CINEMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE ANKLE AND SUBTALAR JOINTS RELATED TO MYOELECTMC ACTIVATION PATTERNS IN JUMPING EXERCISES UNDER INCREASE STRETCHING LOADS

The study of the Rear foot mobility around the subtalar joint during running and jumping exercises, has been done since 1978. In epidemiological studies the amount of eversion (pronation) is often related to injuries on the mediolateral muscles an also to Tibialis and Achilles tendons injuries. Same experiments have been made to study the rearfoot mobility considering the action of muscles located around the subtalar and ankle joints. Stacoff et al. (1988) used one mechanical model that included mediolateral muscles, the maximal force of each muscles was considered to be function of is cross sectional area. Studies that integrate both, the cinematic analysis of the rearfoot mobility around the subtalar joint and the determination of EMG activation patterns of the muscles acting on the subtalar joints are uncommon. The purpose of this work is to study the EMG patterns of same of the leg muscles involved in ankle and subtalar movements, during action against the ground, in jumping exercises under increase stretching load, looking for possible relations with the cinematic analysis of subtalar movement during ground contact phase. Five adult elite sprinters performed drop jumps under three load conditions 40cm, 50cm and 70cm. On condition five trials were recorded allowing the use of average techniques. The signals from Force Plate, Knee and Ankle electrogoniometers, and surface EMG, were A/D converted at IOOOHz (Biopac-MP100). The EMGs of Gastrocnemius (GN), Soleus (SOL), Tibialis A. (TA) and Peronis L. (PL) were filtered, fullwave rectified and smoothed. The subjects foot and leg were filmed from behind at 50 framesls. The EMG patterns of extensor muscles under SSC conditions have three functional phases, Preactivation (before touchdown (TD), Reflexive Potenciation 30-100 ms after TD and Voluntary Activation, iEMGs of this phases were calculated. PL SOL and GN act almost simultaneously during ground contact, the a higher preactivation on the GN, could be explained by the higher rate of FastT. fibbers, greater crossectional area and is superficial position. The high level of preactivation on TA appears to be related with anticipation of the forced eversion occurring after touchdown, notice that TA works as extension antagonist. This amount of activation of TA on Touchdown could explain same of the stress related TA tendon injuries

Controlled Drug Delivery and Ophthalmic Applications

The goal of this paper is to present an overview of drug delivery from polymeric therapeutic lens to the anterior segment of the eye. Mathematical models that describe in vitro and in vivo drug delivery, from different types of lens, are presented. Healthy and pathological situations are addressed. Numerical simulations are included and compared with experimental results

A soft origin for CKM-type CP violation

We present a two-Higgs-doublet model, with a \mathbbm{Z}_3 symmetry, in which CP violation originates solely in a soft (dimension-2) coupling in the scalar potential, and reveals itself solely in the CKM (quark mixing) matrix. In particular, in the mass basis the Yukawa interactions of the neutral scalars are all real. The model has only eleven parameters to fit the six quark masses and the four independent CKM-matrix observables. We find regions of parameter space in which the flavour-changing neutral couplings are so suppressed that they allow the scalars to be no heavier than a few hundred GeV.Comment: Included constraints due to oblique parameters and direct LEP searche

Cosmological Tracking Solutions

A substantial fraction of the energy density of the universe may consist of quintessence in the form of a slowly-rolling scalar field. Since the energy density of the scalar field generally decreases more slowly than the matter energy density, it appears that the ratio of the two densities must be set to a special, infinitesimal value in the early universe in order to have the two densities nearly coincide today. Recently, we introduced the notion of tracker fields to avoid this initial conditions problem. In the paper, we address the following questions: What is the general condition to have tracker fields? What is the relation between the matter energy density and the equation-of-state of the universe imposed by tracker solutions? And, can tracker solutions explain why quintessence is becoming important today rather than during the early universe

Anomalous tag diffusion in the asymmetric exclusion model with particles of arbitrary sizes

Anomalous behavior of correlation functions of tagged particles are studied in generalizations of the one dimensional asymmetric exclusion problem. In these generalized models the range of the hard-core interactions are changed and the restriction of relative ordering of the particles is partially brocken. The models probing these effects are those of biased diffusion of particles having size S=0,1,2,..., or an effective negative "size" S=-1,-2,..., in units of lattice space. Our numerical simulations show that irrespective of the range of the hard-core potential, as long some relative ordering of particles are kept, we find suitable sliding-tag correlation functions whose fluctuations growth with time anomalously slow ($t^{{1/3}}$), when compared with the normal diffusive behavior ($t^{{1/2}}$). These results indicate that the critical behavior of these stochastic models are in the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class. Moreover a previous Bethe-ansatz calculation of the dynamical critical exponent $z$, for size $S \geq 0$ particles is extended to the case $S<0$ and the KPZ result $z=3/2$ is predicted for all values of $S \in {Z}$.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Overexpression of adenosine A2A receptors in rats: effects on depression, locomotion, and anxiety

