Effects of active vs. passive interset rest among physiological and perceptual outcomes in bench press exercise.

Objectives The aim of this study was to compare the effects between 2-min active and 2-min passive interset rest among intra and interset velocity and power loss, blood lactate level, and effort perception in young resistance-trained male during bench press exercise. Equipment and methods Nineteen volunteers completed a maximal power test for bench press to determine the optimal load for maximum power production. Separated by, unless, 72 hours all participants realised two resistance training bouts consisting of 2 × 8 repetitions at maximal velocity using the optimal load for maximal power, and a 3rd set until muscle failure, with 2-min interset rest passive or active, where participants completed repetitions in vertical chest press at a controlled velocity during active protocol. We measured power and velocity for each repetition using a lineal encoder, and we calculate intraset loss for both outcomes with two different equations. We also measured blood lactate levels and rate of perceived exertion before and after each set, and during recovery period after the last set. Results There was a lower intraset velocity and power loss for active interset rest compared to passive, being these differences statistically significant for the 1st set (P < 0.05) as confirmed by Student's t-test for independent measures. We also found only for the passive protocol a significant increase in blood lactate levels when comparing the values post set and before the consecutive set (P < 0.01), showing a significant increase during the interset rest period (post-set 1–pre-set 2; and post-set 2–pre-set 3). Moreover, blood lactate levels were significantly higher in passive compared to active before starting the 3rd set (P < 0.05). There were no significant differences for rate of perceived exertion between both protocols.pre-print430 K

CHARACTERIZATION OF ARSENIC-TOLERANT BACTERIAL CULTURES FROM THE LOWER LAGUNA MADRE OF SOUTH TEXAS

Two forms of arsenic are found in the environment: As(V) and As(III), the latter being more toxic, water-soluble, and mobile. Microorganisms may increase the mobility of arsenic by reducing As(V) to As(III); however, detoxification and immobilization can occur via the oxidation of As(III) to As(V). The US EPA has set a minimum contaminant level of 10 parts per billion (ppb) for arsenic in drinking water. The research objective was to confirm the presence of arsenic-tolerant bacteria in the Lower Laguna Madre of south Texas. Sediment samples were collected and inoculated into growth media which contained either 2 mM As(III) or 2 mM As(V) to enrich for As(III)-tolerant and As(V)-tolerant bacteria, respectively. Twenty six (26) As (III)-tolerant and 12 As(V)-tolerant cultures were obtained. Most isolates were small white colonies of Gram-positive rods. Biochemical tests using commercially-made test strips showed that As(V)-tolerant isolates displayed greater resource usage compared to As(III)-tolerant isolates but overall, few cultures demonstrated a wide-range of biochemical capabilities. Isolates with distinct morphological and biochemical phenotypes were subjected to Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) amplification and sequencing of the 16S rRNA genes to identify the bacteria. Closest sequence matches were to the eubacterial genera Mycoplasma, Salinispora, Frankia, and Pelodictyon. These results suggest that the Lower Laguna Madre is inhabited by a diverse group of microorganisms able to tolerate toxic concentrations of different arsenic species

Effects of exercise on flexibility in adults over 65 years old.

Es sabido que el envejecimiento provoca el deterioro de la condición física y sus componentes. Menores niveles de flexibilidad se asocian a una pérdida de la capacidad funcional, y la participación en programas de ejercicio físico supervisado podría mantener o mejorar los niveles de dicha cualidad física. En nuestro estudio, evaluamos la flexibilidad de 53 adultos mayores de 65 años (M=73,74±4,54 años) que participaban en un programa de ejercicio durante, al menos, 6 meses; utilizando los tests back scratch (TBS) y chair sit and reach (TCSAR). Al finalizar el programa, los resultados de flexibilidad resultaron estar dentro de los valores normativos de referencia; estando, en muchas ocasiones, por encima. En conclusión, mantenerse físicamente activo minimiza la pérdida de flexibilidad inherente al proceso de envejecimiento, incluso cuando la actividad física no está directamente dirigida a mejorar esa capacidad. Este hecho podría tener importantes repercusiones sobre la capacidad funcional y la calidad de vida de los adultos mayores.peer-reviewed383 K

Functional flexibility in institutionalized sedentary older adults.

