Tapering practices of strongman athletes: Test-retest reliability study

BACKGROUND: Little is currently known about the tapering practices of strongman athletes. We have developed an Internet-based comprehensive self-report questionnaire examining the training and tapering practices of strongman athletes. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to document the test-retest reliability of questions associated with the Internet-based comprehensive self-report questionnaire on the tapering practices of strongman athletes. The information will provide insight on the reliability and usefulness of the online questionnaire for use with strongman athletes. METHODS: Invitations to complete an Internet questionnaire were sent via Facebook Messenger to identified strongman athletes. The survey consisted of four main areas of inquiry, including demographics and background information, training practices, tapering, and tapering practices. Of the 454 athletes that completed the survey over the 8-week period, 130 athletes responded on Facebook Messenger indicating that they intended to complete, or had completed, the survey. These participants were asked if they could complete the online questionnaire a second time for a test-retest reliability analysis. Sixty-four athletes (mean age 33.3 years, standard deviation [SD] 7.7; mean height 178.2 cm, SD 11.0; mean body mass 103.7 kg, SD 24.8) accepted this invitation and completed the survey for the second time after a minimum 7-day period from the date of their first completion. Agreement between athlete responses was measured using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) and kappa statistics. Confidence intervals (at 95%) were reported for all measures and significance was set at P<.05. RESULTS: Test-retest reliability for demographic and training practices items were significant (P<.001) and showed excellent (ICC range=.84 to .98) and fair to almost perfect agreement (κ range=.37-.85). Moderate to excellent agreements (ICC range=.56-.84; P<.01) were observed for all tapering practice measures except for the number of days athletes started their usual taper before a strongman competition (ICC=.30). When the number of days were categorized with additional analyses, moderate reliability was observed (κ=.43; <.001). Fair to substantial agreement was observed for the majority of tapering practices measures (κrange=.38-.73; P<.001) except for how training frequency (κ=.26) and the percentage and type of resistance training performed, which changed in the taper (κ=.20). Good to excellent agreement (ICC=.62-.93; P<.05) was observed for items relating to strongman events and traditional exercises performed during the taper. Only the time at which the Farmer's Walk was last performed before competition showed poor reliability (ICC=.27). CONCLUSIONS: We have developed a low cost, self-reported, online retrospective questionnaire, which provided stable and reliable answers for most of the demographic, training, and tapering practice questions. The results of this study support the inferences drawn from the Tapering Practices of Strongman Athletes Stud

An end-to-end framework for real-time automatic sleep stage classification.

Sleep staging is a fundamental but time consuming process in any sleep laboratory. To greatly speed up sleep staging without compromising accuracy, we developed a novel framework for performing real-time automatic sleep stage classification. The client-server architecture adopted here provides an end-to-end solution for anonymizing and efficiently transporting polysomnography data from the client to the server and for receiving sleep stages in an interoperable fashion. The framework intelligently partitions the sleep staging task between the client and server in a way that multiple low-end clients can work with one server, and can be deployed both locally as well as over the cloud. The framework was tested on four datasets comprising ≈1700 polysomnography records (≈12000 hr of recordings) collected from adolescents, young, and old adults, involving healthy persons as well as those with medical conditions. We used two independent validation datasets: one comprising patients from a sleep disorders clinic and the other incorporating patients with Parkinson's disease. Using this system, an entire night's sleep was staged with an accuracy on par with expert human scorers but much faster (≈5 s compared with 30-60 min). To illustrate the utility of such real-time sleep staging, we used it to facilitate the automatic delivery of acoustic stimuli at targeted phase of slow-sleep oscillations to enhance slow-wave sleep

The non-continuous direction vector I test

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Direct comparison of high voltage breakdown measurements in liquid argon and liquid xenon

As noble liquid time projection chambers grow in size their high voltage requirements increase, and detailed, reproducible studies of dielectric breakdown and the onset of electroluminescence are needed to inform their design. The Xenon Breakdown Apparatus (XeBrA) is a 5-liter cryogenic chamber built to characterize the DC high voltage breakdown behavior of liquid xenon and liquid argon. Electrodes with areas up to 33 cm2 were tested while varying the cathode-anode separation from 1 to 6 mm with a voltage difference up to 75 kV. A power-law relationship between breakdown field and electrode area was observed. The breakdown behavior of liquid argon and liquid xenon within the same experimental apparatus was comparable

