SHOCK ATTENUATION MECHANISM AT THE BACKPACK WEIGHT CHANGE IN DROP LANDINGS

The purpose of this study was to investigate the shock attenuation mechanisms while varying the loads in a backpack during drop landing. Ten subjects (age: 22.8±3.6, height: 173.5±4.3, weight: 70.4±5.2) performed drop landing under five varying loads (0, 5kg, 10kg, 20kg, 30kg). By employing two cameras (Sony VX2100) the following kinematic variables (phase time, joint rotational angle and velocity of ankle, knee and hip) were calculated by applying 2D motion analysis. Additional data, i.e. max vertical ground force (VGRF) and acceleration, was acquired by using two AMTI Force plates and a Noraxon Inline Accelerometer Sensor. Through analysing the power spectrum density (PSD), drop landing patterns were classified into four groups and each group was discovered to have a different shock attenuation mechanism. The first pattern that appeared at landing was that the right leg absorbed most of the shock attenuation. The second pattern to appear was that subject quickly transferred the load from the right leg to the left leg as quickly as possible. Thus, this illustrated that two shock attenuation mechanisms occurred during drop landing under varying load conditions

The Effect of Herbal Diet on Skeletal Muscle Mass After Resistance Training in Rats

Resistance training has been well established as an effective strategy for muscle hypertrophy, increase in skeletal muscle mass and strength. Herbal diet has been introduced as an alternative treatment to alleviate muscle atrophy and therapeutic intervention. However, there is little evidence on the effect of herbal diet on skeletal muscle mass. To investigate whether herbal diet affects skeletal muscle mass after resistance training in rats. Twenty-four rats were randomly divided into 3 groups: 1) Control (CON, N=8), 2) Resistance training (RT, N=8), 3) RT+Herb (RTH, N=8). Resistance training was performed every other day for 8 weeks using ladder climbing. The ladder climbing exercise consisted of 3 sets of 5 repetitions with a 1 min rest interval between the repetitions and a 2 min rest between the sets. Huang Qi (Radix Astragali Membranceus) was given via oral gavage once a day for 8 weeks (1 ml mixed with water based on concentration of 368 mg/kg). All rats received sham treatment, same as treatment groups. All data were analyzed using One-way ANOVA. After 8 weeks of interventions, muscle mass of Gastrocnemius, Plantaris, and Flexor hallucis longus showed significant increases in RT and RTH groups compared to CON (

High Percentage of Fat Calorie Intake may Result in Overweight Cyclists, Not Total Amount of Calorie Intake

Obesity has become a worldwide epidemic, representing a major health care challenge in the 21st century. There were numerous studies conducted to find a most effective intervention for reducing percentage of body fat. Among those interventions, exercise training has been proven to be a very effective strategy by enhancing the capacity to burn more body fat (fat oxidation capacity). However, there are the number of trained people with high % body fat even though they maintain high level of physical activity. PURPOSE: To compare various physiological variables including fat oxidation and diet patterns between normal and overweight trained cyclists. METHODS: Twelve well-trained amateur male cyclists aged 41.25 ± 1.65 yrs were assigned to either normal group (NO) and overweight group (OW) based on % body fat by hydrostatic measurement (19.56±1.08 vs. 25.23±1.34 % body fat) (each N=6). Respiratory exchange ratio (RER), blood pressure, blood lactate concentration, and heart rate were measured during the maximal test using a cycle ergometer. Dietry patterns were analyzed by three days diet log using computer software (DietPower). Independent t-test and two-way ANOVA with repeated measures were used to analyze data. RESULTS: There were no differences between NO and OW for age, height, weight, and body mass index. In addition, there were no differences between NO and OW for all cardiopulmonary fitness variables at rest and during maximal effort ergometer test. However, this study found that percentages of fat intake of OW was significantly higher compared to one of NO (OW: 41.67 ± 2.95 %; NO: 27.00 ± 2.25 %, p\u3c0.05). CONCLUSION: The findings of our study indicate that a greater body fat in some endurance-trained athletes would not be explained by cardiovascular, metabolic parameters and/or total caloric intake, but may be explained by high percentage of caloric intake from the fat

