Use of an audio-paced incremental swimming test in young national-level swimmers

Purpose:To evaluate the reliability and sensitivity to training of an audio-paced incremental swimming test.Methods:Eight young national-level male swimmers (age 15 ± 1 year) performed a 7 × 200-m incremental swimming test (velocities 1.19, 1.24, 1.28, 1.33, 1.39, and 1.45 m/s and maximal sprint pace) using an audio-pacing device. The same test was performed 4 times by each participant, 1 wk apart to assess reliability (WK1, WK2) and after 9 and 20 wk of training (WK9, WK20). Blood lactate concentration ([La−]) and heart rate (HR) were recorded after each stage. Outcome measures were the velocity (v) and HR at lactate markers of 2 mM, 4 mM, and Δ1 mM.Results:Velocities at the lactate markers proved to be more reliable than HR, with typical errors ranging from 0.66% to 2.30% and 1.28% to 4.50%, respectively (shifts in mean ranged –0.91% to 0.73% and –0.84% to 1.79%, respectively). Across WK1, WK9, and WK20 there were significant improvements in peak velocity (P &lt; .001) and each of the velocities associated with the lactate markers (P &lt; .05), whereas only HR at Δ1 mM improved (P &lt; .05).Conclusions:This article demonstrates that an audio-paced incremental swimming test is reliable for use with junior swimmers and is sensitive to changes observed after training. The postswimming measurement of HR in the pool was comparatively less reliable.</jats:sec

CO-dark gas and molecular filaments in Milky Way type galaxies

We use the moving mesh code AREPO coupled to a time-dependent chemical network to investigate the formation and destruction of molecular gas in simulated spiral galaxies. This allows us to determine the characteristics of the gas that is not traced by CO emission. Our extremely high resolution AREPO simulations allow us to capture the chemical evolution of the disc, without recourse to a parameterised `clumping factor'. We calculate H2 and CO column densities through our simulated disc galaxies, and estimate the CO emission and CO-H2 conversion factor. We find that in conditions akin to those in the local interstellar medium, around 42% of the total molecular mass should be in CO-dark regions, in reasonable agreement with observational estimates. This fraction is almost insensitive to the CO integrated intensity threshold used to discriminate between CO-bright and CO-dark gas, as long as this threshold is less than 10 K km/s. The CO-dark molecular gas primarily resides in extremely long (>100 pc) filaments that are stretched between spiral arms by galactic shear. Only the centres of these filaments are bright in CO, suggesting that filamentary molecular clouds observed in the Milky Way may only be small parts of much larger structures. The CO-dark molecular gas mainly exists in a partially molecular phase which accounts for a significant fraction of the total disc mass budget. The dark gas fraction is higher in simulations with higher ambient UV fields or lower surface densities, implying that external galaxies with these conditions might have a greater proportion of dark gas.Comment: Accepted by MNRA

Exploring the association between perceived excessive daytime sleepiness in children and academic outcomes

Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) in children has been associated with a number of problems. In contrast to adults who experience EDS and who may fall asleep or doze when in a monotonous or boring situation, children with EDS may present as hyperactive or poorly behaved. This community-based study aims to identify the prevalence of EDS in children from three perspectives: parent report, self-report, and teacher report. The study also explores the association between EDS and academic outcomes in children. The participants were 365 students (161 males) aged 4-12 years, their parents, and their teachers at a regional school. Academic outcomes were based on each student's school grades at the conclusion of the semester in which the community-based survey was administered. Using a cutoff score of 15 or greater on the PDSS, 113 (31%) students were identified by at least one respondent as displaying or experiencing EDS. EDS as observed by teachers using the PDSS was found to be associated with the student's academic outcomes, higher sleepiness scores being associated with poorer academic outcomes. Our findings suggest that the prevalence of EDS in a community setting may be higher than previously identified

The influence of emotional reaction on help seeking by victims of school bullying

Research has started to focus on how victims of school bullying cope, but there is still very little understanding if why pupils cope in one way and not another. This paper aimed to examine the effects of gender, school-stage, frequency of victimization and different emotions (anger, vengeance, self-pity, indifference, and helplessness) upon the choice of social support that children report using. Questionnaires were completed by 6282 Maltese schoolchildren aged between 9 and 14 years old. Analyses revealed that specific patterns of emotion and victimization predict whether pupils report using certain sources of social support. Results are discussed in relation to their relevance for possible intervention, future research needs and implications for the theoretical framework used

A theoretical explanation for the Central Molecular Zone asymmetry

It has been known for more than thirty years that the distribution of molecular gas in the innermost 300 parsecs of the Milky Way, the Central Molecular Zone, is strongly asymmetric. Indeed, approximately three quarters of molecular emission comes from positive longitudes, and only one quarter from negative longitudes. However, despite much theoretical effort, the origin of this asymmetry has remained a mystery. Here we show that the asymmetry can be neatly explained by unsteady flow of gas in a barred potential. We use high-resolution 3D hydrodynamical simulations coupled to a state-of-the-art chemical network. Despite the initial conditions and the bar potential being point-symmetric with respect to the Galactic Centre, asymmetries develop spontaneously due to the combination of a hydrodynamical instability known as the "wiggle instability" and the thermal instability. The observed asymmetry must be transient: observations made tens of megayears in the past or in the future would often show an asymmetry in the opposite sense. Fluctuations of amplitude comparable to the observed asymmetry occur for a large fraction of the time in our simulations, and suggest that the present is not an exceptional moment in the life of our Galaxy.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Videos of the simulations are available at http://www.ita.uni-heidelberg.de/~mattia/download.htm

Painting the City in Flux

In this paper, Simon Smith describes the way in which the cityscapes of New York serve as a source of inspiration for his painting process. The paper focuses on New York City\u27s warping of time and space, and lays out how Smith sees abstract painting, grounded in a kind of not knowing, as an apt extension of or response to the experience of the city

Formation and evolution of primordial protostellar systems

We investigate the formation of the first stars at the end of the cosmic dark ages with a suite of three-dimensional, moving mesh simulations that directly resolve the collapse of the gas beyond the formation of the first protostar at the centre of a dark matter minihalo. The simulations cover more than 25 orders of magnitude in density and have a maximum spatial resolution of 0.05 R_sun, which extends well below the radius of individual protostars and captures their interaction with the surrounding gas. In analogy to previous studies that employed sink particles, we find that the Keplerian disc around the primary protostar fragments into a number of secondary protostars, which is facilitated by H2 collisional dissociation cooling and collision-induced emission. The further evolution of the protostellar system is characterized by strong gravitational torques that transfer angular momentum between the secondary protostars formed in the disc and the surrounding gas. This leads to the migration of about half of the secondary protostars to the centre of the cloud in a free-fall time, where they merge with the primary protostar and enhance its growth to about five times the mass of the second most massive protostar. By the same token, a fraction of the protostars obtain angular momentum from other protostars via N-body interactions and migrate to higher orbits. On average, only every third protostar survives until the end of the simulation. However, the number of protostars present at any given time increases monotonically, suggesting that the system will continue to grow beyond the limited period of time simulated here.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS, movies of the simulations may be downloaded at http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~tgrei