Early-Morning and Late-Night Maximal Runs: Metabolic and Perceived Exertion Outcomes

People may exercise at the ends of their day to fit activity into their schedule; the purpose of this investigation was to determine if metabolic or perceived exertion outcomes differed between maximal runs early in the morning and late at night. After consuming a standardized, glucose drink, thirteen recreationally active individuals completed an early-morning and a late-night run on the treadmill while researchers measured metabolic (aerobic capacity and substrate usage) and perceived exertion outcomes. Point of application #1: Aerobic capacity (maximal consumption of oxygen) and the usage of fat as a fuel to support energy production during exercise were similar between runs. Point of application #2: Maximal perceived exertion (Borg’s 6-20) was similar during early-morning and late-night runs. Point of application #3: While research indicates that people may prefer activity in the morning or evening, and this might impact metabolic responses to the exercise bout, most of our participants (n=8) identified with no preference for exercising in the early-morning or late-night. Key Words: glucose; CHO shake; VO2max; fat oxidation; effor

Flowstats: an ontology based network management tool

One of the problems that hinders large scale network management tasks is the number of possible heterogeneous data sources that provide network information and how to focus on a desired network segment without requiring a deep knowledge of the network structure. This work investigates how to intelligently and efficiently refine and manage a vast amount of network monitoring data sources, by using artificial intelligent reasoning through an intuitive user interface. We aim to minimise the user interaction and required user knowledge when searching for the desired network monitoring information by refining the presented information based on user choices. The concept of Ontology is utilised to create a knowledge base of multiple different aspects of our testbed: Internal Management structure, Physical Location of data sources, and network switch meta-data

Herpes encephalitis presenting as mild aphasia: Case report

BACKGROUND: Encephalitis presenting as a change in mental status can be challenging to recognize in the primary care setting. However, early detection via a low threshold of suspicion can be useful, leading in turn to early treatment and improved survival. CASE PRESENTATION: We present a case which we consider relevant to primary care practitioners. The patient in question presented with relatively mild mental status changes, progressing to confusion, dysnomia and delirium over a period of three days. While infection did not appear to be the leading cause on her differential diagnosis, she was found on extensive workup to have encephalitis caused by Herpes Simplex Virus type 1. CONCLUSION: The case is instructive for general practitioners and other clinicians to maintain vigilance for central nervous system (CNS) infections which may present atypically

On the design of forgiving biometric security systems

This work aims to highlight the fundamental issue surrounding biometric security systems: it's all very nice until a biometric is forged, but what do we do after that? Granted, biometric systems are by physical nature supposedly much harder to forge than other factors of authentication since biometrics on a human body are by right unique to the particular human person. Yet it is also due to this physical nature that makes it much more catastrophic when a forgery does occur, because it implies that this uniqueness has been forged as well, threatening the human individuality; and since crime has by convention relied on identifying suspects by biometric characteristics, loss of this biometric uniqueness has devastating consequences on the freedom and basic human rights of the victimized individual. This uniqueness forgery implication also raises the motivation on the adversary to forge since a successful forgery leads to much more impersonation situations when biometric systems are used i.e. physical presence at crime scenes, identi cation and access to security systems and premises, access to nancial accounts and hence the ability to use the victim's nances. Depending on the gains, a desperate highly motivated adversary may even resort to directly obtaining the victim's biometric parts by force e.g. severing the parts from the victim's body; this poses a risk and threat not just to the individual's uniqueness claim but also to personal safety and well being. One may then wonder if it is worth putting one's assets, property and safety into the hands of biometrics based systems when the consequences of biometric forgery far outweigh the consequences of system compromises when no biometrics are used

A modified Jarvis-Stewart model for predicting stand-scale transpiration of an Australian native forest

Rates of water uptake by individual trees in a native Australian forest were measured on the Liverpool Plains, New South Wales, Australia, using sapflow sensors. These rates were up-scaled to stand transpiration rate (expressed per unit ground area) using sapwood area as the scalar, and these estimates were compared with modelled stand transpiration. A modified Jarvis-Stewart modelling approach (Jarvis 1976), previously used to calculate canopy conductance, was used to calculate stand transpiration rate. Three environmental variables, namely solar radiation, vapour pressure deficit and soil moisture content, plus leaf area index, were used to calculate stand transpiration, using measured rates of tree water use to parameterise the model. Functional forms for the model were derived by use of a weighted non-linear least squares fitting procedure. The model was able to give comparable estimates of stand transpiration to those derived from a second set of sapflow measurements. It is suggested that short-term, intensive field campaigns where sapflow, weather and soil water content variables are measured could be used to estimate annual patterns of stand transpiration using daily variation in these three environmental variables. Such a methodology will find application in the forestry, mining and water resource management industries where long-term intensive data sets are frequently unavailable. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V

