EFFECTS OF UPPER EXTREMITY FATIGUE ON BASKETBALL SHOOTING ACCURACY

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of upper extremity fatigue on basketball shooting accuracy. Twenty-four elite male basketball players from 2 teams the top 3 Taiwan High Schools were chosen as subjects. After a warm-up and proper practice, they were asked to shoot from 3 varied distance positions before and after fatigue protocols. The protocols used were the chest press and wrist curls. Results show that the shooting accuracies in different distance positions declined significantly after the chess press protocol, however, there was no significant difference in shooting accuracy after doing the wrist-curls protocol. The results suggested that avoiding shoulder muscle fatigue should keep the shooting accuracy constant and in return helping them win a basketball game

Written and spoken corpus of real and fake social media postings about COVID-19

This study investigates the linguistic traits of fake news and real news. There are two parts to this study: text data and speech data. The text data for this study consisted of 6420 COVID-19 related tweets re-filtered from Patwa et al. (2021). After cleaning, the dataset contained 3049 tweets, with 2161 labeled as 'real' and 888 as 'fake'. The speech data for this study was collected from TikTok, focusing on COVID-19 related videos. Research assistants fact-checked each video's content using credible sources and labeled them as 'Real', 'Fake', or 'Questionable', resulting in a dataset of 91 real entries and 109 fake entries from 200 TikTok videos with a total word count of 53,710 words. The data was analysed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software to detect patterns in linguistic data. The results indicate a set of linguistic features that distinguish fake news from real news in both written and speech data. This offers valuable insights into the role of language in shaping trust, social media interactions, and the propagation of fake news.Comment: 9 pages, 3 table

Chylous mesenteric cyst: A diagnostic dilemma

A mesenteric cyst is defined as a cyst that is located in the mesentery of the gastrointestinal tract and may extend from the base of the mesentery into the retroperito- neum. A case report of a patient with mesenteric cyst is presented. In addition, a systematic review was performed of English language literature on chylous mesenteric cysts in adult hu- mans. Of the 18 articles included in the review, there were 19 cases of chylous mesenteric cysts reported. Male to female ratio was 1.4:1 with a median age of 46 years. A preoperative diagnosis of mesenteric cyst was made in four patients based on computed to- mography. All patients underwent surgery and there were no reports of recurrence on follow up. Chylous mesenteric cyst is a rare entity that needs to be recognized whenever a prelimi- nary diagnosis of intra-abdominal cystic mass is made

Pcdp1 is a central apparatus protein that binds Ca2+-calmodulin and regulates ciliary motility

A complex that localizes to the C1d central pair projection of cilia controls flagellar waveform and beat frequency in response to calcium

The association of health literacy with adherence in older 2 adults, and its role in interventions: a systematic meta-review

Background: Low health literacy is a common problem among older adults. It is often suggested to be associated with poor adherence. This suggested association implies a need for effective adherence interventions in low health literate people. However, previous reviews show mixed results on the association between low health literacy and poor adherence. A systematic meta-review of systematic reviews was conducted to study the association between health literacy and adherence in adults above the age of 50. Evidence for the effectiveness of adherence interventions among adults in this older age group with low health literacy was also explored. Methods: Eight electronic databases (MEDLINE, ERIC, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, DARE, the Cochrane Library, and Web of Knowledge) were searched using a variety of keywords regarding health literacy and adherence. Additionally, references of identified articles were checked. Systematic reviews were included if they assessed the association between health literacy and adherence or evaluated the effectiveness of interventions to improve adherence in adults with low health literacy. The AMSTAR tool was used to assess the quality of the included reviews. The selection procedure, data-extraction, and quality assessment were performed by two independent reviewers. Seventeen reviews were selected for inclusion. Results: Reviews varied widely in quality. Both reviews of high and low quality found only weak or mixed associations between health literacy and adherence among older adults. Reviews report on seven studies that assess the effectiveness of adherence interventions among low health literate older adults. The results suggest that some adherence interventions are effective for this group. The interventions described in the reviews focused mainly on education and on lowering the health literacy demands of adherence instructions. No conclusions could be drawn about which type of intervention could be most beneficial for this population. Conclusions: Evidence on the association between health literacy and adherence in older adults is relatively weak. Adherence interventions are potentially effective for the vulnerable population of older adults with low levels of health literacy, but the evidence on this topic is limited. Further research is needed on the association between health literacy and general health behavior, and on the effectiveness of interventions

