Effect of a physical education-based dynamic stretching program on hamstring extensibility in female high-school students

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a dynamic stretching development program followed by a four-week detraining period and maintenance program on hamstring extensibility in a physical education setting. A sample of 108 female high-school students aged 16-17 years from four classes were clustered randomly and assigned to either an experimental or a control group. During physical education sessions, the experimental group students performed a dynamic stretching program twice a week for eight weeks. Subsequently, after a four-week period of detraining, the experimental group students completed a maintenance program twice a week during four weeks. The results of the two-way analysis of variance showed that the physical education-based development program significantly improved students’ hamstring extensibility (p.05), the gains obtained previously were recovered after a four-week maintenance program (p<.001). Hence, a physical education-based dynamic stretching intervention is effective in improving and maintaining hamstring extensibility among female high-school students. However, after four weeks of detraining, students’ flexibility reverts to its baseline levels. These findings could help and guide teachers to design programs that guarantee a feasible and an effective development of flexibility in a physical education setting

¿Cómo cambian los niveles de extensibilidad isquiosural de los estudiantes durante un año académico? Un estudio longitudinal

The main purpose of the present study was to examine the students’ hamstring extensibility levels through an academic year. A sample of 128 11th-grade students from a high school center was assessed by the classic sit-and-reach test in pre-, mid- and post-academic year. The results showed that students’ hamstring extensibility level statistically significantly decreased from pre-academic year (22.1 ± 8.5 cm) to mid- (19.9 ± 8.6 cm; d = -0.26) and post-academic year (18.6 ± 9.3 cm; d = -0.41) (p < 0.001) and from mid-academic year to post-academic year (d = -0.16) (p < 0.001). The results of the McNemar’s test indicated that there was a statistically significant decrease on the proportion of students with normal hamstring extensibility level from pre-academic year to post-academic year (p < 0.05). In conclusion, high-school students lost hamstring extensibility levels during an academic year. As a result of this decrease, the number of students with hamstring extensibility shortening increased by 10.9%. Physical education teachers should implement stretching programs to avoid students’ hamstring extensibility shortening.El objetivo principal del presente estudio fue examinar los niveles de extensibilidad isquiosural de los estudiantes durante un curso académico. Una muestra de 128 estudiantes de 1º de bachillerato de un centro de educación secundaria se evaluó mediante la prueba de classic sit-and-reach al comienzo, mediados y final del curso académico. Los resultados mostraron que el nivel de extensibilidad de isquiosural de los estudiantes disminuyó estadísticamente significativamente desde el comienzo (22,1 ± 8,5 cm) a mediados (19,9 ± 8,6 cm, d = -0,26) y final del año académico (18,6 ± 9,3 cm; d = -0,41) (p < 0,001), y desde mediados al final (d = -0.16) (p < 0,001). Los resultados de la prueba de McNemar indicaron que hubo una disminución estadísticamente significativa en la proporción de estudiantes con un nivel de extensibilidad isquiosural normal desde el comienzo al final del curso académico (p < 0,05). En conclusión, los estudiantes de educación secundaria perdieron niveles de extensibilidad isquiosural durante un curso académico. Como resultado de esta disminución, el número de estudiantes con acortamiento de los músculos isquiosurales aumentó un 10,9%. Los profesores de educación física deberían implementar programas de estiramiento para prevenir el acortamiento de extensibilidad isquiosural de los estudiantes.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Energy optimization of a light projection system for buildings that virtually restores artworks

Published March 2022: Erratum regarding missing Declaration of Competing Interest statements in previously published articles - Part 1 (Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Volume 24, March 2022, Pages e00209). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.daach.2021.e00209; Erratum incluido en el documentoThe need to achieve energy efficiency standards in the lighting systems of buildings makes it necessary to optimize all aspects of them. Here, the development of a light projection system that achieves this goal by studyingand modifying the spectral output, compared to conventional illumination, is described. A lighting system thatestimates the reflectance characteristics of artwork and emits optimized lighting can reduce light absorption. Adamage-minimizing point-by-point light projection system is developed using an optimization algorithm, toimprove the appearance of the surfaces of artworks whose color has faded. In this case, a simulation of an aged oilpainting was made by manipulating the original photograph, which was printed and to which the proposedsystem was applied. The results show that, when the aged printed image is illuminated with the optimized lightsource, it appears indistinguishable from the non-aged oil painting.This research was supported by project RTI2018-097633-A-I00 from the Spanish Ministry funding "Proyectos I + D Retos de Investigación" entitled Photonic restoration applied to cultural heritage: application to Dali's picture "Dos Figuras