Optimal position of an emitter in a wavelength-scale parabolic reflector (article)

This is the final version. Available on open access from the Optical Society of America via the DOI in this recordThe dataset associated with this article is available in ORE at https://doi.org/10.24378/exe.1883, with the title 'On the optimal position of an emitter in a wavelength-scale parabolic reflector'We investigate the optimum emitter position within reflecting parabolic antennas whose size is comparable to the emission wavelength. Using finite-element modeling we calculate the dependence of the amount of power directed into a 20° half-angle cone on the emitter’s position and compare with results obtained using geometrical optics. The spatially varying density of states within the wavelength-scale reflector is mapped and its impact discussed. In addition, it is demonstrated that changing the characteristic size of the reflector within the range from 0.5 to 1.5 times the emission wavelength has a strong bearing on the optimum emitter position, a position that does not in general coincide with the parabola’s focus. We calculate that the optimal antenna size and emitter position allow for the maximum directed power to exceed that obtained in the geometrical optics regime.DysonEngineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

Ceramides: a new player in the inflammation-insulin resistance paradigm?

No abstract available

TWIST1 Is Expressed in Colorectal Carcinomas and Predicts Patient Survival

TWIST1 is a transcription factor that belongs to the family of basic helix-loop-helix proteins involved in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and invasion processes. The TWIST1 protein possesses oncogenic, drug-resistant, angiogenic and invasive properties, and has been related with several human tumors and other pathologies. Colorectal cancer is one of the tumors in which TWIST1 is over-expressed, but its involvement in the clinical outcome of the disease is still unclear. We tested, by RT-PCR, the expression levels of TWIST1 in normal and tumor paired-sample tissues from a series of 151 colorectal cancer patients, in order to investigate its prognostic value as a tumor marker. TWIST1 expression was restricted to tumor tissues (86.1%) and correlated with lymph node metastasis (LNM). Adjusted analysis showed that the expression levels of TWIST1 correlated with overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). Importantly, TWIST1 expression levels predicted OS specifically at stages I and II. Moreover, patients with stage II tumors and high TWIST1 levels showed even shorter survival than patients with stage III tumors. These results suggest that TWIST1 expression levels could be a tumor indicator in stage II patients and help select patients at greater risk of poor prognosis who might benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy

Extracts From New Zealand Undaria Pinnatifida Containing Fucoxanthin As Potential Functional Biomaterials Against Cancer in Vitro

This study tested extracts from New Zealand seaweed Undaria pinnatifida containing fucoxanthin, in parallel with pure fucoxanthin, in nine human cancer cell lines, for anticancer activity. Growth inhibition effects of extracts from Undaria pinnatifida were found in all types of cancer cell lines in dose- and time- dependent manners. Cytotoxicity of fucoxanthin in three human non-cancer cell lines was also tested. Compared with pure fucoxanthin, our extracts containing low level of fucoxanthin were found to be more effective in inhibiting the growth of lung carcinoma, colon adenocarcinoma and neuroblastoma. Our results suggest that fucoxanthin is a functional biomaterial that may be used as a chemopreventive phytochemical or in combination chemotherapy. Furthermore, we show for the first time that some unknown compounds with potential selective anti-cancer effects may exist in extracts of New Zealand Undaria pinnatifida, and New Zealand Undaria pinnatifida could be used as a source for either functional biomaterial extraction or production of functional food

Parameterized Directed kk-Chinese Postman Problem and kk Arc-Disjoint Cycles Problem on Euler Digraphs

In the Directed $k$-Chinese Postman Problem ($k$-DCPP), we are given a connected weighted digraph $G$ and asked to find $k$ non-empty closed directed walks covering all arcs of $G$ such that the total weight of the walks is minimum. Gutin, Muciaccia and Yeo (Theor. Comput. Sci. 513 (2013) 124--128) asked for the parameterized complexity of $k$-DCPP when $k$ is the parameter. We prove that the $k$-DCPP is fixed-parameter tractable. We also consider a related problem of finding $k$ arc-disjoint directed cycles in an Euler digraph, parameterized by $k$. Slivkins (ESA 2003) showed that this problem is W[1]-hard for general digraphs. Generalizing another result by Slivkins, we prove that the problem is fixed-parameter tractable for Euler digraphs. The corresponding problem on vertex-disjoint cycles in Euler digraphs remains W[1]-hard even for Euler digraphs