Physiological Demands of Eventing and Performance Related Fitness in Female Horse Riders

Introduction: Scientific investigations to determine physiological demands and performance characteristics in sports are integral and necessary to identify general fitness, to monitor training progress, and for the development, prescription and execution of successful training interventions. To date, there is minimal evidence based research considering the physiological demands and physical characteristics required for the equestrian sport of Eventing. Therefore, the overarching aim of this thesis was to investigate the physiological demands of Eventing and performance related fitness in female riders. Method: The primary aim was achieved upon completion of three empirical studies. Chapter Three: Anthropometric and physical fitness characteristics and training and competition practices of Novice, Intermediate and Advanced level female Event riders were assessed in a laboratory based physical fitness test battery. Chapter Four: The physiological demands and physical characteristics of Novice level female event riders throughout the three phases of Novice level one-day Eventing (ODE) were assessed in a competitive Eventing environment. Chapter Five: The physiological demands and muscle activity of riders on live horses in a variety of equine gaits and rider positions utilised during a novice ODE, including jumping efforts, was assessed in a novel designed live horse exercise test. Results: Chapter Three reported that aside from isometric endurance, riders anthropometric and physical fitness characteristics are not influenced by competitive level of Event riding. Asymmetrical development in isometric leg strength was reported with increased levels of performance; riders reported below average balance and hamstring flexibility responses indicating limited pelvic and ankle stability, and tightness in the hamstring and lower back. Chapter Four reports that physiological strain based upon heart rate during Eventing competition is considerable and close to maximal, however blood lactate data was not supportive of this supposition. Chapter Five reports that during horse riding, riders are exposed to intermittent and prolonged isometric muscle work. During horse-riding, riders have an elevated heart rate compared to the oxygen requirements for the activity, in addition to moderate blood lactate concentrations. Conclusion: This thesis indicates that the most physiologically demanding aspect of Event riding is the light seat canter and where jumping efforts are introduced. During these positions and gait combinations, heart rate is elevated compared to oxygen uptake. Additionally, moderate blood lactate (BLa) concentrations are reported suggesting though cardiac strain is high, physical demands are moderate. The use of heart rate as a marker of exercise intensity during horse riding activities is not appropriate as it is not reflective of actual physiologic demand and BLa may be a more indicative marker of exercise intensity for equestrian investigations. There are many factors that may affect heart rate as discussed throughout the thesis, such as cognitive anxiety, heat stress and isometric muscle work. The data from this thesis speculates that the elevated heart rate is in part affected by isometric muscle work; similar physiological profiles exist in sports such as Sailing and are attributed to the quasi isometric theory. Though this thesis is not able to comprehensively conclude that physiological responses are a direct result of quasi isometrics, the data set does infer this may be a potential contributor and as such is a recommended topic for future research. Regardless of the causal mechanism, riders should be conditioned to tolerate high heart rates to enable optimal physical preparation for competition; the physical characteristics and physiological demands placed upon Event riders reported throughout this thesis provides information for coaches and trainers to consider when designing such interventions

A decade of monitoring Atlantic cod Gadus morhua spawning aggregations in Massachusetts Bay using passive acoustics

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Caiger, P. E., Dean, M. J., DeAngelis, A. I., Hatch, L. T., Rice, A. N., Stanley, J. A., Tholke, C., Zemeckis, D. R., & Van Parijs, S. M. A decade of monitoring Atlantic cod Gadus morhua spawning aggregations in Massachusetts Bay using passive acoustics. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 635, (2020): 89-103, doi:10.3354/meps13219.Atlantic cod Gadus morhua populations in the northeast USA have failed to recover since major declines in the 1970s and 1990s. To rebuild these stocks, managers need reliable information on spawning dynamics in order to design and implement control measures; discovering cost-effective and non-invasive monitoring techniques is also favorable. Atlantic cod form dense, site-fidelic spawning aggregations during which they vocalize, permitting acoustic detection of their presence at such times. The objective of this study was to detect spawning activity of Atlantic cod using multiple fixed-station passive acoustic recorders to sample across Massachusetts Bay during the winter spawning period. A generalized linear modeling approach was used to investigate spatio-temporal trends of cod vocalizing over 10 consecutive winter spawning seasons (2007-2016), the longest such timeline of any passive acoustic monitoring of a fish species. The vocal activity of Atlantic cod was associated with diel, lunar, and seasonal cycles, with a higher probability of occurrence at night, during the full moon, and near the end of November. Following 2009 and 2010, there was a general decline in acoustic activity. Furthermore, the northwest corner of Stellwagen Bank was identified as an important spawning location. This project demonstrated the utility of passive acoustic monitoring in determining the presence of an acoustically active fish species, and provides valuable data for informing the management of this commercially, culturally, and ecologically important species.Thanks to Eli Bonnell, Genevieve Davis, Julianne Bonell, Samara Haver, and Eric Matzen for assistance in MARU deployments, Dana Gerlach and Heather Heenehan for help in passive acoustic data analysis, and the NEFSC passive acoustics group for useful discussions. Funding for 2007−2012 passive acoustic surveys was provided by Excelerate Energy and Neptune LNG to Cornell University. Fieldwork for 2013−2015 was funded through the 2013−2014 NOAA Saltonstall-Kennedy grant program (Award No. NA14NMF4270027), and jointly funded by The Nature Conservancy, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, and the Cabot Family Charitable Foundation. Funding for 2016 SoundTrap data was provided by NOAA’s Ocean Acoustics Program (4 Sanctuaries Project)

