Injury prevention in male youth soccer: Current practices and perceptions of practitioners working at elite English academies

Forty-one practitioners inclusive of physiotherapists, sports scientists and strength and conditioning coaches from the academies of elite soccer clubs in the United Kingdom completed an on-line questionnaire which examined their: (1) background information; (2) perceptions of injury occurrence and risk factors; (3) screening and return to play; and (4) approach to designing and delivering injury prevention programmes with a response rate of 55% (41/75). Contact injuries were the most common mechanism reported and players between 13-16 years of age were perceived to be at the greatest risk. Pertinent risk factors included: reduced lower limb and eccentric hamstring strength, proprioception, muscle imbalances, and under developed foundational movement skills. Joint range of motion, jump tests, the functional movement screen, overhead and single leg squats were the most utilised screening methods. Training modalities rated in order of importance included: resistance training, flexibility development, agility, plyometrics and balance training. Training frequency was most commonly once or twice per week, during warm-ups, independent sessions or a combination of both. Injury prevention strategies in this cohort appear to be logical; however, the classification of injury occurrence and application of screening tools to identify 'at risk' players do not align with existing research. The frequency and type of training used may also be insufficient to elicit an appropriate stimulus to address pertinent risk factors based on current recommendations

Comprehensive Benchmarking and Integration of Tumour Microenvironment Cell Estimation Methods

Various computational approaches have been developed for estimating the relative abundance of different cell types in the tumour microenvironment (TME) using bulk tumour RNA data. However, a comprehensive comparison across diverse data sets that objectively evaluates the performance of these approaches has not been conducted. Here we benchmarked seven widely used tools and gene sets and introduce ConsensusTME, a method that integrates gene sets from all the other methods for relative TME cell estimation of 18 cell types. We collected a comprehensive benchmark dataset consisting of pan-cancer data (DNA-derived purity, leukocyte methylation, and H&E-derived lymphocyte counts) and cell-specific benchmark data sets (peripheral blood cells and tumour tissues). Although none of the methods outperformed others in every benchmark, ConsensusTME ranked top three in all cancer-related benchmarks and was the best performing tool overall. We provide a web resource to interactively explore the benchmark results and an objective evaluation to help researchers select the most robust and accurate method to further investigate the role of the TME in cancer (www.consensusTME.org).A. Jiménez-Sánchez was supported by a doctoral fellowship from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute and the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology (CONACyT). O. Cast and M.L. Miller were supported by the Brown Performance Group, Innovation in Cancer Informatics Discovery Grant (BD523775). M.L. Miller was supported by Cancer Research UK core grant (C14303/A17197) and the Target Ovarian Cancer Translational Project Grant (Cambridge1320 MM18)

Efecto del aceite ozonizado en la cicatrización de heridas inducidas sobre mucosa queratinizada de reborde alveolar en Oryctolagus cuniculus

Evalúa el efecto del aceite ozonizado en la cicatrización de heridas inducidas sobre mucosa queratinizada de reborde alveolar en Oryctolagus cuniculus. Se generó una herida quirúrgica en reborde alveolar en 18 conejos de raza Nueva Zelanda, la muestra se dividió en dos grupos, el primer grupo fue tratado con aceite ozonizado y el grupo control fue tratado con aceite sin ozonizar. Se tomó muestras de tejido cicatrizal al tercer, séptimo y décimo cuarto día posoperatorio y se evaluó histológicamente la inflamación, granulación y reepitelización, se utilizó la prueba estadística de U de Mann- Whitney. En el tercer y séptimo día posoperatorio los resultados del grupo control y grupo experimental fueron similares sin diferencia estadística significativa. En el décimo cuarto día posoperatorio se evidenció diferencias significativas, en el grupo experimental se observó ausencia de células polimorfonucleares (PMN) en el 100 % de las unidades de estudio y en el grupo control se observó escasa y moderada presencia de células PMN. En la evaluación del proceso de granulación en el grupo experimental se observó abundante proliferación de capilares y fibras colágenas, en el proceso de reepitelización el grupo experimental presentó abundante proliferación de células epiteliales. Se concluye que los datos experimentales revelaron que el aceite ozonizado tiene un efecto cicatrizante en heridas quirúrgicas de mucosa bucal.Tesi

Impact of poloxamer 188 (Pluronic F-68) additive on cell mechanical properties, quantification by real-time deformability cytometry