Adenosine A2A receptors (A2AR) are a sub-type of receptors enriched in basal ganglia, activated by the neuromodulator adenosine, which interact with dopamine D2 receptors. Although this reciprocal antagonistic interaction is well-established in motor function, the outcome in dopamine-related behaviors remains uncertain, in particular in depression and anxiety. We have demonstrated an upsurge of A2AR associated to aging and chronic stress. Furthermore, Alzheimer's disease patients present A2AR accumulation in cortical areas together with depressive signs. We now tested the impact of overexpressing A2AR in forebrain neurons on dopamine-related behavior, namely depression. Adult male rats overexpressing human A2AR under the control of CaMKII promoter [Tg(CaMKII-hA2AR)] and aged-matched wild-types (WT) of the same strain (Sprague-Dawley) were studied. The forced swimming test (FST), sucrose preference test (SPT), and the open-field test (OFT) were performed to evaluate behavioral despair, anhedonia, locomotion, and anxiety. Tg(CaMKII-hA2AR) animals spent more time floating and less time swimming in the FST and presented a decreased sucrose preference at 48 h in the SPT. They also covered higher distances in the OFT and spent more time in the central zone than the WT. The results indicate that Tg(CaMKII-hA2AR) rats exhibit depressive-like behavior, hyperlocomotion, and altered exploratory behavior. This A2AR overexpression may explain the depressive signs found in aging, chronic stress, and Alzheimer's disease

MEtop - a generator for single top production via FCNC interactions

We present a generator for single top quark production via flavour-changing neutral currents. The MEtop event generator allows for Next-to-Leading-Order direct top production $pp \to t$ and Leading-Order production of several other single top processes. A few packages with definite sets of dimension six operators are available. We discuss how to improve the bounds on the effective operators and how well new physics can be probed with each set of independent dimension six operators.Comment: 26 pages, 22 figure

Nutritional Evaluation Of Children With Chronic Cholestatic Disease

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)To evaluate the nutritional status of children with persistent cholestasis and to compare the anthropometric indices between children with and without liver cirrhosis and children with and without jaundice. Methods Children with persistent cholestasis, i.e. increased direct bilirrubin or changes in the canalicular enzyme gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), were included. The anthropometric measures were weight (W), height or length (H), arm circumference (AC), triceps skinfold thickness (TST), arm muscle circumference (AMC), and body mass index (BMI). Results Ninety-one children with cholestasis, with current median age of 12 months, were evaluated. W/age (A) and H/A indices below -2 Z-scores were observed in 33% and 30.8% of patients, respectively. Concerning the W/H index and BMI, only 12% and 16% of patients, respectively, were below -2 Z-scores. Regarding AC, 43.8% of 89 evaluated patients had some depletion. Observing the TST, 64% of patients had depletion, and 71.1% of the 45 evaluated patients had some degree of depletion regarding the ACM index. Conclusion Evaluation using weight in patients with chronic liver diseases may overestimate the nutritional status due to visceromegaly, subclinical edema, or ascites. Indices that correlate weight and height, such as W/H and BMI, may also not show depletion because of the chronic condition in which there are depletion of both weight and height. TST, AC, and ACM are parameters that better estimate nutritional status and should be part of the management of patients with liver diseases and cholestasis. © 2015 Sociedade Brasileira de Pediatria.922197205CNPq, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e TecnológicoConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

Markov Chain Monte Carlo Exploration of Minimal Supergravity with Implications for Dark Matter

We explore the full parameter space of Minimal Supergravity (mSUGRA), allowing all four continuous parameters (the scalar mass m_0, the gaugino mass m_1/2, the trilinear coupling A_0, and the ratio of Higgs vacuum expectation values tan beta) to vary freely. We apply current accelerator constraints on sparticle and Higgs masses, and on the b -> s gamma branching ratio, and discuss the impact of the constraints on g_mu-2. To study dark matter, we apply the WMAP constraint on the cold dark matter density. We develop Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques to explore the parameter regions consistent with WMAP, finding them to be considerably superior to previously used methods for exploring supersymmetric parameter spaces. Finally, we study the reach of current and future direct detection experiments in light of the WMAP constraint.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

Quintessence and Gravitational Waves

We investigate some aspects of quintessence models with a non-minimally coupled scalar field and in particular we show that it can behave as a component of matter with $-3 \lesssim P/\rho \lesssim 0$. We study the properties of gravitational waves in this class of models and discuss their energy spectrum and the cosmic microwave background anisotropies they induce. We also show that gravitational waves are damped by the anisotropic stress of the radiation and that their energy spectrum may help to distinguish between inverse power law potential and supergravity motivated potential. We finish by a discussion on the constraints arising from their density parameter \Omega_\GW.Comment: 21 pages, 18 figures, fianl version, accepted for publication in PR