Adaptation du recrutement et de la fidélisation des patients volontaires pour l’enseignement des habiletés cliniques pendant la COVID-19

Implication Statement Institutions have been faced with the unique challenge of continuing to deliver medical education to students in a COVID-19 environment.1,2 Clinical skills teaching must be adapted to the pandemic environment, which begins with retaining Volunteer Patient (VP) engagement to facilitate the development of students’ patient care aptitudes. The number of available VPs has been significantly reduced by the pandemic. We propose actionable solutions to recruit, engage, and retain VPs that can be easily adopted at any site. The SLIM-COVID framework can assist programs in altering curricula to deliver clinical skills with patient involvement in a pandemic environment.Énoncé des implications de la recherche Les établissements d’éducation médicale ont été confrontés au défi unique de continuer à assurer leurs services aux étudiants dans un environnement COVID-19.1,2 L'enseignement des habiletés cliniques doit être adapté au contexte de la pandémie, en premier lieu par le maintien de la participation des patients volontaires (PV) afin de faciliter le développement des aptitudes requises pour les soins aux patients. Le nombre de PV disponibles a considérablement baissé en raison de la pandémie. Nous proposons des solutions concrètes pour recruter, motiver et retenir les PV, ces solutions pouvant être facilement introduites dans tous les types de site. Le cadre SLIM-COVID peut faciliter l’adaptation des programmes d'études pour assurer la participation de patients dans l'enseignement des habiletés cliniques dans le contexte de la pandémie

Quantifying uncertainty of taxonomic placement in DNA barcoding and metabarcoding

A crucial step in the use of DNA markers for biodiversity surveys is the assignment of Linnaean taxonomies (species, genus, etc.) to sequence reads. This allows the use of all the information known based on the taxonomic names. Taxonomic placement of DNA barcoding sequences is inherently probabilistic because DNA sequences contain errors, because there is natural variation among sequences within a species, and because reference data bases are incomplete and can have false annotations. However, most existing bioinformatics methods for taxonomic placement either exclude uncertainty, or quantify it using metrics other than probability. In this paper we evaluate the performance of the recently proposed probabilistic taxonomic placement method PROTAX by applying it to both annotated reference sequence data as well as to unknown environmental data. Our four case studies include contrasting taxonomic groups (fungi, bacteria, mammals and insects), variation in the length and quality of the barcoding sequences (from individually Sanger-sequenced sequences to short Illumina reads), variation in the structures and sizes of the taxonomies (800–130 000 species) and variation in the completeness of the reference data bases (representing 15–100% of known species). Our results demonstrate that PROTAX yields essentially unbiased probabilities of taxonomic placement, which means its quantification of species identification uncertainty is reliable. As expected, the accuracy of taxonomic placement increases with increasing coverage of taxonomic and reference sequence data bases, and with increasing ratio of genetic variation among taxonomic levels over within taxonomic levels. We conclude that reliable species-level identification from environmental samples is still challenging and that neglecting identification uncertainty can lead to spurious inference. A key aim for future research is the completion of taxonomic and reference sequence data bases and making these two types of data compatible

Environmental DNA Based Surveillance for the Highly Invasive Carpet Sea Squirt Didemnum vexillum : A Targeted Single-Species Approach

Funding Information: The authors would like to thank the site operators, owners and Solway Firth Partnership for allowing access and sample collection at studied sites visited during this study. Thanks also to Frank Armstrong, Katy Beaton, Maria Campbell, Pablo Dias, James Dooley, Judith Horrill, Nial McLeod, Warren Murray, Andrea Taylor, Joe Triscott, and Bill Turrell for contributing to field work and sample collection. The authors thank National Museums Scotland and particularly Fiona Ware for the loan of reference material (specimen register number NMS.Z.2015.82.8, 9 and 14 and NMS.Z.2018.2.2) which was used in the present study. KS thank the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for post-doctoral fellowship funding.Peer reviewedPublisher PD