Electromyographic Analysis of the Shoulder Girdle Musculature during External Rotation Exercises

Background: Implementation of overhead activity, a key component of many professional sports, requires an effective and balanced activation of shoulder girdle muscles particularly during forceful external rotation motions. Purpose: The study aimed to identify activation strategies of 16 shoulder girdle muscles/muscle segments during common shoulder external rotational exercises. Study Design: Cross-Sectional Study Method: EMG was recorded in 30 healthy subjects from 16 shoulder girdle muscles/muscle segments (surface electrode: anterior, middle and posterior deltoid, upper, middle and lower trapezius, serratus anterior, teres major, upper and lower latissimus dorsi, upper and lower pectoralis major; fine wire electrodes: supraspinatus, infraspinatus, subscapularis and rhomboid major) using a telemetric EMG system. Five external rotation (ER) exercises (standing ER at 0o and 90o of abduction, and with under-arm towel roll, prone ER at 90o of abduction, side-lying ER with under-arm towel) were studied. Exercise EMG amplitudes were normalised to EMGmax (EMG at maximal ER force in a standard position). Univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post-hoc analysis applied on EMG activity of each muscle to assess the main effect of exercise condition. Results: Muscular activity differed significantly among the ER exercises (P<0.05 – P<0.001). The highest activation for anterior and middle deltoid, supraspinatus, upper trapezius, and serratus anterior occurred during standing ER at 90o of abduction; for posterior deltoid, middle trapezius, and rhomboid during side-lying ER at 0° of abduction; for lower trapezius, upper and lower latissimus dorsi, subscapularis, and teres major during prone ER at 90o of abduction, and for clavicular and sternal part of pectoralis major during standing ER with Under-Arm Towel. Conclusion: Key glenohumeral and scapular muscles can be optimally activated during the specific ER exercises particularly in positions that stimulate athletic overhead motions. Clinical Relevance: These results enable sport medicine professionals to target specific muscles during shoulder rehabilitation protocols while minimising the effect of others, providing a foundation for optimal evidence-based exercise prescription. They also provide information for tailored muscle training and injury prevention in overhead sports

Automatic human action recognition in videos by graph embedding

The problem of human action recognition has received increasing attention in recent years for its importance in many applications. Yet, the main limitation of current approaches is that they do not capture well the spatial relationships in the subject performing the action. This paper presents an initial study which uses graphs to represent the actor's shape and graph embedding to then convert the graph into a suitable feature vector. In this way, we can benefit from the wide range of statistical classifiers while retaining the strong representational power of graphs. The paper shows that, although the proposed method does not yet achieve accuracy comparable to that of the best existing approaches, the embedded graphs are capable of describing the deformable human shape and its evolution along the time. This confirms the interesting rationale of the approach and its potential for future performance. © 2011 Springer-Verlag

Ruthenium(II) dichloro or dithiocyanato complexes with 4,4′:2′,2″:4″,4‴-quaterpyridinium ligands:Towards photosensitisers with enhanced low-energy absorption properties

Fourteen new complexes of the form cis-\[RuIIX2(R2qpy2+)2]4+ (R2qpy2+ = a 4,4′:2′,2″:4″,4‴-quaterpyridinium ligand, X = Cl− or NCS−) have been prepared and isolated as their PF6− salts. Characterisation involved various techniques including 1H NMR spectroscopy and +electrospray or MALDI mass spectrometry. The UV–Vis spectra display intense intraligand π → π∗ absorptions, and also metal-to-ligand charge-transfer (MLCT) bands with two resolved maxima in the visible region. Red-shifts in the MLCT bands occur as the electron-withdrawing strength of the pyridinium groups increases, while replacing Cl− with NCS− causes blue-shifts. Cyclic voltammograms show quasi-reversible or reversible RuIII/II oxidation waves, and several ligand-based reductions that are irreversible. The variations in the redox potentials correlate with changes in the MLCT energies. A single-crystal X-ray structure has been obtained for a protonated form of a proligand salt, \[(4-(CO2H)Ph)2qpyH3+]\[HSO4]3·3H2O. Time-dependent density functional theory calculations give adequate correlations with the experimental UV–Vis spectra for the two carboxylic acid-functionalised complexes in DMSO. Despite their attractive electronic absorption spectra, these dyes are relatively inefficient photosensitisers on electrodes coated with TiO2 or ZnO. These observations are attributed primarily to weak electronic coupling with the surfaces, since the DFT-derived LUMOs include no electron density near the carboxylic acid anchors

Policy volatility and growth

The paper aims to examine how fiscal and monetary volatility might affect the balanced economic growth rate using a standard monetary growth model characterized by nominal wage rigidity and productive public spending. The model shows that any type of shock — monetary or fiscal — can generate either a negative or positive relationship between short-run volatility and long-run growth, critically de- pending on the size of government and the elasticity of output with respect to labor/ capital. In particular, given the labor income share, it shows that excessive government spending may cause the impact of fiscal volatility on long-run growth to turn from positive to negative. In addition, a rise in the volatility of the monetary shock is capable of generating either an increase or decrease in the mean of growth. With the range of the labor share values in reality, the model produces results consistent with the fact that the relationship between volatility and growth is generally found empirically to be more negative in developing than in developed countries. The model can be seen as a further explanation for the ambiguous empirical evidence in the existing literature.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Engaging Undergraduates in Science Research: Not Just About Faculty Willingness.

