The effectiveness of orally applied L-menthol on exercise performance in the heat

During exercise in the heat, increasing thermal load leads to thermo-behavioural adjustments in exercise performance, due to greater perceptual and physiological strain. Behavioural reductions in exercise intensity in the heat are initially mediated via rises in skin temperature, which alter thermal perception (comfort and sensation) and later by rises in core temperature, which increase cardiovascular strain and perceived exertion. Therefore, thermoregulation may be ordered and dependant on the magnitude, timing and/or prioritisation of afferent signals. Non-thermal cooling via L-menthol has been shown to enhance exercise performance in the early and latter stages when delivered orally at a concentration of 0.01%. Indeed, during periods of progressive thermal stress, imposed by the combination of maximal exercise and environmental heat and humidity, L-menthol has been shown to offer an immediate cooling stimulus thus extending exercise capacity. However, repeated administration of L-menthol during exercise in the heat, as thermal load increases, is unable to recover a decline in work rate. Therefore, it is unclear whether the potency of L-menthol is sustained upon frequent application and what strategies are needed in both sporting and occupational settings to optimise its effectiveness. In this part of the symposium we will consider oral delivery of L-menthol and its potential for reducing an individual’s perception of heat stress with associated effects on exercise tolerance in the heat. We will also examine the frequency of use, optimal concentration, timing and novelty of L-menthol in a sporting and occupational context

Oral application of L-menthol in the heat: From pleasure to performance

When menthol is applied to the oral cavity it presents with a familiar refreshing sensation and cooling mint flavour. This may be deemed hedonic in some individuals, but may cause irritation in others. This variation in response is likely dependent upon trigeminal sensitivity toward cold stimuli, suggesting a need for a menthol solution that can be easily personalised. Menthol’s characteristics can also be enhanced by matching colour to qualitative outcomes; a factor which can easily be manipulated by practitioners working in athletic or occupational settings to potentially enhance intervention efficacy. This presentation will outline the efficacy of oral menthol application for improving time trial performance to date, either via swilling or via co-ingestion with other cooling strategies, with an emphasis upon how menthol can be applied in ecologically valid scenarios. Situations in which performance is not expected to be enhanced will also be discussed. An updated model by which menthol may prove hedonic, satiate thirst and affect ventilation will also be presented, with the potential performance implications of these findings discussed and modelled. Qualitative reflections from athletes that have implemented menthol mouth swilling in competition, training and maximal exercise will also be included

High-Throughput Workflow for Computer-Assisted Human Parsing of Biological Specimen Label Data

4th International Conference on Open RepositoriesThis presentation was part of the session : Conference PostersHundreds of thousands of specimens in herbaria and natural history museums worldwide are potential candidates for digitization, making them more accessible to researchers. An herbarium contains collections of preserved plant specimens created for scientific use. Herbarium specimens are ideal natural history objects for digitization, as the plants are pressed flat and dried, and mounted on individual sheets of paper, creating a nearly two-dimensional object. Building digital repositories of herbarium specimens can increase use and exposure of the collections while simultaneously reducing physical handling. As important as the digitized specimens are, the data contained on the associated specimen labels provide critical information about each specimen (e.g., scientific name, geographic location of specimen, etc.). The volume and heterogeneity of these printed label data present challenges in transforming them into meaningful digital form to support research. The Apiary Project is addressing these challenges by exploring and developing transformation processes in a systematic workflow that yields high-quality machine-processable label data in a cost- and time-efficient manner. The University of North Texas's Texas Center for Digital Knowledge (TxCDK) and the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT), with funding from an Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant, are conducting fundamental research with the goal of identifying how human intelligence can be combined with machine processes for effective and efficient transformation of specimen label information. The results of this research will yield a new workflow model for effective and efficient label data transformation, correction, and enhancement.Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Leadership Gran

Paediatric drowning: a standard operating procedure to aid the prehospital management of paediatric cardiac arrest resulting from submersion

