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)

Hong Kong Chinese school children with elevated urine melamine levels: A prospective follow up study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In 2008, the outbreak of kidney stones in children fed by melamine-tainted milk products in Mainland China has caused major public concern of food safety. We identified Hong Kong school children with elevated urine melamine level from a community-based school survey in 2007-08 and reviewed their clinical status in 2009.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In 2007-08, 2119 school children participated in a primary and secondary school survey in Hong Kong using a cluster sampling method. Urine aliquots from 502 subjects were assayed for melamine level. High urine melamine level was defined as urine melamine/creatinine ratio >7.1 μg/mmol. Subjects with high urine melamine level were invited for clinical evaluation in 2009 including urinalysis and ultrasound imaging of the urinary system.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The age range of this subcohort was 6 - 20 years with 67% girls (335 female and 167 male subjects). The spot urine melamine/creatinine ratio of the 502 urine aliquots ranged from undetectable to 1467 μg/mmol (median 0.8 μg/mmol). Of these, 213 subjects had undetectable level (42%). We invited 47 (9%) subjects with high urine melamine level for re-evaluation and one subject declined. The median duration of follow-up was 23.5 months (interquartile range: 19.8 - 30.6 months). None of the 46 subjects (28% boys, mean age 13.9 ± 2.9 years) had any abnormality detected on ultrasound study of the urinary system. All subjects had stable renal function with a median urine albumin-creatinine ratio of 0.70 mg/mmol (interquartile range: 0.00 - 2.55 mg/mmol).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Hong Kong Chinese school children with high urine melamine levels appeared to have benign clinical course in the short term although a long term follow-up study is advisable in those with persistently high urine melamine level.</p

Carbon savings in the UK demand side response programmes

We quantify carbon (CO2) savings in the demand side response (DSR) programmes. We consider Short Term Operating Reserve (STOR), Triad, Fast Reserve and Smart Meter roll-out, with various types of smart interventions involved (using diesel generators, hydro-pumped generation and use of tariffs). We model CO2 emissions in each of the DSR programmes with appropriate configurations and assumptions used in the energy industry. This enables us to compare carbon emissions between the business-as-usual (BAU) solutions and the smart intervention applied, thus deriving the carbon savings. Whether such DSR produces positive CO2 savings or not depends on the used technologies, as well as the scale of the interventions, which we illustrate in examples

Moisture transport by Atlantic tropical cyclones onto the North American continent

Tropical Cyclones (TCs) are an important source of freshwater for the North American continent. Many studies have tried to estimate this contribution by identifying TC-induced precipitation events, but few have explicitly diagnosed the moisture fluxes across continental boundaries. We design a set of attribution schemes to isolate the column-integrated moisture fluxes that are directly associated with TCs and to quantify the flux onto the North American Continent due to TCs. Averaged over the 2004–2012 hurricane seasons and integrated over the western, southern and eastern coasts of North America, the seven schemes attribute 7 to 18 % (mean 14 %) of total net onshore flux to Atlantic TCs. A reduced contribution of 10 % (range 9 to 11 %) was found for the 1980–2003 period, though only two schemes could be applied to this earlier period. Over the whole 1980–2012 period, a further 8 % (range 6 to 9 % from two schemes) was attributed to East Pacific TCs, resulting in a total TC contribution of 19 % (range 17 to 22 %) to the ocean-to-land moisture transport onto the North American continent between May and November. Analysis of the attribution uncertainties suggests that incorporating details of individual TC size and shape adds limited value to a fixed radius approach and TC positional errors in the ERA-Interim reanalysis do not affect the results significantly, but biases in peak wind speeds and TC sizes may lead to underestimates of moisture transport. The interannual variability does not appear to be strongly related to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation phenomenon

Growth of Synechococcus sp. immobilized in chitosan with different times of contact with NaOH

The thickness of the walls of the capsules of chitosan-immobilized Synechococcus cultures was dependent on the time of contact with NaOH and was directly related to culture growth. After an initial lag phase, probably caused by cell damage, the capsules obtained after 80 s in a 0.1 N NaOH solution showed better growth than that of free cell cultures (6.9 and 5.2 divisions in 10 days, respectively)

Intrusion detection routers: Design, implementation and evaluation using an experimental testbed

In this paper, we present the design, the implementation details, and the evaluation results of an intrusion detection and defense system for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The evaluation is conducted using an experimental testbed. The system, known as intrusion detection router (IDR), is deployed on network routers to perform online detection on any DDoS attack event, and then react with defense mechanisms to mitigate the attack. The testbed is built up by a cluster of sufficient number of Linux machines to mimic a portion of the Internet. Using the testbed, we conduct real experiments to evaluate the IDR system and demonstrate that IDR is effective in protecting the network from various DDoS attacks. © 2006 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Movements of Wolves at the Northern Extreme of the Species' Range, Including during Four Months of Darkness

Information about wolf (Canis lupus) movements anywhere near the northern extreme of the species' range in the High Arctic (>75°N latitude) are lacking. There, wolves prey primarily on muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) and must survive 4 months of 24 hr/day winter darkness and temperatures reaching −53 C. The extent to which wolves remain active and prey on muskoxen during the dark period are unknown, for the closest area where information is available about winter wolf movements is >2,250 km south. We studied a pack of ≥20 wolves on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada (80°N latitude) from July 2009 through mid-April 2010 by collaring a lead wolf with a Global Positioning System (GPS)/Argos radio collar. The collar recorded the wolf's precise locations at 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. daily and transmitted the locations by satellite to our email. Straight-line distances between consecutive 12-hr locations varied between 0 and 76 km. Mean (SE) linear distance between consecutive locations (n = 554) was 11 (0.5) km. Total minimum distance traveled was 5,979 km, and total area covered was 6,640 km2, the largest wolf range reported. The wolf and presumably his pack once made a 263-km (straight-line distance) foray to the southeast during 19–28 January 2010, returning 29 January to 1 February at an average of 41 km/day straight-line distances between 12-hr locations. This study produced the first detailed movement information about any large mammal in the High Arctic, and the average movements during the dark period did not differ from those afterwards. Wolf movements during the dark period in the highest latitudes match those of the other seasons and generally those of wolves in lower latitudes, and, at least with the gross movements measurable by our methods, the 4-month period without direct sunlight produced little change in movements

A comprehensive 1000 Genomes-based genome-wide association meta-analysis of coronary artery disease

Existing knowledge of genetic variants affecting risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) is largely based on genome-wide association studies (GWAS) analysis of common SNPs. Leveraging phased haplotypes from the 1000 Genomes Project, we report a GWAS meta-analysis of 185 thousand CAD cases and controls, interrogating 6.7 million common (MAF>0.05) as well as 2.7 million low frequency (0.005<MAF<0.05) variants. In addition to confirmation of most known CAD loci, we identified 10 novel loci, eight additive and two recessive, that contain candidate genes that newly implicate biological processes in vessel walls. We observed intra-locus allelic heterogeneity but little evidence of low frequency variants with larger effects and no evidence of synthetic association. Our analysis provides a comprehensive survey of the fine genetic architecture of CAD showing that genetic susceptibility to this common disease is largely determined by common SNPs of small effect siz