guarantees such as “too big to fail” to develop generates not only moral hazard but also creates what might be called public hazard. This is the risk to financial stability and the economy at large, if the government fails to fulfil the implicit guarantee, when called upon to do so. This is a lesson that governments would do well to bear in mind as they wrestle with how to taper off the massive support that they are currently giving to firms and individuals to enable them to offset the economic consequences of COVID-19.

Treading Water, Hoarding Swims

ABSTRACT This auto-ethnographic essay explores the author’s ambivalent identifications as an academic researcher trying to write about swimming. Beginning with her tide-bound rituals of sea swimming near her home in Merseyside, the author reflects upon her shifting perceptions of her own physical and psychic interiority in the wake of her cancer diagnosis in June 2019. By drawing together forms of mobility associated with swimming, collecting and hoarding, the author seeks out some unlikely connections: through the trope of ‘treading water’, she represents states of immersion and suspended temporality, and she describes how – both as a swimmer and a hoarder – she experiences a heightened sense of permeable interiority, an ebb and flow of feeling between self and environment.

Redeployment to COVID-19 Care Is Like Treading Water but Deeply Gratifying

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Residents’ ForumFull AccessRedeployment to COVID-19 Care Is Like Treading Water but Deeply GratifyingRuth McCann, M.D.Ruth McCannSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:28 Apr 2020https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2020.5a36AbstractAs a third-year psychiatry resident in New York, I’ve been redeployed to care for COVID-19 patients in our hospital. For now, I’m working in a medical intensive care unit (ICU), functioning in the role of an intern. I am, truly, more than happy to do this.The word “redeployment” feels odd, though. Was I ever “deployed” to begin with? I’ve never thought of doctors as soldiers. But if we’re now at war, it feels tricky—if not impossible—to say what or who the enemy is and what winning or losing might look like.After the shelter-in-place orders began, I spent two weeks doing remote visits with my outpatients by phone and Zoom. Ambulance sirens were almost constant. I felt guilty being at home and safe when I might reasonably be able to help in the hospital. So I volunteered for so-called redeployment, and my clinic director very kindly offered to cover my outpatients.After a few days of waiting, I was sent to work in a surgical ICU that had been converted into a COVID ICU. In fact, almost every available space in our hospital is now functioning as an ICU, including most of the operating rooms.Seven of my co-residents have also been redeployed to medical wards or ICU settings, and others are manning a new palliative care team. Still others have volunteered and are awaiting assignments. Thankfully, our intern years involved rotations in internal medicine (wards and ICU), neurology, and emergency medicine, so we arrived not entirely unprepared.So far, I’ve been working overnight shifts alongside many others who’ve been redeployed, including residents and fellows from anesthesia, surgery, orthopedics, and pediatrics. Our current supervisors are extremely competent cardiologists who’ve stepped up to run the ICU in which I am working.I’m essentially an intern again. I follow up lab results and order X-rays. I help nurses turn patients in bed. I call families and consults. I write admission notes, transfer notes, and death notes (of which there’ve been a heartbreaking number). In essence, I provide basic, hands-on assistance to my supervisors and the outstanding ICU nurses. And I do have an N95 that I use and reuse.The hospital—my home institution since medical school—is eerily tense and often quiet. Medical students have been sent home, and visitors are no longer allowed.It has admittedly been an adjustment to go from being a competent third-year psychiatry resident to being—again—an intern treading water. I am, in this new setting, not particularly special or talented or authoritative. No one looks to me for any kind of answer. I do what I can and what I’m asked. The experience is somewhat similar to how it felt to stay at home and isolated from the people I love—difficult but not unique. We’re all doing it; we’re all in this together.There are, I know, grave ethical, political, and social questions to be asked right now. People everywhere are suffering and dying. Our medical system is broken and breaking further. Many health care workers across the country are not being adequately protected, supported, or compensated during this crisis.But to push myself from today into tomorrow, I’ve sometimes avoided thinking about the forest. I’ve relied, instead, on the solidity of various trees. I wish, for example, that I could adequately express to you the joy I felt the other night as I watched my attending care for patients on our unit. She flew, seemingly tireless, from room to room, putting out fire after fire, changing ventilator settings, running codes, calling families, and answering every question the nurses and I came to her with. She was dedicated, kind, and indefatigable. I wished the patients’ families could see her, ministering so beautifully and intently to their loved ones.There’s been a nightly 7 p.m. “Clap for Carers” in Manhattan, and I’ll admit that I sometimes ignore it, because it hurts to think about what’s happening. But yesterday, when the clapping started, I went to the window and joined in. I clapped for that particular attending and for the work I’d seen her do—something like war, maybe, but more like love. ■Ruth McCann, M.D., is a PGY-3 psychiatry resident at Columbia University Irving Medical Center/New York State Psychiatric Institute. ISSUES NewArchived

Exploring children’s participation in commercial swimming lessons through the social determinants of health

Drowning is a public health challenge, disproportionately impacting children. Social determinants of health (SDH) such as socio-economic disadvantage and geographic isolation increase drowning risk. Swimming and water safety lessons, in part, have reduced drowning in children, while also enabling healthy aquatic participation. Research suggests that some Australian children receive insufficient swimming and water safety education and are not achieving essential skills. A cross-sectional retrospective analysis of swimming and water safety skills achieved by a cohort of children (5-12years) attending commercial swimming lessons in three Australian states was undertaken. Variables included participant demographics (age, gender, and the SDH of socio-economic status [SES], and geographical remoteness) and skills being taught and achieved. Skills achieved were analysed against the National Swimming & Water Safety Framework and the National Benchmark. Swim schools were more likely to teach freestyle (87%) and backstroke (83%); and less likely to teach water safety skills like treading water (53%), and survival backstroke (46%). Overall, 40% of 12-year-old children failed to achieve the National Benchmark of 50 metres freestyle, fewer were achieving minimum water safety skills. Children from low socio-economic areas and regional locations were less likely to be achieving 50 metres freestyle. Children in this study were commonly from major cities (94%) and of high socio-economic areas (53%). Swimming lessons must incorporate a broad range of swimming and water safety competencies to ensure children have the skills required to reduce drowning, especially for those deemed at increased risk. Stakeholders must prioritise holistic drowning prevention education strategies, ensuring all children can access swimming and water safety programs regardless of their socio-economic status or geographical location.

