The Effect of Acute Creatine Supplementation on Fatigue and Anaerobic Performance

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of acute creatine monohydrate supplementation on fatigue and anaerobic performance. Thirty young soccer players participated in this study. Participants continued their training without taking any food supplements for 5 days, taking 0.3 g of milk dust per kg for 5 days and using 0.3 g creatine monohydrate per kg for 5 days. A total of 6 × 35 m sprint times were used in the fatigue index with a 10-second rest period between them. Single repeated sprint times of 35 m were examined as well. Statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) were found both fatigue index and single repeated 35 m sprint time after creatine supplementation. However there was not a statistically significant difference (p > 0.05) in Rast Test results. In soccer, it is known that there is a strong positive correlation between game performance and the number of repeated sprint numbers in a game. In conclusion, there was a statistically significant effect of 0.3 g of acute creatine loading per kg over 5 days on the single repeated sprints and fatigue index values. The creatine monohydrate can be used as an ergogenic aid for recovery periods between high-intensity exercises to affect performance

Assessment of the P Wave Dispersion and Duration in Elite Women Basketball Players

Background: P wave dispersion is an independent predictor of atrial fibrillation. P wave dispersion is associated with inhomogeneous and discontinuous propagation of sinus impulses. The purpose of this study was to investigate P wave dispersion and transthoracic echocardiographic findings in elite women basketball players.Methods: We recruited 27 well-trained woman athletes with a training history of many years (11.9 ± 3.6 years). All of the athletes were elite women basketball players and they were regularly maintaining sportive activities and training programs. Twenty-six age and sex matched healthy sedentary subjects consisted of control group. The difference between P maximum and P minimum durations was defined as P wave dispersion. The echocardiographic parameters were assessed in detail in the standard left lateral decubitus position. Results: The body height, body weight, body surface area, metabolic equivalent, maximum P wave duration and P wave dispersion were increased in the elite basketball athletes as compared with healthy sedentary subjects. On the contrary; the heart rate, ejection fraction and interventricular septum thickness in diastole were decreased in athletes. The body height (p=0.006, r=0.37), body weight (p=0.04, r=0.28), body surface area (p=0.01, r=0.33) and heart rate (p=0.01, r=-0.32) were correlated with P wave dispersion.Conclusions: P wave dispersion was increased in elite woman basketball players as compared with healthy sedentary subjects. P wave dispersion was correlated with heart rate, body height, body weight and body surface area

Implementing PointNet for point cloud segmentation in the heritage context

Automated Heritage Building Information Modelling (HBIM) from the point cloud data has been researched in the last decade as HBIM can be the integrated data model to bring together diverse sources of complex cultural content relating to heritage buildings. However, HBIM modelling from the scan data of heritage buildings is mainly manual and image processing techniques are insufficient for the segmentation of point cloud data to speed up and enhance the current workflow for HBIM modelling. Artificial Intelligence (AI) based deep learning methods such as PointNet are introduced in the literature for point cloud segmentation. Yet, their use is mainly for manufactured and clear geometric shapes and components. To what extent PointNet based segmentation is applicable for heritage buildings and how PointNet can be used for point cloud segmentation with the best possible accuracy (ACC) are tested and analysed in this paper. In this study, classification and segmentation processes are performed on the 3D point cloud data of heritage buildings in Gaziantep, Turkey. Accordingly, it proposes a novel approach of activity workflow for point cloud segmentation with deep learning using PointNet for the heritage buildings. Twenty-eight case study heritage buildings are used, and AI training is performed using five feature labelling for segmentation namely, walls, roofs, floors, doors, and windows for each of these 28 heritage buildings. The dataset is divided into clusters with 80% training dataset and 20% prediction test dataset. PointNet algorithm was unable to provide sufficient accuracy in segmenting the point clouds due to deformation and deterioration on the existing conditions of the heritage case study buildings. However, if PointNet algorithm is trained with the restitution-based heritage data, which is called synthetic data in the research, PointNet algorithm provides high accuracy. Thus, the proposed approach can build the baseline for the accurate classification and segmentation of the heritage buildings

MicroRNA 603 acts as a tumor suppressor and inhibits triple-negative breast cancer tumorigenesis by targeting elongation factor 2 kinase

