Psychosocial factors in sports injury rehabilitation and return to play

pre-printThe goal of this review is to provide insight into the principles and practices that guide psychological intervention with injury and in so doing cultivate a psychologically minded approach to injury for the medical provider. The chapter is divided into two parts. Part 1 provides an overview of the research literature, which serves as a foundation for the brief review of clinical practices that follow in Part 2. Examination of the research literature will highlight four areas including: (1) psychological factors influencing rehabilitation, (2) social factors impacting rehabilitation (3) performance concerns among returning athletes, and (4) tools/inventories for assessing psychological readiness to return. The section on clinical practices highlights the Affective Cycle of Injury as a model for clinical intervention and the Sports Medicine Injury Checklist as a practical guide for assessment and triage. Finally, a brief synopsis of an injury intervention plan is provided, and the influence of pain and fear in the rehabilitation process is described

Bacterial Chromosome Engineering for Applications in Metabolic Engineering

As genetic engineering technologies continue to advance and metabolic engineering projects become more ambitious, the need for chromosome engineering tools is increased. In this thesis, I have described the development of a ΦC31 phage integrase based cassette exchange system. This system is called integrase mediated cassette exchange (IMCE). IMCE allows for the integration of a ΦC31 attB flanked DNA cassette, carried on a mobilizable donor vector, into a chromosomal landing pad locus. The landing pad locus, consisting of ΦC31 attP sites flanking marker genes, was integrated into the chromosome of three members of the Rhizobiales, by homologous recombination to create landing pad strains (LP-strains). The integration of the donor cassette is catalyzed by ΦC31 integrase, expressed from a mobilizable vector. To accomplish IMCE, a tetraparental conjugative mating is carried out, including the attB donor vector strain, the ΦC31 integrase expression plasmid strain, the LP-strain, and the mobilizer strain. A variation on IMCE , reverse IMCE, was also accomplished with the addition of a recombination directionality factor gene to the integrase expression plasmid, and the use of attL and attR sites. Reverse IMCE was used to create a new LP-strain containing the counter-selectable marker gene sacB. A strategy to assemble overlapping DNA cassettes post-IMCE using genetic crosses was developed. An application of this system was to assemble synthetic operons for the metabolic engineering of Sinorhizobium meliloti to produce medium chain length (mcl) polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA). Two homologues each of phaC (PHA synthase gene) and phaG (3-hydroxydecanoyl-[acyl-carrier-protein]:CoA transacylase gene) were chosen. The genes were successfully combined in all four possible configurations on the chromosome of S. meliloti. It was observed that the phaC construct did not integrate into the expected location, and therefore its expression was not guaranteed, but promising preliminary results showing the detection of mcl-PHA were obtained. The phaC genes described in this thesis have also been cloned into plasmids, for their expression in strains carrying phaG within the landing pad. These strains will provide valuable tools for future work concerning PHA production. The chromosome engineering tools developed in this thesis will be valuable for any future applications requiring stable maintenance of a synthetic construct on the chromosome of these Rhizobiales members

Psychosocial factors in sports injury rehabilitation and return to play

This article discusses the principles and practices that guide psychological intervention with injury, and encourages a psychological approach to injury for clinicians. Part 1 reviews the research literature, and serves as a foundation for the review of clinical practices in part 2. Examination of the research literature highlights 4 areas: (1) psychological factors influencing rehabilitation, (2) social factors affecting rehabilitation, (3) performance concerns among returning athletes, and (4) tools/inventories for assessing psychological readiness to return. A synopsis of an injury intervention plan is provided, and the influence of pain and fear in the rehabilitation process is described

CO\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e and fire influence tropical ecosystem stability in response to climate change

Interactions between climate, fire and CO2 are believed to play a crucial role in controlling the distributions of tropical woodlands and savannas, but our understanding of these processes is limited by the paucity of data from undisturbed tropical ecosystems. Here we use a 28,000-year integrated record of vegetation, climate and fire from West Africa to examine the role of these interactions on tropical ecosystem stability. We find that increased aridity between 28–15 kyr B.P. led to the widespread expansion of tropical grasslands, but that frequent fires and low CO2 played a crucial role in stabilizing these ecosystems, even as humidity changed. This resulted in an unstable ecosystem state, which transitioned abruptly from grassland to woodlands as gradual changes in CO2 and fire shifted the balance in favor of woody plants. Since then, high atmospheric CO2 has stabilized tropical forests by promoting woody plant growth, despite increased aridity. Our results indicate that the interactions between climate, CO2 and fire can make tropical ecosystems more resilient to change, but that these systems are dynamically unstable and potentially susceptible to abrupt shifts between woodland and grassland dominated states in the future

Knowledge and use of family planning among men in rural Uganda.