The aging process leads to deterioration in physiological functions, decreasing functional capacity. Since physical exercise reduces deleterious effects, measuring physical condition is necessary in older adults. The aim of this study was to verify the evolution of the range of motion in institutionalized sedentary older adults. The sample consisted of 19 volunteers aged 65-95 years who completed the Chair Sit-and-Reach test (CSR) and the Back-Scratch test (BS) to measure flexibility of the lower and upper limbs, respectively, before and after a period of 12 weeks without intervention. The results showed significant decrease during the control period (BS, p=0.004; CSR, p=0.001). These findings confirm that physical inactivity could lead to important loss of flexibility of institutionalized individuals, indicating decline of the elastic properties of musculoskeletal tissues and of connective tissues of joints. Therefore, the participation of institutionalized older adults in properly prescribed and guided physical exercises should be continuous and regular.post-print166 K

Validity of the two-minute step test for healthy older adults.

pre-print828 K

Analysis of Neighbourhoods in Multi-layered Dynamic Social Networks

Social networks existing among employees, customers or users of various IT systems have become one of the research areas of growing importance. A social network consists of nodes - social entities and edges linking pairs of nodes. In regular, one-layered social networks, two nodes - i.e. people are connected with a single edge whereas in the multi-layered social networks, there may be many links of different types for a pair of nodes. Nowadays data about people and their interactions, which exists in all social media, provides information about many different types of relationships within one network. Analysing this data one can obtain knowledge not only about the structure and characteristics of the network but also gain understanding about semantic of human relations. Are they direct or not? Do people tend to sustain single or multiple relations with a given person? What types of communication is the most important for them? Answers to these and more questions enable us to draw conclusions about semantic of human interactions. Unfortunately, most of the methods used for social network analysis (SNA) may be applied only to one-layered social networks. Thus, some new structural measures for multi-layered social networks are proposed in the paper, in particular: cross-layer clustering coefficient, cross-layer degree centrality and various versions of multi-layered degree centralities. Authors also investigated the dynamics of multi-layered neighbourhood for five different layers within the social network. The evaluation of the presented concepts on the real-world dataset is presented. The measures proposed in the paper may directly be used to various methods for collective classification, in which nodes are assigned to labels according to their structural input features.Comment: 16 pages, International Journal of Computational Intelligence System

Influencia de la información sobre actividad física y gasto energético en la decisión del consumidor universitario.

El estilo de vida de la sociedad actual es uno de los responsables del desequilibrio energético entre las calorías ingeridas y las gastadas, por lo que mejorar la educación nutricional de los ciudadanos y despertar la conciencia sobre la importancia del ejercicio podría revertir en parte esta situación. Para ello, una de las estrategias que se está llevando a cabo es el etiquetado con el método Actividad Física Equivalente al Gasto Calórico (PACE). El objetivo del estudio fue analizar la influencia del etiquetado según el método PACE sobre la elección de los productos que se consumen en una máquina expendedora tipo “vending” ubicada en un campus universitario. Estudiantes de diferentes Grados de una universidad privada (24 mujeres y 19 hombres, 20,77±2,42 años) respondieron a una encuesta mediante un código QR expuesto en un póster con el etiquetado PACE en una máquina “vending”. El 63% (n=27) de los participantes cambiaron su intención de compra al recibir las informaciones del etiquetado PACE. Al comparar entre sexos, el 75% (n=18) de las mujeres cambió de decisión frente al 47% (n=9) de los hombres. Presentar la información calórica de un producto de forma visual y relacionarla con el equivalente en actividad física con el método PACE puede tener un efecto positivo sobre la decisión de compra de los consumidores de una máquina “vending”. Además, este efecto positivo parece ser más destacado en las mujeres con respecto a los hombres.post-print663 K

Efectos de la recuperación activa versus pasiva en press de banca.

La recuperación entre series en ejercicios de fuerza es una de las variables de las que depende el rendimiento físico y sobre la que no se ha investigado demasiado. La mayoría de las investigaciones al respecto se han centrado en el estudio de diferentes intervalos de recuperación, es decir, en la variable duración; sin embargo, nuestro objetivo es analizar si la recuperación activa podría minimizar la pérdida de potencia en comparación con la recuperación pasiva tradicional, manteniendo la duración constante entre ambos protocolos. Para ello, 14 voluntarios jóvenes entrenados realizaron dos series de ocho repeticiones y una tercera serie hasta el fallo muscular en press de banca con la carga óptima para el desarrollo de la potencia máxima separando cada serie con dos minutos de recuperación pasiva, sin actividad, o activa, realizando 60 segundos de press vertical de pecho a una velocidad de ejecución lenta y con una carga baja. La recuperación activa logró que la pérdida de potencia intraseries fuera menor en comparación con la recuperación pasiva, siendo esta diferencia estadísticamente significativa en la primera y la tercera serie (13.34% vs. 18.84%, p=.006; y 13.38% vs. 17.53%, p=.001; respectivamente). Además, observamos una discreta pero significativa mayor percepción del esfuerzo en la segunda serie (4.5 vs. 5.0, p=.033). En conclusión, la recuperación activa podría ser un estímulo adecuado para minimizar la pérdida del rendimiento intrasesión y mejorar la percepción del esfuerzo en ejercicios de fuerza.post-print354 K

