Influence of the COVID-19 Lockdown and Restart on the Injury Incidence and Injury Burden in Men's Professional Football Leagues in 2020: The UEFA Elite Club Injury Study.

BACKGROUND: Studies on football and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have mainly focused on the lockdown consequences for player fitness, the resumption of football training, and how to safely restart the league play, but injury data are scarce. OBJECTIVE: To describe the injury incidence and injury burden in men's professional football teams during the pandemic year of 2020. METHODS: Nineteen teams in 12 countries prospectively registered data on player-exposure and time-loss injuries throughout 2020. All major football leagues were paused as a direct response to the pandemic in March 2020 and were thereafter completely cancelled or restarted after a lockdown interval of at least two months. Historical data from 43 teams in the same cohort during the five preceding years (2015-2019) were used as reference. Between-season and within-season comparisons were made for injury incidence (number of injuries per 1000 h) and injury burden (number of absence days per 1000 h) with 95% confidence intervals and interquartile ranges. RESULTS: There was no increased match injury incidence or injury burden following the restart in 2020 compared with other time periods of 2020 and the corresponding periods 2015-2019. There was an increased training injury incidence and injury burden immediately during the lockdown in 2020, and they remained elevated also following the restart, being higher in 2020 compared with 2015-2019, respectively. The injury characteristics during the first months of the new 2020/21 season (August/September-December) were similar between the five teams that cancelled their 2019/20 season in March 2020 and the 14 teams that restarted their season in May/June 2020. CONCLUSIONS: There was no increased match injury incidence or injury burden following the COVID-19 lockdown and restart of the football season in 2020, but training injury incidence and injury burden were elevated and higher than in 2015-2019

Biomarkers of browning of white adipose tissue and their regulation during exercise- and diet-induced weight loss

Background: A hypothesis exists whereby an exercise- or dietary-induced negative energy balance reduces human subcutaneous white adipose tissue (scWAT) mass through the formation of brown-like adipocyte (brite) cells. However, the validity of biomarkers of brite formation has not been robustly evaluated in humans, and clinical data that link brite formation and weight loss are sparse. Objectives: We used rosiglitazone and primary adipocytes to stringently evaluate a set of biomarkers for brite formation and determined whether the expression of biomarker genes in scWAT could explain the change in body composition in response to exercise training combined with calorie restriction in obese and overweight women (n = 79). Design: Gene expression was derived from exon DNA microarrays and preadipocytes from obesity-resistant and -sensitive mice treated with rosiglitazone to generate candidate brite biomarkers from a microarray. These biomarkers were evaluated against data derived from scWAT RNA from obese and overweight women before and after supervised exercise 5 d/wk for 16 wk combined with modest calorie restriction (∼0.84 MJ/d). Results: Forty percent of commonly used brite gene biomarkers exhibited an exon or strain-specific regulation. No biomarkers were positively related to weight loss in human scWAT. Greater weight loss was significantly associated with less uncoupling protein 1 expression (P = 0.006, R(2) = 0.09). In a follow-up global analysis, there were 161 genes that covaried with weight loss that were linked to greater CCAAT/enhancer binding protein α activity (z = 2.0, P = 6.6 × 10(−7)), liver X receptor α/β agonism (z = 2.1, P = 2.8 × 10(−7)), and inhibition of leptin-like signaling (z = −2.6, P = 3.9 × 10(−5)). Conclusion: We identify a subset of robust RNA biomarkers for brite formation and show that calorie-restriction–mediated weight loss in women dynamically remodels scWAT to take on a more-white rather than a more-brown adipocyte phenotype

BENCHOP–SLV: the BENCHmarking project in Option Pricing–Stochastic and Local Volatility problems

In the recent project BENCHOP–the BENCHmarking project in Option Pricing we found that Stochastic and Local Volatility problems were particularly challenging. Here we continue the effort by introducing a set of benchmark problems for this type of problems. Eight different methods targeted for the Stochastic Differential Equation (SDE) formulation and the Partial Differential Equation (PDE) formulation of the problem, as well as Fourier methods making use of the characteristic function, were implemented to solve these problems. Comparisons are made with respect to time to reach a certain error level in the computed solution for the different methods. The implemented Fourier method was superior to all others for the two problems where it was implemented. Generally, methods targeting the PDE formulation of the problem outperformed the methods for the SDE formulation. Among the methods for the PDE formulation the ADI method stood out as the best performing one

"What can her body do?" Reducing weight stigma by appreciating another person's body functionality.

Objective Weight stigma is prevalent across multiple life domains, and negatively affects both psychological and physical health. Yet, research into weight stigma reduction techniques is limited, and rarely results in reduced antipathy toward higher-weight individuals. The current pre-registered study investigated a novel weight stigma reduction intervention. We tested whether a writing exercise focusing on body functionality (i.e., everything the body can do, rather than how it looks) of another person leads to reductions in weight stigma. Method Participants were 98 women (Mage = 23.17, Range = 16–63) who viewed a photograph of a higher-weight woman, “Anne,” and were randomised to complete a writing exercise either describing what “Anne’s” body could do (experimental group) or describing her home (active control group). Facets of weight stigma were assessed at pretest and posttest. Results At posttest, the experimental group evidenced higher fat acceptance and social closeness to “Anne” compared with the active control group. However, no group differences were found in attribution complexity, responsibility, and likeability of “Anne”. Conclusions A brief body functionality intervention effectively reduced some, but not all, facets of weight stigma in women. This study provides evidence that functionality-focused interventions may hold promise as a means to reduce weight stigma

