Muscular Activity of the Posterior Deltoid During Swimming vs. Resistance Exercises on Water and Dry Land

The purpose of this study was to compare muscular activity of the posterior deltoid muscle during three typical aquatic physical conditioning activities. This interpretative case study involved a 23 year old elite swimmer and athlete. Muscular activity was measured with surface electromyography during swimming crawl at maximum speed, and also while performing horizontal shoulder abduction using elastic band and Hydro-Tone Bells resistance. During the maximum voluntary contraction, we observed what appeared to be meaningful differences between the percentage of muscular activation during the swimming activity and that observed during the elastic band and aquatic resistance exercises (18.72% vs. 74.84% and 65.46%, respectively). No meaningful differences were observed between the percentage of muscular activation for the elastic band and aquatic resistance exercises. Resistance exercises, both in and out of the water, produce more muscle activation and may be more efficient for improving muscular strength than sprint crawl swimming

Neutrino Phenomenology, Dark Energy and Leptogenesis from pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone Bosons

We consider a model of dynamical neutrino masses via the see-saw mechanism. Nambu-Goldstone bosons (majorons) arise associated with the formation of the heavy right-handed majorana masses. These bosons then acquire naturally soft masses (become pNGB's) at loop level via the Higgs-Yukawa mass terms. These models, like the original neutrino pNGB quintessence schemes of the 1980's that proceed through the Dirac masses, are natural, have cosmological implications through mass varying neutrinos, long range forces, and provide a soft potential for dark energy. We further argue that these models can explain leptogenesis naturally through the decays of the right-handed neutrinos.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure

Use of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs That Elevate Cardiovascular Risk: An Examination of Sales and Essential Medicines Lists in Low-, Middle-, and High-Income Countries

PMCID: PMC3570554This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

New strategies in proprioception’s analysis for newer theories about sensorimotor control

[EN] Human’s motion and its mechanisms had become interesting in the last years, where the medecine’s field search for rehabilitation methods for handicapped persons. Other fields, like sport sciences, professional or military world, search to distinguish profiles and ways to train them with specific purposes. Besides, recent findings in neuroscience try to describe these mechanisms from an organic point of view. Until now, different researchs had given a model about control motor that describes how the union between the senses’s information allows adaptable movements. One of this sense is the proprioception, the sense which has a quite big factor in the orientation and position of the body, its members and joints. For this reason, research for new strategies to explore proprioception and improve the theories of human motion could be done by three different vias. At first, the sense is analysed in a case-study where three groups of persons are compared in a controlled enviroment with three experimental tasks. The subjects belong to each group by the kind of sport they do: sedentary, normal sportsmen (e.g. athletics, swimming) and martial sportmen (e.g. karate, judo). They are compared thinking about the following hypothesis: “Martial Sportmen have a better proprioception than of the other groups’s subjects: It could be due to the type of exercises they do in their sports as empirically, a contact sportsman shows significantly superior motor skills to the members of the other two groups. The second via are records from encephalogram (EEG) while the experimental tasks are doing. These records are analised a posteriori with a set of processing algorithms to extract characteristics about brain’s activity of the proprioception and motion control. Finally , the study tries to integrate graphic tools to make easy to understand final scientific results which allow us to explore the brain activity of the subjects through easy interfaces (e.g. space-time events, activity intensity, connectivity, specific neural netwoks or anormal activity). In the future, this application could be a complement to assist doctors, researchers, sports center specialists and anyone who must improve the health and movements of handicapped persons.[ES] Existe un creciente interés sobre la motricidad humana y sus mecanismos en los últimos años, donde el campo de la medicina investiga métodos de rehabilitación para personas con movilidad reducida. Otros campos, como las ciencias del deporte, el mundo profesional o el militar, buscan discriminar entre perfiles y entrenarlos con fines específico. Además, recientes hallazgos en neurociencia intentan analizar estos mecanismos desde un punto de vista orgánico. Hasta ahora, diferentes investigaciones han conducido a un modelo del control sensorimotor, que describe cómo la interacción entre las diferentes vías sensoriales permite la motricidad adaptativa. En este campo, la propiocepción, que se define como el sentido de la orientación y posición del cuerpo, de sus partes y de las articulaciones que las unen, ha adquirido un papel relevante. Por esta razón, la búsqueda de nuevas estrategias para explorar la propiocepción y mejorar las teorías de la moción humana es abordada por tres vías distintas. La primera de ellas analiza la propiocepción en un caso estudio, en el que tres grupos de participantes son comparados en un entorno controlado de tres protocolos experimentales. Los tres grupos se distinguen por su entrenamiento deportivo: sedentarios, deportistas de carácter general (e.g. atletismo, natación) y deportistas marciales (e.g. karate, judo). La hipótesis de la comparación es “Los deportistas marciales tienen una mejor propiocepción que los otros dos grupos, lo cual se debe al tipo de deporte que practican, o porque la gente con mejores habilidades terminan practicando dichos deportes”. La segunda aproximación son capturas de señales de electroencefalograma (EEG) mientras los sujetos ejecutan las tareas experimentales. Los resultados obtenidos son analizados a posteriori con diferentes algoritmos de procesado para extraer parámetros de la actividad nerviosa asociada a la propiocepción y al control motor. Por último, el estudio intenta integrar herramientas gráficas que faciliten entender los resultados científicos y explorar la actividad cerebral a través de interfaces intuitivas (e.g. eventos espacio-temporales, intensidad de la actividad, conectividad, rutas neuronales específicas o actividad anormal). En el futuro, está aplicación podría ser un complemento para médicos, investigadores, asesores en centros deportivos de alto rendimiento o cualquier otro profesional que deba mejorar la salud y la movilidad para personas discapacitadas.Muñoz Rodriguez, D.; Santiago Praderas, VM.; Garcia Casado, FJ.; Garcia Masso, X.; González García, E.; Dunai Dunai, L. (2017). New strategies in proprioception’s analysis for newer theories about sensorimotor control. En Systems & Design: From Theory to Product. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 99-120. https://doi.org/10.4995/SD2017.2017.6903OCS9912

