Expert consensus on the contraindications and cautions of foam rolling: an international delphi study

Background: Foam rolling is a type of self-massage using tools such as foam or roller sticks. However, to date, there is no consensus on contraindications and cautions of foam rolling. A methodological approach to narrow that research gap is to obtain reliable opinions of expert groups. The aim of the study was to develop experts’ consensus on contraindications and cautions of foam rolling by means of a Delphi process. Methods: An international three-round Delphi study was conducted. Academic experts, defined as having (co-) authored at least one PubMed-listed paper on foam rolling, were invited to participate. Rounds 1 and 2 involved generation and rating of a list of possible contraindications and cautions of foam rolling. In round 3, participants indicated their agreement on contraindications and cautions for a final set of conditions. Consensus was evaluated using a priori defined criteria. Consensus on contraindications and cautions was considered as reached if more than 70% of participating experts labeled the respective item as contraindication and contraindication or caution, respectively, in round 3. Results: In the final Delphi process round, responses were received from 37 participants. Panel participants were predominantly sports scientists ( n = 21), physiotherapists ( n = 6), and medical professionals ( n = 5). Consensus on contraindications was reached for open wounds (73% agreement) and bone fractures (84%). Consensus on cautions was achieved for local tissue inflammation (97%), deep vein thrombosis (97%), osteomyelitis (94%), and myositis ossificans (92%). The highest impact/severity of an adverse event caused by contraindication/cautions was estimated for bone fractures, deep vein thrombosis, and osteomyelitis. Discussion: The mechanical forces applied through foam rolling can be considered as potential threats leading to adverse events in the context of the identified contraindications and cautions. Further evaluations by medical professionals as well as the collection of clinical data are needed to assess the risks of foam rolling and to generate guidance for different applications and professional backgrounds

Environmental factors influencing benthic communities in the oxygen minimum zones on the Angolan and Namibian margins

Thriving benthic communities were observed in the oxygen minimum zones along the southwestern African margin. On the Namibian margin, fossil cold-water coral mounds were overgrown by sponges and bryozoans, while the Angolan margin was characterized by cold-water coral mounds covered by a living coral reef. To explore why benthic communities differ in both areas, present-day environmental conditions were assessed, using conductivity–temperature–depth (CTD) transects and bottom landers to investigate spatial and temporal variations of environmental properties. Near-bottom measurements recorded low dissolved oxygen concentrations on the Namibian margin of 0–0.15 mL L−1 (≜0 %–9 % saturation) and on the Angolan margin of 0.5–1.5 mL L−1 (≜7 %–18 % saturation), which were associated with relatively high temperatures (11.8–13.2 ∘C and 6.4–12.6 ∘C, respectively). Semidiurnal barotropic tides were found to interact with the margin topography producing internal waves. These tidal movements deliver water with more suitable characteristics to the benthic communities from below and above the zone of low oxygen. Concurrently, the delivery of a high quantity and quality of organic matter was observed, being an important food source for the benthic fauna. On the Namibian margin, organic matter originated directly from the surface productive zone, whereas on the Angolan margin the geochemical signature of organic matter suggested an additional mechanism of food supply. A nepheloid layer observed above the cold-water corals may constitute a reservoir of organic matter, facilitating a constant supply of food particles by tidal mixing. Our data suggest that the benthic fauna on the Namibian margin, as well as the cold-water coral communities on the Angolan margin, may compensate for unfavorable conditions of low oxygen levels and high temperatures with enhanced availability of food, while anoxic conditions on the Namibian margin are at present a limiting factor for cold-water coral growth. This study provides an example of how benthic ecosystems cope with such extreme environmental conditions since it is expected that oxygen minimum zones will expand in the future due to anthropogenic activities

brainlife.io: A decentralized and open source cloud platform to support neuroscience research