GrassPlot v. 2.00 – first update on the database of multi-scale plant diversity in Palaearctic grasslands

Abstract: GrassPlot is a collaborative vegetation-plot database organised by the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) and listed in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD ID EU-00-003). Following a previous Long Database Report (Dengler et al. 2018, Phyto- coenologia 48, 331–347), we provide here the first update on content and functionality of GrassPlot. The current version (GrassPlot v. 2.00) contains a total of 190,673 plots of different grain sizes across 28,171 independent plots, with 4,654 nested-plot series including at least four grain sizes. The database has improved its content as well as its functionality, including addition and harmonization of header data (land use, information on nestedness, structure and ecology) and preparation of species composition data. Currently, GrassPlot data are intensively used for broad-scale analyses of different aspects of alpha and beta diversity in grassland ecosystems

BENCHOP - The BENCHmarking project in Option Pricing

The aim of the BENCHOP project is to provide the finance community with a common suite of benchmark problems for option pricing. We provide a detailed description of the six benchmark problems together with methods to compute reference solutions. We have implemented fifteen different numerical methods for these problems, and compare their relative performance. All implementations are available on line and can be used for future development and comparison

Bleeding and first-year mortality following hip fracture surgery and preoperative use of low-dose acetylsalicylic acid: an observational cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hip fracture is associated with high mortality. Cardiovascular disease and other comorbidities requiring long-term anticoagulant medication are common in these mostly elderly patients. The objective of our observational cohort study of patients undergoing surgery for hip fracture was to study the association between preoperative use of low-dose acetylsalicylic acid (LdAA) and intraoperative blood loss, blood transfusion and first-year all-cause mortality.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>An observational cohort study was conducted on patients with hip fracture (cervical requiring hemiarthroplasty or pertrochanteric or subtrochanteric requiring internal fixation) participating in a randomized trial that found lack of efficacy of a compression bandage in reducing postoperative bleeding. The participants were 255 patients (≥50 years) of whom 118 (46%) were using LdAA (defined as ≤320 mg daily) preoperatively. Bleeding variables in patients with and without LdAA treatment at time of fracture were measured and blood transfusions given were compared using logistic regression. The association between first-year mortality and preoperative use of LdAA was analyzed with Cox regression adjusting for age, sex, type of fracture, baseline renal dysfunction and baseline cardiovascular and/or cerebrovascular disease.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Blood transfusions were given postoperatively to 74 (62.7%) LdAA-treated and 76 (54%) non-treated patients; the adjusted odds ratio was 1.8 (95% CI 1.04 to 3.3). First-year mortality was significantly higher in LdAA-treated patients; the adjusted hazard ratio (HR) was 2.35 (95% CI 1.23 to 4.49). The mortality was also higher with baseline cardiovascular and/or cerebrovascular disease, adjusted HR 2.78 (95% CI 1.31 to 5.88). Patients treated with LdAA preoperatively were significantly more likely to suffer thromboembolic events (5.7% vs. 0.7%, P = 0.03).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In patients with hip fracture (cervical treated with hemiarthroplasty or pertrochanteric or subtrochanteric treated with internal fixation) preoperative use of low-dose acetylsalicylic acid was associated with significantly increased need for postoperative blood transfusions and significantly higher all-cause mortality during one year after surgery.</p

HistMapR: rapid digitization of historical land-use maps in R

1. Habitat destruction and degradation represent serious threats to biodiversity, and quantification of land-use change over time is important for understanding the consequences of these changes to organisms and ecosystem service provision. 2. Comparing land use between maps from different time periods allows estimation of the magnitude of habitat change in an area. However, digitizing historical maps manually is time-consuming and analyses of change are usually carried out at small spatial extents or at low resolutions. 3. HistMapR contains a number of functions that can be used to semi-automatically digitize historical land use according to a map's colours, as defined by the RGB bands of the raster image. We test the method on different historical land-use map series and compare results to manual digitizations. 4. Digitization is fast, and agreement with manually digitized maps of around 80–90% meets common targets for image classification. We hope that the ability to quickly classify large areas of historical land use will promote the inclusion of land-use change into analyses of biodiversity, species distributions and ecosystem services

Doha agreement meeting on terminology and definitions in groin pain in athletes.

BACKGROUND: Heterogeneous taxonomy of groin injuries in athletes adds confusion to this complicated area. AIM: The 'Doha agreement meeting on terminology and definitions in groin pain in athletes' was convened to attempt to resolve this problem. Our aim was to agree on a standard terminology, along with accompanying definitions. METHODS: A one-day agreement meeting was held on 4 November 2014. Twenty-four international experts from 14 different countries participated. Systematic reviews were performed to give an up-to-date synthesis of the current evidence on major topics concerning groin pain in athletes. All members participated in a Delphi questionnaire prior to the meeting. RESULTS: Unanimous agreement was reached on the following terminology. The classification system has three major subheadings of groin pain in athletes: 1. Defined clinical entities for groin pain: Adductor-related, iliopsoas-related, inguinal-related and pubic-related groin pain. 2. Hip-related groin pain. 3. Other causes of groin pain in athletes. The definitions are included in this paper. CONCLUSIONS: The Doha agreement meeting on terminology and definitions in groin pain in athletes reached a consensus on a clinically based taxonomy using three major categories. These definitions and terminology are based on history and physical examination to categorise athletes, making it simple and suitable for both clinical practice and research