Shoulder muscle activity in sport climbing in naturally chosen and corrected shoulder positions

Objective: The aim of the study was to determine electromyographic activity of the scapula stabilizing muscles in naturally chosen and corrected shoulder positions in typical static climbing postures. Methods: Six male participants undertook surface electromyography measurement in four climbing postures for two different shoulder positions. The activity of the lower, middle and upper trapezius, serratus anterior, pectoralis major, and sternocleidomastoid was recorded. Electromyographic activity was expressed as the percentage of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) for each muscle. Results: Climbing postures induced higher activation of middle and lower trapezius in corrected shoulder positions (35.3 ± 11.8 and 61.7 ± 15.4% MVC respectively) than in naturally chosen shoulder positions (18.4 ± 8.9 and 30.1 ± 13.8% MVC respectively). The highest activity of the middle and lower trapezius was found in postures with the arm in external rotation and 90° abduction and in an overhanging posture. Low activation was stated for the other muscles in both shoulder conditions. Conclusion: Results showed that climbers naturally elevate the shoulder during typical static postures. Corrected shoulder positions induce higher activation of the scapula stabilizing muscles than naturally chosen shoulder positions.N/

Reframing gender and feminist knowledge construction in marketing and consumer research: missing feminisms and the case of men and masculinities

Gender has been theorised and studied in many ways and across different disciplines. Although a number of these theorisations have been recognised and adopted in marketing and consumer research, the significance of feminism in knowledge construction has largely remained what we would call ‘unfinished’. Based on a critical reframing of gender research in marketing and consumer research, in dialogue with feminist theory, this article offers theoretical and practical suggestions for how to reinvigorate these research efforts. The analysis highlights dominant theorisations of gender, relating to gender as variable, difference and role; as fundamental difference and structuring; and as cultural and identity constructions. This reframing emphasises various neglected or ‘missing feminisms’, including queer theory; critical race, intersectional and transnational feminisms; material-discursive feminism; and critical studies on men and masculinities. A more detailed discussion of the latter, as a relatively new, growing and politically contentious area, is further developed to highlight more specifically which feminist and gender theories are mainly in use in marketing and consumer research and which are little or not used. In the light of this, it is argued that marketing and related disciplines have thus far largely neglected several key contemporary gender and feminist theorisations, particularly those that centre on gender power relations. The potential impact of these theoretical frames on transdisciplinary studies in marketing and consumer research and research agenda(s) is discussed

An Observational Overview of Solar Flares

We present an overview of solar flares and associated phenomena, drawing upon a wide range of observational data primarily from the RHESSI era. Following an introductory discussion and overview of the status of observational capabilities, the article is split into topical sections which deal with different areas of flare phenomena (footpoints and ribbons, coronal sources, relationship to coronal mass ejections) and their interconnections. We also discuss flare soft X-ray spectroscopy and the energetics of the process. The emphasis is to describe the observations from multiple points of view, while bearing in mind the models that link them to each other and to theory. The present theoretical and observational understanding of solar flares is far from complete, so we conclude with a brief discussion of models, and a list of missing but important observations.Comment: This is an article for a monograph on the physics of solar flares, inspired by RHESSI observations. The individual articles are to appear in Space Science Reviews (2011

Local Robustness: A Process Migration Criterion in HPC Clusters

Abstract. Cluster computing systems require managing their resources and running processes dynamically in an efficient manner. Preemptive process migration is such a mechanism that tries to improve the overall performance of a cluster system running independent processes. In this paper, we show that blind migration of processes at runtime by such a mechanism does not lead to better performance. Instead, the preemptive process migration mechanism requires a criterion to determine if the migration of a process would enhance the cluster performance or not. We introduce a criterion called local robustness to guide the mechanism in this respect. The results of our experiments on a real implementation of a mechanism using this criterion have shown improvements to the overall performance of a Mosix cluster in terms of system response time compared to when processes were migrated blindly

A review on the immobilization of pepsin: A Lys-poor enzyme that is unstable at alkaline pH values

Pepsin is a protease used in many different applications, and in many instances, it is utilized in an immobilized form to prevent contamination of the reaction product. This enzyme has two peculiarities that make its immobilization complex. The first one is related to the poor presence of primary amino groups on its surface (just one Lys and the terminal amino group). The second one is its poor stability at alkaline pH values. Both features make the immobilization of this enzyme to be considered a complicated goal, as most of the immobilization protocols utilize primary amino groups for immobilization. This review presents some of the attempts to get immobilized pepsin biocatalyst and their applications. The high density of anionic groups (Asp and Glu) make the anion exchange of the enzyme simpler, but this makes many of the strategies utilized to immobilize the enzyme (e.g., amino-glutaraldehyde supports) more related to a mixed ion exchange/hydrophobic adsorption than to real covalent immobilization. Finally, we propose some possibilities that can permit not only the covalent immobilization of this enzyme, but also their stabilization via multipoint covalent attachment.We gratefully recognize the support from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación from Spanish Government (project number CTQ2017-86170-R), Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (PID2021-122398OB-I00) and CSIC for the project AEP045. The FPU fellowship (Ministerio de Educacion) for Mr. Morellon–Sterling is gratefully recognized. Dr. Tacias-Pascacio thanks the financial support from “Programa para el Desarrollo Profesional Docente” (PRODEP) from Mexican Government. ABM would like to thank Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and FEDER (Project RTI2018-095291-B-I00) and the Generalitat Valenciana (PROMETEOII/2018/076) for financial support