Kiai and Mechanical Characteristics of Some Karate Punches

In the studies from the aspect of biomechanics the essential data can be found in the field of the punches -motions which are characterized as precise, fast and maximally forced. In the study of Yoshihuku (1984) it was found that the duration of the force was concentrated between 16 and 19 ms regardless of the kind of the techniques, implying that the human body that was not rigid took the above time to transmit its momentum to the target. In the research about the flow of the energy from trunk to arm in Tsuki movement (Yoshihuku, Ikegami, Sakurai, 1984) it is pointed out that the main source of energy in Tsuki movement is not in the upper arm itself, but in the other parts of the body. It is interesting that in each trial the first hit the target with its maximum velocity, just or nearly at the moment when both the energy flow and the kinetic energy reached their maximum velocity. In the study about the central regulation problems of the human motion abilities in the biomechanical structures (Chaidze, 1966) it is pointed out that the reduction of the velocity in the arm extension is necessary before the collision, with purpose to fix the joints and to increase the mass included in the punch. Thc value of the collision impulse depends on the movement velocity in the moment of the collision (vc), and the mass of the body included in the punch (the equivalent mass -em). Because of this and some other conditions characteristical for karate combats, this parameters should be improved during the training sessions. It might be that Kiai is one of the factors which enables better demonstration of these values. That is why the subject of this study is Kiai, the phenomenon which is relatively unexplored up to now, or in other words, its influence on mechanical characteristics of karate punches Gyaku Tsuki and Tettsui Uchi. The need for such of study originated from the importance which is given to Kiai in the rules of sports karate combats. It is well known that Kiai is also an unavoidable companion in Tameshi Wari breaking techniques. The purpose of the present study is to establish possible differences between mechanical characteristics of the chosen punches

Ethics in research and publication of research articles

Science aims at promoting knowledge by gathering and discovering the objective truth, the facts that are independent of human interests, their values, ideology and biases. The way in which scientists come to this goal is through the universally accepted and thoroughly regulated processes – the scientific method. There is no clear definition which will answer the question what is unethical in biomedical research. All people recognize some common ethical norms but different individuals interpret, apply, and balance these norms in different ways in light of their own values and life experiences. Generally, it can be said that unethical behaviour in science is any significant mistreatment of intellectual property or participation of other parties, deliberately hampering the research process or distortion of scientific evidence,as well as all the behaviours that affect the integrity of scientific practice. Given theimportance of the primary goal of scientific enterprise, that is search for truth and trustworthy results, ethics in science has increasingly come into focus. There are several reasons why it is important to adhere to ethical norms in research. Norms promote the aims of research, such as knowledge and truth, variety of moral and social values and help to build public support for research. This paper analyzes the major principles of ethical conduct in science and closely related topics on ghost authorship, conflict of interest, co-authorship assignment, redundant/repetitiveand duplicate publications. Furthermore, the paper provides an insight into the fabrication and falsification of data, as the most common forms of scientific fraud

Understanding the role of Umami in appetite control: a protein-specific effect?

The fifth basic taste, ‘umami’, is the flavour function elicited by amino acids like monosodium glutamate (MSG) in foods. This taste is recognized for its flavour enhancing properties but little is known about its effects on appetite and intake. Thus the experiments in this thesis aimed to understand how umami influences pleasantness, appetite stimulation, satiation and satiety using MSG, with some additional focus on its associated ribonucleotide inosine 5’-monophosphate (IMP). Chapter 2 established a bland, low glutamate control soup which was used throughout all subsequent experiments to test the effects of MSG on palatability using commercially-relevant concentrations. Chapters 3 and 4 assessed the influence of increasing palatability on rated appetite and intake of this soup with either added MSG (Chapter 3) or added sucrose (Chapter 4). No increase in hunger or intake was found after the more palatable conditions. Chapter 5 explored the relationship between MSG taste and protein regulation, assessing acute and habitual protein intake with findings indicating that high protein consumers liked high MSG concentrations more after an acute protein deprivation than sweet, salty or control flavours. Chapter 6 examined the time course of rated MSG satiety alone and in combination with either protein or carbohydrate in a preload soup and found enhanced rated satiety in MSG protein conditions. This design was extended in Chapter 7 to include an intake test after a pre-specified time of consuming the preload soup. The results indicated better compensation after MSG protein conditions but no differences in intake were found across carbohydrate or control conditions. Chapter 8 assessed MSG and IMP with or without added protein using the same design as Chapter 7 and found reductions in intake in MSG/IMP conditions. This suggests that the flavour of umami plays an important role in the regulation of appetite and intake