Neuroscience research has expanded dramatically over the past 30 years by advancing standardization and tool development to support rigor and transparency. Consequently, the complexity of the data pipeline has also increased, hindering access to FAIR data analysis to portions of the worldwide research community. brainlife.io was developed to reduce these burdens and democratize modern neuroscience research across institutions and career levels. Using community software and hardware infrastructure, the platform provides open-source data standardization, management, visualization, and processing and simplifies the data pipeline. brainlife.io automatically tracks the provenance history of thousands of data objects, supporting simplicity, efficiency, and transparency in neuroscience research. Here brainlife.io's technology and data services are described and evaluated for validity, reliability, reproducibility, replicability, and scientific utility. Using data from 4 modalities and 3,200 participants, we demonstrate that brainlife.io's services produce outputs that adhere to best practices in modern neuroscience research

A time-resolved proteomic and prognostic map of COVID-19

COVID-19 is highly variable in its clinical presentation, ranging from asymptomatic infection to severe organ damage and death. We characterized the time-dependent progression of the disease in 139 COVID-19 inpatients by measuring 86 accredited diagnostic parameters, such as blood cell counts and enzyme activities, as well as untargeted plasma proteomes at 687 sampling points. We report an initial spike in a systemic inflammatory response, which is gradually alleviated and followed by a protein signature indicative of tissue repair, metabolic reconstitution, and immunomodulation. We identify prognostic marker signatures for devising risk-adapted treatment strategies and use machine learning to classify therapeutic needs. We show that the machine learning models based on the proteome are transferable to an independent cohort. Our study presents a map linking routinely used clinical diagnostic parameters to plasma proteomes and their dynamics in an infectious disease

brainlife.io: a decentralized and open-source cloud platform to support neuroscience research

Neuroscience is advancing standardization and tool development to support rigor and transparency. Consequently, data pipeline complexity has increased, hindering FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) access. brainlife.io was developed to democratize neuroimaging research. The platform provides data standardization, management, visualization and processing and automatically tracks the provenance history of thousands of data objects. Here, brainlife.io is described and evaluated for validity, reliability, reproducibility, replicability and scientific utility using four data modalities and 3,200 participants

Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the Anthropocene Series: Where and how to look for potential candidates

International audienc

Causes and consequences of the movement of temperate reef fishes

Movement defines how species interact with their environment and is fundamental to most ecological and evolutionary processes. Despite its importance to the fitness of individuals, the spatial structure and dynamics of populations, and the structure and connectivity of ecosystems, there has been little emphasis on the patterns and determinants of movement of temperate reef fishes in marine ecology. To investigate their movement I combined three approaches. An analysis of published movement distances of temperate reef fishes along the west coast of North America showed that movement distances of most species examined are characterized by a positively skewed frequency distribution and discrete ranges rather than by unbounded, diffusive movement rates. For 80% of the species the 75th percentile movement distance was less than three kilometers. Using acoustic telemetry, I experimentally investigated the effect of population density on the home range size of kelp greenling (Hexagrammos decagrammus ) and found a 55% reduction in home range size of male kelp greenling after their density was reduced by half. I acoustically monitored the movement and habitat use of kelp greenling, kelp rockfish (Sebastes atrovirens ) and blue rockfish (Sebastes mystinus). Kelp rockfish and kelp greenling have small home ranges on scales of several hundred square meters. Blue rockfish did not show site fidelity at the spatial scale of this study. Red algae and kelp density were identified as important habitat variables in kelp greenling and kelp rockfish home ranges, respectively. Male kelp greenling home range size correlated inversely with the density of red algae whereas kelp rockfish home range size was positively related to changes in kelp abundance. Their contrasting responses were consistent with their use of the respective algae as foraging habitat and shelter. Limited and discrete movement ranges reinforce the spatial heterogeneity of reef fish populations created by larval settlement and post-settlement mortality, including fishing. Knowledge of how movement is influenced by local population density is critical to understanding how movement contributes to the regulation of local and regional populations. Effects of habitat variability on the movement of species are critical to their population ecology, species interactions and management in a changing environment

