Reliability and validity of a method for the assessment of sport rock climbers' isometric finger strength

Isometric strength of the finger flexors is considered to be one of the main physical determinants of sport rock climbing performance. We set out to determine the test-retest reliability and criterion validity of a low resource maximal isometric finger strength (MIFS) testing protocol that uses a pulley system to add or remove weight to/from a climber's body. To determine test-retest reliability, 15 subjects' MIFS was assessed on 2 occasions, separated by a minimum of 48 hours. Body mass and maximum load were recorded on both occasions. Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) between visits for all variables were very good (ICC > 0.91), with small bias and effect sizes-particularly when expressed as a percentage of body mass (ICC = 0.98, 95% confidence interval 0.93-0.99). To determine the criterion validity of MIFS and climbing ability, data of 229 intermediate to higher elite climbers were compared. Pearson's product moment correlations demonstrated good agreement, again particularly between total load when expressed as a percentage of body mass and climbing performance (r = 0.421-0.503). The results illustrate the sensitivity of a simple test for the determination of MIFS in intermediate to height elite climbers from an ecologically valid, climbing specific test that only requires equipment found at most climbing walls. This low resource test protocol for the assessment of isometric finger strength has wide-reaching utility, for instance when assessing strength before and after a training intervention or when prescribing load intensities for exercises aimed at improving maximal finger strength

Suppressing Electroweak Precision Observables in 5D Warped Models

We elaborate on a recently proposed mechanism to suppress large contributions to the electroweak precision observables in five dimensional (5D) warped models, without the need for an extended 5D gauge sector. The main ingredient is a modification of the AdS metric in the vicinity of the infrared (IR) brane corresponding to a strong deviation from conformality in the IR of the 4D holographic dual. We compute the general low energy effective theory of the 5D warped Standard Model, emphasizing additional IR contributions to the wave function renormalization of the light Higgs mode. We also derive expressions for the S and T parameters as a function of a generic 5D metric and zero-mode wave functions. We give an approximate formula for the mass of the radion that works even for strong deviation from the AdS background. We proceed to work out the details of an explicit model and derive bounds for the first KK masses of the various bulk fields. The radion is the lightest new particle although its mass is already at about 1/3 of the mass of the lightest resonances, the KK states of the gauge bosons. We examine carefully various issues that can arise for extreme choices of parameters such as the possible reintroduction of the hierarchy problem, the onset of nonperturbative physics due to strong IR curvature or the creation of new hierarchies near the Planck scale. We conclude that a KK scale of 1 TeV is compatible with all these constraints.Comment: 44 pages, 11 figures, references adde

The effects of sprint vs. resisted sled-based training; an 8-week in-season randomized control intervention in elite rugby league players

The aim of the current study was to examine the efficacy of resisted sled-based training compared to traditional unresisted sprint training in terms of mediating improvements in speed, agility, and power during an eight-week period of in-season training in elite rugby league players. Participants were randomly separated into either resisted sled or traditional sprint-based training groups and they completed an eight-week in-season training block with training prescribed based on the group to which they were assigned. Measures of 5 m, 10 m, and 20 m sprint times in addition to countermovement jump height and 505-agility test time were measured at baseline, four-weeks and eight-weeks. For sprint-based outcomes, although both groups improved significantly, there were no statistical differences between the two training methods. However, at the eight-week time point there were significant improvements in 505-agility test (sprint group: baseline = 2.45 and eight-weeks = 2.42 s/sled group: baseline = 2.43 and eight-weeks = 2.37 s) and countermovement jump (sprint group: baseline = 39.18 and eight-weeks = 39.49 cm/sled group: baseline = 40.43 and eight-weeks = 43.07 cm) performance in the sled training group. Therefore, the findings from this investigation may be important to strength and conditioning coaches working in an elite rugby league in that resisted sled training may represent a more effective method of sprint training prescription

A Noise Trimming and Positional Significance of Transposon Insertion System to Identify Essential Genes in Yersinia pestis

This is the final version of the article. Available from Springer Nature via the DOI in this record.Massively parallel sequencing technology coupled with saturation mutagenesis has provided new and global insights into gene functions and roles. At a simplistic level, the frequency of mutations within genes can indicate the degree of essentiality. However, this approach neglects to take account of the positional significance of mutations - the function of a gene is less likely to be disrupted by a mutation close to the distal ends. Therefore, a systematic bioinformatics approach to improve the reliability of essential gene identification is desirable. We report here a parametric model which introduces a novel mutation feature together with a noise trimming approach to predict the biological significance of Tn5 mutations. We show improved performance of essential gene prediction in the bacterium Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague. This method would have broad applicability to other organisms and to the identification of genes which are essential for competitiveness or survival under a broad range of stresses.This work was supported by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory under contract DSTLX-1000060221 (WP1)

Flavor Phenomenology in General 5D Warped Spaces

We have considered a general 5D warped model with SM fields propagating in the bulk and computed explicit expressions for oblique and non-oblique electroweak observables as well as for flavor and CP violating effective four-fermion operators. We have compared the resulting lower bounds on the Kaluza-Klein (KK) scale in the RS model and a recently proposed model with a metric modified towards the IR brane, which is consistent with oblique parameters without the need for a custodial symmetry. We have randomly generated 40,000 sets of O(1) 5D Yukawa couplings and made a fit of the quark masses and CKM matrix elements in both models. This method allows to identify the percentage of points consistent with a given KK mass, which in turn provides us with a measure for the required fine-tuning. Comparison with current experimental data on Rb, FCNC and CP violating operators exhibits an improved behavior of our model with respect to the RS model. In particular, allowing 10% fine-tuning the combined results point towards upper bounds on the KK gauge boson masses around 3.3 TeV in our model as compared with 13 TeV in the RS model. One reason for this improvement is that fermions in our model are shifted, with respect to fermions in the RS model, towards the UV brane thus decreasing the strength of the modifications of electroweak observables.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figures, 4 table