Effects of an incremental maximal endurance exercise stress-induced cortisol on cognitive performance

Objectives: It can be hypothesized that cognitive performance decreases after fatigue protocol when it coincides with the maximum peak of cortisol. The first aim of this study was to elucidate the effects of a single bout of high intensity exercise on behavioural (i.e., attention and memory) and physiological (i.e., salivary cortisol) responses. The second objective was to evaluate the effect of the performance of the cognitive tasks on cortisol levels. Methods: Thirty-four physically active men (at least 5 days/week of physical activity practice) 38.11 (1.57) years old completed a maximal incremental protocol on a treadmill by running until they reached a state of stress. Salivary cortisol and cognitive functions were evaluated in counterbalanced order prior and following exercise-induced stress. Results: Results showed lower cortisol levels before exercise and higher cortisol values before the cognitive task. Indeed, exercise-induced stress had only a detrimental effect on attention without any impact on declarative memory and finding improvements on working memory performance. Conclusion: The effects of stress on cognitive performance depending on the main brain areas responsible of cognitive functions (i.e., prefrontal cortex and hippocampus) and time elapsed between the cessation of exercise and the evaluation of these

Achievement of treatment goals for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in clinical practice across Europe: the EURIKA study

Aims: Most studies on the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) have been limited to patients at high CVD risk. We assessed the achievement of treatment goals for CVD risk factors among patients with a substantial variation in CVD risk. Methods and results: This study was conducted with 7641 outpatients aged ≥50 years, free of clinical CVD and with at least one major CVD risk factor, selected from 12 European countries in 2009. Risk factor definition and treatment goals were based on the 2007 European guidelines on CVD prevention. Cholesterol fractions and glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) were measured in a central laboratory. Cardiovascular disease risk was estimated with the SCORE equation. Patients' mean age was 63 years (48% men), and 40.1% had a high CVD risk. Among treated hypertensives (94.2%), only 38.8% achieved the blood pressure target of <140/90 mmHg [between-country range (BCR): 32.1–47.5%]. Among treated dyslipidaemic patients (74.4%), 41.2% attained both the total- and LDL-cholesterol target of <5 and <3 mmol/L, respectively (BCR: 24.3–68.4%). Among treated type 2 diabetic patients (87.2%), 36.7% achieved the <6.5% HbA1c target (BCR: 23.4–48.4%). Among obese patients on non-pharmacological treatment (92.2%), 24.7% reached the body mass index target of <30 kg/m2 (BCR: 12.7–37.1%). About one-third of controlled patients on treatment were still at high remaining CVD risk. Although most patients were advised to reduce excess weight and to follow a low-calorie diet, less than half received written recommendations. Conclusions: In Europe, a large proportion of patients in primary prevention have CVD risk factors that remain uncontrolled, and lifestyle counselling is not well implemented; moreover, there is substantial between-country variation, which indicates additional room for improvement. Raised residual CVD risk is relatively frequent among patients despite control of their primary risk factors and should be addressed

Choosing and using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in haemophilia

The management of pain and inflammation in haemophilic arthropathy is challenging due to the lack of anti-inflammatory analgesic agents perfectly suitable for this population. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are widely used in the management of arthritis due to their analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects. Their use in persons with haemophilia (PWH), however, is limited due to increased risk of bleeding mainly from the upper gastrointestinal (UGI) tract. Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) selective NSAIDs which have comparable analgesic effect to traditional NSAIDs (tNSAIDs) but with less UGI bleeding have been considered to be a suitable option for treatment of haemophilic arthropathy. COX-2 inhibitors, however, have an increased in the risk of cardiovascular (CV) disease. Although the atherosclerotic burden in PWH is similar to that in the general population, the risk of CV-related deaths is lower. PWH have a higher risk of GI bleeding and lower risk of thrombotic disease compared to general population. Therefore, when PWH require anti-inflammatory/analgesic agents, it seems reasonable to use lowest dose of COX-2 inhibitors for the shortest period together with a proton pump inhibitor. Helicobacter pylori infection should be tested for and eradicated prior to starting NSAID treatment in PWH. Furthermore, regular blood pressure and renal function test monitoring is required during COX-2 inhibitor treatment

Prototype ATLAS IBL Modules using the FE-I4A Front-End Readout Chip

The ATLAS Collaboration will upgrade its semiconductor pixel tracking detector with a new Insertable B-layer (IBL) between the existing pixel detector and the vacuum pipe of the Large Hadron Collider. The extreme operating conditions at this location have necessitated the development of new radiation hard pixel sensor technologies and a new front-end readout chip, called the FE-I4. Planar pixel sensors and 3D pixel sensors have been investigated to equip this new pixel layer, and prototype modules using the FE-I4A have been fabricated and characterized using 120 GeV pions at the CERN SPS and 4 GeV positrons at DESY, before and after module irradiation. Beam test results are presented, including charge collection efficiency, tracking efficiency and charge sharing.Comment: 45 pages, 30 figures, submitted to JINS

First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto- noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far