Comparative analysis of physical development and functional capacity of different sports athletes during competition period

The aim of this study was to compare physical fitness of high performance canoeists, rowers, Greek-Roman style wrestlers, basketball players and skiers during their competition period. Indices of physical development, muscle and fat mass and their ratios were obtained. Single muscular contraction power (SMCP) and anaerobic alactic muscular power (AAMP) were also measured. The anaerobic glycolytic power (AGP) was estimated by ergometer. The Bosco methodology was used to estimate the activity of fast twitch fibres (FTF). The psychomotor response time (PRT) and movement frequency (MF) per 10 s were estimated and Roufier index (RI) was applied to measure functional capacity of circulatory and respiratory systems. The examination of athletes specialising in five different sports allowed for identification of the peculiarities of sports specialisation. The distinctive height, highest body weight and static hand power values characterised rowers and basketball players; while canoeists had the highest muscle mass. Only canoeists achieved high SMCP during the competition period. The SMCP of rowers and skiers was optimal, whereas the basketball players and wrestlers demonstrated an insufficient single muscular contraction power. The highest anaerobic alactic muscle power was observed in basketball players and canoeists, whereas in the muscles the basketball players and wrestlers the activity of FTF was insufficient. Though its parameters were approximate to endurance-trained rowers, they considerably fell behind those of canoeists. The functional capacity of circulatory and respiratory system of skiers was highest. The research revealed that the majority of indices of skiers and wrestlers’ physical fitness were lowest among the other studied athletes. Such results reflect their limited potential to achieve high results in international competitions

Mode and food habits of athletes of Kazakhstan

Purpose: The aim of the study was to evaluate the mode and the eating habits of some sports athletes as well as to find out the sources of received knowledge about nutrition athletes. Material: In the evaluation of actual nutrition in 2017, 60 participants took part, including 15 volleyball players of the Burevestnik team, 15 judo wrestlers of the national team of Kazakhstan, 15 wrestlers of the club team and 15 triathletes of the national team of Kazakhstan. To study data on the regime and eating habits, a valid questionnaire was used, directly interviewing each researcher. The statistical analysis of the survey data was carried out, the percentage distribution of responses on the questionnaire was calculated. For the analysis of categorical data χ2 test (chi-square) have been applied. Results: The results of the study have shown that Kazakhstan sportsmen diet is not optimal, not enough of the studied athletes eat 4 or more times a day. 22.7% of the respondents are snacking not enough - only once per day, and 11.7% of the respondents do not snack at all. More than half of the subjects (52%) regularly eats every day at the same time, while 48% - not always eat regularly. Conclusions:The main criterion for the selection of food is taste, paying too little attention to the specificity of sport and on a special diet. Basic information about nutrition investigated Kazakh athletes receive from coaches and family members, and the share of doctors and nutritionists have to too small impact here. Public information systems are relatively ineffective

Athlome Project Consortium: a concerted effort to discover genomic and other "omic" markers of athletic performance.

Despite numerous attempts to discover genetic variants associated with elite athletic performance, injury predisposition, and elite/world-class athletic status, there has been limited progress to date. Past reliance on candidate gene studies predominantly focusing on genotyping a limited number of single nucleotide polymorphisms or the insertion/deletion variants in small, often heterogeneous cohorts (i.e., made up of athletes of quite different sport specialties) have not generated the kind of results that could offer solid opportunities to bridge the gap between basic research in exercise sciences and deliverables in biomedicine. A retrospective view of genetic association studies with complex disease traits indicates that transition to hypothesis-free genome-wide approaches will be more fruitful. In studies of complex disease, it is well recognized that the magnitude of genetic association is often smaller than initially anticipated, and, as such, large sample sizes are required to identify the gene effects robustly. A symposium was held in Athens and on the Greek island of Santorini from 14-17 May 2015 to review the main findings in exercise genetics and genomics and to explore promising trends and possibilities. The symposium also offered a forum for the development of a position stand (the Santorini Declaration). Among the participants, many were involved in ongoing collaborative studies (e.g., ELITE, GAMES, Gene SMART, GENESIS, and POWERGENE). A consensus emerged among participants that it would be advantageous to bring together all current studies and those recently launched into one new large collaborative initiative, which was subsequently named the Athlome Project Consortium

Development and Characterization of Bio-Composites from the Plant Wastes of <i>Water Hyacinth</i> and Sugarcane Bagasse: Effect of Water Repellent and Gamma Radiation

