Recent Common Perspectives for Geriatric Medicine and Rehabilitation Medicine

Geriatric medicine has similar points of view to rehabilitation medicine. They have common concept for stages as disease (disorder), impairment, disability, and handicap. WHO has announced International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) has been evaluated rather high in geriatric syndrome, such as sarcopenia, frailty and cognitive impairment. Frailty seems to be found approximately 10-14% for more than 65 years. Sarcopenia implies a situation that physical function is reduced by muscle loss. These are evaluated by the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP2) and Asian Working Group for sarcopenia (AWGS) criteria

Adequate Judgment and Management for Elderly Patients with Sarcopenia from Various Points of View

Sarcopenia has been recently in focus for elderly people, and Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia (AWGS) and European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People 2 (EWGSOP2) have an important role. The causes of sarcopenia include aging, underactivity, malnutrition, illness, hospitalization, medicines and so on. For diagnosis, several inventories can be applied such as Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA). For the elderly with sarcopenia, several steps would be recommended as follows: i) evaluate nutritional status and the causes of sarcopenia, ii) eliminate the cause and approach nutrition therapy together, iii) a target energy and nutrition amount is secured, iv) nutritional intervention will be started such as branched chain amino acids (BCAA) including valine, leucine and isoleucine

Activation of Spring-Like Muscle in the Body for Healthy Walking and Running

In the field of sports, excellent performance needs elasticity of the muscle. This has been called as the spring-like muscle of the body, which was formerly believed to be from innate gifted sense. Recently, however, adequate exercise can bring such ability by the training of stretch shortening cycle (SSC). Human body has three important spring-like muscles. They are Triceps surae to the Achilles tendon, Gluteus maximus to hamstrings and Iliopsoas. For actual performance, flexibility and stiffness of the muscle would be required. As the practice of relaxing and contracting the muscle, the spring-like muscle stretching method will be useful

Recent Development of Cardiac Rehabilitation in the Clinical Practice

This Commentary Article describe about the Recent Development of Cardiac Rehabilitation in the Clinical Practice

Effects of monthly feedback of VFA measured by dual BIA method in Japanese patients with obesity: a randomized controlled study

Objective: To investigate the effects of monthly feedback of changes in visceral fat area (VFA) as measured by dual bioelectrical impedance analysis method and the importance of VFA in individuals with obesity. Methods: Thirty‐eight Japanese patients with obesity underwent VFA measurements. The feedback group was given feedback on VFA measurements each month for 4 months. The control group underwent VFA measurements at the beginning and end of the study but was not informed of the results. All the study participants completed eating behaviour and weight efficacy lifestyle questionnaires. Results: Mean age was 53.9 (14.3) years; mean body mass index was 30.6 (4.3) kg m⁻². At the 4‐month follow‐up, there was no significant difference in VFA reduction between the control and feedback groups (−4.4% vs. −3.0%; 95% CI, −3.8 to 5.5). In post‐hoc analysis using the overall group irrespective of allocation, changes of eating style were significantly associated with a reduction in VFA at 4 months (p = 0.034). Conclusions: Monthly feedback on changes in VFA does not reduce VFA. More frequent feedback may be required. In post‐hoc analysis, changes of eating style were associated with a reduction in VFA

Some Tips for the Phenomenon of the Yips in the Sports

This Commentary Article describe about the Some Tips for the Phenomenon of the Yips in the Sports. Yips state seems to have increased muscle tension, and decreased flexibility of thoracic cage and spine. This condition has been reduced by our proposal and practice of pole exercise. These research would be continued with probable evidence data in the future

Meridional Survey of the Central Pacific Reveals Iodide Accumulation in Equatorial Surface Waters and Benthic Sources in the Abyssal Plain

