Effect of whole-body vibration training on bone mass in adolescents with and without Down syndrome: a randomized controlled trial

Summary: Whole-body vibration training (WBV) attracts great interest as osteoporosis prevention strategy. Twenty-six adolescents with and without Down syndrome (DS) (13 DS//12–18 years) performed 20 weeks of WBV. The results indicate that WBV seems to provoke a lesser response in adolescents with DS than in those without DS. Introduction: This study aims to observe the differences between adolescents with and without DS in the effects of 20 weeks of WBV training, on bone mineral content (BMC) and density (BMD). Methods: Twenty-six adolescents (13 DS//12–18 years) were measured with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry before and after the intervention (3/week, 10 repetitions (30–60 s) and 1-min rest, frequency 25–30 Hz and peak-to-peak displacement of 2 mm (peak acceleration 2.5–3.6 g)). Both, an intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis designed to assess the effects on bone mass and a per-protocol analysis, designed to compare poor and high compliers, were performed. Results: The ITT analysis revealed significant increases in all BMC and BMD parameters (dz = 0.66 to 1.64//all p < 0.05) in the non-DS group, whilst DS group improved whole-body, subtotal (whole-body less head), upper limbs (ULIMBS), pelvis, lower limbs (LLIMBS) and spine BMC (dz = 0.75 to 1.76//all p < 0.05) and subtotal, pelvis, LLIMBS and spine BMD (dz = 0.73 to 1.28//all p < 0.05). Significantly greater increases were evident in the absolute and percent changes of the non-DS group over DS group (d = 0.88 to 3.85//all p < 0.05). ULIMBS BMD showed a tendency towards an interaction (f = 0.41 and p = 0.086) with higher increase for non-DS group. When a per-protocol analysis was considered, high-complier adolescents had 8.1 versus 5.3 % of gains in the spine BMC over poor-complier adolescents (d = 0.93//p < 0.05). Conclusions: Twenty weeks of WBV training may improve BMC and BMD in clinically relevant skeletal sites in both groups. Nevertheless, this type of training seems to provoke a lesser response in adolescents with DS than in those without DS

Conversion of aqueous ethanol/acetaldehyde mixtures into 1,3-butadiene over a mesostructured Ta-SBA-15 catalyst: Effect of reaction conditions and kinetic modelling

This paper studies key issues for the design of industrial ethanol to 1,3-butadiene two-step processes, focusing on the second catalytic reaction step, for which a Ta-SBA-15 catalyst was chosen as a representative of the new generation of two-step catalysts. The important practical aspects studied were: i) the effect of operating conditions and the presence of impurities (water) in the ethanol feedstock on the performance of the catalyst, ii) stability and regeneration of the catalyst, and iii) the development of a kinetic model that can be used as a tool for designing the industrial process. The results showed that there are large non-linear interacting effects between the reaction conditions (temperature, space velocity and ethanol/acetaldehyde mole ratio) which must be carefully selected to optimize the catalyst performance. When shifting from an anhydrous to an aqueous ethanol/acetaldehyde feed (7.5 wt% water), catalyst performance at high temperature barely changed while at low temperature, conversion of ethanol and acetaldehyde decreased. Water in the feed largely increased the stability of Ta-SBA-15 catalyst. Finally, a kinetic model of a fresh catalyst was developed, whose novelty lies in the use of kinetic equations that account for the effect of water in the feed on the catalyst performance.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad CTQ2015-71427-

Elastin-like-recombinamers multilayered nanofibrous scaffolds for cardiovascular applications