¿Cómo cambian los niveles de extensibilidad isquiosural de los estudiantes durante un año académico? Un estudio longitudinal

The main purpose of the present study was to examine the students’ hamstring extensibility levels through an academic year. A sample of 128 11th-grade students from a high school center was assessed by the classic sit-and-reach test in pre-, mid- and post-academic year. The results showed that students’ hamstring extensibility level statistically significantly decreased from pre-academic year (22.1 ± 8.5 cm) to mid- (19.9 ± 8.6 cm; d = -0.26) and post-academic year (18.6 ± 9.3 cm; d = -0.41) (p < 0.001) and from mid-academic year to post-academic year (d = -0.16) (p < 0.001). The results of the McNemar’s test indicated that there was a statistically significant decrease on the proportion of students with normal hamstring extensibility level from pre-academic year to post-academic year (p < 0.05). In conclusion, high-school students lost hamstring extensibility levels during an academic year. As a result of this decrease, the number of students with hamstring extensibility shortening increased by 10.9%. Physical education teachers should implement stretching programs to avoid students’ hamstring extensibility shortening.El objetivo principal del presente estudio fue examinar los niveles de extensibilidad isquiosural de los estudiantes durante un curso académico. Una muestra de 128 estudiantes de 1º de bachillerato de un centro de educación secundaria se evaluó mediante la prueba de classic sit-and-reach al comienzo, mediados y final del curso académico. Los resultados mostraron que el nivel de extensibilidad de isquiosural de los estudiantes disminuyó estadísticamente significativamente desde el comienzo (22,1 ± 8,5 cm) a mediados (19,9 ± 8,6 cm, d = -0,26) y final del año académico (18,6 ± 9,3 cm; d = -0,41) (p < 0,001), y desde mediados al final (d = -0.16) (p < 0,001). Los resultados de la prueba de McNemar indicaron que hubo una disminución estadísticamente significativa en la proporción de estudiantes con un nivel de extensibilidad isquiosural normal desde el comienzo al final del curso académico (p < 0,05). En conclusión, los estudiantes de educación secundaria perdieron niveles de extensibilidad isquiosural durante un curso académico. Como resultado de esta disminución, el número de estudiantes con acortamiento de los músculos isquiosurales aumentó un 10,9%. Los profesores de educación física deberían implementar programas de estiramiento para prevenir el acortamiento de extensibilidad isquiosural de los estudiantes.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Design S-N curves for old Portuguese and French riveted bridges connection based on statistical analyses

Maintenance of ancient road and railway metallic bridges has become a major concern for governmental agencies in the past few decades. Indeed, since the construction of these structures, between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, traffic conditions have evolved, both in weight and frequency. In the purpose to assess the remaining life of old metallic bridges, some critical structural details have been identified and associated to S-N curves in order to be used in damage estimation (using Palmgren-Miner’s rule for cumulative damage, for example). These constructional details are described by design rules of several European and North American standards, such as the Eurocode 3, BS 5400 and AASHTO standards. The particularity of ancient bridges is that hot riveted assemblies, commonly used for their construction, are not represented in most construction standards. Further experiences on the matter by numerous research teams have suggested detail category C71 from the Eurocode 3 as appropriate. In this paper, experimental data from double shear assemblies manufactures from three different metallic ancient bridges is used to identify, through a statistical analysis, the S-N curves that best fit this constructional detail. Portuguese and French puddled iron bridges were considered.The authors of this paper thank the National Society of French Railways and the SciTech - Science and Technology for Competitive and Sustainable Industries, R&D project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000022 cofinanced by Programa Operacional Regional do Norte ("NORTE2020"), through Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) for their collaboration and support during this research works. The authors also acknowledge the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) for the financial support through the post-doctoral grant SFRH/BPD/107825/2015

Colorectal adenomas contain multiple somatic mutations that do not coincide with synchronous adenocarcinoma specimens

We have performed a comparative ultrasequencing study of multiple colorectal lesions obtained simultaneously from four patients. Our data show that benign lesions (adenomatous or hyperplastic polyps) contain a high mutational load. Additionally multiple synchronous colorectal lesions show non overlapping mutational signatures highlighting the degree of heterogeneity between multiple specimens in the same patient. Observations in these cases imply that considering not only the number of mutations but an effective oncogenic combination of mutations can determine the malignant progression of colorectal lesions

Hyperspectral image processing for the identification and quantification of lentiviral particles in fluid samples

