Beneficial physiological effects with blackcurrant intake in endurance athletes

Blackcurrant contains anthocyanins, known to influence vasorelaxation and peripheral blood flow. We examined the effects of 7 days intake of Sujon New Zealand blackcurrant powder (6g/day) on the lactate curve, maximum oxygen uptake, and cardiovascular responses at rest and during cycling. Thirteen trained triathletes with >3 yrs experience (8 men, age: 38±8 yrs, body mass: 71±9 kg, BF%: 19±5%, mean±SD) performed two incremental cycling protocols with recording of physiological and cardiovascular responses (Portapres® Model 2). Cardiovascular function was also measured in rest. Experimental design was double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized and cross-over (wash-out 4 wks). Data was analysed with two-tailed t-tests and 2-way ANOVA and significance accepted at p<0.05. Plasma lactate was lower at 40%, 50%, 60% and 70% of maximum power by 27%, 22%, 17% and 13%. Intensity at 4 mmol∙L-1 OBLA was 6% higher with blackcurrant without effect on heart rate and oxygen uptake. Maximum values of oxygen uptake, heart rate and power were not affected by blackcurrant, but obtained with 14% lower lactate. In rest, blackcurrant increased stroke volume and cardiac output by 25% and 26%, and decreased total peripheral resistance by 16%, with no changes in blood pressure and heart rate. Cardiovascular responses during exercise at 40%, 50%, 60%, 70% and 80% intensity were not affected. Sujon New Zealand blackcurrant powder affects lactate production and/or clearance during exercise. Sujon New Zealand blackcurrant powder affects physiological and cardiovascular responses in rest and during exercise that may have implications for exercise performance

No effect of New Zealand blackcurrant extract on recovery of muscle damage following running a half-marathon

New Zealand blackcurrant (NZBC) contains anthocyanins, known to moderate blood flow and display anti-inflammatory properties that may improve recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage. The authors examined whether NZBC extract supplementation enhances recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage after a half-marathon race. Following a randomized, double-blind, independent groups design, 20 (eight women) recreational runners (age 30 ± 6 years, height 1.73 ± 0.74 m, body mass 68.5 ± 7.8 kg, half-marathon finishing time 1:56:33 ± 0:18:08 hr:min:s) ingested either two 300-mg/day capsules of NZBC extract (CurraNZ™) or a visually matched placebo, for 7 days prior to and 2 days following a half-marathon. Countermovement jump performance variables, urine interleukin-6, and perceived muscle soreness and fatigue were measured pre, post, and at 24 and 48 hr after the half-marathon and analyzed using a mixed linear model with statistical significance set a priori at p  .05). Urine interleukin-6 increased 48-hr post-half-marathon in the NZBC group only (p  .05). Perceived muscle soreness and fatigue increased immediately post-half-marathon (p  .05). Supplementation with NZBC extract had no effect on the recovery of countermovement jump variables and perceptions of muscle soreness or fatigue following a half-marathon in recreational runners

Molecular epidemiology of human rhinovirus infections in Kilifi, coastal Kenya

This study reports pediatric surveillance over 3 years for human rhinovirus (HRV) at the District Hospital of Kilifi, coastal Kenya. Nasopharyngeal samples were collected from children presenting at outpatient clinic with no signs of acute respiratory infection, or with signs of upper respiratory tract infection, and from children admitted to the hospital with lower respiratory tract infection. Samples were screened by real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (real-time RT-PCR) and classified further to species by nucleotide sequencing of the VP4/VP2 junction. Of 441 HRV positives by real-time RT-PCR, 332 were classified to species, with 47% (155) being HRV-A, 5% (18) HRV-B, and 48% (159) HRV-C. There was no clear seasonal pattern of occurrence for any species. The species were present in similar proportions in the inpatient and outpatient sample sets, and no significant association between species distribution and the severity of lower respiratory tract infection in the inpatients could be determined. HRV sequence analysis revealed multiple but separate clusters in circulation particularly for HRV-A and HRV-C. Most HRV-C clusters were distinct from reference sequences downloaded from GenBank. In contrast, most HRV-A and HRV-B sequences clustered with either known serotypes or strains from elsewhere within Africa and other regions of the world. This first molecular epidemiological study of HRV in the region defines species distribution in accord with reports from elsewhere in the world, shows considerable strain diversity and does not identify an association between any species and disease severity

Force and acceleration characteristics of military foot drill: implications for injury risk in recruits

Background: Foot drill involving marching and drill manoeuvres is conducted regularly during basic military recruit training. Characterising the biomechanical loading of foot drill will improve our understanding of the contributory factors to lower limb overuse injuries in recruits. Aim: Quantify and compare forces, loading rates and accelerations of British Army foot drill, within and between trained and untrained personnel. Methods: 24 trained soldiers (12 men and 12 women; TRAINED) and 12 civilian men (UNTRAINED) performed marching and five drill manoeuvres on force platforms; motion capture recorded tibial position. Peak vertical impact force (PF), peak vertical loading rate (PLR), expressed as multiples of body weight (BW) and peak tibial impact acceleration (PTA) were recorded. Results: Drill manoeuvre PF, PLR and PTA were similar, but higher in TRAINED men (PF, PLR: p<0.01; PTA: p<0.05). Peak values in TRAINED men were shown for the halt (mean (SD); PF: 6.5 (1.5) BW; PLR: 983 (333) BW/s PTA; PTA: 207 (57) m/s2) and left turn (PF: 6.6 (1.7) BW; PLR: 928 (300) BW/s; 184 (62) m/s2). Marching PF, PLR, PTA were similar between groups and lower than all drill manoeuvres (PF: 1.1–1.3 BW; PLR: 42–70 BW/s; p<0.01; PTA: 23–38 m/s2; p<0.05). Conclusions: Army foot drill generates higher forces, loading rates and accelerations than activities such as running and load carriage, while marching is comparable to moderate running (10.8 km/h). The large biomechanical loading of foot drill may contribute to the high rate of overuse injuries during initial military training, and strategies to regulate/reduce this loading should be explored