Advances in cellular therapies have led to the development of new approaches for cell product purification and formulation, e.g., utilizing cell endogenous properties such as size and deformability as a basis for separation from potentially harmful undesirable by-products. However, commonly used additives such as Pluronic F-68 and other poloxamer macromolecules can change the mechanical properties of cells and consequently alter their processing. In this paper, we quantified the short-term effect of Pluronic F-68 on the mechanotype of three different cell types (Jurkat cells, red blood cells, and human embryonic kidney cells) using real-time deformability cytometry. The impact of the additive concentration was assessed in terms of cell size and deformability. We observed that cells respond progressively to the presence of Pluronic F-68 within first 3 h of incubation and become significantly stiffer (p-value < 0.001) in comparison to a serum-free control and a control containing serum. We also observed that the short-term response manifested as cell stiffening is true (p-value < 0.001) for the concentration reaching 1% (w/v) of the poloxamer additive in tested buffers. Additionally, using flow cytometry, we assessed that changes in cell deformability triggered by addition of Pluronic F-68 are not accompanied by size or viability alterations

Deformability-induced lift force in spiral microchannels for cell separation

Cell sorting and isolation from a heterogeneous mixture is a crucial task in many aspects of cell biology, biotechnology and medicine. Recently, there has been an interest in methods allowing cell separation upon their intrinsic properties such as cell size and deformability, without the need for use of biochemical labels. Inertial focusing in spiral microchannels has been recognised as an attractive approach for high-throughput cell sorting for myriad point of care and clinical diagnostics. Particles of different sizes interact to a different degree with the fluid flow pattern generated within the spiral microchannel and that leads to particles ordering and separation based on size. However, the deformable nature of cells adds complexity to their ordering within the spiral channels. Herein, an additional force, deformability-induced lift force (FD), involved in the cell focusing mechanism within spiral microchannels has been identified, investigated and reported for the first time, using a cellular deformability model (where the deformability of cells is gradually altered using chemical treatments). Using this model, we demonstrated that spiral microchannels are capable of separating cells of the same size but different deformability properties, extending the capability of the previous method. We have developed a unique label-free approach for deformability-based purification through coupling the effect of FD with inertial focusing in spiral microchannels. This microfluidic-based purification strategy, free of the modifying immuno-labels, allowing cell processing at a large scale (millions of cells per min and mls of medium per minute), up to high purities and separation efficiency and without compromising cell quality

Soybean Oil Replacement by Palm Fatty Acid Distillate in Broiler Chicken Diets: Fat Digestibility and Lipid-Class Content along the Intestinal Tract

Palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD) is a by-product of palm oil (P) refining. Its use in chicken diets is a way to reduce the cost of feed and the environmental impact. Its low unsaturated:saturated fatty acid ratio (UFA:SFA) and its high free fatty acid (FFA) level could be partially counteracted by its blending with soybean oil (S). The objective was to assess the effect of replacing S with different levels of PFAD on lipid-class content and fatty acid (FA) digestibility along the intestinal tract and in the excreta of 11 and 35-day-old broiler chickens. Five experimental diets were prepared by supplementing a basal diet with S (S6), PFAD (PA6), two blends of them (S4-PA2 and S2-PA4), or P (P6) at 6%. Replacing S with PFAD did not affect performance parameters (p > 0.05) but negatively affected feed AME, FA digestibility, and FFA intestinal content (p < 0.05), especially in starter chicks. Including PFAD delayed total FA (TFA) absorption (p < 0.05) at 11 days, but at 35 days it did not affect the TFA absorption rate. The use of PFAD blended with S, when FFA ≤ 30% and UFA:SFA ≥ 2.6, led to adequate energy utilization in broiler grower-finisher diet

Purifying stem cell-derived red blood cells:a high-throughput label-free downstream processing strategy based on microfluidic spiral inertial separation and membrane filtration

Cell-based therapeutics, such as in vitro manufactured red blood cells (mRBC), are different to traditional biopharmaceutical products (the final product being the cells themselves as opposed to biological molecules such as proteins) and that presents a challenge of developing new robust and economically feasible manufacturing processes, especially for sample purification. Current purification technologies have limited throughput, rely on expensive fluorescent or magnetic immuno-labelling with a significant (up to 70%) cell loss and quality impairment. To address this challenge, previously characterised mechanical properties of umbilical cord blood CD34+ cells undergoing in vitro erythropoiesis were used to develop a mRBC purification strategy. The approach consists of two main stages: (1) a microfluidic separation using inertial focusing for deformability-based sorting of enucleated cells (mRBC) from nuclei and nucleated cells resulting in 70% purity and (2) membrane filtration to enhance the purity to 99%. Herein, we propose a new route for high-throughput (processing millions of cells /min and mls of medium /min) purification process for mRBC, leading to high mRBC purity while maintaining cells integrity and no alterations in their global gene expression profile. Further adaption of this separation approach offers a potential route for processing of a wide range of cellular products