Thru reflect line calibration for empty substrate integrated waveguide with microstrip transitions

In past years, a great number of substrate integrated circuits have been developed. Among these new transmission lines, the substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) has received special attention. Although the quality factor and losses of these new integrated lines are better than the planar circuits, these characteristics are worst than in the case of waveguides, mainly due to the presence of dielectric substrate. To improve the performance of the integrated circuits, a new methodology for manufacturing the empty waveguides, without dielectric substrate, but at the same time completely integrated in a planar substrate, has been recently proposed, resulting in the novel empty SIW (ESIW). A low-cost and easy to manufacture thru reflect line calibration kit for de-embedding the effect of connectors and transitions when measuring ESIW devices is presented. Results prove the high quality of this calibration kit.Fernández Berlanga, M.; Ballesteros Garrido, J.; Martínez Cano, L.; Esteban González, H.; Belenguer Martínez, A. (2015). Thru reflect line calibration for empty substrate integrated waveguide with microstrip transitions. Electronics Letters. 51(16):1274-1276. doi:10.1049/el.2015.1393S127412765116Belenguer, A., Esteban, H., & Boria, V. E. (2014). Novel Empty Substrate Integrated Waveguide for High-Performance Microwave Integrated Circuits. IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, 62(4), 832-839. doi:10.1109/tmtt.2014.2309637Deslandes, D., & Ke Wu. (2005). Analysis and design of current probe transition from grounded coplanar to substrate integrated rectangular waveguides. IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, 53(8), 2487-2494. doi:10.1109/tmtt.2005.852778Engen, G. F., & Hoer, C. A. (1979). Thru-Reflect-Line: An Improved Technique for Calibrating the Dual Six-Port Automatic Network Analyzer. IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, 27(12), 987-993. doi:10.1109/tmtt.1979.1129778Caballero, E. D., Boria, V. E., Belenguer, A., & Esteban, H. (2013). Thru-reflect-line calibration for substrate integrated waveguide devices with tapered microstrip transitions. Electronics Letters, 49(2), 132-133. doi:10.1049/el.2012.302

Escoliosis experimental por lesión vascular metamérica a nivel lumbar

Se ha realizado un estudio experimental en 25 híbridos de conejo californiano con conejo blanco gigante neozelandés de 37 ± 3 días, lesionando la vascularización metamé- rica que irriga las vértebras lumbares con el propósito de alterar indirectamente el desarrollo de los cartílagos neurocentrales (CNC). La lesión vascular se produjo por la destrucción unilateral a dos o tres niveles de los vasos metaméricos de las vértebras L3 a L5. Las columnas vertebrales fueron disecadas, realizándose estudios radiológicos, macroscópicos e histológicos. Se obtuvieron curvas escolióticas (13 ±4°) de convexidad hacia el lado contrario al intervenido, con rotación de los cuerpos vertebrales (12 ± 5o ) hacia la concavidad de la curva, y rectificación de la cifosis lumbar fisiológica de los conejos (5 ±7°). El ascpecto macroscópico de las curvas era similar al que se observa en la escoliosis idiopática humana. Estos hallazgos apoyan la idea de que una alteración del desarrollo del CNC por déficit vascular, de forma unilateral, es capaz de inducir la aparición de una escoliosis.We have damaged the vascular supply to the right neurocentral cartilage (NCC) to 25 growing rabbits, in order to induce scoliosis. The employed technique was the section of the right metameric artery and vein at two or three levels in the lumbar region (L3 to L5). The spine was studied histologically macroscopically and radiologically. We got slight curves (13 ±4°) with the convexity towards the opposite side to the operated zone, and with rotation (12 ±5°) and lordosis (5 ± 7°). These lesions are similar to human idiopathic scoliosis and may be explained because of the NCC's physiological properties. Those findings support the idea that any mechanic, metabolic or endocrine alteration that cause damage to the NCC or to its vascularization, unilaterally, will induced a scoliosis development