Urinary N-terminal titin fragment concentration as a non-invasive biomarker of exercise-induced muscle damage in males and females.

Purpose: To examine the effects of muscle-damaging exercise on urinary N-terminal fragments of titin (UTF) in males and females, and its association with markers of exercise-induced muscle damage.

Methods: 27 males (n = 16) and females (n = 11) (height: 1.74 ± 0.

W' reconstitution modelling during intermittent exercise performed to task failure.

Purpose: W' balance (W') modelling is becoming an important tool to monitor intermittent cycling performance. This study assessed the ability of different time constant (τ) equations for W' reconstitution (W') to predict exhaustion during intermittent exercise and the relationship between parameters of W' with established determinants of endurance performance.

Methods: Thirteen cyclists performed cycling performance tests to determine: lactate threshold (LT), critical power (CP), W', V̇O, maximal aerobic power (MAP) and maximal sprint power (P).

Real-Time Monitoring of Biometric Responses During a 200-km Ultra-Endurance Race Across the Desert.

Ultra-endurance sports challenge athlete health, with these risks exacerbated by environmental extremes and/or remoteness of competition. Therefore, this study aimed to use real-time monitoring technology to characterise and monitor physiological/biomechanical responses during SAMLA 2023, a 200-km multidiscipline (swim, run, bike, and kayak) ultra-endurance race, encompassing cool and warm desert environmental conditions (16°C-28°C). Within a cross-sectional observational study design, 18 males (total entrants: 318) were instrumented with wearable/ingestible sensors measuring physiological [heart rate and core (Tc)/skin (Tsk) temperature], biomechanical [gait] and location-based [Global Positioning System (GPS)] metrics.

Timescales for stochastic barrier crossing: Inferring the potential from nonequilibrium data.

Kramers's rate theory forms a cornerstone for thermally activated barrier crossing. However, its reliance on equilibrium quantities excludes the analysis of nonequilibrium dynamics at early times. Most studies have thus focused on obtaining rates and transition time and path distributions in equilibrium.

Targeting PGK1 as a Novel strategy to regulate the sensitivity of HER2 positive gastric cancer to lapatinib.

HER2 is amplified in approximately 20% of gastric cancers, and these patients exhibit a favorable response to trastuzumab treatment. Lapatinib, as a HER2-targeted drug, demonstrates potent inhibitory effects on HER2-addicted N87 gastric cancer cells. However, lapatinib has not shown significant advantages in clinical trials.

Thermoregulatory responses in open water and pool swimming: Presentation of hypothermia and hyperthermia within and outside of World Aquatics water temperature thresholds.

Backgrounds: Water submersion challenges human thermoregulatory (Treg) homeostasis [typically a core temperature (T) of ~37 °C], accelerating rates of heat loss (cold water; hypothermia) and gain (warm/hot water; hyperthermia) when swimming, and increasing susceptibility to heat/cold illness. Particularly, during open water swimming (OWS) competition where race dropout and fatalities occur within a broad mandated water temperature (Tw) range (16-31 °C). Conversely, pool-based swimming (PBS) competition (performed within a narrow-mandated Tw range 25-28 °C) schedules encompass circadian T changes alongside multiple cycles of warmups, transition phases and races.

Parental use of distraction and portioning to reduce snack intake by children with avid eating behaviour: An experimental laboratory study.

Introduction: Children's avid eating behaviour is characterised by frequent snacking and food responsiveness. Parents need evidence-based advice on specific feeding practices, such as distraction techniques and portioning, that can be used to reduce children's intake of high energy-dense snacks. This experimental laboratory study tested the effectiveness of these feeding practices.

Artificial transneurons emulate neuronal activity in different areas of brain cortex.

Rapid development of memristive elements emulating biological neurons creates new opportunities for brain-like computation at low energy consumption. A first step toward mimicking complex neural computations is the analysis of single neurons and their characteristics. Here we measure and model spiking activity in artificial neurons built using diffusive memristors.

Special section examining risk discussions across clinical specialties using conversation analysis: From information transfer to an interactional perspective.

Risk and uncertainty are pervasive in clinical settings, from diagnosis to treatment decision-making and disease management. Accordingly, risk communication has attracted a sustained interest, and is predominantly characterised by information transfer, with a focus on how messages are framed and received. Conversation analysis (CA) provides a different approach to analysing communication, examining the complexities of how risk is broached, is calibrated to individual contexts, and is sensitively negotiated across clinical encounters.

The effect of a pelvic compression belt on postural stability in postpartum women.

The health benefits of physical activity are well known, however, for the postpartum population there are barriers to retuning to physical activity such as pelvic pain and a fear of movement. Pelvic pain can manifest from instability in the pelvic region and lead to impaired balance and postural stability, exacerbating fear of movement. This study aimed to assess the effect of pelvic compression on postural stability in postpartum women and a nulligravida control cohort.

Digital assistive technologies for community-dwelling people with dementia: A systematic review of systematic reviews by the INTERDEM AI & assistive technology taskforce.

Introduction: The use of digital assistive technologies by and for people living with dementia is promising for supporting social health and advocated as a partial solution to growing prevalence worldwide. A state-of-the-art position paper published in 2017 identified challenges regarding digital assistive technologies, around five themes: development, usability, (cost-)effectiveness, implementation and ethics. This systematic review summarizes progress on the challenges found in 2017, and persisting or emerging challenges.

Does Reduced Ball Inflation Pressure in Association Football Decrease Head Impact Kinematics?