Augmented attack tree modeling of SQL injection attacks

The SQL injection attacks (SQLIAs) vulnerability is extremely widespread and poses a serious security threat to web applications with built-in access to databases. The SQLIA adversary intelligently exploits the SQL statement parsing operation by web servers via specially constructed SQL statements that subtly lead to non-explicit executions or modifications of corresponding database tables. In this paper, we present a formal and methodical way of modeling SQLIAs by way of augmented attack trees. This modeling explicitly captures the particular subtle incidents triggered by SQLIA adversaries and corresponding state transitions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first known attack tree modelling of SQL injection attacks

25-Hydroxy Vitamin D Deficiency Following Pediatric Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant

Children may be at increased risk for vitamin D deficiency following HSCT because of lack of sun exposure, the recommended use of sunscreen, dietary insufficiency, malabsorption, and the use of certain medications. We prospectively assessed the prevalence of and risk factors for 25-hydroxy (25-OH) vitamin D deficiency in 67 patients transplanted at our institution. 25-OH vitamin D levels were checked during 3 separate 4-week periods in the spring, autumn, and winter. Subjects were <2 years following transplant and/or being treated for chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD). Levels less than 20 ng/mL were considered deficient, and those less than 30 ng/mL were considered insufficient. The mean 25-OH vitamin D level was 22.8 ng/mL (range: 7-46.2). A total of 80.6% (confidence interval [CI] 69.1%-89.3%) of patients had a level less than the lower limit of the institutional normal range. The deficiency rate was 37.3% (CI 25.8%-50%). The mean parathyroid hormone (PTH) level was 77.5 (SD = 80.5). There was no correlation between 25-OH vitamin D and PTH levels. We evaluated potential risk factors for 25-OH vitamin D deficiency including age, season of testing, sun exposure, sunscreen use, use of steroid or calcineurin inhibitor, race, and dairy intake. In multivariate logistic regression, only older age was found to be a risk factor for deficiency (P = .004). Patients with deficient levels were treated with 50,000 IU of ergocalciferol once weekly for 6 weeks. A postrepletion 25-OH level was available for 22 patients. The majority of repleted patients had a normal posttreatment level (63.6%). The postsupplementation level corrected into the insufficient range for 31.8% of patients and 4.6% remained deficient. Vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency are common following HSCT. Further investigation into potential risk factors and the appropriate supplementation for these patients is warranted

Endothelial function and arterial stiffness in young adults with histories of chronic resistance activity

Endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffness indicate vessel damage and are detectable before overt cardiovascular disease. Chronic cardiorespiratory endurance activity improves arterial endothelial function and stiffness. The influence of chronic resistance activity on these variables is less definitive and thus deserves attention. The primary aim of this investigation was to determine if endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffness were present in apparently healthy young adults who chronically engage in resistance activity with minimal cardiorespiratory endurance activity. Investigators measured endothelial function as LnRHI and arterial stiffness as AI@75 using the EndoPAT-2000. Investigators measured upper-body muscular strength using a standardized one-repetition maximum (1-RM) bench press. The LnRHI and AI@75 between males and females were compared via an independent-samples t-test and Mann-Whitney U test, respectively. Correlations between 1-RM, bench press to body weight ratio, LnRHI, and AI@75 were evaluated via Pearson’s correlation. Males’ LnRHI was abnormal according to manufacturer standards and lower than females’ (p = .005), but AI@75 was normal and similar for both sexes (p = .22). The 1-RM and bench press to body weight ratio correlated negatively with LnRHI (p = .03 and p = .01, respectively). The bench press to body weight ratio correlated negatively with AI@75 (p = .03), and percentage body fat correlated positively with the AI@75 (p = .003). Young adult males with considerable upper-body muscular strength due to chronic resistance activity, who complete minimal cardiorespiratory endurance activity, appear to have detectable signs of early endothelial dysfunction