Can clinicians and scientists explain and prevent unexplained underperformance syndrome in elite athletes: an interdisciplinary perspective and 2016 update

The coach and interdisciplinary sports science and medicine team strive to continually progress the athlete's performance year on year. In structuring training programmes, coaches and scientists plan distinct periods of progressive overload coupled with recovery for anticipated performances to be delivered on fixed dates of competition in the calendar year. Peaking at major championships is a challenge, and training capacity highly individualised, with fine margins between the training dose necessary for adaptation and that which elicits maladaptation at the elite level. As such, optimising adaptation is key to effective preparation. Notably, however, many factors (eg, health, nutrition, sleep, training experience, psychosocial factors) play an essential part in moderating the processes of adaptation to exercise and environmental stressors, for example, heat, altitude; processes which can often fail or be limited. In the UK, the term unexplained underperformance syndrome (UUPS) has been adopted, in contrast to the more commonly referenced term overtraining syndrome, to describe a significant episode of underperformance with persistent fatigue, that is, maladaptation. This construct, UUPS, reflects the complexity of the syndrome, the multifactorial aetiology, and that ‘overtraining’ or an imbalance between training load and recovery may not be the primary cause for underperformance. UUPS draws on the distinction that a decline in performance represents the universal feature. In our review, we provide a practitioner-focused perspective, proposing that causative factors can be identified and UUPS explained, through an interdisciplinary approach (ie, medicine, nutrition, physiology, psychology) to sports science and medicine delivery, monitoring, and data interpretation and analysis

Adult attachment style across individuals and role-relationships: Avoidance is relationship-specific, but anxiety shows greater generalizability

A generalisability study examined the hypotheses that avoidant attachment, reflecting the representation of others, should be more relationship-specific (vary across relationships more than across individuals), while attachment anxiety, reflecting self-representation, should be more generalisable across a person’s relationships. College students responded to 6-item questionnaire measures of these variables for 5 relationships (mother, father, best same-gender friend, romantic partner or best opposite-gender friend, other close person), on 3 (N = 120) or 2 (N = 77) occasions separated by a few weeks. Results supported the hypotheses, with the person variance component being larger than the relationship-specific component for anxiety, and the opposite happening for avoidance. Anxiety therefore seems not to be as relationship-specific as previous research suggested. Possible reasons for discrepancies between the current and previous studies are discussed

Controllability and universal three-qubit quantum computation with trapped electron states

We show how to control and perform universal three-qubit quantum computation with trapped electron quantum states. The three qubits are the electron spin, and the first two quantum states of the cyclotron and axial harmonic oscillators. We explicitly show how the universal gates can be performed. As an example of a non-trivial quantum algorithm, we outline the implementation of the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm in this system.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Typos corrected. The original publication is available at http://www.springerlink.co

Event Shape/Energy Flow Correlations

We introduce a set of correlations between energy flow and event shapes that are sensitive to the flow of color at short distances in jet events. These correlations are formulated for a general set of event shapes, which includes jet broadening and thrust as special cases. We illustrate the method for electron-positron annihilation dijet events, and calculate the correlation at leading logarithm in the energy flow and at next-to-leading-logarithm in the event shape.Comment: 43 pages, eight eps figures; minor changes, references adde

Massless Minimally Coupled Fields in De Sitter Space: O(4)-Symmetric States Versus De Sitter Invariant Vacuum

The issue of de Sitter invariance for a massless minimally coupled scalar field is revisited. Formally, it is possible to construct a de Sitter invariant state for this case provided that the zero mode of the field is quantized properly. Here we take the point of view that this state is physically acceptable, in the sense that physical observables can be computed and have a reasonable interpretation. In particular, we use this vacuum to derive a new result: that the squared difference between the field at two points along a geodesic observer's space-time path grows linearly with the observer's proper time for a quantum state that does not break de Sitter invariance. Also, we use the Hadamard formalism to compute the renormalized expectation value of the energy momentum tensor, both in the O(4) invariant states introduced by Allen and Follaci, and in the de Sitter invariant vacuum. We find that the vacuum energy density in the O(4) invariant case is larger than in the de Sitter invariant case.Comment: TUTP-92-1, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Twist-three analysis of photon electroproduction with pion

