Effects of Fatigue Induced by Repetitive Movements and Isometric Tasks on Reaction Time

[Abstract] Purpose: The understanding of fatigue of the human motor system is important in the fields of ergonomics, sport, rehabilitation and neurology. In order to understand the interactions between fatigue and reaction time, we evaluated the effects of two different fatiguing tasks on reaction time. Methods: 83 healthy subjects were included in a case-control study with three arms where single and double choice reaction time tasks were performed before and after 2 min fatiguing task (an isometric task, a finger tapping task and at rest). Results: After an isometric task, the right-fatigued hand was slower in the choice component of a double choice reaction time task (calculated as the individual difference between single and double choice reaction times); also, the subjects that felt more fatigued had slower choice reaction time respect to the baseline assessment. Moreover, in relationship to the performance decay after two minutes, finger tapping task produces more intense fatigability perception. Conclusions: We confirmed that two minutes of isometric or repetitive tasks are enough to produce fatigue. The fatigue perception is more intense for finger tapping tasks in relation to the performance decay. We therefore confirmed that the two fatiguing tasks produced two different kind of fatigue demonstrating that with a very simple protocol it is possible to test subjects or patients to quantify different form of fatigue.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad; SAF2016-80647-

The climate-smart village approach: Framework of an integrative strategy for scaling up adaptation options in agriculture

Increasing weather risks threaten agricultural production systems and food security across the world. Maintaining agricultural growth while minimizing climate shocks is crucial to building a resilient food production system and meeting developmental goals in vulnerable countries. Experts have proposed several technological, institutional, and policy interventions to help farmers adapt to current and future weather variability and to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper presents the climate-smart village (CSV) approach as a means of performing agricultural research for development that robustly tests technological and institutional options for dealing with climatic variability and climate change in agriculture using participatory methods. It aims to scale up and scale out the appropriate options and draw out lessons for policy makers from local to global levels. The approach incorporates evaluation of climate-smart technologies, practices, services, and processes relevant to local climatic risk management and identifies opportunities for maximizing adaptation gains from synergies across different interventions and recognizing potential maladaptation and trade-offs. It ensures that these are aligned with local knowledge and link into development plans. This paper describes early results in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to illustrate different examples of the CSV approach in diverse agroecological settings. Results from initial studies indicate that the CSV approach has a high potential for scaling out promising climate-smart agricultural technologies, practices, and services. Climate analog studies indicate that the lessons learned at the CSV sites would be relevant to adaptation planning in a large part of global agricultural land even under scenarios of climate change. Key barriers and opportunities for further work are also discussed

Effectiveness of a cognitive behavioral intervention in patients with medically unexplained symptoms: cluster randomized trial

BACKGROUND: Medically unexplained symptoms are an important mental health problem in primary care and generate a high cost in health services.Cognitive behavioral therapy and psychodynamic therapy have proven effective in these patients. However, there are few studies on the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions by primary health care. The project aims to determine whether a cognitive-behavioral group intervention in patients with medically unexplained symptoms, is more effective than routine clinical practice to improve the quality of life measured by the SF-12 questionary at 12 month. METHODS/DESIGN: This study involves a community based cluster randomized trial in primary healthcare centres in Madrid (Spain). The number of patients required is 242 (121 in each arm), all between 18 and 65 of age with medically unexplained symptoms that had seeked medical attention in primary care at least 10 times during the previous year. The main outcome variable is the quality of life measured by the SF-12 questionnaire on Mental Healthcare. Secondary outcome variables include number of consultations, number of drug (prescriptions) and number of days of sick leave together with other prognosis and descriptive variables. Main effectiveness will be analyzed by comparing the percentage of patients that improve at least 4 points on the SF-12 questionnaire between intervention and control groups at 12 months. All statistical tests will be performed with intention to treat. Logistic regression with random effects will be used to adjust for prognostic factors. Confounding factors or factors that might alter the effect recorded will be taken into account in this analysis. DISCUSSION: This study aims to provide more insight to address medically unexplained symptoms, highly prevalent in primary care, from a quantitative methodology. It involves intervention group conducted by previously trained nursing staff to diminish the progression to the chronicity of the symptoms, improve quality of life, and reduce frequency of medical consultations. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The trial was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01484223 [http://ClinicalTrials.gov].S

Gamificación en Iberoamérica. Experiencias desde la comunicación y la educación

La presente obra capitular es el resultado de las investigaciones sobre las aplicaciones de la gamificación en contextos múltiples, emergentes provenientes de las comunicaciones presentadas en el Simposio 06 del III Congreso Internacional Comunicación y Pensamiento (Sevilla, España), así como de aquellas presentadas por los miembros del Gamelab UPS, del Proyecto I+D+i Coordinado “Competencias mediáticas de la ciudadanía en medios digitales emergentes (smartphones y tablets): Prácticas innovadoras y estrategias educomunicativas en contextos múltiples” (EDU2015-64015-C3-1-R) (MINECO/FEDER), de la “Red de Educación Mediática” del Programa Estatal de Investigación Científica-Técnica de Excelencia, Subprograma Estatal de Generación de Conocimiento (EDU2016-81772-REDT), financiados por el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) y Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España. En este sentido se busca construir, desde una mirada dual desde Europa y América Latina el primer libro iberoamericano de gamificación, avalado por el Gamelab de la Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (Ecuador), el Proyecto I+D+i EDU2015-64015-C3-1-R, la Red Interuniversitaria Euroamericana de Investigación sobre Competencias Mediáticas para la Ciudadanía (Alfamed), el Laboratorio de Estudios en Comunicación (Ladecom) y el Grupo de Investigación Ágora (PAI-HUM-648) de la Universidad de Huelva (España) y el Grupo de Investigación Estructura, Historia y Contenidos de la Comunicación GREHCCO

