Injury Rates in Age-Only Versus Age-and-Weight Playing Standard Conditions in American Youth Football

Background: American youth football leagues are typically structured using either age-only (AO) or age-and-weight (AW) playing standard conditions. These playing standard conditions group players by age in the former condition and by a combination of age and weight in the latter condition. However, no study has systematically compared injury risk between these 2 playing standards. Purpose: To compare injury rates between youth tackle football players in the AO and AW playing standard conditions. Study Design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2. Methods: Athletic trainers evaluated and recorded injuries at each practice and game during the 2012 and 2013 football seasons. Players (age, 5-14 years) were drawn from 13 recreational leagues across 6 states. The sample included 4092 athlete-seasons (AW, 2065; AO, 2027) from 210 teams (AW, 106; O, 104). Injury rate ratios (RRs) with 95% CIs were used to compare the playing standard conditions. Multivariate Poisson regression was used to estimate RRs adjusted for residual effects of age and clustering by team and league. There were 4 endpoints of interest: (1) any injury, (2) non–time loss (NTL) injuries only, (3) time loss (TL) injuries only, and (4) concussions only. Results: Over 2 seasons, the cohort accumulated 1475 injuries and 142,536 athlete-exposures (AEs). The most common injuries were contusions (34.4%), ligament sprains (16.3%), concussions (9.6%), and muscle strains (7.8%). The overall injury rate for both playing standard conditions combined was 10.3 per 1000 AEs (95% CI, 9.8-10.9). The TL injury, NTL injury, and concussion rates in both playing standard conditions combined were 3.1, 7.2, and 1.0 per 1000 AEs, respectively. In multivariate Poisson regression models controlling for age, team, and league, no differences were found between playing standard conditions in the overall injury rate (RRoverall, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.4-2.6). Rates for the other 3 endpoints were also similar (RRNTL, 1.1 [95% CI, 0.4-3.0]; RRTL, 0.9 [95% CI, 0.4-1.9]; RRconcussion, 0.6 [95% CI, 0.3-1.4]). Conclusion: For the injury endpoints examined in this study, the injury rates were similar in the AO and AW playing standards. Future research should examine other policies, rules, and behavioral factors that may affect injury risk within youth football

The Intentional Use of Service Recovery Strategies to Influence Consumer Emotion, Cognition and Behaviour

Service recovery strategies have been identified as a critical factor in the success of. service organizations. This study develops a conceptual frame work to investigate how specific service recovery strategies influence the emotional, cognitive and negative behavioural responses of . consumers., as well as how emotion and cognition influence negative behavior. Understanding the impact of specific service recovery strategies will allow service providers' to more deliberately and intentionally engage in strategies that result in positive organizational outcomes. This study was conducted using a 2 x 2 between-subjects quasi-experimental design. The results suggest that service recovery has a significant impact on emotion, cognition and negative behavior. Similarly, satisfaction, negative emotion and positive emotion all influence negative behavior but distributive justice has no effect

Deep exclusive π+\pi^+ electroproduction off the proton at CLAS

The exclusive electroproduction of $\pi^+$ above the resonance region was studied using the $\rm{CEBAF}$ Large Acceptance Spectrometer ($\rm{CLAS}$) at Jefferson Laboratory by scattering a 6 GeV continuous electron beam off a hydrogen target. The large acceptance and good resolution of $\rm{CLAS}$, together with the high luminosity, allowed us to measure the cross section for the $\gamma^* p \to n \pi^+$ process in 140 ($Q^2$, $x_B$, $t$) bins: $0.16<x_B<0.58$, 1.6 GeV$^2<$$Q^2$$<4.5$ GeV$^2$ and 0.1 GeV$^2<$$-t$$<5.3$ GeV$^2$. For most bins, the statistical accuracy is on the order of a few percent. Differential cross sections are compared to two theoretical models, based either on hadronic (Regge phenomenology) or on partonic (handbag diagram) degrees of freedom. Both can describe the gross features of the data reasonably well, but differ strongly in their ingredients. If the handbag approach can be validated in this kinematical region, our data contain the interesting potential to experimentally access transversity Generalized Parton Distributions.Comment: 18pages, 21figures,2table