Evaluación de la calidad de experiencia de YouTube Live en redes inalámbricas

[EN] YouTube Live is one of the most popular services on the Internet, enabling an easy streaming of a live video with acceptable video quality. Thus, understanding user´s perception of this service is of the utmost importance for network operators. As in other videostreaming services, YouTube Live traffic is sometimes affected by delays due to unfavourable network conditions, which translate into unacceptable initial reproduction times or image freezes as a result of client´s buffer underrun. Detecting these events is key to ensure an adequate Quality of experience (QoE). Unfortunately, data encryption makes it very difficult for operators to monitor QoE from packet-level data collected in network interfaces. In this paper, an analytical model to estimate the QoE for encrypted YouTube Live service from packet-level data collected in the interfaces of a wireless network is presented. The inputs to the model are Transport Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP) metrics, from which three Service Key Performance Indicators (S-KPIs) are estimated, namely initial video play start time, video interruption duration and video interruption. The model is developed with an experimental platform, consisting of a user terminal agent, a WiFi wireless network, a network-level emulator and a probe software. Model assessment is carried out by comparing S-KPI estimates with measurements from the terminal agent under different network conditions introduced by the network emulator.Este trabajo ha sido financiado por el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Proyecto TEC2015-69982-R, UNMA13-1E-1864), y FEDER.Jimenez, L.; Solera, M.; Toril, M.; Oliver, P. (2018). Evaluación de la calidad de experiencia de YouTube Live en redes inalámbricas. En XIII Jornadas de Ingeniería telemática (JITEL 2017). Libro de actas. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 233-240. https://doi.org/10.4995/JITEL2017.2017.6611OCS23324

A Detection of Sgr A* in the far infrared

We report the first detection of the Galactic Centre massive black hole, Sgr~A*, in the far infrared. Our measurements were obtained with PACS on board the \emph{Herschel} satellite at $100~\mathrm{\mu m}$ and $160~\mathrm{\mu m}$. While the warm dust in the Galactic Centre is too bright to allow for a direct detection of Sgr~A*, we measure a significant and simultaneous variation of its flux of $\Delta F_{\nu\widehat{=}160 ~\mathrm{\mu m}} = (0.27\pm0.06)~\mathrm{Jy}$ and $\Delta F_{\nu\widehat{=}100 ~\mathrm{\mu m}}= (0.16\pm0.10)~\mathrm{Jy}$ during one observation. The significance level of the $160 ~\mathrm{\mu m}$ band variability is $4.5\sigma$ and the corresponding $100 ~\mathrm{\mu m}$ band variability is significant at $1.6\sigma$. We find no example of an equally significant false positive detection. Conservatively assuming a variability of $25\%$ in the FIR, we can provide upper limits to the flux. Comparing the latter with theoretical models we find that 1D RIAF models have difficulties explaining the observed faintness. However, the upper limits are consistent with modern ALMA and VLA observations. Our upper limits provide further evidence for a spectral peak at $\sim 10^{12} ~ \mathrm{Hz}$ and constrain the number density of $\gamma \sim 100$ electrons in the accretion disk and or outflow.Comment: accepted for publication in AP

Consequences of being phenotypically mismatched with the environment: Rapid muscle ultrastructural changes in cold-shocked black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus)

Phenotypic flexibility has received considerable attention in the last decade; however, whereas many studies have reported amplitude of variation in phenotypic traits, much less attention has focused on the rate at which traits can adjust in response to sudden changes in the environment. We investigated whole animal and muscle phenotypic changes occurring in black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) acclimated to cold (-5°C) and warm (20°C) temperatures in the first 3 h following a 15°C temperature drop (over 3 h). Before the temperature change, cold-acclimated birds were consuming 95% more food, were carrying twice as much body fat, and had 23% larger pectoralis muscle fiber diameters than individuals kept at 20°C. In the 3 h following the temperature drop, these same birds altered their pectoralis muscle ultrastructure by increasing the number of capillaries per fiber area and the number of nuclei per millimeter of fiber by 22%, consequently leading to a 22% decrease in myonuclear domain (amount of cytoplasm serviced per nucleus), whereas no such changes were observed in the warm-acclimated birds. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of such a rapid adjustment in muscle fiber ultrastructure in vertebrates. These results support the hypothesis that chickadees maintaining a cold phenotype are better prepared than warm-phenotype individuals to respond to a sudden decline in temperature, such as what may be experienced in their natural wintering environment