A comparison of load cell and pressure sensors to measure in-water force in young competitive swimmers

The purpose of this study was to compare the in-water force of young competitive swimmers using tethered swimming and differential pressure sensors. Thirty-one swimmers (16 girls and 15 boys) were randomly assigned to perform two in-water tests. Swimmers completed two maximum bouts of 25 m front crawl with a differential pressure system and a 30 s maximum bout with an attached load cell (tethered-swimming). The peak force (FPEAK, in N) of dominant and non-dominant upper limbs was retrieved for further analysis. Comparison between methods revealed significant differences in all force variables (p ≤ 0.05) and the biases (mean differences) were large in girls (FPEAK dominant, 45.89 N; FPEAK non-dominant, 43.79 N) and boys (FPEAK dominant, 67.26 N; FPEAK non-dominant, 61.78 N). Despite that, simple linear regression models between the two methods showed significant relationships with a moderate effect in all variables for girls, whereas in boys a high and moderate effect was verified for FPEAK of dominant and non-dominant limbs (respectively). It seems that using pressure sensors and tethered swimming leads to different FPEAK values in young competitive, where correction factors are needed to compare data between both methods.The authors would like to thank all swimming coaches for their voluntary support as well as all the swimmers involved. This project was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), I.P., under Grants 2020.08326.BD and UID 04045/2020.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Desalination in nuclear plants: a bibliometric study of research activity in scientific literature indexed by SCOPUS base

With the scarcity of fresh water, desalination is an important instrument to be considered for the production of non-salinized water through waste heat in the dual use of nuclear reactors. The gap that this study seeks to fill is related to the use of bibliometric method, based on information structure, about the scientific studies indexed on the evolution of the topic desalination in nuclear power plants. The objective of this work is to map the themes in the scientific literature between 1966 and the first semester of 2017. Data were collected from the research activities indexed by the SCOPUS database and analyzed with the support of bibliometric software VOSviewer. Among others, the results of the research led to the following conclusions: (1) the articles published in indexed journals represent the largest percentage of the type of instrument used for scientific dissemination, representing 64% of the documents; (2) it is estimated that between the years 2016 and 2025 the indexed research activities involving nuclear desalination continued to grow sharply

Diagnosis Recommendations for Late-onset Pompe Disease

INTRODUCTION: Pompe disease is a progressive and debilitating autossomal recessive myopathy due to mutations in lysossomal acid-α-glucosidase. Its late-onset form has a heterogeneous presentation mimicking other neuromuscular diseases, leading to diagnostic challenge. OBJECTIVE: To develop consensus based recommendations for the diagnosis of late-onset Pompe Disease. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Bibliographic review and analysis of an opinion questionnaire applied to a group of specialists with expertise in the diagnosis of several myopathies and lysossomal storage disorders. Discussed in consensus meeting. RECOMMENDATIONS: Patients with a progressive limb-girdle weakness, fatigue, cramps and muscle pain should be evaluated with CK levels, electromyography, dynamic spirometry and muscle biopsy in inconclusive cases. Suspected cases and those in which muscle biopsy could not allow other diagnosis should be screened for lysossomal acid-α-glucosidase deficiency with DBS (dried blood spot). The diagnosis should be confirmed by determination of lysossomal acid-α-glucosidase activity in a second sample and lysossomal acid-α-glucosidase gene sequencing.Este trabalho foi realizado com o apoio financeiro da Sanofi - Produtos Farmacêuticos, Lda. e não foi condicional à obtenção de nenhum tipo específico de resultados

Caracterização das principais variedades locais de feijão comum e caupi do Acre.

Este capítulo tem como objetivo descrever algumas características dos feijões mais cultivados no Acre e discutir aspectos da agrobiodiversidade, visando subsidiar estratégias de conservação de variedades de Phaseolus vulgaris L. e Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp