LOWER AND UPPER EXTREMITY COORDINATION PARAMETERS DURING THE FENCING LUNGE

The fencing lunge executed by a combined action of leg extension and stretching of the arm on the weapon side is one of the most important motion elements of this sport. The lunge is most often used to attack the opponent, hitting the opponent as quickly as possible, and ending by scoring a hit. The translational motion of the weapon during the fencing lunge is determined by muscular properties of the athlete in the force-time domain and by coordination of the actions of the lower and upper extremities. Neglecting the influences of reaction time and without considering special fighting situations this study focused on the description of the linear and angular velocities of different points and body angles, (e.g., weapon, arm, hip, elbow, knee) in order to estimate the reproducibility of the actions. A test situation was created in the same way as this is done in the fencer’s training. Investigations were carried out with a group of highly skilled female fencers. The kinematics of the relevant body points were obtained using an electro-optical system (SELSPOT II), which delivered the three-dimensional coordinates of all points needed in the research analysis. The quantitative results showed a high reproducibility of the different parameters for each test person - the shape of the curves varying from subject to subject. As a conclusion, it can be confirmed that even in fencing higher-level athletes perform their motions with a high degree of precision, using their own individual performance schemes

ETS-1 oncoprotein expression is decreased in aggressive papillary transitional cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder: An immunohistochemical study

Introduction: ETS-1 proto-oncogene is a transcription factor that plays multiple roles in the process of oncogenesis and helps in the process of tumor invasion. ETS-1 oncoprotein correlation with high grade and invasive tumors is controversial; as it is found to be upregulated with some tumors and down regulated with others. Expression of ETS-1 in urinary bladder carcinoma (UBC) and its correlation with tumor differentiation and invasiveness are still under-investigated. So far, there is no reliable prognostic marker has been proved for detection of the tumor progression and recurrence.Objectives: To analyze the correlation between ETS-1 oncoprotein immunohistochemical expression and the different stages and grades of the primary papillary transitional cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder.Patients and methods: This is a retrospective cross sectional study that included archival material from 150 cancer cases and 24 control biopsies.Results: There was a decreased ETS-1 oncoprotein expression with increasing stage and grade of the tumor with a highly significant statistical correlation (P = 0.001). With the quantitative assessment of the immunohistochemical results and using ROC (receiver operating characteristics) curve, cut-off values were found, that were associated with high grade and muscle invasive tumors (≤30% and ≤20%, respectively).Conclusion: ETS-1 oncoprotein is down regulated with high grade and highly invasive urinary bladder papillary transitional cell carcinomas. This oncoprotein may be used as an independent prognostic marker to predict the aggressive papillary transitional carcinomas with high invasive potential. More studies are needed to confirm our results.Keywords: Papillary transitional cell carcinoma; ETS-1; Prognostic marker; Immunohistochemical; Stage; Grad

Q7-branes and their coupling to IIB supergravity

We show how, by making use of a new basis of the IIB supergravity axion-dilaton coset, SL(2,R)/SO(2), 7-branes that belong to different conjugacy classes of the duality group SL(2,R) naturally couple to IIB supergravity with appropriate source terms characterized by an SL(2,R) charge matrix Q. The conjugacy classes are determined by the value of the determinant of Q. The (p,q) 7-branes are the branes in the conjugacy class detQ = 0. The 7-branes in the conjugacy class detQ > 0 are labelled by three numbers (p,q,r) which parameterize the matrix Q and will be called Q7-branes. We construct the full bosonic Wess--Zumino term for the Q7-branes. In order to realize a gauge invariant coupling of the Q7-brane to the gauge fields of IIB supergravity it is necessary to introduce an SL(2,R) doublet of two distinct Born--Infeld fields on the Q7-brane world-volume.Comment: 31 pages, Latex fil

PAH concentrations and exposure assessment from house dust retained in air-conditioning filters collected from Greater Doha, Qatar