BACKGROUND: Unmet need for family planning exceeds 33% in Uganda. One approach to decreasing unmet need is promoting male involvement in family planning. Male disapproval of use of family planning by their female partners and misconceptions about side effects are barriers to family planning globally and in Uganda in particular. Researchers have conducted a number of qualitative studies in recent years to examine different aspects of family planning among Ugandan men. The present study aimed to quantify men's knowledge of family planning in rural Uganda to understand how better to involve men in couples' contraceptive decision-making, particularly in low-resource settings. METHODS: Data were derived from in-person, researcher-administered surveys of men in a rural agrarian district in Uganda (N = 178). Participant demographics and knowledge of family planning methods, side effects, and use were queried. Descriptive statistics were used for analysis. RESULTS: Men were 34 years of age on average (range 18-71) and about half (56%) had a primary school education or less. Ninety-eight percent reported any knowledge of family planning, with 73% of men reporting obtaining information via radio and only 43% from health workers. The most common method known by men was the male condom (72%), but more than half also knew of injections (54%) and pills (52%). Relatively few men reported knowing about the most effective reversible contraceptive methods, intrauterine devices and implants (both 16%). Men identified many common contraceptive side-effects, such as vaginal bleeding (31%), and misconceptions about side effects, such as increased risk of infertility and birth defects, were relatively uncommon (both < 10%). About half of all men reported ever using a family planning method (53%), and 40% reported current use. CONCLUSIONS: This study's quantitative results build on those of recent qualitative studies and provide information about the types of family planning information men are lacking and avenues for getting this information to them

An Approach for Integration of Transport Drones Into Offshore Wind Farms

Costs of offshore wind farms (OWF) are largely driven by the service costs of the required maintenance. Current maintenance is either conducted via sea using special ships or helicopters. Both transport methods involve costly and thus limited available assets as well as specially trained personnel to operate them. This not only drives costs up but also limits the planning horizon of maintenance operations. Transport drones could be a complementing alternative to the traditional use of vessels and helicopters for the transport of servicing items and replacement parts to wind farms. For efficient and safe operations, drones must be properly integrated into the maritime domain and the OWF. The integration requires modifications of the drone and wind turbines as well as developing and evaluating operational concepts. The Upcoming Drone Windfarms (UDW) project between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the energy provider Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW) targets several aspects of these central challenges. This paper presents the main concept for the fictitious drone transport mission to OWF EnBW Hohe See which acts as exemplary scenario to develop the integration and operation concept. Special emphasis is on the automated interaction between the drone and the wind farm infrastructure for which according concepts for communication must be developed and implemented. The contributions to this topic are the identification of necessary infrastructure extensions to enable a reliable communication, the interaction between the drone and the wind farm, and a summary of necessary information which needs to be exchanged between both entities to ensure safe operation of the drone. The ongoing work will eventually result in flight tests with a drone in an onshore wind farm to demonstrate the concept and its technical feasibility. The development of the technical setup for these tests is presented

Interactions Between Zooplankton and Karenia brevis in the Gulf of Mexico.

Blooms of the toxic dinoflagellate K. brevis are common in the Gulf of Mexico, yet no in situ studies of the interactions between zooplankton and K. brevis in the Gulf of Mexico have been conducted. Zooplankton numerical abundance, biomass and taxonomic composition of nonbloom and K. brevis bloom stations within the ECOHAB study area were compared. At nonbloom stations, the most important determinant species were Parvolcalanus crassirostris, Oithona colcarva and Paracalanus quasimodo at the 5-m isobath and P. quasimodo, O. colcarva and Oikopleura dioka at the 25-m isobath. There was considerable overlap between the 5 and 25-m isobaths, with 9 species contributing to the top 90% of numerical abundance at both isobaths. Within K. brevis blooms Acartia tonsa, Centropages velificatus, Temora turbinata, Evadne tergestina, O. colcarva, O. dioika, and P. crassirostris were consistently dominant. Variations between non-bloom and bloom assemblages were evident, including variations in numerical abundance and biomass and the reduction in numerical abundance of 3 key species. Calculated grazing pressure proved insufficient to terminate K. brevis blooms, despite occasional grazing hot spots