Comparing Hyperhydration Ability between a Glycerol Solution and a Sodium Solution on Dehydration and Performance in Runners

The purpose of this study was to examine how inducing hyperhydration with a glycerol solution and a sodium solution prior to exercise influenced performance and hydration status during a moderate set-intensity exercise bout followed by a time-to-exhaustion bout when compared to a control solution containing water only. Six well-trained runners ages 21 to 38 with an average relative VO2 peak of 57 ml/kg/min participated in three trials. Each trial included a 2.5 hour hyperhydration phase where participants ingested a solution containing water, glycerol, or sodium. Following hyperhydration, participants ran for 90 minutes at 65% of their HRR followed by a time to exhaustion bout at 85% of their HRR. There were no significant differences in performance or changes in total body water between solutions. There was a lower relative percentage of total urine output from sodium (p=0.001) and glycerol (

Virginia Space Grant Consortium Upper Atmospheric Payload Balloon System (Vps)

This document provides a summary of the launch and post-launch activities of Virginia Space Grant Consortium Upper Atmospheric Payload Balloon System, V(ps). It is a comprehensive overview covering launch activities, post-launch activities, experimental results, and future flight recommendations

Corporate and Individual Influences on Managers\u27 Social Orientation

This paper reports research on the influence of corporate and individual characteristics on managers\u27 social orientation in Germany. The results indicate that mid-level managers expressed a significantly lower social orientation than low-level managers, and that job activity did not impact social orientation. Female respondents expressed a higher social orientation than male respondents. No impact of the political system origin (former East Germany versus former West Germany) on social orientation was shown. Overall, corporate position had a significantly higher impact on social orientation than did the characteristics of the individuals surveyed

Challenges in RNA virus bioinformatics

Motivation: Computer-assisted studies of structure, function and evolution of viruses remains a neglected area of research. The attention of bioinformaticians to this interesting and challenging field is far from commensurate with its medical and biotechnological importance. It is telling that out of >200 talks held at ISMB 2013, the largest international bioinformatics conference, only one presentation explicitly dealt with viruses. In contrast to many broad, established and well-organized bioinformatics communities (e.g. structural genomics, ontologies, next-generation sequencing, expression analysis), research groups focusing on viruses can probably be counted on the fingers of two hands. Results: The purpose of this review is to increase awareness among bioinformatics researchers about the pressing needs and unsolved problems of computational virology. We focus primarily on RNA viruses that pose problems to many standard bioinformatics analyses owing to their compact genome organization, fast mutation rate and low evolutionary conservation. We provide an overview of tools and algorithms for handling viral sequencing data, detecting functionally important RNA structures, classifying viral proteins into families and investigating the origin and evolution of viruses. Contact: [email protected] Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. The references for this article can be found in the Supplementary Materia

Reference standardization and triglyceride interference of a new homogeneous HDL-cholesterol assay compared with a former chemical precipitation assay

A homogeneous HDL-c assay (HDL-H), which uses polyethylene glycol-modified enzymes and sulfated alpha-cyclodextrin, was assessed for precision, accuracy, and cholesterol and triglyceride interference. In addition, its analytical performance was compared with that of a phosphotungstic acid (PTA)/MgCl2 precipitation method (HDL-P). Within-run CVs were < or = 1.87%; total CVs were < or = 3.08%. Accuracy was evaluated in fresh normotriglyceridemic sera using the Designated Comparison Method (HDL-H = 1.037 Designated Comparison Method + 4 mg/L; n = 63) and in moderately hypertriglyceridemic sera by using the Reference Method (HDL-H = 1.068 Reference Method - 17 mg/L; n = 41). Mean biases were 4.5% and 2.2%, respectively. In hypertriglyceridemic sera (n = 85), HDL-H concentrations were increasingly positively biased with increasing triglyceride concentrations. The method comparison between HDL-H and HDL-P yielded the following equation: HDL-H = 1.037 HDL-P + 15 mg/L; n = 478. We conclude that HDL-H amply meets the 1998 NCEP recommendations for total error; its precision is superior compared with that of HDL-P, and its average bias remains below +/-5% as long as triglyceride concentrations are < or = 10 g/L and in case of moderate hypercholesterolemia

Dogs as carriers of virulent and resistant genotypes of Clostridioides difficile

While previous research on zoonotic transmission of community-acquired Clostridioides difficile infection (CA-CDI) focused on food-producing animals, the present study aimed to investigate whether dogs are carriers of resistant and/or virulent C. difficile strains. Rectal swabs were collected from 323 dogs and 38 C. difficile isolates (11.8%) were obtained. Isolates were characterized by antimicrobial susceptibility testing, whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and a DNA hybridization assay. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST), core genome MLST (cgMLST) and screening for virulence and antimicrobial resistance genes were performed based on WGS. Minimum inhibitory concentrations for erythromycin, clindamycin, tetracycline, vancomycin and metronidazole were determined by E-test. Out of 38 C. difficile isolates, 28 (73.7%) carried genes for toxins. The majority of isolates belonged to MLST sequence types (STs) of clade I and one to clade V. Several isolates belonged to STs previously associated with human CA-CDI. However, cgMLST showed low genetic relatedness between the isolates of this study and C. difficile strains isolated from humans in Austria for which genome sequences were publicly available. Four isolates (10.5%) displayed resistance to three of the tested antimicrobial agents. Isolates exhibited resistance to erythromycin, clindamycin, tetracycline and metronidazole. These phenotypic resistances were supported by the presence of the resistance genes erm(B), cfr(C) and tet(M). All isolates were susceptible to vancomycin. Our results indicate that dogs may carry virulent and antimicrobial-resistant C. difficile strains

The common ancestral core of vertebrate and fungal telomerase RNAs

Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein with an intrinsic telomerase RNA (TER) component. Within yeasts, TER is remarkably large and presents little similarity in secondary structure to vertebrate or ciliate TERs. To better understand the evolution of fungal telomerase, we identified 74 TERs from Pezizomycotina and Taphrinomycotina subphyla, sister clades to budding yeasts. We initially identified TER from Neurospora crassa using a novel deep-sequencing-based approach, and homologous TER sequences from available fungal genome databases by computational searches. Remarkably, TERs from these non-yeast fungi have many attributes in common with vertebrate TERs. Comparative phylogenetic analysis of highly conserved regions within Pezizomycotina TERs revealed two core domains nearly identical in secondary structure to the pseudoknot and CR4/5 within vertebrate TERs. We then analyzed N. crassa and Schizosaccharomyces pombe telomerase reconstituted in vitro, and showed that the two RNA core domains in both systems can reconstitute activity in trans as two separate RNA fragments. Furthermore, the primer-extension pulse-chase analysis affirmed that the reconstituted N. crassa telomerase synthesizes TTAGGG repeats with high processivity, a common attribute of vertebrate telomerase. Overall, this study reveals the common ancestral cores of vertebrate and fungal TERs, and provides insights into the molecular evolution of fungal TER structure and function