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) bound in dust retained in air-conditioning unit filters from 13 households in Greater Doha, Qatar, were quantified using GC–MS spectrometry. The median concentrations of ∑16PAH and ∑7PAH were 218.0 ng g−1 (± 125.3) and 112.1 ng g−1 (± 60.2) dry weight, respectively. Results show that except one sample, three- and four-benzene-ring PAHs were dominant in all dust samples. Phenanthrene, anthracene, pyrene, benzene(a)anthracene, and chrysene were dominant in 12 samples with maximum concentrations of 69.7 ng g−1 (± 24.0), 92.9 ng g−1 (± 28.1), 60.4 ng g−1 (± 14.7), 38.6 ng g−1 (± 7.3), and 14.7 ng g−1 (± 3.5), respectively. Benzo(k)fluoranthene has the most abundance of the quantified PAHs in the dust samples accounting for 19% of the total PAHs. Although Kriging interpolation shows a spatial variation of PAHs from north to south of Greater Doha, the mean concentrations in both directions were statically insignificant. Five samples displayed levels of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) with maximum and median concentrations at 110.8 ng g−1 and 49.9 (± 28.4) dry weight, respectively. Benzo(a)pyrene equivalent approach (BaPE) was applied to assess carcinogenic exposure, and the resulting values (1.3–116.4 ng g−1) indicate that the levels observed were below the values reported for other countries within the region. Estimated daily ingestion (EDI) rates of PAHs retained in ACU filters were assessed for five age-groups  19 years and were 0.39 (± 0.1), 0.33 (± 0.1), 0.20 (± 0.02), 0.07 (± 0.02), and 0.05 (± 0.01) ng kg−1/day, respectively. Source apportionment estimate indicates PAHs bound in dust retained in ACU filters are originated from pyrogenic sources.Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library. We acknowledge QNRF for their continued financial support of NPRP8-202-3-043. We are grateful to the technical staff and management of the chemical analysis laboratory at the Environmental Science Center and Prof Hamad Al Kawari and Mrs., Hajer Al Niami for their support during analysis. Our thanks also go to Mr. Mazen Al Asali and Mrs. Noora Al Shamary for their assistance in the sample analysis. We also are thankful to the families of residents for their participation. Our thanks go to Dr. Jeff Obbard for his support and encouragement in formulating this research. Finally, we are ever grateful to Mark Chatting for his time in reviewing the English language of this article

Kappa-symmetry for coincident D-branes

A kappa-symmetric action for coincident D-branes is presented. It is valid in the approximation that the additional fermionic variables, used to incorporate the non-abelian degrees of freedom, are treated classically. The action is written as a Bernstein-Leites integral on the supermanifold obtained from the bosonic worldvolume by adjoining the extra fermions. The integrand is a very simple extension of the usual Green-Schwarz action for a single brane; all symmetries, except for kappa, are manifest, and the proof of kappa-symmetry is very similar to the abelian case.Comment: 18 pages. References adde

Influence of high-dose gamma radiation and particle size on antioxidant properties of Maize ( Zea mays L.) flour

ABSTRACT Influence of high-dose gamma radiation and particle size on antioxidant properties of maize (Zea mays L.) flour was studied using response surface methodology. A central composite design based on three levels of each of particle size, in terms of mesh number (40, 60 and 80 meshes), and gamma radiation dose (25, 50 and 75 kGy) was constructed. A statistically significant dose-dependent decrease (p<0.05) in antioxidant properties of gamma irradiated flour was observed. However, an increase in the mesh number (decrease in particle size of flour) resulted in an increase in antioxidant properties. The optimum level of radiation dose to achieve maximum value of responses was found to be 50 kGy for Trolox equivalent total antioxidant activity (TETAOA), 25 kGy for iron chelating ability (ICA), 25 kGy for reducing power (RP) and 75 kGy for linoleic acid reduction capacity (LARC). However, the optimum level of mesh number to achieve desired levels of TETAOA, ICA, RP and LARC was found to be 80 meshes

Reheating from Tachyon Condensation

We argue that it may be possible to reheat the universe after inflation driven by D-brane annihilation, due to the coupling of massless fields to the time-dependent tachyon condensate which describes the annihilation process. This mechanism can work if the original branes annihilate to a stable brane containing the standard model. Given reasonable assumptions about the shape of the tachyon background configuration and the size of the relevant extra dimension, the reheating can be efficient enough to overcome the problem of the universe being perpetually dominated by cold dark tachyon matter. In particular, reheating is most efficient when the final brane codimension is large, and when the derivatives of the tachyon background are large.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures; corrected discussion of kink-antikink formatio

CD300lf is the primary physiologic receptor of murine norovirus but not human norovirus

Murine norovirus (MNoV) is an important model of human norovirus (HNoV) and mucosal virus infection more broadly. Viral receptor utilization is a major determinant of cell tropism, host range, and pathogenesis. The bona fide receptor for HNoV is unknown. Recently, we identified CD300lf as a proteinaceous receptor for MNoV. Interestingly, its paralogue CD300ld was also sufficient for MNoV infection in vitro. Here we explored whether CD300lf is the sole physiologic receptor in vivo and whether HNoV can use a CD300 ortholog as an entry receptor. We report that both CD300ld and CD300lf are sufficient for infection by diverse MNoV strains in vitro. We further demonstrate that CD300lf is essential for both oral and parenteral MNoV infection and to elicit anti-MNoV humoral responses in vivo. In mice deficient in STAT1 signaling, CD300lf is required for MNoV-induced lethality. Finally, we demonstrate that human CD300lf (huCD300lf) is not essential for HNoV infection, nor does huCD300lf inhibit binding of HNoV virus-like particles to glycans. Thus, we report huCD300lf is not a receptor for HNoV

Dietary acrylamide and the risk of pancreatic cancer in the International Pancreatic Cancer Case-Control Consortium (PanC4)

Occupational exposure to acrylamide was associated with excess mortality from pancreatic cancer, though in the absence of dose-risk relationship. Few epidemiological studies have examined the association between acrylamide from diet and pancreatic cancer risk