Plant waste is a huge source of natural fibers and has great potential in the field of reinforced polymer composites to replace the environmentally harmful synthetic composites. In this study, fibers were extracted from water hyacinth (WH) petiole and sugarcane bagasse (SB) to make nonwovens by wet-laid web formation, and reinforced on the polyester (P) and epoxy (E) resins to make four types of composites namely, water hyacinth nonwoven reinforced epoxy (WH + E), water hyacinth nonwoven reinforced polyester (WH + P), sugarcane bagasse nonwoven reinforced epoxy (SB + E) and sugarcane bagasse nonwoven reinforced polyester (SB + P) composites. Water repellent (WR) on the nonwovens and gamma radiation (GR) on the composites were applied to improve the hydrophobicity and mechanical properties, such as tensile strength (TS), elongation at break and tensile modulus (TM) of the composites. The morphological structure of the fiber surfaces and tensile fractures were analyzed by SEM. FTIR spectra showed changes in functional groups before and after treatment. XRD analysis exhibited an increase in crystallinity for gamma-irradiated composites and a decrease in crystallinity for WR-treated composites compared to untreated composites. The SB composites (SB + E, SB + P) and polyester composites (WH + P, SB + P) showed higher water absorbency and lower mechanical properties than the WH composites (WH + E, WH + P) and epoxy composites (WH + E, SB + E), respectively. Hydrophobicity improved significantly by approximately 57% (average) at a concentration of 10% WR. However, TS and TM were reduced by approximately 24% at the same concentration. Thus, 5% WR is considered an optimum concentration due to the very low deterioration of TS and TM (<10%) but significant improvement in hydrophobicity (~39%) at this dose. On the other hand, GR treatment significantly improved TS, TM and hydrophobicity by 41, 32 and 25%, respectively, and decreased Eb% by 11% at a dose of 200 krd. However, mechanical properties and hydrophobicity deteriorated with further increase in dose at 300 krd. Thus, 200 krd is considered the optimum dose of GR

Influence of gamma radiation on mechanical properties of jute fabric-reinforced polymer composites

Woven jute fabric was used as a reinforcing material for making two types of composite, named Jute/PR and Jute/Epoxy, with two different matrixes of polyester resin and epoxy, respectively, by hand layup techniques. Five different doses of gamma radiation from 100 to 500 krad were used to investigate the effects of the mechanical properties of the composites and the jute fabrics. Though gamma radiation improved the mechanical properties, such as the tensile strength (TS) and Young's modulus (Y), and decreased the elongation at break % (Eb%) of the composites, it deteriorated all these properties for jute fabrics. The highest values of TS and Y and the lowest value of Eb% were found to be 39.44 Mpa, 1218.33 Mpa, and 7.68% for the Jute/PR; and 48.83 Mpa, 1459.67 Mpa, and 3.68% for the Jute/Epoxy composites, respectively, at a 300 krad gamma radiation dose. A further increase in dose altered all these properties; thus, 300 krad was found to be the optimum dose for both of the composites. Between the two composites, gamma radiation influenced the Jute/PR composite more than the Jute/Epoxy composite

Seven-Color Photometry and Classification of Stars in the Direction of Open Cluster M29 (NGC 6913) in Cygnus

Magnitudes and color indices in the Vilnius seven-color system were determined for 1752 stars down to V = 19.5 mag in the direction of the open cluster M29 (NGC 6913). The region is centered at RA = 20:24, DEC = +38:30 (J2000) and covers an area of 1.5 sq. deg. The photometric data are used to classify about 70% of stars in spectral and luminosity classes and peculiarity types

Young open cluster IC 4996 and its vicinity: multicolor photometry and

The open cluster IC 4996 in Cygnus and its vicinity are investigated by applying a two-dimensional photometric classification of stars measured in the Vilnius seven-color photometric system. Cluster members are identified by applying distances based on the Gaia DR2 parallaxes and the point vector diagram of the Gaia DR2 proper motions. For some B-type stars, spectroscopic MK types are also obtained from the Asiago spectra and collected from the literature. New parameters of the cluster are derived. The interstellar extinction AV covers a wide range of values, from 1.3 to 2.4 mag; the mean value in the central part of the cluster is 1.8 mag. The cluster distance is 1915 ± 110 pc, and its age is within 8–10 Myr. The cluster exhibits a long sequence from early-B to G stars, where stars cooler than B8 are in the pre-main-sequence stage. The plot of extinction versus distance shows a steep rise of AV up to 1.6 mag at 700–800 pc, which is probably related to dust clouds at the edge of the Great Cygnus Rift. The next increase in extinction by an additional 0.8 mag at d ≥ 1.7 kpc is probably related to the associations Cyg OB1 and Cyg OB3. The cluster IC 4996 does not belong to the Cyg OB1 association, which is located closer to the Sun, at 1682 ± 116 pc. It seems likely that the cluster and the surrounding O-B stars have a common origin with the nearby association Cyg OB3 since Gaia data show that these stellar groups are located at a similar distance