We study twist-three effects in spin, charge, and azimuthal asymmetries in deeply virtual Compton scattering on a spin-zero target. Contributions which are power suppressed in 1/Q generate a new azimuthal angle dependence of the cross section which is not present in the leading twist results. On the other hand the leading twist terms are not modified by the twist three contributions. They may get corrected at twist four level. In the Wandzura-Wilczek approximation these new terms in the Fourier expansion with respect to the azimuthal angle are entirely determined by the twist-two skewed parton distributions. We also discuss more general issues like the general form of the angular dependence of the differential cross section, validity of factorization at twist-three level, and a relation of skewed parton distributions to spectral functions.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures, text clarifications, an equation, a note and references adde

Louse (Insecta : Phthiraptera) mitochondrial 12S rRNA secondary structure is highly variable

Lice are ectoparasitic insects hosted by birds and mammals. Mitochondrial 12S rRNA sequences obtained from lice show considerable length variation and are very difficult to align. We show that the louse 12S rRNA domain III secondary structure displays considerable variation compared to other insects, in both the shape and number of stems and loops. Phylogenetic trees constructed from tree edit distances between louse 12S rRNA structures do not closely resemble trees constructed from sequence data, suggesting that at least some of this structural variation has arisen independently in different louse lineages. Taken together with previous work on mitochondrial gene order and elevated rates of substitution in louse mitochondrial sequences, the structural variation in louse 12S rRNA confirms the highly distinctive nature of molecular evolution in these insects

On Thermalization in de Sitter Space

We discuss thermalization in de Sitter space and argue, from two different points of view, that the typical time needed for thermalization is of order $R^{3}/l_{pl}^{2}$, where $R$ is the radius of the de Sitter space in question. This time scale gives plenty of room for non-thermal deviations to survive during long periods of inflation. We also speculate in more general terms on the meaning of the time scale for finite quantum systems inside isolated boxes, and comment on the relation to the Poincar\'{e} recurrence time.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, latex, references added. Improved discussion in section 3 adde

The Seismic Moment and Seismic Efficiency of Small Impacts on Mars

Since landing in late 2018, the InSight lander has been recording seismic signals on the surface of Mars. Despite nominal prelanding estimates of one to three meteorite impacts detected per Earth year, none have yet been identified seismically. To inform revised detectability estimates, we simulated numerically a suite of small impacts onto Martian regolith and characterized their seismic source properties. For the impactor size and velocity range most relevant for InSight, crater diameters are 1–30 m. We found that in this range scalar seismic moment is 106–1010 Nm and increases almost linearly with impact momentum. The ratio of horizontal to vertical seismic moment tensor components is ∼1, implying an almost isotropic P wave source, for vertical impacts. Seismic efficiencies are ∼10−6, dependent on the target crushing strength and impact velocity. Our predictions of relatively low seismic efficiency and seismic moment suggest that meteorite impact detectability on Mars is lower than previously assumed. Detection chances are best for impacts forming craters of diameter >10 m

Strings in Homogeneous Background Spacetimes

The string equations of motion for some homogeneous (Kantowski-Sachs, Bianchi I and Bianchi IX) background spacetimes are given, and solved explicitly in some simple cases. This is motivated by the recent developments in string cosmology, where it has been shown that, under certain circumstances, such spacetimes appear as string-vacua. Both tensile and null strings are considered. Generally, it is much simpler to solve for the null strings since then we deal with the null geodesic equations of General Relativity plus some additional constraints. We consider in detail an ansatz corresponding to circular strings, and we discuss the possibility of using an elliptic-shape string ansatz in the case of homogeneous (but anisotropic) backgrounds.Comment: 25 pages, REVTE