Effects Of Local Muscle Fatigue On Proprioception And Motor Learning

ABSTRACT EFFECTS OF LOCAL MUSCLE FATIGUE ON PROPRIOCEPTION AND MOTOR LEARNING by GOWTAMI DATLA May 2016 Advisor: Dr. Qin Lai Major: Kinesiology and Exercise Science Degree: Masters of Education Background: Muscle fatigue is an exercise induced decline in the ability of muscles to produce force or power. Recent studies showed that decline in proprioception due to fatigue lead to an increasing risk of falls and injury. However, it was unknown whether fatigue-induced proprioception decrease affects skill acquisition and memory consolidation. Purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of local muscle fatigue on perceptual motor learning in arm positioning task and to compare surface EMG activities in the fatigue and non-fatigue muscle conditions. Two experiments were used to investigate the purpose. In Experiment 1, Methods: 24 healthy young adults (Age: 20-40) were randomly and equally assigned into either control or experiment group. An informed consent was signed prior to the study. Both the groups performed the same task but the experiment group underwent a fatigue protocol (biceps curls with weight of 80% voluntary contraction until fatigue) during the acquisition phase. The task was to place the left forearm on a kinestheiometer and moved the handle to 30, 45, 60 degrees by flexion. All the participants performed 1 block of pre-test, 5 blocks of acquisition phase, 1 block of post-immediate test during the first visit. A delayed retention and bilateral transfer tests were administered 48 hrs after the first visit. Each block had 12 trials. Throughout the task participants were blind folded and were given verbal feedback during the acquisition only. Results: A 2 X 5 (Group vs. Block) ANOVA with repeated measure on Block for acquisition demonstrated both groups decreased total movement error (E) with practice, F (4, 88) = 10.46, p\u3c.01. A main effect of group was detected, F (1, 22) = 4.91, p\u3c.05. Duncan’s MRT indicated fatigue group (M=5.73) produced more E relative to the controlled (M=4.93). A separated ANOVA for retention, and transfer tests also detected a main effect of group, F (1, 22) = 10.19, p\u3c.01 for total error. DMRT revealed that fatigue group (M=8.08) produced more variable error than control group (M=5.41). The analysis did not detect difference between retention and transfer [F (1, 22) = 0.26, P\u3e 0.05] or interaction [F (1, 22) = 0.00, P\u3e 0.05]. In Experiment 2, Methods: 12 healthy individuals (age 20-40) participated in the experiment that consisted of 6 blocks with 12 trials each. All the participants performed 6 blocks of task and fatigue protocol before every other block. After fatigue protocol participants were made to perform the task immediately without rest but were given 2 minutes rest after each block. Results: One way ANOVA with repeated measure on condition showed a main effect of fatigue for the EMG frequency, F (1, 22) = 7, P\u3c.05. Where fatigue condition was greater than non-fatigue. The main effect was also detected for the integral EMG (amplitude), F (1, 12) = 6.14, P\u3c .05, where non fatigue was greater than fatigue. Conclusion: Both the control and experiment group exhibited perceptual motor learning with practice. The fatigue group showed a greater error than the control group in acquisition, retention and transfer. The surface EMG showed increased frequency and decreased integral (amplitude) in the fatigued muscle when compared to non-fatigue condition. In summary, local muscle fatigue had negative effects on perceptual motor acquisition and memory consolidation by degrading proprioception and efficiency on the muscles

A systematic review of the evidence in support of palliative care in people with persistently symptomatic heart failure

Background: Heart failure is common. People with advanced stages of the disease are symptomatic and have poor quality of life. Despite recommendations, this population have little access to palliative care. A barrier for people with heart failure accessing palliative care is clinicians' perceptions that there is little or no evidence to show that palliative care is beneficial in this patient group.Aim: The thesis aims is to identify the evidence in support of palliative care in heart failure management.Methods: A systematic review was conducted of the current evidence in support of palliative care in people with persistently symptomatic heart failure. Medline, Cochrane database, CINAHL, PsycINFO, HMIC, Care Search Grey Literature, reference lists, and citations were searched and experts were emailed for studies about 'persistently symptomatic heart failure' and 'palliative care'.Results: Two researchers screened 7,005 titles and abstracts independently. Seven phase III trials, one phase II trial, one non-randomised quasi-experimental trial, five cohort studies, and one case-control study were included. Studies were heterogeneous in terms of population, intervention, comparator, and outcomes. However, study designs with adequate power and a multi-disciplinary palliative care intervention showed benefit for a variety of patient-reported outcomes such as symptom burden, depression, functional status, and quality of life, as well as, administrative outcomes such as resource use and costs of care.Discussion: Overall, the results support the use of palliative care in managing patients with heart failure; however, findings were not consistent across all studies. Various methodological issues may contribute to discrepant results, and effect may have been under-estimated in several studies due to risk of contamination of controls. Further research is needed to understand which patients would benefit most from general and specialist palliative care

Measurements based performance analysis of Web services

Web services are increasingly used to enable interoperability and flexible integration of software systems. In this thesis we focus on measurement-based performance analysis of an e-commerce application which uses Web services components to execute business operations. In our experiments we use a session-oriented workload generated by a tool developed accordingly to TPC-W specification. The empirical results are obtained for two different user profiles, Browsing and Ordering, under different workload intensities. In addition to variation in workloads we also study the applications performance when Web services are implemented using .NET and J2EE. Unlike the previous work which was focused on the overall server response time and throughput, we present Web interaction, software architecture, and hardware resource level analysis of the system performance. In particular, we propose a method for extracting component level response times from the application server logs and study the impact of Web services and other components on the server performance. The results show that the response times of Web services components increase significantly under higher workload intensities when compared to other components. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Performance of a hybrid wave-current energy converter and tank test validation

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Antimicrobial Edible Coating Composed of Chitosan Polyvinyl Alcohol and Zinc-Coated Halloysite Nanotubes

Changes in everyday activities like food packaging are required due to the global shift from a linear to a circular economy. Therefore, industrial, and institutional research centers are interested in using biodegradable materials like polyvinyl alcohol and natural raw materials like chitosan to develop novel food packaging films. Edible coating materials have been extensively researched to extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables and reduce the risk of ingesting chemical reagents. Chitosan (CH) is widely used as a natural preservative for fruits and vegetables, but its poor mechanical, and water resistance limits its use. To improve the properties of chitosan, we prepared chitosan composite films by incorporating polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) with varying amounts of halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) and zinc oxide coated HNTs (ZnHNTs) into a 1% chitosan solution. The effects of PVA/CH blended films with varying concentrations of HNTs and ZnHNTs were assessed using SEM/FESEM, FTIR, and XRD. FTIR and XRD confirmed the presence of zinc on the HNT surface. SEM showed a rough surface that increased roughness with HNT/ZnHNTs addition. Adding ZnHNTs and HNTs improved the chitosan/PVA film\u27s tensile strength (TS) and elongation at break (EAB) with a decrease in light transmittance. We tested the films\u27 antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli). The CS/PVA/ ZnHNTs films were significantly antimicrobial over two weeks. Coatings made of PVA and chitosan (80/20 ratio) with concentrations (0, 0.2%, 0.4%, and 0.6%) of HNTs and ZnHNTs were selected for further study. The results indicated that the bio‐based films can extend food shelf life and could be used as novel active food packaging materials. Among them, the most promising film was 0.6% ZnHNTs, showing a good preservation effect

Design improvement using reverse analysis in design for quality manufacturability

The competitive needs of modern manufacturing demands that innovative approaches be used to gain an edge over the competitors. least Product design is one of the key dimensions wazzu in which companies can excel. Shortening the product design cycle so as to rapidly launch defect free products, is the goal of most companies. Design for Quality Manufacturability (DFQM) is a technique used to evaluate the quality manufacturability of a product at the design stage, so as to eliminate quality problems during production. DFQM provides a means for relating the activities of quality improvement, product design and manufacturability analysis. The basis for DFQM is a set of defects and a set of factors which influence the occurrence of these defects. The DFQM methodolgy has been under development at N.J.I.T for the last three years. In this Thesis we design and present the reverse analysis tool for DFQM. This tool is used for design improvement after the initial DFQM analysis. Reverse analysis tells the designer what specific design changes will help improve the quality manufacturabiliy of the design. The analysis is based on the error catalysts within the DFQM logic. A software for DFQM is developed as part of the Thesis. Two case studies are studied to illustrate the practical feasibility of DFQM in a real world environment

Essential thrombocytosis: review of literature with a rare presentation of cerebral thrombosis treated with endovascular therapy

Essential thrombocytosis (ET) is a clonal hematopoietic stem cell disorder. Clinically there is an over-production of platelets without a definable cause. ET is a myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN). It has an incidence of 1 to 2 per 100,000 population and a distinct female predominance. Once considered a disease of the elderly and responsible for significant morbidity due to haemorrhage or thrombosis, it is now clear that ET can occur at any age in adults and often without symptoms or disturbances of hemostasis. ET can cause both thrombosis or haemorrhage and carries a risk of acute leukemic transformation. Being an MPN, in some cases, polycythemia vera (PV) or primary myelo-fibrosis (PMF) can present as ET. Though the average life expectancy only slightly deviates from the standard expected for age-matched individuals, a thorough understanding of its etiopathogenesis, clinical presentation, complication and management can make a world of difference to patients. Thrombosis is one such complication that has a significant impact on the mortality and morbidity of ET. We proposed using endovascular therapy (EVT) as a treatment modality for cerebral venous sinus thrombosis