Biographical Lexicon of Public Health

Biographical Lexicon of Public Healt

3D Raman mapping of the collagen fibril orientation in human osteonal lamellae

AbstractChemical composition and fibrillar organization are the major determinants of osteonal bone mechanics. However, prominent methodologies commonly applied to investigate mechanical properties of bone on the micro scale are usually not able to concurrently describe both factors. In this study, we used polarized Raman spectroscopy (PRS) to simultaneously analyze structural and chemical information of collagen fibrils in human osteonal bone in a single experiment. Specifically, the three-dimensional arrangement of collagen fibrils in osteonal lamellae was assessed. By analyzing the anisotropic intensity of the amide I Raman band of collagen as a function of the orientation of the incident laser polarization, different parameters related to the orientation of the collagen fibrils and the degree of alignment of the fibrils were derived. Based on the analysis of several osteons, two major fibrillar organization patterns were identified, one with a monotonic and another with a periodically changing twist direction. These results confirm earlier reported twisted and oscillating plywood arrangements, respectively. Furthermore, indicators of the degree of alignment suggested the presence of disordered collagen within the lamellar organization of the osteon. The results show the versatility of the analytical PRS approach and demonstrate its capability in providing not only compositional, but also 3D structural information in a complex hierarchically structured biological material. The concurrent assessment of chemical and structural features may contribute to a comprehensive characterization of the microstructure of bone and other collagen-based tissues

Live attenuated swine influenza vaccine by reverse genetics

Swine influenza (SI) is an acute, highly contagious, respiratory disease of swine. The causative agent of SI infections is swine influenza virus (SIV). SIV is a type A influenza virus classified into the Orthomyxoviridae family and is an enveloped particle with a genome composed of eight negative-orientated RNA segments. The mortality rate of influenza disease in pigs is generally low but morbidity can reach up to 100%. SI infections considerably contribute to respiratory disease in post-weaning pigs, causing significant economic losses due to an increase in the number of days pigs need to reach market weight. In addition, SI infections possess significant human public health concerns. Vaccination is the primary method for the prevention of SI. Currently available vaccines against SI are a combination of two inactivated antigenically distinct SIVs with oil adjuvant. The application of these vaccines induce mainly humoral immune responses. In contrast, application of live attenuated influenza vaccines (LAIV) mimics natural infection and induce strong, long-lived cell-mediated and humoral immunity. Furthermore, LAIV induces cross-protective immunity against different subtypes of influenza A viruses. LAIVs are developed for human and equine influenza viruses but at present no LAIV is available for SIVs. The critical step in influenza virus infection is an initial interaction between virus and cell surface carbohydrates followed by receptor-mediated endocytosis and fusion of the viral and endosomal membranes. Influenza virus entry into cells is mediated by the viral surface glycoprotein hemagglutinin (HA). HA is primary synthesized as a polypeptide in HA0 form. In order to be infectious, HA0 must be cleaved by host proteases into HA1 and HA2 subunits. Therefore, this process is crucial determinant for virus pathogenicity. Our objective was to generate a live attenuated SIVs, particularly a viruses with a modified HA cleavage site resistant to activation during natural infection but which can be activated in vitro by an exogenous protease. Using the reverse genetics technique, we generated two mutant SIVs of strain A/SW/SK/18789/02 (H1N1) containing a modified cleavage site within their HA. Mutant A/SW/SK-R345V (R345V) contained a mutation within HA segment at amino acid (AA) position 345 from Arginine (Arg) to Valine (Val) while the second mutant, A/SW/SK-R345A (R345A) encoded Alanine (Ala) instead of Arginine (Arg) at position AA345 on HA. We showed that HA cleavage in both mutants was strictly dependent on the presence of human neutrophil elastase in tissue culture. These tissue-culture grown mutant SIVs showed similar growth properties in terms of plaque size and growth kinetics, compared to the wild type virus. Both mutant SIVs were able to preserve introduced mutations after multiple passages in tissue culture suggesting that AA substitution within HA cleavage site did not alter genetic stability in the presence of appropriate protease. Furthermore, these mutant SIVs were highly attenuated in pigs but capable of inducing significant cell-mediated and humoral immune responses after two vaccinations via intratracheal (IT) and intranasal (IN) routes. Immune responses induced by vaccination with elastase dependent SIV were sufficient to confer full protection against parental homologous and antigenic variant of H1N1 SIVs and partial protection from heterologous subtypic H3N2 after the challenge. Therefore, elastase-dependent mutant SIV could serve as live vaccine against antigenically distinct swine influenza viruses in pigs