Chapter 7: Grading a Body of Evidence on Diagnostic Tests

10.1007/s11606-012-2021-9Journal of General Internal Medicine27SUPPL.1S47-S55JGIM

TWEAK and Fn14 expression in the pathogenesis of joint inflammation and bone erosion in rheumatoid arthritis

Extent: 10p.INTRODUCTION: TNF-like weak inducer of apoptosis (TWEAK) has been proposed as a mediator of inflammation and bone erosion in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This study aimed to investigate TWEAK and TWEAK receptor (Fn14) expression in synovial tissue from patients with active and inactive rheumatoid arthritis (RA), osteoarthritis (OA) and normal controls and assess soluble (s)TWEAK levels in the synovial fluids from patients with active RA and OA. Effects of sTWEAK on osteoclasts and osteoblasts were investigated in vitro. METHODS: TWEAK and Fn14 expression were detected in synovial tissues by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Selected tissues were dual labelled with antibodies specific for TWEAK and lineage-selective cell surface markers CD68, Tryptase G, CD22 and CD38. TWEAK mRNA expression was examined in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) sorted on the basis of their expression of CD22. sTWEAK was detected in synovial fluid from OA and RA patients by ELISA. The effect of sTWEAK on PBMC and RAW 264.7 osteoclastogenesis was examined. The effect of sTWEAK on cell surface receptor activator of NF Kappa B Ligand (RANKL) expression by human osteoblasts was determined by flow cytometry. RESULTS: TWEAK and Fn14 expression were significantly higher in synovial tissue from all patient groups compared to the synovial tissue from control subjects (P < 0.05). TWEAK was significantly higher in active compared with inactive RA tissues (P < 0.05). TWEAK expression co-localised with a subset of CD38+ plasma cells and with CD22+ B-lymphocytes in RA tissues. Abundant TWEAK mRNA expression was detected in normal human CD22+ B cells. Higher levels of sTWEAK were observed in synovial fluids isolated from active RA compared with OA patients. sTWEAK did not stimulate osteoclast formation directly from PBMC, however, sTWEAK induced the surface expression of RANKL by human immature, STRO-1+ osteoblasts. CONCLUSIONS: The expression of TWEAK by CD22+ B cells and CD38+ plasma cells in RA synovium represents a novel potential pathogenic pathway. High levels of sTWEAK in active RA synovial fluid and of TWEAK and Fn14 in active RA tissue, together with the effect of TWEAK to induce osteoblastic RANKL expression, is consistent with TWEAK/Fn14 signalling being important in the pathogenesis of inflammation and bone erosion in RA.Anak A. S. S. K. Dharmapatni, Malcolm D. Smith, Tania N. Crotti, Christopher A. Holding, Cristina Vincent, Helen M. Weedon, Andrew C. W. Zannettino, Timothy S. Zheng, David M. Findlay, Gerald J. Atkins and David R. Hayne

Reducing Constraints in a Higher Dimensional Extension of the Randall and Sundrum Model

In order to investigate the phenomenological implications of warped spaces in more than five dimensions, we consider a $4+1+\delta$ dimensional extension to the Randall and Sundrum model in which the space is warped with respect to a single direction by the presence of an anisotropic bulk cosmological constant. The Einstein equations are solved, giving rise to a range of possible spaces in which the $\delta$ additional spaces are warped. Here we consider models in which the gauge fields are free to propagate into such spaces. After carrying out the Kaluza Klein (KK) decomposition of such fields it is found that the KK mass spectrum changes significantly depending on how the $\delta$ additional dimensions are warped. We proceed to compute the lower bound on the KK mass scale from electroweak observables for models with a bulk $SU(2)\times U(1)$ gauge symmetry and models with a bulk $SU(2)_R\times SU(2)_L\times U(1)$ gauge symmetry. It is found that in both cases the most favourable bounds are approximately $M_{KK}\gtrsim 2$ TeV, corresponding to a mass of the first gauge boson excitation of about 4-6 TeV. Hence additional warped dimensions offer a new way of reducing the constraints on the KK scale.Comment: 27 pages, 15 figures, v3: Additional comments in sections 1, 2 and 4. New appendix added. Five additional figures. References adde

Flavour Physics in the Soft Wall Model

We extend the description of flavour that exists in the Randall-Sundrum (RS) model to the soft wall (SW) model in which the IR brane is removed and the Higgs is free to propagate in the bulk. It is demonstrated that, like the RS model, one can generate the hierarchy of fermion masses by localising the fermions at different locations throughout the space. However, there are two significant differences. Firstly the possible fermion masses scale down, from the electroweak scale, less steeply than in the RS model and secondly there now exists a minimum fermion mass for fermions sitting towards the UV brane. With a quadratic Higgs VEV, this minimum mass is about fifteen orders of magnitude lower than the electroweak scale. We derive the gauge propagator and despite the KK masses scaling as $m_n^2\sim n$, it is demonstrated that the coefficients of four fermion operators are not divergent at tree level. FCNC's amongst kaons and leptons are considered and compared to calculations in the RS model, with a brane localised Higgs and equivalent levels of tuning. It is found that since the gauge fermion couplings are slightly more universal and the SM fermions typically sit slightly further towards the UV brane, the contributions to observables such as $\epsilon_K$ and $\Delta m_K$, from the exchange of KK gauge fields, are significantly reduced.Comment: 33 pages, 15 figures, 5 tables; v2: references added; v3: modifications to figures 4,5 and 6. version to appear in JHE