Day 1. Posters – Sport and Performance

Background: Exercise tests are one of the most commonly used tools within sports science research. Therefore, the reliability of such exercise tests is of critical importance when investigating the efficacy of nutritional, physiological, psychological or training interventions. Purpose: The aim of this experiment was to measure the reliability of a 20 km cycling time trial performance test when performed by mounting the cyclists own bicycle frame on an electronic turbo trainer. Methods: Twenty one male cyclists (age 35 ± 8 y, height 1.82 ± 0.05 m, body mass 80.7 ± 9.0 kg) completed the 20 km time trial on three separate occasions; the initial visit was a habituation trial and was followed by two main trials. All laboratory visits were conducted at the same time of day, following a 24h diet and activity standardisation period, and at least 2 h postprandial. The time trial was completed on a Cyclus2 (RBM Electronic, Germany) ergometer. The cyclists mounted their own bike frames on to the ergometer and the settings on the Cyclus2 were adjusted for each individual bike, ensuring an accurate measurement of distance and performance. During the exercise trial, participants were deprived of any performance information other than distance covered and gear selection; no encouragement was provided by experimenters. Results: There was no order effect of the trials, inclusive of the habituation trial (p = 0.901). There was no significant difference in the time taken to complete the 20 km between trials 1 and 2 (trial 1: 1969 ± 112 s; trial 2: 1975 ± 119 s; p = 0.222). The intra-class correlation between trial 1 and 2 was r = 0.99, with the coefficient of variation being 0.7%. Conclusions: The use of a 20 km cycling time trial, in which the cyclists bicycle frame is mounted on a cycle ergometer, is highly reproducible. Such a test can, therefore, be reliably used to detect changes in performance due to various interventions

More Holography from Conformal Field Theory

We extend the work of [4] to support the conjecture that any conformal field theory with a large N expansion and a large gap in the spectrum of anomalous dimensions has a local bulk dual. We count to O(1/N^2) the solutions to the crossing constraints in conformal field theory for a completely general scalar four-point function and show that, to this order, the counting matches the number of independent interactions in a general scalar theory on Anti-de Sitter space. We introduce parity odd conformal blocks for this purpose.Comment: 19 page

Patterns of Recovery from Severe Mental Illness: A Pilot Study of Outcomes

We performed a pilot study examining the patterns of recovery from severe mental illness in a model integrated service delivery system using measures from the Milestones of Recovery Scale (MORS), a valid and reliable measure of recovery outcomes which ranges from 1 to 8 (8 levels). For purposes of presentation, we constructed an aggregate MORS (6 levels) where the levels are described as follows: (1) extreme risk; (2) unengaged, poorly self-coordinating; (3) engaged, poorly self-coordinating; (4) coping and rehabilitating; (5) early recovery, and (6) self reliant. We analyzed MORS data on individuals followed over time from The Village in Long Beach, California (658 observations). Using Markov Chains, we estimated origin-destination transition probabilities, simulating recovery outcomes for 100 months. Our models suggest that after 12 months only 8% of “extreme risk” clients remain such. Over 40% have moved to “engaged, poorly self-coordinating.” After 2 years, almost half of the initial “extreme Risk” clients are “coping/rehabilitating”, “early recovery” or “Self reliant.” Most gains occur within 2 years

Anti-prion drug mPPIg5 inhibits PrP(C) conversion to PrP(Sc).

Prion diseases, also known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, are a group of fatal neurodegenerative diseases that include scrapie in sheep, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans. The 'protein only hypothesis' advocates that PrP(Sc), an abnormal isoform of the cellular protein PrP(C), is the main and possibly sole component of prion infectious agents. Currently, no effective therapy exists for these diseases at the symptomatic phase for either humans or animals, though a number of compounds have demonstrated the ability to eliminate PrPSc in cell culture models. Of particular interest are synthetic polymers known as dendrimers which possess the unique ability to eliminate PrP(Sc) in both an intracellular and in vitro setting. The efficacy and mode of action of the novel anti-prion dendrimer mPPIg5 was investigated through the creation of a number of innovative bio-assays based upon the scrapie cell assay. These assays were used to demonstrate that mPPIg5 is a highly effective anti-prion drug which acts, at least in part, through the inhibition of PrP(C) to PrP(Sc) conversion. Understanding how a drug works is a vital component in maximising its performance. By establishing the efficacy and method of action of mPPIg5, this study will help determine which drugs are most likely to enhance this effect and also aid the design of dendrimers with anti-prion capabilities for the future

The secret world of shrimps: polarisation vision at its best

Animal vision spans a great range of complexity, with systems evolving to detect variations in optical intensity, distribution, colour, and polarisation. Polarisation vision systems studied to date detect one to four channels of linear polarisation, combining them in opponent pairs to provide intensity-independent operation. Circular polarisation vision has never been seen, and is widely believed to play no part in animal vision. Polarisation is fully measured via Stokes' parameters--obtained by combined linear and circular polarisation measurements. Optimal polarisation vision is the ability to see Stokes' parameters: here we show that the crustacean \emph{Gonodactylus smithii} measures the exact components required. This vision provides optimal contrast-enhancement, and precise determination of polarisation with no confusion-states or neutral-points--significant advantages. We emphasise that linear and circular polarisation vision are not different modalities--both are necessary for optimal polarisation vision, regardless of the presence of strongly linear or circularly polarised features in the animal's environment.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, 2 table

Adequacy of milk intake during exclusive breastfeeding : a longitudinal study

Mean intakes of human milk provide sufficient energy and protein to meet mean requirements during the first 6 months of infancy. Since infant growth potential drives milk production, the distribution of intakes likely matches the distribution of energy and protein requirements. This longitudinal study describes the adequacy of milk intake during exclusive breastfeeding

The effectiveness of neuromuscular warm-up strategies, that require no additional equipment, for preventing lower limb injuries during sports participation: a systematic review

PMCID: PMC3408383The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/10/75. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

A Prospective Nested Case-Control Study of Dengue in Infants: Rethinking and Refining the Antibody-Dependent Enhancement Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever Model

Analyses of a prospective case-control study of infant dengue by Daniel Libraty and colleagues casts doubt on the antibody-dependent enhancement model for dengue hemorrhagic fever

Delayed self-recognition in children with autism spectrum disorder.

This study aimed to investigate temporally extended self-awareness (awareness of one’s place in and continued existence through time) in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), using the delayed self-recognition (DSR) paradigm (Povinelli et al., Child Development 67:1540–1554, 1996). Relative to age and verbal ability matched comparison children, children with ASD showed unattenuated performance on the DSR task, despite showing significant impairments in theory-of-mind task performance, and a reduced propensity to use personal pronouns to refer to themselves. The results may indicate intact temporally extended self-awareness in ASD. However, it may be that the DSR task is not an unambiguous measure of temporally extended self-awareness and it can be passed through strategies which do not require the possession of a temporally extended self-concept

On N = 2 Truncations of IIB on T^{1,1}

We study the N=4 gauged supergravity theory which arises from the consistent truncation of IIB supergravity on the coset T^{1,1}. We analyze three N=2 subsectors and in particular we clarify the relationship between true superpotentials for gauged supergravity and certain fake superpotentials which have been widely used in the literature. We derive a superpotential for the general reduction of type I supergravity on T^{1,1} and this together with a certain solution generating symmetry is tantamount to a superpotential for the baryonic branch of the Klebanov-Strassler solution.Comment: 32 pages, v2:references adde