Objectives: Drowning is one of the leading causes of death in children. Resuscitating a child following submersion is a highpressure situation, and standard operating procedures can reduce error. Currently, the Resuscitation Council UK guidance does not include a standard operating procedure on paediatric drowning. The objective of this project was to design a standard operating procedure to improve outcomes of drowned children. Methods: A literature review on the management of paediatric drowning was conducted. Relevant publications were used to develop a standard operating procedure for management of paediatric drowning. Results: A concise standard operating procedure was developed for resuscitation following paediatric submersion. Specific recommendations include: the Heimlich manoeuvre should not be used in this context; however, prolonged resuscitation and therapeutic hypothermia are recommended. Conclusions: This standard operating procedure is a potentially useful adjunct to the Resuscitation Council UK guidance and should be considered for incorporation into its next iteration

The application of menthol in sport, exercise and occupational settings: To apply, ingest or discard?

The cold-receptor agonist menthol has been utilised to improve performance by imparting feelings of coolness and freshness to alleviate thermal discomfort. These effects are mediated by peripheral cold-sensitive neurons and trigeminal nerves of the face and oral cavity via activation of TRPM8 channels by either applying, ingesting or swilling menthol solutions. The forcing function exerted by topically applied menthol is probably influenced by a combination of factors, including the percentage of body surface area (BSA) exposed, body region, and dose, but the weighting of each requires clarification, as do factors influencing oral administration. Topically, a greater menthol-mediated forcing function has been shown to alter thermoregulation resulting in heat gain, but the precise mechanisms require clarification. It is unknown whether there is a similar effect when menthol is administered orally, but higher concentrations are reportedly preferred. Consequently, menthol has the potential to improve thermal perception but evoke heat gain responses placing biophysical and behavioural thermoregulation in conflict. Nevertheless, there is a growing body of literature that supports the efficacy of menthol application to improve endurance performance and, more recently, muscular performance. Oral menthol application has been shown to improve time to exhaustion and time trial performance with emerging evidence in power based activities. Independently of the heat storage response, topically applied menthol has also been shown to improve endurance performance and enhance recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage, possibly due to increased motor unit activation. Both methods of application have consistently been shown to ameliorate subjective measures of thermal strain during exercise. Accordingly, the aim of this symposium is to present key literature on the perceptual, thermoregulatory and performance effects of menthol and actively debate the merits of: the medium of application, advised protocols for menthol use during these modalities, the timing of application and the resultant thermoregulatory effects

Modeling Dual-Task Concurrency and Effort in QN-ACTR and IMPRINT.

Computational cognitive models have wide ranging applications from reducing the time and cost of task and interface analyses to the discovery of new human cognitive phenomena. We investigate the use and limitations of IMPRINT, a task network simulation tool, and develop an extension to improve the modeling of task component execution limits in multi-task performance under high workload. The extension is implemented as a Soar agent that moderates task execution akin to executive processes in EPIC. We show that an IMPRINT model of a UAV operation task with the extension exhibits qualitatively distinct workload management strategies also observed in human performance of the same task. Next, we develop QN-ACTR models of a concurrent addition and targeting task and collect empirical data of human performance on the tasks to validate the models' predictions of execution time and a time sharing concurrency metric. We also use the empirical data to validate an IMPRINT model of the addition and targeting tasks. Both QN-ACTR and IMPRINT models capture the primary effects of variable task difficulty parameters on execution time and concurrency. Model inaccuracy at the subtask level provides evidence for the use of visual spatial memory during complex addition. In a second experiment with similar tasks, we introduce an incentive to examine the effects of effort on execution time and concurrency in dual task performance. Incentive induced effort is found to increase performance on the rewarded dimension without an increase in the time sharing concurrency metric, suggesting that the performance improvements are not derived from an increase in task scheduling efficiency or resource sharing but from the same improvements found in single task conditions. The QN-ACTR task models are modified to account for the increased effort by adjusting base level parameters and are validated with the empirical data.PhDIndustrial & Operations EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/102330/1/cjbest_1.pd