Treaties, Peremptory Norms and International Courts: Is the Hierarchy Theory Treading Water?

Treaties, Peremptory Norms and International Courts: Is the Hierarchy Theory Treading Water?

Swimming

Swimming Kimberly Kruge (bio) SWIMMING If I drop this into the deep, will you dive down and retrieve it for me? My mother, at the community pool, a diadem of false pearls in her hair, is up to her shoulders in water. It depends on how. You know I'd. I will get lost. My face so different from the day before. My legs unrecognizably damaged. It is all happening at an alarming rate: loss. Somewhere between a lucid state and one that is elsewhere, I envision that my tendons separate from the bones. How will I tread water now? Right below the surface is a thought I've just dropped. I don't even try. Mother: everything is happening now at an alarming rate. Why couldn't I save myself from becoming deteriorated, [End Page 269] from watching as my mind was dragged down beyond reach. I can still see it there, but I don't know what it looks like— does that make sense to you? I would like to be able— I'd grasp the frail band fallen from your hair, if I weren't so sorry for myself. Last night I forgot to make you dinner, and when I looked over at the table there you were with water and a peanut butter sandwich. I could still see you there, but I couldn't tell what you looked like, and you could tell that I was there, watching you, but you couldn't see me. Does that make sense to anyone? I had never felt so much anguish as I did then; I used to know you, and you me, but I understand it now: too much of a good thing; too much life; too much creation; hypoxia; oversimplification. We are becoming nothing; it is not the other way around. I have to let this thought go or it will kill me, but [End Page 270] the thought will get away either way and still kill me. It will steal itself from me and steal the feeling of the dear way I held onto it too. Mother, I don't think we keep our crowns. We don't even keep our heads. [End Page 271] Kimberly Kruge KIMBERLY KRUGE is a poet and translator based in Mexico. She is the author of Ordinary Chaos (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2019) and High-Land Sub-Tropic (Center for Book Arts, 2017; Trans.: Impronta, 2019), which won the Center for Book Arts annual chapbook award. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. She founded and directs Comala Haven, a retreat and workshop in Mexico for women writers. Copyright © 2020 Kimberly Kruge

Exploratory Analysis of Treading Water Coordination and the Influence of Task and Environmental Constraints.

The radical embodied cognition approach to behavior requires emphasis upon how humans adapt their motor skills in response to changes in constraint. The aim of this exploratory study was to identify how the typical coordination patterns used to tread water were influenced by constraints representative of open water environments. Twenty-three participants were measured while treading water (TW) in a swimming flume in four conditions: (1) in still water, wearing a bathing suit (baseline); (2) wearing typical outdoor clothing (clothed); (3) with an additional cognitive task imposed (dual task); and (4) against a changing current (flow). Mixed methods kinematic analysis revealed four different TW coordination patterns were used across the conditions. The four TW patterns used represent a hierarchy of expertise in terms of the capacity to generate continuous lift forces, where pattern 1 (the lowest skill level) involved predominantly pushing and kicking limb movements (N = 1); pattern 2 was a movement pattern consisting of legs pushing/kicking and arms sculling (N = 7); pattern 3 was synchronous sculling of all four limbs (N = 6); and pattern 4 was the “eggbeater kick” (the highest skill level), with asynchronous sculling movements of the legs (N = 9). The four TW patterns were generally robust to the modified constraints. The higher skilled patterns (i.e., patterns 3 and 4) appeared to be the most stable coordination patterns. These results suggest that learning to perform more complex patterns to tread water might be an asset to survive in life-threatening situations.

Bionic design and experiment of multidimensional propulsion device on water

In view of the present situation that the output thrust of traditional surface platform propulsion device is unidimensional and its amphibious capability is limited, based on the high-speed movement principle of basilius treading water, this paper designs a multidimensional surface propulsion device to realize the multidimensional output of torque, lifting force and propulsion force. Combined with the square platform, the controllable parameters of the multidimensional surface propulsion device are analyzed from the perspective of navigation dynamics. Finally, the prototype test, the water cube propulsion drive car body realizes high speed sailing boat type water skiing, with an average elevation of 10.6°.

물 밖에서 하는 수영기구를 이용한 입영학습의 효과

물 밖에서 하는 수영기구를 이용한 입영학습의 효과

Can You Float? Part I - Perceptions and Practice of Unsupported Flotation Competency among Young Adults

The capacity to maintain the airway through buoyancy control when immersed in water is critical in preventing drowning (Stallman, Moran, Quan & Langendorfer, 2017). In this first phase of the Can you Float? study, perceived and real unsupported flotation competency of a group of students (n=37) with known water proficiency was examined. Using a modified version of Borgs Rating of Perceived exertion (RPE), participants were asked to estimate exertion levels before and after a practical test of five stationary floating tasks of increasing difficulty ranging from treading water to motionless floating. Most participants (82%) were able to tread water for 2 minutes but only one third (31%) could perform a motionless float for the same duration. In all tasks students underestimated the level of exertion required. Reasons for, and implications of, this underestimation are discussed and recommendations for the teaching of unsupported flotation competency in water safety programs are made.