The arm stroke efficiency in front crawl swimming: updating the state of the art

The main topic of this thesis was the arm stroke efficiency in front crawl swimming. Hence, it was developed in three original articles aiming to: (1) investigate the interplay between propelling efficiency and arm\u2019s power output in determining the maximal speed in front crawl swimming, (2) estimate the effects of leg kick on the swimming speed and on arm stroke efficiency in front crawl, and (3) to compare different methods to assess the arm stroke efficiency and to identify the main biophysical predictors of maximal speed in 200 m swimming with the arms only. Different approaches were used to quantify the arm stroke efficiency. For instance, the paddle-wheel model (studies 1, 2, and 3), the ratio forward speed/hand speed (study 3), and the MAD System approach (study 3). The leg kick contribution was estimated individually, considering the differences in speed at paired stroke frequencies, in a range of speeds. Useful and non-useful components of the total mechanical power exerted by the arm stroke were obtained from dry land (using a customized arm-crank ergometer; study 1) and swimming protocols (using the MAD System; study 3), combined to the assessment of physiological and biomechanical parameters, including the arm stroke efficiency. The maximal speed in 200 m was determined by the balance between biomechanical (75% of the variances explained by the external mechanical power and the arm stroke efficiency; 98% of the variances explained by the external mechanical power, the arm stroke efficiency and the speed-specific drag) and physiological parameters (98% of the variances explained by the total metabolic power and the energy cost of swimming). Moreover, leg kick contribution to forward speed increased from low to maximal stroke frequencies (and speeds) and individual adjustments to the leg kick contribution should be considered when assessing the arm stroke efficiency in \u201cfull stroke\u201d front crawl. Furthermore, the different methods provided significantly different values of arm stroke efficiency, although they agreed with each other. Therefore, arm stroke efficiency data should be interpreted carefully, considering the method used

A biophysical analysis on the arm stroke efficiency in front crawl swimming : comparing methods and determining the main performance predictors

Purpose: to compare different methods to assess the arm stroke efficiency ( ηF ), when swimming front crawl using the arms only on the Measurement of Active Drag System (MAD System) and in a free-swimming condition, and to identify biophysical adaptations to swimming on the MAD System and the main biophysical predictors of maximal swimming speed in the 200 m front crawl using the arms only ( v200m ). Methods: fourteen swimmers performed twice a 5 × 200 m incremental trial swimming the front crawl stroke using the arms only, once swimming freely, and once swimming on the MAD System. The total metabolic power was assessed in both conditions. The biomechanical parameters were obtained from video analysis and force data recorded on the MAD System. The ηF was calculated using: (i) direct measures of mechanical and metabolic power (power-based method); (ii) forward speed/hand speed ratio (speed-based method), and (iii) the simplified paddle-wheel model. Results: both methods to assess ηF on the MAD System differed (p < 0.001) from the expected values for this condition ( ηF = 1), with the speed-based method providing the closest values ( ηF ~0.96). In the free-swimming condition, the power-based ( ηF ~0.75), speed-based ( ηF ~0.62), and paddle-wheel ( ηF ~0.39) efficiencies were significantly different (p < 0.001). Although all methods provided values within the limits of agreement, the speed-based method provided the closest values to the “actual efficiency”. The main biophysical predictors of v200m were included in two models: biomechanical (R2 = 0.98) and physiological (R2 = 0.98). Conclusions: our results suggest that the speed-based method provides the closest values to the “actual ηF ” and confirm that swimming performance depends on the balance of biomechanical and bioenergetic parameter

frequencia critica de bracadas como parâmetro para avaliacao em natacao

The purpose of this study was to investigate the critical stroke rate (CSR) compared to the average stroke rate (SR) when swimming at the critical speed (CS). Ten competitive swimmers performed five 200 m trials at different velocities relative to their CS (90, 95, 100, 103 and 105%) in front crawl. The CSR was significantly higher than the SR at 90% of the CS and lower at 105% of the CS. Stroke length (SL) at 103 and 105% of the CS were lower than the SL at 90, 95, and 100% of the CS. The combination of the CS and CSR concepts can be useful for improving both aerobic capacity/power and technique. CS and CSR could be used to reduce the SR and increase the SL, when swimming at the CS pace, or to increase the swimming speed when swimming at the CSR