Fully Quantized Always-on Face Detector Considering Mobile Image Sensors

Despite significant research on lightweight deep neural networks (DNNs) designed for edge devices, the current face detectors do not fully meet the requirements for "intelligent" CMOS image sensors (iCISs) integrated with embedded DNNs. These sensors are essential in various practical applications, such as energy-efficient mobile phones and surveillance systems with always-on capabilities. One noteworthy limitation is the absence of suitable face detectors for the always-on scenario, a crucial aspect of image sensor-level applications. These detectors must operate directly with sensor RAW data before the image signal processor (ISP) takes over. This gap poses a significant challenge in achieving optimal performance in such scenarios. Further research and development are necessary to bridge this gap and fully leverage the potential of iCIS applications. In this study, we aim to bridge the gap by exploring extremely low-bit lightweight face detectors, focusing on the always-on face detection scenario for mobile image sensor applications. To achieve this, our proposed model utilizes sensor-aware synthetic RAW inputs, simulating always-on face detection processed "before" the ISP chain. Our approach employs ternary (-1, 0, 1) weights for potential implementations in image sensors, resulting in a relatively simple network architecture with shallow layers and extremely low-bitwidth. Our method demonstrates reasonable face detection performance and excellent efficiency in simulation studies, offering promising possibilities for practical always-on face detectors in real-world applications.Comment: Accepted to ICCV 2023 Workshop on Low-Bit Quantized Neural Networks (LBQNN), Ora

Efficient Unified Demosaicing for Bayer and Non-Bayer Patterned Image Sensors

As the physical size of recent CMOS image sensors (CIS) gets smaller, the latest mobile cameras are adopting unique non-Bayer color filter array (CFA) patterns (e.g., Quad, Nona, QxQ), which consist of homogeneous color units with adjacent pixels. These non-Bayer sensors are superior to conventional Bayer CFA thanks to their changeable pixel-bin sizes for different light conditions but may introduce visual artifacts during demosaicing due to their inherent pixel pattern structures and sensor hardware characteristics. Previous demosaicing methods have primarily focused on Bayer CFA, necessitating distinct reconstruction methods for non-Bayer patterned CIS with various CFA modes under different lighting conditions. In this work, we propose an efficient unified demosaicing method that can be applied to both conventional Bayer RAW and various non-Bayer CFAs' RAW data in different operation modes. Our Knowledge Learning-based demosaicing model for Adaptive Patterns, namely KLAP, utilizes CFA-adaptive filters for only 1% key filters in the network for each CFA, but still manages to effectively demosaic all the CFAs, yielding comparable performance to the large-scale models. Furthermore, by employing meta-learning during inference (KLAP-M), our model is able to eliminate unknown sensor-generic artifacts in real RAW data, effectively bridging the gap between synthetic images and real sensor RAW. Our KLAP and KLAP-M methods achieved state-of-the-art demosaicing performance in both synthetic and real RAW data of Bayer and non-Bayer CFAs

Robust Luttinger liquid state of 1D Dirac fermions in a van der Waals system Nb9_9Si4_4Te18_{18}

We report on the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL) behavior in fully degenerate 1D Dirac fermions. A ternary van der Waals material Nb$_9$Si$_4$Te$_{18}$ incorporates in-plane NbTe$_2$ chains, which produce a 1D Dirac band crossing Fermi energy. Tunneling conductance of electrons confined within NbTe2 chains is found to be substantially suppressed at Fermi energy, which follows a power law with a universal temperature scaling, hallmarking a TLL state. The obtained Luttinger parameter of ~0.15 indicates strong electron-electron interaction. The TLL behavior is found to be robust against atomic-scale defects, which might be related to the Dirac electron nature. These findings, as combined with the tunability of the compound and the merit of a van der Waals material, offer a robust, tunable, and integrable platform to exploit non-Fermi liquid physics

