SKILL LEVEL AND PARTICIPATION OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN RECREATIONAL SPORT

This study investigated the relationship between throwing skill level and the engagement of college students in sports involving an element of throwing. There is a lack of knowledge about the throwing level of typical college students, and how this skill level influences students’ participation in physical activity. 54 undergraduate students were qualitatively analysed performing the overarm throw and the volleyball serve, and completed questionnaires detailing their engagement in sports involving an element of throwing. Results indicated that college students are not proficient at throwing and that a higher throwing skill level is correlated with better serve form. Throwing skill level was not related to engagement in sports involving an element of throwing

An enantioselective tandem reduction/nitro-Mannich reaction of nitroalkenes using a simple thiourea organocatalyst

There is a continual need for ever more effective and operationally simpler methods for the asymmetric synthesis of nitrogen containing molecules. We report here a generally efficient synthesis of stereochemically defined β-nitroamine building blocks which, through the combination of two catalytic transformations into one tandem process, results in the use of a simpler asymmetric catalyst, less reaction materials, shorter reaction times, circumvents the need for moisture sensitive reaction partners and leads to a wider substrate scope. Using para-methoxy-phenyl (PMP) protected imines, a Hantzsch ester as hydride source and a simple and economic thiourea organocatalyst, we have promoted the nitro-Mannich reaction with a nitroalkene to form anti-β-nitroamines. After protection as their trifluoroacetamides the products can be isolated in good yields (32–83%), high diastereomeric ratios (90 : 10 to >95 : 5) and excellent enantioselectivity (73–99% ee)

A critical role for the chromatin remodeller CHD7 in anterior mesoderm during cardiovascular development

CHARGE syndrome is caused by spontaneous loss-of-function mutations to the ATP-dependant chromatin remodeller chromodomain-helicase-DNA-binding protein 7 (CHD7). It is characterised by a distinct pattern of congenital anomalies, including cardiovascular malformations. Disruption to the neural crest lineage has previously been emphasised in the aetiology of this developmental disorder. We present evidence for an additional requirement for CHD7 activity in the Mesp1-expressing anterior mesoderm during heart development. Conditional ablation of Chd7 in this lineage results in major structural cardiovascular defects akin to those seen in CHARGE patients, as well as a striking loss of cardiac innervation and embryonic lethality. Genome-wide transcriptional analysis identified aberrant expression of key components of the Class 3 Semaphorin and Slit-Robo signalling pathways in Chd7(fl/fl);Mesp1-Cre mutant hearts. CHD7 localises at the Sema3c promoter in vivo, with alteration of the local chromatin structure seen following Chd7 ablation, suggestive of direct transcriptional regulation. Furthermore, we uncover a novel role for CHD7 activity upstream of critical calcium handling genes, and demonstrate an associated functional defect in the ability of cardiomyocytes to undergo excitation-contraction coupling. This work therefore reveals the importance of CHD7 in the cardiogenic mesoderm for multiple processes during cardiovascular development

Binocular Therapy for Childhood Amblyopia Improves Vision Without Breaking Interocular Suppression

PURPOSE: Amblyopia is a common developmental visual impairment characterized by a substantial difference in acuity between the two eyes. Current monocular treatments, which promote use of the affected eye by occluding or blurring the fellow eye, improve acuity, but are hindered by poor compliance. Recently developed binocular treatments can produce rapid gains in visual function, thought to be as a result of reduced interocular suppression. We set out to develop an effective home-based binocular treatment system for amblyopia that would engage high levels of compliance but that would also allow us to assess the role of suppression in children's response to binocular treatment. METHODS: Balanced binocular viewing therapy (BBV) involves daily viewing of dichoptic movies (with “visibility” matched across the two eyes) and gameplay (to monitor compliance and suppression). Twenty-two children (3–11 years) with anisometropic (n = 7; group 1) and strabismic or combined mechanism amblyopia (group 2; n = 6 and 9, respectively) completed the study. Groups 1 and 2 were treated for a maximum of 8 or 24 weeks, respectively. RESULTS: The treatment elicited high levels of compliance (on average, 89.4% ± 24.2% of daily dose in 68.23% ± 12.2% of days on treatment) and led to a mean improvement in acuity of 0.27 logMAR (SD 0.22) for the amblyopic eye. Importantly, acuity gains were not correlated with a reduction in suppression. CONCLUSIONS: BBV is a binocular treatment for amblyopia that can be self-administered at home (with remote monitoring), producing rapid and substantial benefits that cannot be solely mediated by a reduction in interocular suppression

Winter wheat roots grow twice as deep as spring wheat roots, is this important for N uptake and N leaching losses?

Cropping systems comprising winter catch crops followed by spring wheat could reduce N leaching risks compared to traditional winter wheat systems in humid climates. We studied the soil mineral N (Ninorg) and root growth of winter- and spring wheat to 2.5 m depth during three years. Root depth of winter wheat (2.2 m) was twice that of spring wheat, and this was related to much lower amounts of Ninorg in the 1 to 2.5 m layer after winter wheat (81 kg Ninorg ha-1 less). When growing winter catch crops before spring wheat, N content in the 1 to 2.5 m layer after spring wheat was not different from that after winter wheat. The results suggest that by virtue of its deep rooting, winter wheat may not lead to high levels of leaching as it is often assumed in humid climates. Deep soil and root measurements (below 1 m) in this experiment were essential to answer the questions we posed

Introduction: In appreciation of K. Robert Clarke

BIOGRAPHY IN BRIEF Early years Professor Kenneth Robert Clarke (‘Bob’) was born on the 19th of June 1948. He was brought up largely in rural North Dorset in southern England, though his indefatigable love of travel can perhaps be traced to three years of childhood in Malta in the late 1950s, during which he was educated often as the sole English boy in the local schools, his father having taken the family there to head the English department of a newly opened secondary school for the island. Back in England in the 1960s, wise words from his older brother and an inspirational maths teacher at Blandford Grammar School determined Bob’s subject choice for life – and the specialised focus of English state education at that time ensured he was taught nothing except mathematics from the age of 16. This led to a first class degree in Mathematics at the University of Leicester in 1969 (which contained no statistics at all, as was the case at the time for both school and university mathematics)and, more importantly that year, marriage (a long and happy one) to Cathy, a Leicester classics graduate. An M.Sc. at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, under a revered statistician, Robin Plackett, brought Bob into the world of statistical theory (and writing computer code, in the days when ‘cut and paste’ literally meant taking a pair of scissors and tape to hole-punched paper!). This was followed by a Newcastle Ph.D. in Stereology, a branch of geometric probability and integral equations which infers 3-d properties from 2-d sections and projections, with application in life sciences, metallurgy and other fields. Bob became known on the university seminar circuit for provisioning the audience at the tea break by slicing up a cherry cake to derive the cherry density and diameter distribution from the resulting plane sections. A 6-year stint (1973–1979) as a Lecturer in the Department of Statistics at the University of Glasgow, Scotland – under the tutelage and encouragement of two further giants of statistics, David Silvey and John Aitchison – turned Bob into a lecturer and taught him the trick of keeping just one step ahead of his students. It also showed him how rewarding it could be to work with academics from other departments to bring statistical theory to bear on their problems. He also, arguably, missed his vocation in life when in the mid-1970s a computerised golf game he programmed in machine code for a stand-alone pen plotter – with the correct differential equations for a ball in flight in the wind and on a sloping green with friction – stole the show of the Stats Department’s University Open Day offerin