Desarrollo de herramientas críticas e instrumentales y diseño de recursos educativos en abierto en torno al cómic

El cómic funciona como hilo conductor temático del proyecto, empleando las nuevas tecnologías y la teoría crítica de manera instrumental. cuenta con una triple vertiente: formación de estudiantes, formación de docentes y futuros docentes, y transferencia de resultados. Esta triple vertiente se desarrolla a través de tres ejes: (1) Club de lectura de cómic autogestionado por estudiantes, bajo el título «Narrativas éticas para repensar el mundo»; (2) Talleres instrumentales, teoría crítica y empleabilidad para estudiantes del club y el resto de la comunidad universitaria y un encuentro con una autora; (3) Realización de contenidos en abierto —podcasts,— con los resultados del aprendizaje en los ejes (1) y (2)

Regulatory sites for splicing in human basal ganglia are enriched for disease-relevant information

Genome-wide association studies have generated an increasing number of common genetic variants associated with neurological and psychiatric disease risk. An improved understanding of the genetic control of gene expression in human brain is vital considering this is the likely modus operandum for many causal variants. However, human brain sampling complexities limit the explanatory power of brain-related expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) and allele-specific expression (ASE) signals. We address this, using paired genomic and transcriptomic data from putamen and substantia nigra from 117 human brains, interrogating regulation at different RNA processing stages and uncovering novel transcripts. We identify disease-relevant regulatory loci, find that splicing eQTLs are enriched for regulatory information of neuron-specific genes, that ASEs provide cell-specific regulatory information with evidence for cellular specificity, and that incomplete annotation of the brain transcriptome limits interpretation of risk loci for neuropsychiatric disease. This resource of regulatory data is accessible through our web server, http://braineacv2.inf.um.es/

Identification of novel risk loci, causal insights, and heritable risk for Parkinson's disease: a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies

Background Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in Parkinson's disease have increased the scope of biological knowledge about the disease over the past decade. We aimed to use the largest aggregate of GWAS data to identify novel risk loci and gain further insight into the causes of Parkinson's disease. Methods We did a meta-analysis of 17 datasets from Parkinson's disease GWAS available from European ancestry samples to nominate novel loci for disease risk. These datasets incorporated all available data. We then used these data to estimate heritable risk and develop predictive models of this heritability. We also used large gene expression and methylation resources to examine possible functional consequences as well as tissue, cell type, and biological pathway enrichments for the identified risk factors. Additionally, we examined shared genetic risk between Parkinson's disease and other phenotypes of interest via genetic correlations followed by Mendelian randomisation. Findings Between Oct 1, 2017, and Aug 9, 2018, we analysed 7·8 million single nucleotide polymorphisms in 37 688 cases, 18 618 UK Biobank proxy-cases (ie, individuals who do not have Parkinson's disease but have a first degree relative that does), and 1·4 million controls. We identified 90 independent genome-wide significant risk signals across 78 genomic regions, including 38 novel independent risk signals in 37 loci. These 90 variants explained 16–36% of the heritable risk of Parkinson's disease depending on prevalence. Integrating methylation and expression data within a Mendelian randomisation framework identified putatively associated genes at 70 risk signals underlying GWAS loci for follow-up functional studies. Tissue-specific expression enrichment analyses suggested Parkinson's disease loci were heavily brain-enriched, with specific neuronal cell types being implicated from single cell data. We found significant genetic correlations with brain volumes (false discovery rate-adjusted p=0·0035 for intracranial volume, p=0·024 for putamen volume), smoking status (p=0·024), and educational attainment (p=0·038). Mendelian randomisation between cognitive performance and Parkinson's disease risk showed a robust association (p=8·00 × 10−7). Interpretation These data provide the most comprehensive survey of genetic risk within Parkinson's disease to date, to the best of our knowledge, by revealing many additional Parkinson's disease risk loci, providing a biological context for these risk factors, and showing that a considerable genetic component of this disease remains unidentified. These associations derived from European ancestry datasets will need to be followed-up with more diverse data. Funding The National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health (USA), The Michael J Fox Foundation, and The Parkinson's Foundation (see appendix for full list of funding sources)

Global variation in diabetes diagnosis and prevalence based on fasting glucose and hemoglobin A1c

Fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) are both used to diagnose diabetes, but these measurements can identify different people as having diabetes. We used data from 117 population-based studies and quantified, in different world regions, the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes, and whether those who were previously undiagnosed and detected as having diabetes in survey screening, had elevated FPG, HbA1c or both. We developed prediction equations for estimating the probability that a person without previously diagnosed diabetes, and at a specific level of FPG, had elevated HbA1c, and vice versa. The age-standardized proportion of diabetes that was previously undiagnosed and detected in survey screening ranged from 30% in the high-income western region to 66% in south Asia. Among those with screen-detected diabetes with either test, the age-standardized proportion who had elevated levels of both FPG and HbA1c was 29-39% across regions; the remainder had discordant elevation of FPG or HbA1c. In most low- and middle-income regions, isolated elevated HbA1c was more common than isolated elevated FPG. In these regions, the use of FPG alone may delay diabetes diagnosis and underestimate diabetes prevalence. Our prediction equations help allocate finite resources for measuring HbA1c to reduce the global shortfall in diabetes diagnosis and surveillance