Integrated control/structure design for planar tensegrity models

A tensegrity structure is built using compressive members (bars) and tensile members (tendons). We discuss how an optimal and integrated design of tendon length control and topology/geometry of the structure can improve the stiffness and stiffness-to-mass properties of tensegrity systems. To illustrate our approach we apply it on a tensegrity system build up from several elementary stages that form a planar beam structure. The computations are done with a nonlinear programming approach and most design aspects (decentralized co-located control, static equilibrium, yield and buckling limits, force directionality, etc., both for the unloaded and loaded cases) are incorporated. Due to the way the control coefficients are constrained, this approach also delivers information for a proper choice of actuator or sensor locations: there is no need to control or sense the lengths of all tendons. From this work it becomes clear that certain actuator/sensor locations and certain topologies are clearly advantageous. For the minimal compliance objective in a planar tensegrity beam structure, proper tendons for control are those that are perpendicular to the disturbance force direction, close to the support, and relatively long, while good topologies are the ones that combine different nodal configurations in a tensegrity topology that is akin to a framed beam, but, when control is used, can be quite different from a classical truss structure

Genetic and functional characterisation of Immunoglobulin Heavy Chain Locus-CCAAT enhancer binding protein B-Cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia

PhDB-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (BCP-ALL) is a heterogeneous disease in which patient outcome is influenced by genetic lesions. This outcome has improved due to increasingly tailored treatment regimens, selected through risk stratification by use of cytogenetic, copy number alterations (CNAs) classifiers, genomic, and molecular data. Translocations involving the Immunoglobulin Heavy Chain Locus (IGH) comprise 5% of BCP-ALL and lead to overexpression of juxtaposed genes, due to the powerful IGH enhancer elements. Multiple IGH partner genes have been described in BCP-ALL, including five members of the Ccaat Enhancer-Binding Protein (CEBP) transcription factor family. A cohort of 33 IGH-CEBP BCP-ALL patients was identified including 11 IGH-CEBPD, 10 IGH-CEBPA, 8 IGH-CEBPB, 3 IGH-CEBPE and 1 IGH-CEBPG patients, comprising 19% of the IGH cohort, and 1% of ALL as a whole. The patients displayed variation between individual CEBP subgroups, with IGH-CEBPB patients showing higher white blood cell counts (WBC), higher relapse rates, higher number of CNAs and older age than other CEBP patients. The CEBPD subgroup included mostly younger patients, under the age of 10 years, and had the lowest number of CNAs per patient. Deletions of CDKN2A/B were the most commonly occurring CNA followed by intragenic exon 4-7 deletions of IKZF1, which were found exclusively in the IGH-CEBPB and IGH-CEBPD subgroups (p=0.04). A novel intragenic deletion of the tyrosine kinase gene, ABL2, was found in four patients in the cohort, which may represent a deletion unique to this subgroup. This finding in combination with the IKZF1 deletions is suggestive of a BCR-ABL1-like profile. Retroviral expression of the CEBPD gene in CD34+ cells was found to hinder proliferation in transduced cells, potentially through cell cycle arrest via the RB/E2F pathway. RNA sequencing analysis of two IGH-CEBP patients showed very different expression profiles, suggesting two mechanisms of oncogenesis in IGH-CEBP patients: one through inactivation of the CEBP function, leading to deregulation of cell cycle and differentiation control, and another through upregulation of inflammatory factors

Biographical Lexicon of Public Health

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