The effect of sex, menstrual cycle phase and oral contraceptive use on intestinal permeability and ex-vivo monocyte TNFα release following treatment with lipopolysaccharide and hyperthermia

Investigate the impact of sex, menstrual cycle phase and oral contraceptive use on intestinal permeability and ex-vivo tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) release following treatment with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and hyperthermia. Twenty-seven participants (9 men, 9 eumenorrheic women (MC) and 9 women taking an oral contraceptive pill (OC)) completed three trials. Men were tested on 3 occasions over 6 weeks; MC during early-follicular, ovulation, and mid-luteal phases; OC during the pill and pill-free phase. Intestinal permeability was assessed following a 4-hour dual sugar absorption test (lactulose: rhamnose). Venous blood was collected each trial and stimulated with 100 μg·mL LPS before incubation at 37 °C and 40 °C and analysed for TNFα via ELISA. L:R ratio was higher in OC than MC (+0.003, p = 0.061) and men (+0.005, p = 0.007). Men had higher TNFα responses than both MC (+53 %, p = 0.004) and OC (+61 %, p = 0.003). TNFα release was greater at 40 °C than 37 °C (+23 %, p < 0.001). Men present with lower resting intestinal barrier permeability relative to women regardless of OC use and displayed greater monocyte TNFα release following whole blood treatment with LPS and hyperthermia. Oral contraceptive users had highest intestinal permeability however, neither permeability or TNFα release were impacted by the pill cycle. Although no statistical effect was seen in the menstrual cycle, intestinal permeability and TNFα release were more variable across the phases

Graphene formation on SiC substrates

Graphene layers were created on both C and Si faces of semi-insulating, on-axis, 4H- and 6H-SiC substrates. The process was performed under high vacuum (<10-4 mbar) in a commercial chemical vapor deposition SiC reactor. A method for H2 etching the on-axis sub-strates was developed to produce surface steps with heights of 0.5 nm on the Si-face and 1.0 to 1.5 nm on the C-face for each polytype. A process was developed to form graphene on the substrates immediately after H2 etching and Raman spectroscopy of these samples confirmed the formation of graphene. The morphology of the graphene is described. For both faces, the underlying substrate morphology was significantly modified during graphene formation; sur-face steps were up to 15 nm high and the uniform step morphology was sometimes lost. Mo-bilities and sheet carrier concentrations derived from Hall Effect measurements on large area (16 mm square) and small area (2 and 10 um square) samples are presented and shown to compare favorably to recent reports.Comment: European Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials 2008 (ECSCRM '08), 4 pages, 4 figure

Deep Convolutional Autoencoders as Generic Feature Extractors in Seismological Applications

The idea of using a deep autoencoder to encode seismic waveform features and then use them in different seismological applications is appealing. In this paper, we designed tests to evaluate this idea of using autoencoders as feature extractors for different seismological applications, such as event discrimination (i.e., earthquake vs. noise waveforms, earthquake vs. explosion waveforms, and phase picking). These tests involve training an autoencoder, either undercomplete or overcomplete, on a large amount of earthquake waveforms, and then using the trained encoder as a feature extractor with subsequent application layers (either a fully connected layer, or a convolutional layer plus a fully connected layer) to make the decision. By comparing the performance of these newly designed models against the baseline models trained from scratch, we conclude that the autoencoder feature extractor approach may only perform well under certain conditions such as when the target problems require features to be similar to the autoencoder encoded features, when a relatively small amount of training data is available, and when certain model structures and training strategies are utilized. The model structure that works best in all these tests is an overcomplete autoencoder with a convolutional layer and a fully connected layer to make the estimation

A Laboratory Model of a Hydrogen/Oxygen Engine for Combustion and Nozzle Studies

A small laboratory diagnostic thruster was developed to augment present low thrust chemical rocket optical and heat flux diagnostics at the NASA Lewis Research Center. The objective of this work was to evaluate approaches for the use of temperature and pressure sensors for the investigation of low thrust rocket flow fields. The nominal engine thrust was 110 N. Tests were performed at chamber pressures of about 255 kPa, 370 kPa, and 500 kPa with oxidizer to fuel mixture ratios between 4.0 and 8.0. Two gaseous hydrogen/gaseous oxygen injector designs were tested with 60 percent and 75 percent fuel film cooling. The thruster and instrumentation designs were proven to be effective via hot fire testing. The thruster diagnostics provided inner wall temperature and static pressure measurements which were compared to the thruster global performance data. For several operating conditions, the performance data exhibited unexpected trends which were correlated with changes in the axial wall temperature distribution. Azimuthal temperature distributions were found to be a function of operating conditions and hardware configuration. The static pressure profiles showed that no severe pressure gradients were present in the rocket. The results indicated that small differences in injector design can result in dramatically different thruster performance and wall temperature behavior, but that these injector effects may be overshadowed by operating at a high fuel film cooling rate