Gender Differences in VO2 and HR Kinetics at the Onset of Moderate and Heavy Exercise Intensity in Adolescents

The majority of the studies on VO2 kinetics in pediatric populations investigated gender differences in prepubertal children during submaximal intensity exercise, but studies are lacking in adolescents. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that gender differences exist in the VO2 and heart rate (HR) kinetic responses to moderate (M) and heavy (H) intensity exercise in adolescents. Twenty-one healthy African-American adolescents (9 males, 15.8 ± 1.1 year; 12 females, 15.7 ± 1 year) performed constant work load exercise on a cycle ergometer at M and H. The VO2 kinetics of the male group was previously analyzed (Lai et al., Appl. Physiol. Nutr. Metab. 33:107–117, 2008b). For both genders, VO2 and HR kinetics were described with a single exponential at M and a double exponential at H. The fundamental time constant (τ1) of VO2 was significantly higher in female than male at M (45 ± 7 vs. 36 ± 11 sec, P \u3c 0.01) and H (41 ± 8 vs. 29 ± 9 sec, P \u3c 0.01), respectively. The functional gain (G1) was not statistically different between gender at M and statistically higher in females than males at H: 9.7 ± 1.2 versus 10.9 ± 1.3 mL min−1 W−1, respectively. The amplitude of the slow component was not significantly different between genders. The HR kinetics were significantly (τ1, P \u3c 0.01) slower in females than males at M (61 ± 16 sec vs. 45 ± 20 sec, P \u3c 0.01) and H (42 ± 10 sec vs. 30 ± 8 sec, P = 0.03). The G1 of HR was higher in females than males at M: 0.53 ± 0.11 versus 0.98 ± 0.2 bpm W−1 and H: 0.40 ± 0.11 versus 0.73 ± 0.23 bpm W−1, respectively. Gender differences in the VO2 and HR kinetics suggest that oxygen delivery and utilization kinetics of female adolescents differ from those in male adolescents. © 2016 The Authors

A p62-dependent rheostat dictates micronuclei catastrophe and chromosome rearrangements

Chromosomal instability (CIN) generates micronuclei-aberrant extranuclear structures that catalyze the acquisition of complex chromosomal rearrangements present in cancer. Micronuclei are characterized by persistent DNA damage and catastrophic nuclear envelope collapse, which exposes DNA to the cytoplasm. We found that the autophagic receptor p62/SQSTM1 modulates micronuclear stability, influencing chromosome fragmentation and rearrangements. Mechanistically, proximity of micronuclei to mitochondria led to oxidation-driven homo-oligomerization of p62, limiting endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT)-dependent micronuclear envelope repair by triggering autophagic degradation. We also found that p62 levels correlate with increased chromothripsis across human cancer cell lines and with increased CIN in colorectal tumors. Thus, p62 acts as a regulator of micronuclei and may serve as a prognostic marker for tumors with high CIN

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Control as lever for change: the introduction of thePerformance Management System in the Italian Army

The Italian Public Administrations during the last twenty years were involved in a long term-process of reform to “reinvent” the public sector (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992), in accordance with the New Public Management (NPM) principles. The last change in the Italian public sector was realized by legislative decree 150/2009 that introduced the “performance” in the Italian public sector, to improve the quality of their service. The performance and its evaluation is one of NPM pillars (Hood, 1991). Control and accountability play an invaluable and crucial role in the institutional and organizational change (Minelli et al., 2008). The Italian Army (IA) is involved in this changing process, as well as the other public organizations, by implementing a performance management system (PMS), in order “to do more with less” (Osborne, 1993). At the present time the army is in the middle of this process, several steps have been made – objects definition, setting up of measurement system – but furthers and more critics are going to be done.This article aims to respond to the following question: How is the present structure of the Italian Army PMS and its organizational impact? This is a challenger moment for the army and the outcome is still uncertain

Control as lever for change: the introduction of thePerformance Management System in the Italian Army