Prostate cancer and Hedgehog signalling pathway

[Abstract] The Hedgehog (Hh) family of intercellular signalling proteins have come to be recognised as key mediators in many fundamental processes in embryonic development. Their activities are central to the growth, patterning and morphogenesis of many different regions within the bodies of vertebrates. In some contexts, Hh signals act as morphogens in the dose-dependent induction of distinct cell fates within a target field, in others as mitogens in the regulation of cell proliferation or as inducing factors controlling the form of a developing organ. These diverse functions of Hh proteins raise many intriguing questions about their mode of action. Various studies have now demonstrated the function of Hh signalling in the control of cell proliferation, especially for stem cells and stem-like progenitors. Abnormal activation of the Hh pathway has been demonstrated in a variety of human tumours. Hh pathway activity in these tumours is required for cancer cell proliferation and tumour growth. Recent studies have uncovered the role for Hh signalling in advanced prostate cancer and demonstrated that autocrine signalling by tumour cells is required for proliferation, viability and invasive behaviour. Thus, Hh signalling represents a novel pathway in prostate cancer that offers opportunities for prognostic biomarker development, drug targeting and therapeutic response monitoring

Dynamic protein methylation in chromatin biology

Post-translational modification of chromatin is emerging as an increasingly important regulator of chromosomal processes. In particular, histone lysine and arginine methylation play important roles in regulating transcription, maintaining genomic integrity, and contributing to epigenetic memory. Recently, the use of new approaches to analyse histone methylation, the generation of genetic model systems, and the ability to interrogate genome wide histone modification profiles has aided in defining how histone methylation contributes to these processes. Here we focus on the recent advances in our understanding of the histone methylation system and examine how dynamic histone methylation contributes to normal cellular function in mammals

Large-scale sequencing identifies multiple genes and rare variants associated with Crohn's disease susceptibility

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified hundreds of loci associated with Crohn's disease (CD). However, as with all complex diseases, robust identification of the genes dysregulated by noncoding variants typically driving GWAS discoveries has been challenging. Here, to complement GWASs and better define actionable biological targets, we analyzed sequence data from more than 30,000 patients with CD and 80,000 population controls. We directly implicate ten genes in general onset CD for the first time to our knowledge via association to coding variation, four of which lie within established CD GWAS loci. In nine instances, a single coding variant is significantly associated, and in the tenth, ATG4C, we see additionally a significantly increased burden of very rare coding variants in CD cases. In addition to reiterating the central role of innate and adaptive immune cells as well as autophagy in CD pathogenesis, these newly associated genes highlight the emerging role of mesenchymal cells in the development and maintenance of intestinal inflammation.Large-scale sequence-based analyses identify novel risk variants and susceptibility genes for Crohn's disease, and implicate mesenchymal cell-mediated intestinal homeostasis in disease etiology.Cellular mechanisms in basic and clinical gastroenterology and hepatolog

Nozzle development

The objective of this program has been the development of experimental techniques and data processing procedures to allow for the characterization of multi-phase fuel nozzles using laboratory tests. Test results were to be used to produce a single value coefficient-of-performance that would predict the performance of the fuel nozzles independent of system application. Several different types of fuel nozzles capable of handling multi-phase fuels have been characterized for: (a) fuel flow rate versus delivery pressure, (b) fuel-air ratio throughout the fuel spray or plume and the effective cone angle of the injector, and (c) fuel drop- or particle-size distribution as a function of fluid properties. Fuel nozzles which have been characterized on both single-phase liquids and multi-phase liquid-solid slurries include a variable-film-thickness nozzle, a commercial coal-water slurry (CWS) nozzle, and four diesel injectors of different geometries (tested on single-phase fluids only). Multi-phase mixtures includes CWS with various coal loadings, surfactant concentrations, and stabilizer concentrations, as well as glass-bead water slurries with stabilizing additives. Single-phase fluids included glycerol-water mixtures to vary the viscosity over a range of 1 to 1500 cP, and alcohol-water mixtures to vary the surface tension from about 22 to 73 dyne/cm. In addition, tests were performed to characterize straight-tube gas-solid nozzles using two differences size distributions of glass beads in air. Standardized procedures have been developed for processing measurements of spray drop-size characteristics and the overall cross-section average drop or particle size. 43 refs., 60 figs., 7 tabs