The impact of compassion from others and self-compassion on psychological distress, flourishing, and meaning in life among university students

Objectives: Research shows that compassion from others and from the self may enable university students to face, overcome, and bounce back from adversity and generate a greater sense of thriving and meaning in life. However, the underlying processes are largely unknown. The present study aimed to examine the associations of compassion with psychological distress, flourishing, and meaning in life among university students and explore the mechanisms underlying these associations. Methods: A total of 536 Hong Kong university students completed questionnaires measuring their experiences of compassion from others, self-compassion, resilience, psychological distress, flourishing, and meaning in life. Results: Serial mediation analyses showed that compassion from others was associated positively with self-compassion, which was, in turn, linked to greater resilience and consequently lower levels of psychological distress and higher levels of flourishing and meaning in life. Conclusions: Our findings reveal the associations of compassion from others and self-compassion with the well-being and life meaning of university students. The findings highlight the importance of being open and receptive to love and kindness from others. The findings also point to the importance of developing a caring attitude toward oneself

Regulation of High-Temperature Stress Response by Small RNAs

Temperature extremes constitute one of the most common environmental stresses that adversely affect the growth and development of plants. Transcriptional regulation of temperature stress responses, particularly involving protein-coding gene networks, has been intensively studied in recent years. High-throughput sequencing technologies enabled the detection of a great number of small RNAs that have been found to change during and following temperature stress. The precise molecular action of some of these has been elucidated in detail. In the present chapter, we summarize the current understanding of small RNA-mediated modulation of high- temperature stress-regulatory pathways including basal stress responses, acclimation, and thermo-memory. We gather evidence that suggests that small RNA network changes, involving multiple upregulated and downregulated small RNAs, balance the trade-off between growth/development and stress responses, in order to ensure successful adaptation. We highlight specific characteristics of small RNA-based tem- perature stress regulation in crop plants. Finally, we explore the perspectives of the use of small RNAs in breeding to improve stress tolerance, which may be relevant for agriculture in the near future

SEPTIN12 Genetic Variants Confer Susceptibility to Teratozoospermia

It is estimated that 10–15% of couples are infertile and male factors account for about half of these cases. With the advent of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), many infertile men have been able to father offspring. However, teratozoospermia still remains a big challenge to tackle. Septins belong to a family of cytoskeletal proteins with GTPase activity and are involved in various biological processes e.g. morphogenesis, compartmentalization, apoptosis and cytokinesis. SEPTIN12, identified by c-DNA microarray analysis of infertile men, is exclusively expressed in the post meiotic male germ cells. Septin12+/+/Septin12+/− chimeric mice have multiple reproductive defects including the presence of immature sperm in the semen, and sperm with bent neck (defect of the annulus) and nuclear DNA damage. These facts make SEPTIN12 a potential sterile gene in humans. In this study, we sequenced the entire coding region of SEPTIN12 in infertile men (n = 160) and fertile controls (n = 200) and identified ten variants. Among them is the c.474 G>A variant within exon 5 that encodes part of the GTP binding domain. The variant creates a novel splice donor site that causes skipping of a portion of exon 5, resulting in a truncated protein lacking the C-terminal half of SEPTIN12. Most individuals homozygous for the c.474 A allele had teratozoospermia (abnormal sperm <14%) and their sperm showed bent tail and de-condensed nucleus with significant DNA damage. Ex vivo experiment showed truncated SEPT12 inhibits filament formation in a dose-dependent manner. This study provides the first causal link between SEPTIN12 genetic variant and male infertility with distinctive sperm pathology. Our finding also suggests vital roles of SEPT12 in sperm nuclear integrity and tail development