The incidence, cost, and burden of concussion in women’s rugby league and rugby union: A systematic review and pooled analysis

Background: The extent of concussion injury in the rugby codes for women is unclear. Objective: Our aim was to review all published studies reporting concussion injuries from match and training participation in rugby codes and report the pooled data estimates for rugby league and union concussion injury epidemiology. Methods: We conducted a systematic literature analysis of concussion in rugby league and rugby union for published studies from January 1990 to July 2021. Data from 16 studies meeting the inclusion criteria were extracted for women’s concussion injuries and were subsequently pooled. Costs from Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) data were attributed to the results to provide cost estimates. Results: The pooled analysis match injury incidence of women’s concussion was higher for rugby league (10.3 per 1000 match hours) than rugby 15 s (2.8 per 1000 match hours) or rugby 7 s (8.9 per 1000 match hours). There was a fourfold difference in the pooled incidence of concussion in women’s rugby league (risk ratio [RR] 4.53, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.8–11.3]; p = 0.0001) when compared with rugby 15 s. There was also a ninefold higher risk of a concussion during match participation compared with training participation for women’s rugby 15 s (RR 9.3, 95% CI 1.29–66.78; p = 0.0070). The total estimated costs for the concussions reported were NZ$1,235,101. For rugby 7 s, the pooled concussive injury burden was 33.2 days. Conclusions: Our pooled analysis clarified the extent of concussion injury and the possible associated costs at several levels of the game for women’s rugby codes. The pooled mean days lost because of concussions was 33 days. As this was considerably longer than the 7- to 10-day expected timeframe outlined in the Concussion in Sport Consensus statement, these guidelines need to be updated to include sex-specific differences

Date and Rate of Corn Planting

Corn is South Dakota’s most important grain crop. It is grown on 4 million acres annually. South Dakota ranks ninth among the states as a corn producer, having one-twentieth of the national acreage and one-thirtieth of the production. The state may be divided into three areas on the basis of the place of corn on the farm: the eastern area, where corn is complementary to wheat and grazing; and the western area, where corn is supplementary grazing

Trapping and relocating seals from salmonid fish farms in Tasmania, 1990-2000: was it a success?

In an effort to reduce the impact of seals on fish farms, the trapping and relocation of seals at Tasmanian salmonid farms began in 1990. To the end of May 2000,353 identified individual seals had been trapped in 672 capture events. Most were non-breeding male Australian fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus doriftrus). The number of seals captured increased (from four in 1990 ro a peak of 164 in 1998) with the size and extent of the farms, and an increase in salmon production from 55 tonnes in 1986/87 to almost 10000 tonnes in 1999/2000. Of 586 capture events 52% were of seals that had been captured more than once. When seals are recaptured following trapping and relocation, this occurs on average 25 days after capture. Capture-mark-recapture calculations show that many seals in the vicinity of fish farms are not 'trappable', suggesting that trapping is only effective for certain individuals. Some individuals are recaptured many times, reflecting the predisposition of some individuals to be captured ('trap-happy'). Interaction is seasonal, with most seals trapped during winter, between May and September. The assessment of trends in capture rates is problematic, due to the lack of capture effort information from the farms. A further confounding factor has been the change in management practice both between farms and over time, as the use of predator nets has become more widespread. Two seals trapped at fish farms and fitted with satellite transmitters before relocation have either not returned to the farm or returned to the vicinity of farms and not interacted with them, although on one occasion the individual was trapped. The effectiveness of the relocation program as a management tool to reduce seal interactions cannot be quantified from the relocation data per se, but relocation does not stop seals interacting with farms

Unforgeable Noise-Tolerant Quantum Tokens

The realization of devices which harness the laws of quantum mechanics represents an exciting challenge at the interface of modern technology and fundamental science. An exemplary paragon of the power of such quantum primitives is the concept of "quantum money". A dishonest holder of a quantum bank-note will invariably fail in any forging attempts; indeed, under assumptions of ideal measurements and decoherence-free memories such security is guaranteed by the no-cloning theorem. In any practical situation, however, noise, decoherence and operational imperfections abound. Thus, the development of secure "quantum money"-type primitives capable of tolerating realistic infidelities is of both practical and fundamental importance. Here, we propose a novel class of such protocols and demonstrate their tolerance to noise; moreover, we prove their rigorous security by determining tight fidelity thresholds. Our proposed protocols require only the ability to prepare, store and measure single qubit quantum memories, making their experimental realization accessible with current technologies.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure

Cystic fibrosis mice carrying the missense mutation G551D replicate human genotype phenotype correlations

We have generated a mouse carrying the human G551D mutation in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator gene (CFTR) by a one-step gene targeting procedure. These mutant mice show cystic fibrosis pathology but have a reduced risk of fatal intestinal blockage compared with 'null' mutants, in keeping with the reduced incidence of meconium ileus in G551D patients. The G551D mutant mice show greatly reduced CFTR-related chloride transport, displaying activity intermediate between that of cftr(mlUNC) replacement ('null') and cftr(mlHGU) insertional (residual activity) mutants and equivalent to approximately 4% of wild-type CFTR activity. The long-term survival of these animals should provide an excellent model with which to study cystic fibrosis, and they illustrate the value of mouse models carrying relevant mutations for examining genotype-phenotype correlations

1947 Corn Performance Tests, South Dakota

Each year the Agronomy Department of the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station conducts corn yield trials on commercial hybrids and varieties in order to make available impartial information on the relative performance of the entries included when they are grown at certain selected places in the state. Information includes yielding ability, maturity requirements and other characteristics. Entries in each test are those hybrids which have enjoyed the greatest popularity on the basis of sales\u27 volume during the previous year for the area represented by that test and well known open-pollinated varieties which have been used in that area. The areas represented by the tests are those into which the state might be divided on the basis of soil type, elevation, rainfall and length of growing season

The uneasy heirs of acquaintance

My contribution to the first round of a tetralog with Bill Brewer, Anil Gupta, and John McDowell. Each of us has written a response to the writings of the other three philosophers on the topic "Empirical Reason". My initial contribution focuses on what we know a priori about perception. In the second round, we will each respond to the each writer's first-round contributions

Long-lived qubit memory using atomic ions

We demonstrate experimentally a robust quantum memory using a magnetic-field-independent hyperfine transition in 9Be+ atomic ion qubits at a magnetic field B ~= 0.01194 T. We observe that the single physical qubit memory coherence time is greater than 10 seconds, an improvement of approximately five orders of magnitude from previous experiments with 9Be+. We also observe long coherence times of decoherence-free subspace logical qubits comprising two entangled physical qubits and discuss the merits of each type of qubit.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Benthic Carbon Mineralization and Nutrient Turnover in a Scottish Sea Loch: An Integrative In Situ Study

© 2016, The Author(s). Based on in situ microprofiles, chamber incubations and eddy covariance measurements, we investigated the benthic carbon mineralization and nutrient regeneration in a ~65-m-deep sedimentation basin of Loch Etive, UK. The sediment hosted a considerable amount of infauna that was dominated by the brittle star A. filiformis. The numerous burrows were intensively irrigated enhancing the benthic in situ O2 uptake by ~50 %, and inducing highly variable redox conditions and O2 distribution in the surface sediment as also documented by complementary laboratory-based planar optode measurements. The average benthic O2 exchange as derived by chamber incubations and the eddy covariance approach were similar (14.9 ± 2.5 and 13.1 ± 9.0 mmol m−2 day−1) providing confidence in the two measuring approaches. Moreover, the non-invasive eddy approach revealed a flow-dependent benthic O2 flux that was partly ascribed to enhanced ventilation of infauna burrows during periods of elevated flow rates. The ratio in exchange rates of ΣCO2 and O2 was close to unity, confirming that the O2 uptake was a good proxy for the benthic carbon mineralization in this setting. The infauna activity resulted in highly dynamic redox conditions that presumably facilitated an efficient degradation of both terrestrial and marine-derived organic material. The complex O2 dynamics of the burrow environment also concurrently stimulated nitrification and coupled denitrification rates making the sediment an efficient sink for bioavailable nitrogen. Furthermore, bioturbation mediated a high efflux of dissolved phosphorus and silicate. The study documents a high spatial and temporal variation in benthic solute exchange with important implications for benthic turnover of organic carbon and nutrients. However, more long-term in situ investigations with like approaches are required to fully understand how environmental events and spatio-temporal variations interrelate to the overall biogeochemical functioning of coastal sediments