Producción CientíficaCoronary angioplasty is the most widely used technique for removing atherosclerotic plaques in blood vessels. The regeneration of the damaged intima layer after this treatment is still one of the major challenges in the field of cardiovascular tissue engineering. Different polymers have been used in scaffold manufacturing in order to improve tissue regeneration. Elastin-mimetic polymers are a new class of molecules that have been synthesized and used to obtain small diameter fibers with specific morphological characteristics. Elastin-like polymers produced by recombinant techniques and called elastin-like recombinamers (ELRs) are particularly promising due to their high degree of functionalization. Generally speaking, ELRs can show more complex molecular designs and a tighter control of their sequence than other chemically synthetized polymers Rodriguez Cabello et al (2009 Polymer 50 5159–69, 2011 Nanomedicine 6 111–22). For the fabrication of small diameter fibers, different ELRs were dissolved in 2,2,2-fluoroethanol (TFE). Dynamic light scattering was used to identify the transition temperature and get a deep characterization of the transition behavior of the recombinamers. In this work, we describe the use of electrospinning technique for the manufacturing of an elastic fibrous scaffold; the obtained fibers were characterized and their cytocompatibility was tested in vitro. A thorough study of the influence of voltage, flow rate and distance was carried out in order to determine the appropriate parameters to obtain fibrous mats without beads and defects. Moreover, using a rotating mandrel, we fabricated a tubular scaffold in which ELRs containing different cell adhesion sequences (mainly REDV and RGD) were collected. The stability of the scaffold was improved by using genipin as a crosslinking agent. Genipin-ELRs crosslinked scaffolds show a good stability and fiber morphology. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells were used to assess the in vitro bioactivity of the cell adhesion domains within the backbone of the ELRs.2018-08-0

Swimming and bone: Is low bone mass due to hypogravity alone or does other physical activity influence it?

Swimming during adolescence has shown neutral or even negative effects on bone mass. Nevertheless, it is still unknown if these effects are due to swimming or to other factors, such as sedentary behaviors. INTRODUCTION: Three objectives were described (1) to measure objective physical activity (PA) additional to swimming performed by adolescent swimmers (SWI) and compare it to that performed by normo-active controls (CG), (2) to describe the relationship between objectively measured PA and bone mass, and (3) to compare bone mass of swimmers that meet the World Health Organization PA guidelines (active) WHO and those that do not (inactive). METHODS: A total of 71 SWI (33 females) and 41 CG (17 females) wore an accelerometer for at least 4 days. PA was expressed as the amount of time (minutes/day) in each intensity [sedentary/light/moderate or vigorous (VPA), and the sum of moderate and vigorous (MVPA)]. Using the cutoff points proposed by Vanhelst et al. SWI were classified as active or inactive according to whether they reached 60 min of weight-bearing MVPA per day or not. Bone mineral density (BMD) was measured by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, and bone strength values were calculated with peripheral quantitative computed tomography. Differences in PA intensities were calculated between SWI and CG. The relation of VPA to bone mass was studied in the SWI. RESULTS: Male-SWI spend less time in VPA and MVPA than male-GC, which partly explains the lower BMD values in SWI than CG. CONCLUSION: Swimming may displace weight-bearing VPA with serious implications on bone health

Bone strength index at Tibia and standing broad jump in adolescent swimmers

Measurement of broad jump is a simple, economical and non-invasive test that provides valuable information on muscular strength and power in youth lower limbs,and has been shown to be related to bone health..

Validity of a food-frequency questionnaire for estimating calcium intake in adolescent swimmers

Introduction: accurate estimates of the intake of specific nutrients such as calcium (Ca) are crucial to correctly rank or classify subjects in the distribution of intakes. Therefore, we aimed to estimate the relative validity of a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) for measuring Ca intake in two different groups of healthy adolescents, a normoactive control group and a physically active group of swimmers with 2 non-consecutive 24h recalls (2 x 24HR) collected as the reference method. Methods: Pearson correlations, agreement between the 24HR and the FFQ at an individual level and questionnaire’s ability to assign individuals to the same quartile of intake as the 24HR were calculated. Results: mean daily Ca intakes were 564.6 mg (SD 232.0) and 895.9 mg (SD 343.1) for the 2 x 24HR and FFQ respectively in controls (P < 0.001); and 731.9 mg (SD 299.8) and 979.8 mg (SD 408.5) for the 2 x 24HR and FFQ respectively in swimmers (P < 0.001). Pearson correlations were 0.52 for controls and 0.47 for swimmers after correcting for intra-variability. Cross-classification analysis indicated that 73.7% of controls and 63.1% of swimmers were classified correctly or in the adjacent category. Also, the 89% of the control group and 79% of swimmers were classified correctly with the FFQ according to the dietary reference intake (DRI) of 1300 mg/d. Conclusions: for both groups, the FFQ tended to overestimate Ca intake, however it demonstrated fairly good ability to classify subjects into extremes of Ca intake and identified adolescents having Ca intakes lower than the dietary reference intake