The Italian Public Administrations during the last twenty years were involved in a long term-process of reform to “reinvent” the public sector (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992), in accordance with the New Public Management (NPM) principles. The last change in the Italian public sector was realized by legislative decree 150/2009 that introduced the “performance” in the Italian public sector, to improve the quality of their service. The performance and its evaluation is one of NPM pillars (Hood, 1991). Control and accountability play an invaluable and crucial role in the institutional and organizational change (Minelli et al., 2008). The Italian Army (IA) is involved in this changing process, as well as the other public organizations, by implementing a performance management system (PMS), in order “to do more with less” (Osborne, 1993). At the present time the army is in the middle of this process, several steps have been made – objects definition, setting up of measurement system – but furthers and more critics are going to be done.This article aims to respond to the following question: How is the present structure of the Italian Army PMS and its organizational impact? This is a challenger moment for the army and the outcome is still uncertain

Gender Effect on Clinical Profiles, Pharmacological Treatments and Prognosis in Patients Hospitalized for Heart Failure

Heart failure (HF) is a significant disease affecting 1–2% of the general population. Despite its general aspects, HF, like other cardiovascular diseases, presents various gender-specific aspects in terms of etiology, hemodynamics, clinical characteristics, therapy, and outcomes. As is well known, HF with preserved ejection fraction more frequently affects females, with diabetes and arterial hypertension representing the most critical determinants of HF. On the other hand, women are traditionally underrepresented in clinical trials and are often considered undertreated. However, it is not clear whether such differences reflect cultural behaviors and clinical inertia or if they indicate different clinical profiles and the impact of sex on hard clinical outcomes. We aimed to review the sex-related differences in patients affected by HF

Mapping Spatial Patterns of Posidonia oceanica Meadows by Means of Daedalus ATM Airborne Sensor in the Coastal Area of Civitavecchia (Central Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy)

The spatial distribution of sea bed covers and seagrass in coastal waters is of key importance in monitoring and managing Mediterranean shallow water environments often subject to both increasing anthropogenic impacts and climate change effects. In this context we present a methodology for effective monitoring and mapping of Posidonia oceanica (PO) meadows in turbid waters using remote sensing techniques tested by means of LAI (Leaf Area Index) point sea truth measurements. Preliminary results using Daedalus airborne sensor are reported referring to the PO meadows at Civitavecchia site (central Tyrrhenian sea) where vessel traffic due to presence of important harbors and huge power plant represent strong impact factors. This coastal area, 100 km far from Rome (Central Italy), is characterized also by significant hydrodynamic variations and other anthropogenic factors that affect the health of seagrass meadows with frequent turbidity and suspended sediments in the water column. During 2011–2012 years point measurements of several parameters related to PO meadows phenology were acquired on various stations distributed along 20 km of coast between the Civitavecchia and S. Marinella sites. The Daedalus airborne sensor multispectral data were preprocessed with the support of satellite (MERIS) derived water quality parameters to obtain here improved thematic maps of the local PO distribution. Their thematic accuracy was then evaluated as agreement (R2) with the point sea truth measurements and regressive modeling using an on purpose developd method

Mapping Spatial Patterns of Posidonia oceanica Meadows by Means of Daedalus ATM Airborne Sensor in the Coastal Area of Civitavecchia (Central Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy)

The spatial distribution of sea bed covers and seagrass in coastal waters is of key importance in monitoring and managing Mediterranean shallow water environments often subject to both increasing anthropogenic impacts and climate change effects. In this context we present a methodology for effective monitoring and mapping of Posidonia oceanica (PO) meadows in turbid waters using remote sensing techniques tested by means of LAI (Leaf Area Index) point sea truth measurements. Preliminary results using Daedalus airborne sensor are reported referring to the PO meadows at Civitavecchia site (central Tyrrhenian sea) where vessel traffic due to presence of important harbors and huge power plant represent strong impact factors. This coastal area, 100 km far from Rome (Central Italy), is characterized also by significant hydrodynamic variations and other anthropogenic factors that affect the health of seagrass meadows with frequent turbidity and suspended sediments in the water column. During 2011–2012 years point measurements of several parameters related to PO meadows phenology were acquired on various stations distributed along 20 km of coast between the Civitavecchia and S. Marinella sites. The Daedalus airborne sensor multispectral data were preprocessed with the support of satellite (MERIS) derived water quality parameters to obtain here improved thematic maps of the local PO distribution. Their thematic accuracy was then evaluated as agreement (R2) with the point sea truth measurements and regressive modeling using an on purpose developd method