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive type of breast cancer characterized by the absence of defined molecular targets, including estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and is associated with high rates of relapse and distant metastasis despite surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy. The lack of effective targeted therapies for TNBC represents an unmet therapeutic challenge. Eukaryotic elongation factor 2 kinase (eEF2K) is an atypical calcium/calmodulin-dependent serine/threonine kinase that promotes TNBC tumorigenesis, progression, and drug resistance, representing a potential novel molecular target. However, the mechanisms regulating eEF2K expression are unknown. Here, we report that eEF2K protein expression is highly up-regulated in TNBC cells and patient tumors and it is associated with poor patient survival and clinical outcome. We found that loss/reduced expression of miR-603 leads to eEF2K overexpression in TNBC cell lines. Its expression results in inhibition of eEF2K by directly targeting the 3-UTR and the inhibition of tumor cell growth, migration and invasion in TNBC. In vivo therapeutic gene delivery of miR-603 into TNBC xenograft mouse models by systemic administration of miR-603-nanoparticles led to a significant inhibition of eEF2K expression and tumor growth, which was associated with decreased activity of the downstream targets of eEF2K, including Src, Akt, cyclin D1 and c-myc. Our findings suggest that miR-603 functions as a tumor suppressor and loss of miR-603 expression leads to increase in eEF2K expression and contributes to the growth, invasion, and progression of TNBC. Taken together, our data suggest that miR-603-based gene therapy is a potential strategy against TNBC

Exosomal miR-940 maintains SRC-mediated oncogenic activity in cancer cells: a possible role for exosomal disposal of tumor suppressor miRNAs

Exosomes have emerged as important mediators of diverse biological functions including tumor suppression, tumor progression, invasion, immune escape and cell-to-cell communication, through the release of molecules such as mRNAs, miRNAs, and proteins. Here, we identified differentially expressed exosomal miRNAs between normal epithelial ovarian cell line and both resistant and sensitive ovarian cancer (OC) cell lines. We found miR-940 as abundant in exosomes from SKOV3-IP1, HeyA8, and HeyA8-MDR cells. The high expression of miR-940 is associated with better survival in patients with ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma. Ectopic expression of miR-940 inhibited proliferation, colony formation, invasion, and migration and triggered G0/G1 cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in OC cells. Overexpression of miR-940 also inhibited tumor cell growth in vivo. We showed that proto-oncogene tyrosine-protein kinase (SRC) is directly targeted by miR-940 and that miR-940 inhibited SRC expression at mRNA and protein levels. Following this inhibition, the expression of proteins downstream of SRC, such as FAK, paxillin and Akt was also reduced. Collectively, our results suggest that OC cells secrete the tumor-suppressive miR-940 into the extracellular environment via exosomes, to maintain their invasiveness and tumorigenic phenotype

Feature extraction from biological images with a focus on moment invariants

This research utilizes tools from pattern recognition for feature extraction in shape (e.g., morphology) and content (e.g., texture) analysis of biological images. The focus is on the theory of moments and the applications of both continuous and discrete moment invariants, which can quantify not just objects with well-defined boundaries but contents of more complex shaped objects without any clear boundaries. ^ In this work, moment invariants are used in the investigation of the effects of resolution changes (in biological imaging systems) on the descriptors of cell shape in terms of stability and consistence. The results show that the discrete-domain orthogonal Krawtchouk moment invariants are better cell-shape descriptors than are continuous-domain non-orthogonal geometric moment invariants in low-resolution images. ^ Using continuous-domain orthogonal Zernike moments, 6 different Listeria species are classified as pathogenic or non-pathogenic from their forward light-scattering images. These images are obtained by shining a 635-mm laser through pure bacterial colonies on agar plates in an optical setup. The colonies, along with the extracellular material they produce, show unique patterns that are captured using up to 20th order Zernike moment invariants. ^ A superior reconstruction scheme from discrete-domain orthogonal moments (Krawtchouk and Tchebichef moments) is proposed that provides a perfect (near-zero error) restoration of the original image from its moment decomposition. The algorithm uses an arbitrary-precision calculator for the calculation of polynomial basis coefficients for discrete moments. The arbitrary precision achieves the necessary precision and range for the storage and calculations of huge numbers that standard 64-bit IEEE floating-point arithmetic cannot provide in the case of larger images and high-order moments. ^ Changes in endothelial cell morphology and texture content are quantified under different shear stress conditions. In addition to traditional and simple descriptors, moment invariants and texture features are used for this study. The results show that we can reach conclusions about cell state without a full and precise segmentation. This novel method promises to form a new image analysis approach for high-throughput and high-content screening applications with vast amount of data.

Injuries in elite level male beach soccer players: a prospective three year study

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence and characteristics of match and training injuries in elite-level national male beach soccer players