Encoding generative adversarial networks for defense against image classification attacks

Image classification has undergone a revolution in recent years due to the high performance of new deep learning models. However, severe security issues may impact the performance of these systems. In particular, adversarial attacks are based on modifying input images in a way that is imperceptible for human vision, so that deep learning image classifiers are deceived. This work proposes a new deep neural network model composed of an encoder and a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). The former encodes a possibly malformed input image into a latent vector, while the latter generates a reconstructed image from the latent vector. Then the reconstructed image can be reliably classified because our model removes the deleterious effects of the attack. The experiments carried out were designed to test the proposed approach against the Fast Gradient Signed Method attack. The obtained results demonstrate the suitability of our approach in terms of an excellent balance between classification accuracy and computational cost.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Actividad física y calidad de vida en las personas mayores: estudio piloto PQS

Diferentes investigaciones muestran los efectos de la actividad física (AF) sobre la salud en los adultos mayores. Los objetivos principales de este estudio fueron: 1) evaluar la relación entre las recomendaciones de AF de la OMS y la percepción de calidad de vida en las personas mayores, y 2) valorar el efecto de un asesoramiento basado en la concienciación sobre el estilo de vida. Para ello participaron 28 adultos mayores (70,6±6,2) del municipio de Villanueva de Gállego (Zaragoza), que fueron distribuidos en grupo experimental (GE) y control. Todos los sujetos completaron un cuestionario de calidad de vida (EQ-5D) y de nivel de AF (RAPA). Los sujetos que practicaban AF regular presentaron mayores niveles de percepción de calidad de vida (p<0,05). La intervención basada en la concienciación podría ser una estrategia de utilidad en la mejora de la percepción de la calidad de vida de los adultos mayores

Impacto económico de los asistentes a la Universiada de Invierno del 2015 en la ciudad de Granada

Mega-sport events create a new image of the host country, attracting viewers and the media (Santo, 2005; Cornelissen and Swart, 2006). The economic impact of an event can be defined as the net economic change in the host country that derives from the expenditure attributed to the event (Crompton, 1995). Since one of the most important benefits are the permanent benefits in the city (Witt, 1988) as the improvement of the facilities or the image of the country. In relation to the tourism of a big event there is a moderate increase of the internal business tourism in a city during the development of the event (OECD, 2012). Thus, the city increases its investment potential and commercial activity (Avison Young, 2003). The objective of the present study was to analyze the economic impact generated by the attendees in the city of Granada during the Universiade Granada 2015.Los mega-eventos deportivos crean una nueva imagen del país anfitrión, atrae a espectadores y a los medios de comunicación (Santo, 2005; Cornelissen y Swart, 2006). El impacto económico de un evento puede definirse como el cambio económico neto en el país anfitrión que deriva del gasto atribuido al evento (Crompton, 1995). Ya que uno de los beneficios más importantes son los beneficios permanentes en la ciudad (Witt, 1988) como la mejora de las instalaciones o la imagen del país. En relación al turismo de un gran evento hay un moderado incremento del turismo interno de negocios en una ciudad durante el desarrollo del evento (OECD, 2012). Por lo tanto, la ciudad aumenta su potencial de inversión y actividad comercial (Avison Young, 2003) El objetivo del presente estudio fue analizar el impacto económico generado por los asistentes en la ciudad de Granada durante la Universiada Granada 2015