Where College Students Live Can Impact Their Eating and Exercise Habits

University freshmen usually face with huge environmental changes. They are often stressful and may lead to some health-related problems. We wanted to know whether or not their residence influences eating and exercising habits. PURPOSE: To examine the effect of residence on level of physical activity, eating and other health related habits in college students. Methods: Total 71 college students participated in this study. Thirty one lives on campus and forty lives off campus. Participants completed a consent form and measurements of body weight, height, and body mass index (BMI). Level of physical activity was monitored using pedometer for 7 days. Exercise, smoke, and drink habits were surveyed by questionnaire. Diet pattern was assessed by the researcher based on the daily log for 7 days using computer software. Results: Of the 71 participants, 31.0% were men and 69.0% were women. Students living on campus were 40.9% in men and 43.7% in women. Physical activity was significantly higher in students living on campus both in men (14,152 ± 1,120.2 vs. 7,611 ± 3,379, p\u3c.001) and women (13,043 ± 3,864 vs. 5,948 ± 1,803, p\u3c.001) than students living off campus. In women, the total calorie (1,776 ± 414.7 vs. 1,493 ± 419.5, p=.022), alcoholic drink (1.9±1.4 vs. 1.1±0.4, p=.016), and mono saturated fat intakes (15.1±6.7 vs. 10.5±5.4, p=.011) were significantly higher in students living on campus. Consumption of vitamin C, D, and E were significantly lower in women students living on campus than students living off campus. Conclusion: Students who live on campus have a higher level of physical activity compared to their off-campus counterparts in both gender. However, dietary pattern was affected by the residence of college students only in women. Especially in women, where college students live can be important factors to impact their physical activity, life habits, and dietary pattern. Physical activity and nutrition education are crucial for college students because their lifestyle and dietary pattern may predispose them to the development of various diseases

Multilayer Two-Dimensional Water Structure Confined in MoS_2

The conflicting interpretations (square vs rhomboidal) of the recent experimental visualization of the two-dimensional (2D) water confined in between two graphene sheets by transmission electron microscopy measurements, make it important to clarify how the structure of two-dimensional water depends on the constraining medium. Toward this end, we report here molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to characterize the structure of water confined in between two MoS_2 sheets. Unlike graphene, water spontaneously fills the region sandwiched by two MoS_2 sheets in ambient conditions to form planar multilayered water structures with up to four layer. These 2D water molecules form a specific pattern in which the square ring structure is formed by four diamonds via H-bonds, while each diamond shares a corner in a perpendicular manner, yielding an intriguing isogonal tiling structure. Comparison of the water structure confined in graphene (flat uncharged surface) vs MoS_2 (ratchet-profiled charged surface) demonstrates that the polarity (charges) of the surface can tailor the density of confined water, which in turn can directly determine the planar ordering of the multilayered water molecules in graphene or MoS_2. On the other hand, the intrinsic surface profile (flat vs ratchet-profiled) plays a minor role in determining the 2D water configuration

Current Perspective on Nasal Delivery Systems for Chronic Rhinosinusitis

Chronic rhinosinusitis is an upper respiratory disease during which topical drug treatment via the nasal cavity is the most actively utilized therapeutic strategy. In addition to steroids, antibiotics, and antifungal agents, which are widely used in clinical practice, research on novel topical agents to improve the bacterial biofilm or mucociliary clearance remains ongoing. Moreover, owing to the complex structure of the nasal cavity, the effects of nasal drug delivery vary depending on factors related to delivery fluid dynamics, including device, volume, and compounds. In this article, we review methods and compounds that have been applied to chronic rhinosinusitis management and introduce recent advances and future perspectives in nasal drug delivery for upper respiratory diseases