Effects of Resistance Training in Muscle Mass and Markers of Muscle Damage in Adults with Down Syndrome

Recent studies have emphasized that regular exercise should be encouraged as a key part of care and support for people with Down syndrome (DS). However, muscle hypotonia has traditionally been considered a major barrier to resistance training (RT) in people with DS. The main objective of this study was to analyze the impact of circuit RT on markers of muscle damage. The secondary objective was to assess the influence of a RT program on body composition and work task performance. Thirty-six men with DS were recruited and randomly assigned to perform a circuit RT program with six stations 3 days/week for 12 weeks (n = 18) or to a control group (n = 18). Body composition was assessed by bioelectrical impedance analysis. Serum markers of muscle damage (creatine kinase, myoglobin, and lactate dehydrogenase) were determined at baseline and at the end of training weeks 1, 6, and 12. Work task performance was assessed using the weighted pail-carry test. RT did not induce significant changes in markers of muscle damage during the intervention. Furthermore, muscle mass and work task performance were significantly improved in the exercise group. These findings suggest that circuit RT can be used safely to increase muscle mass and work task performance in young adults with DS. Muscle hypotonia should not be considered a major barrier to exercise in people with DS, provided that qualified staff design and supervise all training sessions

Workflow-based data parallel applications on the EGEE production grid infrastructure

articleInternational audienceSetting up and deploying complex applications on a grid infrastructure is still challenging and the programming models are rapidly evolving. Efficiently exploiting grid parallelism is often not straight forward. In this paper, we report on the techniques used for deploying applications on the EGEE production grid through four experiments coming from completely different scientific areas: nuclear fusion, astrophysics and medical imaging. These applications have in common the need for manipulating huge amounts of data and all are computationally intensive. All the cases studied show that the deployment of data intensive applications require the development of more or less elaborated application-level workload management systems on top of the gLite middleware to efficiently exploit the EGEE grid resources. In particular, the adoption of high level workflow management systems eases the integration of large scale applications while exploiting grid parallelism transparently. Different approaches for scientific workflow management are discussed. The MOTEUR workflow manager strategy to efficiently deal with complex data flows is more particularly detailed. Without requiring specific application development, it leads to very significant speed-ups

Elaboración de material docente para la enseñanza de la exploración física del caballo

El objetivo principal del presente proyecto fue incorporar una serie de recursos educativos virtuales que facilitaran e implementaran la enseñanza de la exploración física del caballo

Overview of recent TJ-II stellarator results

The main results obtained in the TJ-II stellarator in the last two years are reported. The most important topics investigated have been modelling and validation of impurity transport, validation of gyrokinetic simulations, turbulence characterisation, effect of magnetic configuration on transport, fuelling with pellet injection, fast particles and liquid metal plasma facing components. As regards impurity transport research, a number of working lines exploring several recently discovered effects have been developed: the effect of tangential drifts on stellarator neoclassical transport, the impurity flux driven by electric fields tangent to magnetic surfaces and attempts of experimental validation with Doppler reflectometry of the variation of the radial electric field on the flux surface. Concerning gyrokinetic simulations, two validation activities have been performed, the comparison with measurements of zonal flow relaxation in pellet-induced fast transients and the comparison with experimental poloidal variation of fluctuations amplitude. The impact of radial electric fields on turbulence spreading in the edge and scrape-off layer has been also experimentally characterized using a 2D Langmuir probe array. Another remarkable piece of work has been the investigation of the radial propagation of small temperature perturbations using transfer entropy. Research on the physics and modelling of plasma core fuelling with pellet and tracer-encapsulated solid-pellet injection has produced also relevant results. Neutral beam injection driven Alfvénic activity and its possible control by electron cyclotron current drive has been examined as well in TJ-II. Finally, recent results on alternative plasma facing components based on liquid metals are also presentedThis work has been carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion Consortium and has received funding from the Euratom research and training programme 2014–2018 under Grant Agreement No. 633053. It has been partially funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Inovación y Universidades of Spain under projects ENE2013-48109-P, ENE2015-70142-P and FIS2017-88892-P. It has also received funds from the Spanish Government via mobility grant PRX17/00425. The authors thankfully acknowledge the computer resources at MareNostrum and the technical support provided by the Barcelona S.C. It has been supported as well by The Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU), Project P-507F

Resonant Ion Confinement Fusion Concept

Based on the theorized possibilities of resonant ion confinement, for a Deuteron cloud in a Penning-Malmberg trap with a specially configured rotating wall, the opportunity to design a new type of fusion device is prospected. It is proven that, for some trap configurations, nuclear fusion reactions should take place and, in that case, Lawson's criterion for an efficient fusion reactor is met. Furthermore, the reactor could have a compact design and, since it should not require a large facility, it can function as a fusion cell with a pure ion thermal gas

Spectroscopic Constraints on (pseudo-)Scalar Particles from Compact Astrophysical Objects

We propose a new method to search for light (pseudo-)scalar particles in the spectra of compact astrophysical objects such as magnetars, pulsars, and quasars. On accounts of compact astrophysical objects having intense magnetic fields extending over large volumes, they provide good conditions for efficient photon-particle oscillations via the Primakoff process. In particular, we show that if the coupling constant for light (1e-13 [1/GeV] then it is likely that absorption-like features would be detectable in the spectrum of compact astrophysical sources

Simvastatin and Oncolytic Vesicular Stomatitis Virus Actions on HeLa Cells

Statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs, are known to exert pleiotropic actions including anticancer and antiviral effects. The interaction between simvastatin and oncolytic vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), a potential candidate for anticancer therapy, was investigated. HeLa cells in culture were exposed to simvastatin and/or VSV-green fluorescence protein (GFP) at different times and concentrations