93 research outputs found
Differential pain response at local and remote muscle sites following aerobic cycling exercise at mild and moderate intensity
Physical exercise has been shown to inhibit experimental pain response in the post-exercise period. Modulation of the pain system may be differentiated between muscle sites engaging in contractile activity. The purpose of this study was to assess the pain response at remote and local muscle sites following aerobic exercise at different work intensities. Participants included 10 healthy and physically active males (mean age ± SD, 21.2 ± 3.4). Somatic pressure pain threshold (PPT) at the rectus femoris (local) and brachioradialis (remote) muscle site was measured at before (Pre), 5 min after (Post1), and 15 min after (Post2) aerobic cycling exercise at 70 and 30 % of peak oxygen uptake (VO(2peak)) performed on different occasions in a counterbalanced order, separated by minimum of 3 days interval. Repeated measures ANOVA for PPT reveals significant main effect for time (f = 3.581, p = 0.049, observed power = 0.588) and muscle site (f = 17.931, p = 0.002, observed power = 0.963). There was a significant interaction shown for exercise intensity by time (f = 11.390, p = 0.012, observed power = 0.790). PPT at rectus femoris following cycling exercise at 70 % of VO(2peak) reveals a significant increase between Pre-Post1 (p = 0.040). PPT for rectus femoris following cycling exercise at 30 % of VO(2peak) revealed a significant decrease between Pre-Post1 (p = 0.026) and Pre-Post2 (p = 0.008). The PPT for brachioradialis following cycling exercise at 30 % of VO(2peak) revealed a significant decrease between Pre-Post1 (p = 0.011) and Pre-Post2 (p = 0.005). These results show that aerobic exercise increases PPT locally at the exercise muscle site following exercise at 70 % of VO(2peak) but reduces PPT following exercise at 30 % of VO(2peak)
Characteristic crossing point ( K) in specific-heat curves of samples RuSrGdCeCuO taken for different values of magnetic field
Magnetic properties of polycrystalline samples of
RuSr(GdCe)CuO, as-prepared (by
solid-state reaction) and annealed (12 hours at 845C) in pure oxygen
at different pressure (30, 62 and 78 atm) are presented. Specific heat and
magnetization were investigated in the temperature range 1.8--300 K with a
magnetic field up to 8 T. Specific heat, , shows a jump at the
superconducting transition (with onset at K). Below 20 K, a
Schottky-type anomaly becomes apparent in . This low-temperature anomaly
can be attributed to splitting of the ground term of paramagnetic
Gd ions by internal and external magnetic fields. It is found that
curves taken for different values of magnetic field have the same
crossing point (at K) for all samples studied. At the
same time, curves taken for different temperatures have a crossing point
at a characteristic field T. These effects can be
considered as manifestation of the crossing-point phenomenon which is supposed
to be inherent for strongly correlated electron systems.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, submitted to J. Phys.: Condens. Matte
The Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data from SDSS-III
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) started a new phase in August 2008, with
new instrumentation and new surveys focused on Galactic structure and chemical
evolution, measurements of the baryon oscillation feature in the clustering of
galaxies and the quasar Ly alpha forest, and a radial velocity search for
planets around ~8000 stars. This paper describes the first data release of
SDSS-III (and the eighth counting from the beginning of the SDSS). The release
includes five-band imaging of roughly 5200 deg^2 in the Southern Galactic Cap,
bringing the total footprint of the SDSS imaging to 14,555 deg^2, or over a
third of the Celestial Sphere. All the imaging data have been reprocessed with
an improved sky-subtraction algorithm and a final, self-consistent photometric
recalibration and flat-field determination. This release also includes all data
from the second phase of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and
Evolution (SEGUE-2), consisting of spectroscopy of approximately 118,000 stars
at both high and low Galactic latitudes. All the more than half a million
stellar spectra obtained with the SDSS spectrograph have been reprocessed
through an improved stellar parameters pipeline, which has better determination
of metallicity for high metallicity stars.Comment: Astrophysical Journal Supplements, in press (minor updates from
submitted version
Observation of Antineutrinos from Distant Reactors using Pure Water at SNO+
The SNO+ collaboration reports the first observation of reactor antineutrinos
in a Cherenkov detector. The nearest nuclear reactors are located 240 km away
in Ontario, Canada. This analysis used events with energies lower than in any
previous analysis with a large water Cherenkov detector. Two analytical methods
were used to distinguish reactor antineutrinos from background events in 190
days of data and yielded consistent observations of antineutrinos with a
combined significance of 3.5 .Comment: v2: add missing author, add link to supplemental materia
Improved search for invisible modes of nucleon decay in water with the SNO+ detector
This paper reports results from a search for single and multi-nucleon
disappearance from the O nucleus in water within the \snoplus{} detector
using all of the available data. These so-called "invisible" decays do not
directly deposit energy within the detector but are instead detected through
their subsequent nuclear de-excitation and gamma-ray emission. New limits are
given for the partial lifetimes:
years, years, years,
years, and years at 90\% Bayesian
credibility level (with a prior uniform in rate). All but the () results improve on existing limits by a factor of about 3.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
How Immunocontraception Can Contribute to Elephant Management in Small, Enclosed Reserves: Munyawana Population as a Case Study