Coordenação do nado borboleta e estágio maturacional de jovens nadadores

O objetivo deste estudo foi comparar a coordenação do nado borboleta de jovens nadadores em diferentes estágios maturacionais. Vinte e um nadadores entre 10 e 12 anos de idade divididos em dois grupos, de acordo com o estágio de maturação biológica em que se encontravam (EM2 - n=11 e EM3 - n=10) foram avaliados durante 25 m no nado&nbsp; borboleta em máxima intensidade. Os indicadores de coordenação entre as ações de braços e pernas, e o desempenho foram obtidos por meio de videogrametria e cronometragem, respectivamente. Resultados: Nadadores do grupo EM3 apresentaram melhores indicadores de coordenação e maior duração relativa das fases propulsivas da pernada. Os resultados apresentados indicam que jovens nadadores deveriam receber especial atenção com relação a indicadores coordenativos do nado borboleta, visando, especificamente, o sincronismo propulsivo entre o início da fase de empurrada da braçada e o início da fase descendente da segunda pernada

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016

Global, regional, and national under-5 mortality, adult mortality, age-specific mortality, and life expectancy, 1970–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

BACKGROUND: Detailed assessments of mortality patterns, particularly age-specific mortality, represent a crucial input that enables health systems to target interventions to specific populations. Understanding how all-cause mortality has changed with respect to development status can identify exemplars for best practice. To accomplish this, the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016 (GBD 2016) estimated age-specific and sex-specific all-cause mortality between 1970 and 2016 for 195 countries and territories and at the subnational level for the five countries with a population greater than 200 million in 2016. METHODS: We have evaluated how well civil registration systems captured deaths using a set of demographic methods called death distribution methods for adults and from consideration of survey and census data for children younger than 5 years. We generated an overall assessment of completeness of registration of deaths by dividing registered deaths in each location-year by our estimate of all-age deaths generated from our overall estimation process. For 163 locations, including subnational units in countries with a population greater than 200 million with complete vital registration (VR) systems, our estimates were largely driven by the observed data, with corrections for small fluctuations in numbers and estimation for recent years where there were lags in data reporting (lags were variable by location, generally between 1 year and 6 years). For other locations, we took advantage of different data sources available to measure under-5 mortality rates (U5MR) using complete birth histories, summary birth histories, and incomplete VR with adjustments; we measured adult mortality rate (the probability of death in individuals aged 15-60 years) using adjusted incomplete VR, sibling histories, and household death recall. We used the U5MR and adult mortality rate, together with crude death rate due to HIV in the GBD model life table system, to estimate age-specific and sex-specific death rates for each location-year. Using various international databases, we identified fatal discontinuities, which we defined as increases in the death rate of more than one death per million, resulting from conflict and terrorism, natural disasters, major transport or technological accidents, and a subset of epidemic infectious diseases; these were added to estimates in the relevant years. In 47 countries with an identified peak adult prevalence for HIV/AIDS of more than 0·5% and where VR systems were less than 65% complete, we informed our estimates of age-sex-specific mortality using the Estimation and Projection Package (EPP)-Spectrum model fitted to national HIV/AIDS prevalence surveys and antenatal clinic serosurveillance systems. We estimated stillbirths, early neonatal, late neonatal, and childhood mortality using both survey and VR data in spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression models. We estimated abridged life tables for all location-years using age-specific death rates. We grouped locations into development quintiles based on the Socio-demographic Index (SDI) and analysed mortality trends by quintile. Using spline regression, we estimated the expected mortality rate for each age-sex group as a function of SDI. We identified countries with higher life expectancy than expected by comparing observed life expectancy to anticipated life expectancy on the basis of development status alone. FINDINGS: Completeness in the registration of deaths increased from 28% in 1970 to a peak of 45% in 2013; completeness was lower after 2013 because of lags in reporting. Total deaths in children younger than 5 years decreased from 1970 to 2016, and slower decreases occurred at ages 5-24 years. By contrast, numbers of adult deaths increased in each 5-year age bracket above the age of 25 years. The distribution of annualised rates of change in age-specific mortality rate differed over the period 2000 to 2016 compared with earlier decades: increasing annualised rates of change were less frequent, although rising annualised rates of change still occurred in some locations, particularly for adolescent and younger adult age groups. Rates of stillbirths and under-5 mortality both decreased globally from 1970. Evidence for global convergence of death rates was mixed; although the absolute difference between age-standardised death rates narrowed between countries at the lowest and highest levels of SDI, the ratio of these death rates-a measure of relative inequality-increased slightly. There was a strong shift between 1970 and 2016 toward higher life expectancy, most noticeably at higher levels of SDI. Among countries with populations greater than 1 million in 2016, life expectancy at birth was highest for women in Japan, at 86·9 years (95% UI 86·7-87·2), and for men in Singapore, at 81·3 years (78·8-83·7) in 2016. Male life expectancy was generally lower than female life expectancy between 1970 and 2016, an