The distributions of iodate and iodide were measured along the GEOTRACES GP15 meridional transect at 152°W from the shelf of Alaska to Papeete, Tahiti. The transect included oxygenated waters near the shelf of Alaska, the full water column in the central basin in the North Pacific Basin, the upper water column spanning across seasonally mixed regimes in the north, oligotrophic regimes in the central gyre, and the equatorial upwelling. Iodide concentrations are highest in the permanently stratified tropical mixed layers, which reflect accumulation due to light-dependent biological processes, and decline rapidly below the euphotic zone. Vertical mixing coefficients (Kz), derived from complementary 7Be data, enabled iodide oxidation rates to be estimated at two stations. Iodide half-lives of 3–4 years show the importance of seasonal mixing processes in explaining north-south differences in the transect, and also contribute to the decrease in iodide concentrations with depth below the mixed layer. These estimated half-lives are consistent with a recent global iodine model. No evidence was found for significant inputs of iodine from the Alaskan continental margin, but there is a significant enrichment of iodide in bottom waters overlying deep sea sediments from the interior of the basin

Geometrical approach to the proton spin decomposition

We discuss in detail and from the geometrical point of view the issues of gauge invariance and Lorentz covariance raised by the approach proposed recently by Chen et al. to the proton spin decomposition. We show that the gauge invariance of this approach follows from a mechanism similar to the one used in the famous Stueckelberg trick. Stressing the fact that the Lorentz symmetry does not force the gauge potential to transform as a Lorentz four-vector, we show that the Chen et al. approach is Lorentz covariant provided that one uses the suitable Lorentz transformation law. We also make an attempt to summarize the present situation concerning the proton spin decomposition. We argue that the ongoing debates concern essentially the physical interpretation and are due to the plurality of the adopted pictures. We discuss these different pictures and propose a pragmatic point of view.Comment: 39 pages, 1 figure, updated version to appear in PRD (2013

Genome-Wide Identification, Classification, and Expression Analysis of Autophagy-Associated Gene Homologues in Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

Autophagy is an intracellular degradation process for recycling macromolecules and organelles. It plays important roles in plant development and in response to nutritional demand, stress, and senescence. Organisms from yeast to plants contain many autophagy-associated genes (ATG). In this study, we found that a total of 33 ATG homologues exist in the rice [Oryza sativa L. (Os)] genome, which were classified into 13 ATG subfamilies. Six of them are alternatively spliced genes. Evolutional analysis showed that expansion of 10 OsATG homologues occurred via segmental duplication events and that the occurrence of these OsATG homologues within each subfamily was asynchronous. The Ka/Ks ratios suggested purifying selection for four duplicated OsATG homologues and positive selection for two. Calculating the dates of the duplication events indicated that all duplication events might have occurred after the origin of the grasses, from 21.43 to 66.77 million years ago. Semi-quantitative RT–PCR analysis and mining the digital expression database of rice showed that all 33 OsATG homologues could be detected in at least one cell type of the various tissues under normal or stress growth conditions, but their expression was tightly regulated. The 10 duplicated genes showed expression divergence. The expression of most OsATG homologues was regulated by at least one treatment, including hormones, abiotic and biotic stresses, and nutrient limitation. The identification of OsATG homologues showing constitutive expression or responses to environmental stimuli provides new insights for in-depth characterization of selected genes of importance in rice

Gravitational and electroweak unification by replacing diffeomorphisms with larger group

The covariance group for general relativity, the diffeomorphisms, is replaced by a group of coordinate transformations which contains the diffeomorphisms as a proper subgroup. The larger group is defined by the assumption that all observers will agree whether any given quantity is conserved. Alternatively, and equivalently, it is defined by the assumption that all observers will agree that the general relativistic wave equation describes the propagation of light. Thus, the group replacement is analogous to the replacement of the Lorentz group by the diffeomorphisms that led Einstein from special relativity to general relativity, and is also consistent with the assumption of constant light velocity that led him to special relativity. The enlarged covariance group leads to a non-commutative geometry based not on a manifold, but on a nonlocal space in which paths, rather than points, are the most primitive invariant entities. This yields a theory which unifies the gravitational and electroweak interactions. The theory contains no adjustable parameters, such as those that are chosen arbitrarily in the standard model.Comment: 28 pages