Immunocontraception has been widely used as a management tool to reduce population growth in captive as well as wild populations of various fauna. We model the use of an individual-based rotational immunocontraception plan on a wild elephant, Loxodonta africana, population and quantify the social and reproductive advantages of this method of implementation using adaptive management. The use of immunocontraception on an individual, rotational basis stretches the inter-calving interval for each individual female elephant to a management-determined interval, preventing exposing females to unlimited long-term immunocontraception use (which may have as yet undocumented negative effects). Such rotational immunocontraception can effectively lower population growth rates, age the population, and alter the age structure. Furthermore, such structured intervention can simulate natural process such as predation or episodic catastrophic events (e.g., drought), which regulates calf recruitment within an abnormally structured population. A rotational immunocontraception plan is a feasible and useful elephant population management tool, especially in a small, enclosed conservation area. Such approaches should be considered for other long-lived, social species in enclosed areas where the long-term consequences of consistent contraception may be unknown
Ectoparasite activity during incubation increases microbial growth on avian eggs
We thank Estefanía López for lab work, and Tomás Pérez-Contreras and Emilio Pagani-Núñez
for facilitating collection of some of the flies used in manipulations. We also thank Ángela
Martínez-García for help with management of ARISA data and Natalia Juárez and Deseada
Parejo for the pictures of owls and roller clutches, respectively. We appreciate the comments
provided by Dr. Adèle Mennerat and five anonymous referees on earlier versions of the
manuscript.All applicable
international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were
followed.While direct detrimental effects of parasites on hosts are relatively well documented, other more subtle but potentially important effects of parasitism are yet unexplored. Biological activity of ectoparasites, apart from skin injuries and blood-feeding, often results in blood remains, or parasite faeces that accumulate and modify the host environment. In this way, ectoparasite activities and remains may increase nutrient availability that may favour colonization and growth of microorganisms including potential pathogens. Here, by the experimental addition of hematophagous flies (Carnus hemapterus, a common ectoparasite of birds) to nests of spotless starlings Sturnus unicolor during incubation, we explore this possible side effect of parasitism which has rarely, if ever, been investigated. Results show that faeces and blood remains from parasitic flies on spotless starling eggshells at the end of incubation were more abundant in experimental than in control nests. Moreover, eggshell bacterial loads of different groups of cultivable bacteria including potential pathogens, as well as species richness of bacteria in terms of Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs), were also higher in experimental nests. Finally, we also found evidence of a link between eggshell bacterial loads and increased embryo mortality, which provides indirect support for a bacterial-mediated negative effect of ectoparasitism on host offspring. Trans-shell bacterial infection might be one of the main causes of embryo death and, consequently, this hitherto unnoticed indirect effect of ectoparasitism might be widespread in nature and could affect our understanding of ecology and evolution of host-parasite interactionsFinancial support was provided by Spanish Ministerio de Economía y
Competitividad and FEDER (CGL2013-48193-C3-1-P, CGL2013-48193-C3-2-P), by JAE
programme to DMG and MRR, and by Juan de la Cierva and Ramón y Cajal programmes to
GT. All procedures were conducted under licence from the Environmental Department of the
Regional Government of Andalucía, Spain (reference SGYB/FOA/AFR)
Erratum: “The eighth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: first data from SDSS-III” (2011, ApJS, 193, 29)
Section 3.5 of Aihara et al. (2011) described various sources of systematic error in the astrometry of the imaging data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). In addition to these sources of error, there is an additional and more serious error, which introduces a large systematic shift in the astrometry over a large area around the north celestial pole. The region has irregular boundaries but in places extends as far south as declination δ ≈ 41◦. The sense of the shift is that the positions of all sources in the affected area are offset by roughly 250 mas in a northwest direction. We have updated the SDSS online documentation to reflect these errors, and to provide detailed quality information for each SDSS field
SDSS-III: Massive Spectroscopic Surveys of the Distant Universe, the Milky Way Galaxy, and Extra-Solar Planetary Systems
Building on the legacy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I and II),
SDSS-III is a program of four spectroscopic surveys on three scientific themes:
dark energy and cosmological parameters, the history and structure of the Milky
Way, and the population of giant planets around other stars. In keeping with
SDSS tradition, SDSS-III will provide regular public releases of all its data,
beginning with SDSS DR8 (which occurred in Jan 2011). This paper presents an
overview of the four SDSS-III surveys. BOSS will measure redshifts of 1.5
million massive galaxies and Lya forest spectra of 150,000 quasars, using the
BAO feature of large scale structure to obtain percent-level determinations of
the distance scale and Hubble expansion rate at z<0.7 and at z~2.5. SEGUE-2,
which is now completed, measured medium-resolution (R=1800) optical spectra of
118,000 stars in a variety of target categories, probing chemical evolution,
stellar kinematics and substructure, and the mass profile of the dark matter
halo from the solar neighborhood to distances of 100 kpc. APOGEE will obtain
high-resolution (R~30,000), high signal-to-noise (S/N>100 per resolution
element), H-band (1.51-1.70 micron) spectra of 10^5 evolved, late-type stars,
measuring separate abundances for ~15 elements per star and creating the first
high-precision spectroscopic survey of all Galactic stellar populations (bulge,
bar, disks, halo) with a uniform set of stellar tracers and spectral
diagnostics. MARVELS will monitor radial velocities of more than 8000 FGK stars
with the sensitivity and cadence (10-40 m/s, ~24 visits per star) needed to
detect giant planets with periods up to two years, providing an unprecedented
data set for understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of giant
planet systems. (Abridged)Comment: Revised to version published in The Astronomical Journa
Use of the PREPARE (PREhabilitation, Physical Activity and exeRcisE) program to improve outcomes after lumbar fusion surgery for severe low back pain: a study protocol of a person-centred randomised controlled trial
- …