Despite the many benefits of involving undergraduates in research and the growing number of undergraduate research programs, few scholars have investigated the factors that affect faculty members' decisions to involve undergraduates in their research projects. We investigated the individual factors and institutional contexts that predict faculty members' likelihood of engaging undergraduates in their research project(s). Using data from the Higher Education Research Institute's 2007-2008 Faculty Survey, we employ hierarchical generalized linear modeling to analyze data from 4,832 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty across 194 institutions to examine how organizational citizenship behavior theory and social exchange theory relate to mentoring students in research. Key findings show that faculty who work in the life sciences and those who receive government funding for their research are more likely to involve undergraduates in their research project(s). In addition, faculty at liberal arts or historically Black colleges are significantly more likely to involve undergraduate students in research. Implications for advancing undergraduate research opportunities are discussed

Finland

Peer reviewe

What should be done with antisocial personality disorder in the new edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-V)?

Antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, dissocial personality disorder and sociopathy are constructs that have generally been used to predict recidivism and dangerousness, alongside being used to exclude patients from treatment services. However, 'antisocial personality disorder' has recently begun to emerge as a treatment diagnosis, a development reflected within cognitive behaviour therapy and mentalisation-based psychotherapy. Many of the behaviour characteristics of antisocial personality disorder are, at the same time, being targeted by interventions at criminal justice settings. A significantly higher proportion of published articles focusing on antisocial personality concern treatment when compared to articles on psychopathy. Currently, the proposal for antisocial personality disorder for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition, suggests a major change in the criteria for this disorder. While the present definition focuses mainly on observable behaviours, the proposed revision stresses interpersonal and emotional aspects of the disorder drawing on the concept of psychopathy. The present commentary suggests that developments leading to improvement in the diagnosis of this type of disorder should, rather than focusing exclusively on elements such as dangerousness and risk assessment, point us to ways in which patients can be treated for their problems

Prognostic value of electrocardiographic detection of unrecognized myocardial infarction in persons with stable coronary artery disease: data from the Heart and Soul Study

Unrecognized myocardial infarction (MI) carries a poor prognosis in the general population, but its prognostic value is less clear in high-risk patients. We sought to determine whether Q waves on electrocardiogram (ECG), suggestive of unrecognized MI, predict cardiovascular events in patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD), but without a prior history of MI. We studied 462 patients enrolled in the Heart and Soul Study with stable CAD but without a prior history of MI. All patients had baseline ECGs. The baseline prevalence of unrecognized myocardial infarction was 36%. After a mean of 6.3 years of follow-up, there were a total of 141 cardiovascular events. The presence of Q waves in any ECG lead territory predicted cardiovascular events before (unadjusted HR 1.41, 95% CI 1.01-1.97) and after adjustment for demographics, medical history, diastolic function, and ejection fraction (HR 1.55, 95% CI 1.06-2.26). This association was partly attenuated after adjustment for the presence of inducible ischemia at baseline (HR 1.43, 95% CI 0.96-2.12). When specific territories were analyzed separately, Q waves in anterior leads were predictive of cardiovascular events in both unadjusted and adjusted models (adjusted HR 1.85, 95% CI 1.14-3.00), and this association was partly attenuated after adjustment for inducible ischemia. In conclusion, in patients with CAD but no history of prior MI, the presence of any Q waves or anterior Q waves alone is independently predictive of adverse cardiovascular events

Size-Frequency Distributions along a Latitudinal Gradient in Middle Permian Fusulinoideans

Geographic gradients in body size within and among living species are commonly used to identify controls on the long-term evolution of organism size. However, the persistence of these gradients over evolutionary time remains largely unknown because ancient biogeographic variation in organism size is poorly documented. Middle Permian fusulinoidean foraminifera are ideal for investigating the temporal persistence of geographic gradients in organism size because they were diverse and abundant along a broad range of paleo-latitudes during this interval (∼275–260 million years ago). In this study, we determined the sizes of Middle Permian fusulinoidean fossils from three different paleo-latitudinal zones in order to examine the relationship between the size of foraminifers and regional environment. We recovered the following results: keriothecal fusulinoideans are substantially larger than nonkeriothecal fusulinoideans; fusulinoideans from the equatorial zone are typically larger than those from the north and south transitional zones; neoschwagerinid specimens within a single species are generally larger in the equatorial zone than those in both transitional zones; and the nonkeriothecal fusulinoideans Staffellidae and Schubertellidae have smaller size in the north transitional zone. Fusulinoidean foraminifers differ from most other marine taxa in exhibiting larger sizes closer to the equator, contrary to Bergmann's rule. Meridional variation in seasonality, water temperature, nutrient availability, and carbonate saturation level are all likely to have favored or enabled larger sizes in equatorial regions. Temporal variation in atmospheric oxygen concentrations have been shown to account for temporal variation in fusulinoidean size during Carboniferous and Permian time, but oxygen availability appears unlikely to explain biogeographic variation in fusulinoidean sizes, because dissolved oxygen concentrations in seawater typically increase away from the equator due to declining seawater temperatures. Consequently, our findings highlight the fact that spatial gradients in organism size are not always controlled by the same factors that govern temporal trends within the same clade