Measuring performance on the Healthcare Access and Quality Index for 195 countries and territories and selected subnational locations: A systematic analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

Background: A key component of achieving universal health coverage is ensuring that all populations have access to quality health care. Examining where gains have occurred or progress has faltered across and within countries is crucial to guiding decisions and strategies for future improvement. We used the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016 (GBD 2016) to assess personal health-care access and quality with the Healthcare Access and Quality (HAQ) Index for 195 countries and territories, as well as subnational locations in seven countries, from 1990 to 2016. Methods Drawing from established methods and updated estimates from GBD 2016, we used 32 causes from which death should not occur in the presence of effective care to approximate personal health-care access and quality by location and over time. To better isolate potential effects of personal health-care access and quality from underlying risk factor patterns, we risk-standardised cause-specific deaths due to non-cancers by location-year, replacing the local joint exposure of environmental and behavioural risks with the global level of exposure. Supported by the expansion of cancer registry data in GBD 2016, we used mortality-to-incidence ratios for cancers instead of risk-standardised death rates to provide a stronger signal of the effects of personal health care and access on cancer survival. We transformed each cause to a scale of 0-100, with 0 as the first percentile (worst) observed between 1990 and 2016, and 100 as the 99th percentile (best); we set these thresholds at the country level, and then applied them to subnational locations. We applied a principal components analysis to construct the HAQ Index using all scaled cause values, providing an overall score of 0-100 of personal health-care access and quality by location over time. We then compared HAQ Index levels and trends by quintiles on the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary measure of overall development. As derived from the broader GBD study and other data sources, we examined relationships between national HAQ Index scores and potential correlates of performance, such as total health spending per capita. Findings In 2016, HAQ Index performance spanned from a high of 97\ub71 (95% UI 95\ub78-98\ub71) in Iceland, followed by 96\ub76 (94\ub79-97\ub79) in Norway and 96\ub71 (94\ub75-97\ub73) in the Netherlands, to values as low as 18\ub76 (13\ub71-24\ub74) in the Central African Republic, 19\ub70 (14\ub73-23\ub77) in Somalia, and 23\ub74 (20\ub72-26\ub78) in Guinea-Bissau. The pace of progress achieved between 1990 and 2016 varied, with markedly faster improvements occurring between 2000 and 2016 for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia, whereas several countries in Latin America and elsewhere saw progress stagnate after experiencing considerable advances in the HAQ Index between 1990 and 2000. Striking subnational disparities emerged in personal health-care access and quality, with China and India having particularly large gaps between locations with the highest and lowest scores in 2016. In China, performance ranged from 91\ub75 (89\ub71-93\ub76) in Beijing to 48\ub70 (43\ub74-53\ub72) in Tibet (a 43\ub75-point difference), while India saw a 30\ub78-point disparity, from 64\ub78 (59\ub76-68\ub78) in Goa to 34\ub70 (30\ub73-38\ub71) in Assam. Japan recorded the smallest range in subnational HAQ performance in 2016 (a 4\ub78-point difference), whereas differences between subnational locations with the highest and lowest HAQ Index values were more than two times as high for the USA and three times as high for England. State-level gaps in the HAQ Index in Mexico somewhat narrowed from 1990 to 2016 (from a 20\ub79-point to 17\ub70-point difference), whereas in Brazil, disparities slightly increased across states during this time (a 17\ub72-point to 20\ub74-point difference). Performance on the HAQ Index showed strong linkages to overall development, with high and high-middle SDI countries generally having higher scores and faster gains for non-communicable diseases. Nonetheless, countries across the development spectrum saw substantial gains in some key health service areas from 2000 to 2016, most notably vaccine-preventable diseases. Overall, national performance on the HAQ Index was positively associated with higher levels of total health spending per capita, as well as health systems inputs, but these relationships were quite heterogeneous, particularly among low-to-middle SDI countries. Interpretation GBD 2016 provides a more detailed understanding of past success and current challenges in improving personal health-care access and quality worldwide. Despite substantial gains since 2000, many low-SDI and middle- SDI countries face considerable challenges unless heightened policy action and investments focus on advancing access to and quality of health care across key health services, especially non-communicable diseases. Stagnating or minimal improvements experienced by several low-middle to high-middle SDI countries could reflect the complexities of re-orienting both primary and secondary health-care services beyond the more limited foci of the Millennium Development Goals. Alongside initiatives to strengthen public health programmes, the pursuit of universal health coverage hinges upon improving both access and quality worldwide, and thus requires adopting a more comprehensive view-and subsequent provision-of quality health care for all populations