Intergroup Dynamics in Speech Perception: Interaction Among Experience, Attitudes and Expectations

Experience, attitudes, and expectations have been identified as separate influences on speech perception and comprehension across groups. In this study, we investigate the interaction among these three variables. 58 Australia-born participants completed an online survey and a vowel categorization task. The survey examined participants’ experience with Vietnamese-accented English and their attitudes towards Asians. The vowel categorization task examined participants’ recovery of a Vietnamese-accented speaker’s intended vowels. Half of the participants were told to expect a Vietnamese accent whereas the other half were not. Results indicated that the relationship between listener expectations and group attitudes varied according to whether or not participants had experience with the Vietnamese accent. This interaction was most clearly reflected on the ‘book’ vowel. Compared to participants who did not expect a Vietnamese accent, had no experience with the Vietnamese accent, but positive attitudes towards the Vietnamese group, those who expected a Vietnamese accent showed a decrease in accuracy on ‘book’ categorization. A decrease in ‘book’ categorization accuracy was also found for those having experience with the accent but negative attitudes. In contrast, an increase in accuracy was found for those having no experience with the Vietnamese accent and negative attitudes towards the Vietnamese group, and those having experience with the accent and positive attitudes. We concluded that expectations, experience and attitudes interact in their relationship with speech perception

Exploring mortality among drug treatment clients: The relationship between treatment type and mortality

Aims: Studies consistently identify substance treatment populations as more likely to die prematurely compared with age-matched general population, with mortality risk higher out-of-treatment than in-treatment. While opioid-using pharmacotherapy cohorts have been studied extensively, less evidence exists regarding effects of other treatment types, and clients in treatment for other drugs. This paper examines mortality during and following treatment across treatment modalities. Methods: A retrospective seven-year cohort was utilised to examine mortality during and in the two years following treatment among clients from Victoria, Australia, recorded on the Alcohol and Drug Information Service database by linking with National Death Index. 18,686 clients over a 12-month period were included. Crude (CMRs) and standardised mortality rates (SMRs) were analysed in terms of treatment modality, and time in or out of treatment. Results: Higher risk of premature death was associated with residential withdrawal as the last type of treatment engagement, while mortality following counselling was significantly lower than all other treatment types in the year post-treatment. Both CMRs and SMRs were significantly higher in-treatment than post-treatment. Conclusion: Better understanding of factors contributing to elevated mortality risk for clients engaged in, and following treatment, is needed to ensure that treatment systems provide optimal outcomes during and after treatment

The role of acoustic similarity and non-native categorisation in predicting non-native discrimination : Brazilian Portuguese vowels by English vs. Spanish listeners

This study tests whether Australian English (AusE) and European Spanish (ES) listeners differ in their categorisation and discrimination of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) vowels. In particular, we investigate two theoretically relevant measures of vowel category overlap (acoustic vs. perceptual categorisation) as predictors of non-native discrimination difficulty. We also investigate whether the individual listener’s own native vowel productions predict non-native vowel perception better than group averages. The results showed comparable performance for AusE and ES participants in their perception of the BP vowels. In particular, discrimination patterns were largely dependent on contrast-specific learning scenarios, which were similar across AusE and ES. We also found that acoustic similarity between individuals’ own native productions and the BP stimuli were largely consistent with the participants’ patterns of non-native categorisation. Furthermore, the results indicated that both acoustic and perceptual overlap successfully predict discrimination performance. However, accuracy in discrimination was better explained by perceptual similarity for ES listeners and by acoustic similarity for AusE listeners. Interestingly, we also found that for ES listeners, the group averages explained discrimination accuracy better than predictions based on individual production data, but that the AusE group showed no difference