Optical spectroscopic techniques have been commonly used to detect the presence of biofilm-forming pathogens (bacteria and fungi) in the agro-food industry. Recently, near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy revealed that it is also possible to detect the presence of viruses in animal and vegetal tissues. Here we report a platform based on visible and NIR (VNIR) hyperspectral imaging for non-contact, reagent free detection and quantification of laboratory-engineered viral particles in fluid samples (liquid droplets and dry residue) using both partial least square-discriminant analysis and artificial feed-forward neural networks. The detection was successfully achieved in preparations of phosphate buffered solution and artificial saliva, with an equivalent pixel volume of 4 nL and lowest concentration of 800 TU.mu L-1. This method constitutes an innovative approach that could be potentially used at point of care for rapid mass screening of viral infectious diseases and monitoring of the SARS-CoV- 2 pandemic.This research was funded by grants number COV20-00080 and COV20-00173 of the 2020 Emergency Call for Research Projects about the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the COVID-19 disease of the Institute of Health 'Carlos III', Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and by grant number EQC2019-006240-P of the 2019 Call for Acquisition of Scientific Equipment, FEDER Program, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. This work has been supported by the European Commission through the JRC HUMAINT project. ABR was supported by grant number RTI2018-094465-J funded by the Spanish National Agency of Research. The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the members of the EOD-CBRN Group of the Spanish National Police, whose identities cannot be disclosed, and who are represented here by JMNG. Authors thank continuous support from their institutions

Diet quality index as a predictor of treatment efficacy in overweight and obese adolescents: The EVASYON study

Background & aim: A diet quality index (DQI) is a tool that provides an overall score of an individual''s dietary intake when assessing compliance with food-based dietary guidelines. A number of DQIs have emerged, albeit their associations with health-related outcomes are debated. The aim of the present study was to assess whether adherence to dietary intervention, and the overall quality of the diet, can predict body composition changes. Methods: To this purpose, overweight/obese adolescents (n = 117, aged: 13–16 years; 51 males, 66 females) were recruited into a multi-component (diet, physical activity and psychological support) family-based group treatment programme. We measured the adolescents’ compliance and body composition at baseline and after 2 months (intensive phase) and 13 months (extensive phase) of follow-up. Also, at baseline, after 6 months, and at the end of follow-up we calculated the DQI. Results: Global compliance with the dietary intervention was 37.4% during the intensive phase, and 14.3% during the extensive phase. Physical activity compliance was 94.1% at 2-months and 34.7% at 13months and psychological support compliance were growing over the intervention period (10.3% intensive phase and 45.3% during extensive phase). Adolescents complying with the meal frequency criteria at the end of the extensive phase had greater reductions in FMI z-scores than those did not complying (Cohen''s d = 0.53). A statistically significant association was observed with the diet quality index. DQI-A variation explained 98.1% of BMI z-score changes and 95.1% of FMI changes. Conclusions: We conclude that assessment of changes in diet quality could be a useful tool in predicting body composition changes in obese adolescents involved in a diet and physical activity intervention programme backed-up by psychological and family support

Identification of O-mannosylated Virulence Factors in Ustilago maydis

The O-mannosyltransferase Pmt4 has emerged as crucial for fungal virulence in the animal pathogens Candida albicans or Cryptococcus neoformans as well as in the phytopathogenic fungus Ustilago maydis. Pmt4 O-mannosylates specific target proteins at the Endoplasmic Reticulum. Therefore a deficient O-mannosylation of these target proteins must be responsible for the loss of pathogenicity in pmt4 mutants. Taking advantage of the characteristics described for Pmt4 substrates in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we performed a proteome-wide bioinformatic approach to identify putative Pmt4 targets in the corn smut fungus U. maydis and validated Pmt4-mediated glycosylation of candidate proteins by electrophoretic mobility shift assays. We found that the signalling mucin Msb2, which regulates appressorium differentiation upstream of the pathogenicity-related MAP kinase cascade, is O-mannosylated by Pmt4. The epistatic relationship of pmt4 and msb2 showed that both are likely to act in the same pathway. Furthermore, constitutive activation of the MAP kinase cascade restored appressorium development in pmt4 mutants, suggesting that during the initial phase of infection the failure to O-mannosylate Msb2 is responsible for the virulence defect of pmt4 mutants. On the other hand we demonstrate that during later stages of pathogenic development Pmt4 affects virulence independently of Msb2, probably by modifying secreted effector proteins. Pit1, a protein required for fungal spreading inside the infected leaf, was also identified as a Pmt4 target. Thus, O-mannosylation of different target proteins affects various stages of pathogenic development in U. maydis

7th Drug hypersensitivity meeting: part two

No abstract availabl