Record of a tectonically-controlled regression captured by changes in carbonate skeletal associations on a structured island shelf (mid-Pleistocene, Rhodes, Greece)

The Plio–Pleistocene warm-temperate carbonate deposits along the SE coast of Rhodes (Greece) formed on a highly structured island ‘shelf’ during a major transgression-regression cycle, which reached bathyal depth during maximal transgression. The complex palaeobathymetry exhibits many characteristics of submarine canyons, especially of so-called ‘blind’ or ‘headless’ canyons — a canyon type, which is especially common in the modern Mediterranean. This study presents the palaeoenvironmental evolution of one of these canyons, which is today represented by the Lardos valley, eastern central Rhodes. The studied section comprises the middle Pleistocene (900–300 ka) and describes a shallowing-upward trend from bathyal to circalitoral depth. Thin fossiliferous debris flow layers document turnovers and abundance changes in fauna and floral of hard-bottom communities, which developed on the adjacent basement slopes and highs. The comparison of the obtained results with other studies from the southeastern coast of Rhodes suggests a high degree of diachroneity of lithological boundaries of these Plio–Pleistocene deposits, which can be best explained by progressive infill of small depocentres located at different altitude levels. Hence, lithological changes are interpreted to be time-transgressive from distal (low altitude) to proximal (high altitude) during transgression while time-transgressive from proximal to distal during regression. Consequently, the best chronostratigraphic correlation horizon is the surface of maximal transgression. The most probable age for this surface could be estimated at 1.1 to 0.8 Ma, 0.2–0.5 Ma younger than previous estimates. Furthermore, the current lithostratigraphic schemes for the Plio–Pleistocene deposits of southeastern Rhodes are reviewed and revised. Highlights ► The studied outcrop documents the uplift of Rhodes during the middle Pleistocene. ► The Plio–Pleistocene stratigraphy of Rhodes is reviewed and revised. ► The studied sedimentary unit is interpreted as submarine canyon deposit. ► Diachroneity of canyon deposits is most likely due to different altitudes of small depocentres

Mean dynamic topography and oceanographic parameters estimated from an inverse model and satellite geodesy, with link to model result in one single NetCDF file (392 MB), including the inverse data error covariance

Geostrophic surface velocities can be derived from the gradients of the mean dynamic topography-the difference between the mean sea surface and the geoid. Therefore, independently observed mean dynamic topography data are valuable input parameters and constraints for ocean circulation models. For a successful fit to observational dynamic topography data, not only the mean dynamic topography on the particular ocean model grid is required, but also information about its inverse covariance matrix. The calculation of the mean dynamic topography from satellite-based gravity field models and altimetric sea surface height measurements, however, is not straightforward. For this purpose, we previously developed an integrated approach to combining these two different observation groups in a consistent way without using the common filter approaches (Becker et al. in J Geodyn 59(60):99-110, 2012, doi:10.1016/j.jog.2011.07.006; Becker in Konsistente Kombination von Schwerefeld, Altimetrie und hydrographischen Daten zur Modellierung der dynamischen Ozeantopographie, 2012, http://nbn-resolving.de/nbn:de:hbz:5n-29199). Within this combination method, the full spectral range of the observations is considered. Further, it allows the direct determination of the normal equations (i.e., the inverse of the error covariance matrix) of the mean dynamic topography on arbitrary grids, which is one of the requirements for ocean data assimilation. In this paper, we report progress through selection and improved processing of altimetric data sets. We focus on the preprocessing steps of along-track altimetry data from Jason-1 and Envisat to obtain a mean sea surface profile. During this procedure, a rigorous variance propagation is accomplished, so that, for the first time, the full covariance matrix of the mean sea surface is available. The combination of the mean profile and a combined GRACE/GOCE gravity field model yields a mean dynamic topography model for the North Atlantic Ocean that is characterized by a defined set of assumptions. We show that including the geodetically derived mean dynamic topography with the full error structure in a 3D stationary inverse ocean model improves modeled oceanographic features over previous estimates