Purpose: Apparent degeneration in brain health due to heading the football is amongst the most pressing and contentious health-related questions in sport (Keogh F, Pirks N (2024) "Pain was sickening"-Ex-players on heading fears. In: BBC). The purpose of this study was to thoroughly explore the effectiveness of reduced inflation pressure as an intervention to reduce head kinematics from a ball to head impact.

Multifunctional and Flexible Phase Change Composites for Dual-Mode Thermal Management of Lithium-Ion Batteries.

Phase change materials (PCMs) are highly renowned for their substantial latent heat capacity, enabling efficient thermal management in applications such as buildings, wearable devices, and lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). However, conventional PCMs suffer from mechanical rigidity, leakage, and low thermal conductivity. In this study, multifunctional, flexible, and leakage-proof phase change composites (PCCs) are developed to overcome these limitations and enable dual-mode thermal regulation for all-climate LIBs.

Factors Affecting V̇O and Fat Oxidation Responses During Step Incremental Exercise.

Step incremental exercise tests are widely used to assess endurance performance determinants; however, to what extent step duration influences oxygen uptake (V̇O) and carbon dioxide production (V̇CO) is unclear. This study assessed the influence of sampling duration on V̇O, V̇CO, and fat oxidation (Fat) across different exercise intensities and modalities, and participant age and biological sex during graded exercise tests. A total of 169 participants (41 females; peak V̇O [V̇Opeak]: 54.

Assessing the Quantitative Performance of Atmospheric Solids Analysis Probe-Mass Spectrometry.

Rationale: Atmospheric solids analysis probe-mass spectrometry (ASAP-MS) is an established ambient ionisation technique that allows for the direct and rapid analysis of samples without chromatographic separation. Consequently, applications that typically benefit from ambient ionisation approaches can achieve improved sample throughput and thus improved potential for in situ testing. Previous reports have contrasted in viewpoints on the ability for ASAP-MS to provide reliable quantitative data.

Hydrology for impact: building partnerships, blending knowledge and bracing for climate change.

The hydrology community plays a critical role in understanding, communicating and managing hydroclimatic hazards and water security. As climate-related trends and risks emerge, there is an urgent need to help communities and organizations prepare for changes that are already underway and expected to become more severe. There is consensus about the need for transdisciplinary collaboration and participatory research to co-create knowledge to support informed decision-making.

Challenges and opportunities of ML and explainable AI in large-sample hydrology.

Machine learning (ML) is a powerful tool for hydrological modelling, prediction, dataset creation and the generation of insights into hydrological processes. As such, ML has become integral to the field of large-sample hydrology, where hundreds to thousands of river catchments are included within a single ML model to capture diverse hydrological behaviours and improve model generalizability. This manuscript outlines recent advances in ML for large-sample hydrology.

The mixed-meal tolerance test as an appetite assay: methodological and practical considerations.

Appetite control is a topic which attracts widespread interest given its importance to energy balance and obesity. In this research area, the mixed-meal tolerance test (MM-TT) has emerged as an 'appetite regulation assay', facilitating the dynamic assessment of appetite parameters (e.g.

Application of respiratory muscle training for improved intermittent exercise performance in team sports: a narrative review.

Since traditional, sport-specific training or exercise programs lack sufficient stimulus to improve the function of the respiratory muscle, the rationale for integrating additional respiratory muscle training (RMT) emerged. RMT has the potential to improve intermittent exercise performance in team sports athletes, as proven in multiple studies. This narrative review aims to provide coaches with tools to select the appropriate form of RMT, tailored to the athletes' needs, using appropriate diagnostic methods, intervention protocols, and devices.

Agreement Between a Pre-Markered T-Shirt and Manual Marker Placement for Opto-Electronic Plethysmography (OEP) Measures.

Opto-electronic plethysmography (OEP) is used to measure chest wall compartment volumes and their synchronisation. Breathing pattern disorder (BPD) can be distinguished using the phase angles between these chest wall compartments during exercise. However, the time taken to manually place the standard OEP model involving 89 reflective markers is high during clinical application.

Can adults automatically process and translate between numerical representations?

Arithmetic and the ability to use numbers are important skills. Numbers can be represented in three ways: through number words, Arabic symbols or non-symbolically. Much research attention has focused on how associations form between these three numerical representations.

Saccadic eye movements differentiate functional cognitive disorder from mild cognitive impairment.

Functional Cognitive Disorder ("FCD") is a type of Functional Neurological Disorder characterised by subjective cognitive complaints not fully attributable to brain injury, disease, or other neuropathological or psychiatric conditions. FCD is a cognitive impairment but does not necessarily "convert" to cognitive decline. However, FCD is common in Memory Clinics worldwide, and currently there is a lack of tests to objectively assess FCD.

Evaluation of XR device's real-world tracking accuracy and depth perception from an industrial point of view.

The advancements in the field of XR devices and systems are interesting from an industrial point of view, as they present new opportunities for improving productivity and operations through-smart tooling, digitally enhanced assembly and maintenance, inspection, remote collaborations, etc. Typically, the XR headsets claim to provide a full 6-DoF tracking, while this may be good enough for consumer or entertainment applications; for an industrial application, we need to determine the exact errors and tolerances of the tracking for practical applications. In this paper, we present our methods and critical measurements from evaluating HTC Vive XR Elite and Magic Leap 2 for full 6-DoF tracking, depth perception accuracy, and drift accumulation over time.