Highlights from day three of the EuroSciCon 2015 Sports Science Summit.

This EuroSciCon Sports Science Summit represented a significant gathering of leading professionals in the field of sports science. The conference was held on 13-15 January 2015 at the O2 arena, London, UK. The chairman on the third day was Mr Greg Robertson, a specialist trainee Orthopedic surgeon from Edinburgh. The conference attracted over 80 attendants from all over the world, with 32 presentations from invited speakers and peer-reviewed submissions. This meeting report provides a summary of the best abstracts from the conference

Will This Paper Increase Your h-index? Scientific Impact Prediction

Scientific impact plays a central role in the evaluation of the output of scholars, departments, and institutions. A widely used measure of scientific impact is citations, with a growing body of literature focused on predicting the number of citations obtained by any given publication. The effectiveness of such predictions, however, is fundamentally limited by the power-law distribution of citations, whereby publications with few citations are extremely common and publications with many citations are relatively rare. Given this limitation, in this work we instead address a related question asked by many academic researchers in the course of writing a paper, namely: "Will this paper increase my h-index?" Using a real academic dataset with over 1.7 million authors, 2 million papers, and 8 million citation relationships from the premier online academic service ArnetMiner, we formalize a novel scientific impact prediction problem to examine several factors that can drive a paper to increase the primary author's h-index. We find that the researcher's authority on the publication topic and the venue in which the paper is published are crucial factors to the increase of the primary author's h-index, while the topic popularity and the co-authors' h-indices are of surprisingly little relevance. By leveraging relevant factors, we find a greater than 87.5% potential predictability for whether a paper will contribute to an author's h-index within five years. As a further experiment, we generate a self-prediction for this paper, estimating that there is a 76% probability that it will contribute to the h-index of the co-author with the highest current h-index in five years. We conclude that our findings on the quantification of scientific impact can help researchers to expand their influence and more effectively leverage their position of "standing on the shoulders of giants."Comment: Proc. of the 8th ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM'15

Synthesis, biological evaluation and molecular docking studies of novel 3,5- disubstituted 2,4-thiazolidinediones derivatives

Thiazolidinediones (TZDs) are a new class of antidiabetic drugs, having an insulin sensitizing effect in patients with type 2 diabetes. We report here the synthesis A series of thirteen 2,4-thiazolidinedione derivatives. The 2,4-thiazolidinedione ring\u27s fifth position was used as a site for Knoevenagel condensation to generate the compounds listed in the title. The synthesised derivatives were characterised using a variety of physicochemical and spectral analyses, including IR, Mass, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, and elemental analysis. By using the carrageenan-induced rat paw edoema method, the alloxan-induced diabetes in wistar rats method, and the FRAP (ferric reducing antioxidant power) method, respectively, the derivatives were examined for their in vivo anti-diabetic, in vivo anti-inflammatory, and in vitro free radical scavenging activities. Some of the compounds showed promise as powerful anti-inflammatory, anti-free radical, and anti-diabetic medications. The most effective anti-diabetic compounds, NB7, NB12, and NB13, were docked using MOE software to study some potential structural insights into the potential binding patterns with the target PPAR active sites (PDB ID: 2PRG). The dichloro derivative chemical NB-7 has demonstrated strong anti-inflammatory and antioxidant potential in the current investigation in addition to having the highest anti-diabetic efficacy

Effect of Alcohol on Alzheimer\u27s Disease

Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder that is characterised by cognitive decline and cholinergic dysfunction. According to studies, drinking alcohol can result in serious problems such as degenerative neuro-inflammation. Although a decreased incidence of AD has been associated with moderate alcohol intake. Alcohol use may be a risk factor for AD. Alcoholism is associated with cognitive problems, especially alcoholic dementia. Alcohol\u27s impact on mental functions, such as brain disorders and neurochemistry, is believed to increase the risk of developing AD. According to some research, moderate alcohol use may have a protective effect on AD, depending on the type of alcohol consumed. If you have AD, you should refrain from drinking alcohol since it might exacerbate or heighten the negative effects of the drugs you are taking to treat it, such as fatigue, dizziness, elevated blood pressure, confusion, and mental impairment. The mechanisms of alcohol\u27s impact on AD have been reported, including how it affects neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, protein aggregation (especially that of amyloid-β), and the networks of neurotransmitter receptors

Alcohol worsens bipolar disorder: Fact or myth?

Bipolar disorder is a chronic and complex psychiatric condition characterized by alternating episodes of mania and depression. The suffering person’s quality of life, behaviour, and mood are all deeply impacted. Although drinking alcohol is a typical practise among those who have bipolar disorder, little is known about how it affects the illness. The objective of this paper is to give an overview of how alcohol affects bipolar disorder. Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant that can cause mood fluctuations and make bipolar disorder symptoms stronger. Alcohol may at first give off an instantaneous sensation of excitement, but over time, it can disturb the sensitive equilibrium of neurotransmitters in the brain, making times of depression stronger. Alcohol use may increase manic episodes, which can result in impulsive behaviors and poor judgment. Heavy or frequent alcohol consumption increases the chance of treatment non-adherence, drug interactions, and poor treatment outcomes in people with bipolar disorder. Additionally, the clinical appearance of both bipolar disorder and alcohol use disorder can be complicated and made more severe by their co-occurrence. Studies have highlighted the importance of considering the unique challenges faced by individuals with bipolar disorder in managing their alcohol consumption. Results from integrated therapies that simultaneously treat both illnesses, including psychotherapy and medication, are encouraging. Positive treatment outcomes can be promoted by supportive therapies such as psychological instruction, behavioral therapy, and inspirational interviewing. Drinking alcohol negatively impacts those with bipolar disorder, worsening mood symptoms and reducing overall efficiency. In order to supply complete and successful treatment, healthcare professionals must be knowledgeable of the complex connections between alcohol use and bipolar disorder. To overcome this dual problem, further research is required to study the fundamental processes and develop targeted therapies

Synthesis and evaluation of sulphonamide clubbed thiophenes as dihydrogen pteroate synthase inhibitors

Background. Derivatives of thiophene and sulphonamide showed various pharmacological activities including antimicrobial and dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) inhibition activity. Dihydrofolate reductase and dihydropteroate synthetase enzymes are responsible for bacterial growth and cell proliferation of cancer cells. Method: In the first step, thiophene was synthesized from cyclohexanone, sulphur and ethyl cyanoacetate by Gewald reaction. Second step involved cyclization of ethyl 2-aminothiophene-3-carboxylate conducted using formamide. In the third step, the carbonyl group was replaced by chlorine in the presence of POCl3. Then the chlorine group was removed by substituted sulphonamide. A series of derivatives were synthesized and evaluated for antimicrobial, anti-oxidant and DHFR inhibition activity. Newly synthesized derivatives of sulphonamide clubbed thiophene showed moderate to excellent antimicrobial and DHFR inhibition activity. Results. A series of thiophene clubbed sulphonamide conjugates were designed, synthesized and their structures were characterized using 1H NMR, 13C NMR, IR and HR-MS spectral analysis. The antioxidant activity was performed by DPPH and hydrogen peroxide method. Among these derivatives, the compounds a and b showed comparable anti-oxidant activity 76.29% and 73.25% respectively against DPPH as compared to standard drug ascorbic acid (82.68%). Remaining conjugates displayed significant anti-oxidant activity. The docking study was performed using Molegro virtual docker (MVD) molecular docking suggested a remarkable binding pose for all the thiophene linked sulphonamide derivatives. Conclusion. Compounds with electron donating groups showed potential activity. The binding affinity of these derivatives against dihydropteroate synthetase (DHTS) and dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) enzymes were confirmed by molecular docking studies. The ADME and toxicity profile was studied. The compounds can serve as potential DHFR and DHTS inhibitors