Implications of moderate altitude training for sea level endurance in elite distance runners

Elite distance runners participated in one of two studies designed to investigate the e ects of mod- erate altitude training (inspiratory partial pressure of oxygen »115±125 mmHg) on submaximal, maximal and supramaximal exercise performance following return to sea-level. Study 1 (New Mexico, USA) involved 14 subjects who were assigned to a 4-week altitude training camp (1500±2000 m) whilst 9 performance-matched subjects continued with an identical training programme at sea-level (CON). Ten EXP subjects who trained at 1640 m and 19 CON subjects also participated in study 2 (Krugersdorp, South Africa). Selected metabolic and cardiorespiratory parameters were determined with the subjects at rest and during exercise 21 days prior to (PRE) and 10 and 20 days following their return to sea- level (POST). Whole blood lactate decreased by 23% (P < 0.05 vs PRE) during submaximal exercise in the EXP group only after 20 days at sea-level (study 1). However, the lactate threshold and other measures of running economy remained unchanged. Similarly, su- pramaximal performance during a standardised track session did not change. Study 2 demonstrated that hypoxia per se did not alter performance. In contrast, in the EXP group supramaximal running velocity de- creased by 2% (P < 0.05) after 20 days at sea-level. Both studies were characterised by a 50% increase in the frequency of upper respiratory and gastrointestinal tract infections during the altitude sojourns, and two male subjects were diagnosed with infectious mononucleosis following their return to sea-level (study 1). Group mean plasma glutamine concentrations at rest decreased by 19% or 143 (74) lM (P < 0.001) after 3 weeks at alti- tude, which may have been implicated in the increased incidence of infectious illness

Investigation of the use of inertial sensing equipment for the measurement of hip flexion and pelvic rotation in horse riders

Equestrian sports report three to five times higher incidence rates for lower back pain than that of the general population, with hip flexion angles of 50-60° suggested as a causal factor. Inertial motion capture technology enables dynamic measurement of rider kinematics but data extraction is time-consuming. The aim of this study was to develop a software tool to automate the process of extracting biomechanical data from the XsensTM MVN (MoCap) system to investigate postural changes in riders, comparing static position at halt with dynamic position during the sit phase of rising trot. The software was found to be efficient, reducing data extraction time by 97% when used with a sample of 16 riders. Good correlation was found between hip flexion and pelvic anterior-posterior rotation and between halt and trot but with significantly greater values of hip flexion and pelvic anterior rotation in trot. No riders showed hip flexion &gt;50° at halt but 11 riders (69%) showed hip flexion &gt;50° during the sit phase of rising trot, indicating that dynamic assessment is important when considering rider postural faults that may put them at risk of back injury. Keywords: Hip flexion, Horse rider, Inertial sensor, Motion capture, Pelvic rotatio

The precautions of clinical waste: disposable medical sharps in the United Kingdom

This article deals with recent changes in UK guidance on clinical waste, in particular a shift to disposable, single-use instruments and sharps. I use interviews conducted with nurses from a GP practice and two clinical waste managers at alternative treatment and incineration sites as a springboard for reflection on the relationship between the legislation on clinical waste management and its implementation. Scrutinizing the UK guidance, European legislation and World Health Organization principles, I draw out interviewees’ concerns that the changed practices lead to an expansion of the hazardous waste category, with an increased volume going to incineration. This raises questions regarding the regulations’ environmental and health effects, and regarding the precautionary approach embedded in the regulations. Tracing the diverse reverberations of the term ‘waste’ in different points along the journeys made by sharps in particular, and locating these questions in relation to existing literature on waste, I emphasize that public health rationales for the new practices are not made clear in the guidance. I suggest that this relative silence on the subject conceals both the uncertainties regarding the necessity for these means of managing the risks of infectious waste, and the tensions between policies of precautionary public health and environmental sustainability

‘Our voice started off as a whisper and now it is a great big roar’ : The Salford Dementia Associate Panel as a model of involvement in research activities

This paper presents the work of the ‘Salford Dementia Associate Panel’, based at the Salford Institute for Dementia, Salford University (UK). We discuss the roles of the Dementia Associates, in particular around the areas of engagement and research. The panel is made up of people living with dementia, and current and former care partners. It highlights the development of this group over a four-year period and demonstrates over time how the role of a Dementia Associate member has evolved. The panel is involved in research, education and public engagement activities conducted by staff and students within the Institute. The motivations for becoming involved are clearly articulated and demonstrate how the personal backgrounds of individuals have driven the collective involvement and desire to bring about change. The benefits and challenges associated with working as part of a panel are discussed. We conclude by bringing together our experiences as a set of suggestions for others who may wish to create a similar forum to promote the involvement of people living with dementia and former and current care partners

Corporate Governance in Financial Institutions

On 29th - 30th March 2007, SUERF and the Central Bank of Cyprus jointly organized a Seminar: Corporate Governance in Financial Institutions. The papers in the present publication are based on a sample of the presentations at the Seminar. Together, the papers illuminate a number of key issues in corporate governance in a variety of financial firms. In the first paper based on a keynote address, Spyros G. Stavrinakis, Central Bank of Cyprus gives an overview of the legal framework for corporate governance in financial institutions in Cyprus. According to a Central BankDirective issued in 2006, implementation of corporate governance principles is mandatory for all banks incorporated in Cyprus and their overseas branches and for some Cyprus branches of foreign banks domiciled outside the European Economic Area. Banks are obliged to have a robust internal governance framework, consistent lines of reporting and effective risk identification, management, monitoring and reporting procedures for all the risks to which credit institutions are actually or potentially exposed. The board of directors should take the lead in establishing and approving ethical standards and corporate values for itself and for the bank's senior executive management. Potential conflicts of interest should be identified, prevented or appropriately managed. Each bank should maintain a compliance function that monitors compliance with rules, regulations and policies. Clear lines of responsibility and accountability should be set and enforced. New members of the board of directors as well as the senior executive managers of banks have to be vetted and approved by the Central Bank of Cyprus for their " fitness and properness." In order to ensure transparency concerning the implementation of the principles, each bank's corporate governance framework should be disclosed in the bank's annual report and on its public website. In the second paper by Christian Harm, University of Muenster, "The Governance of the Banking Firm" the author builds on the literatures on corporate governance and financial regulation. In relation to governance of financial institutions, agency theory has both merits and shortcomings. It provides good explanations in many delegation situations but it has severe difficulties in dealing with institutions with several stakeholders and complex objective functions for the management. Firms guided by shareholder value may work more effectively than firms guided by stakeholder cacophony. Depositors are important stakeholders in banks. Since they are typically incapable of managing the supervision of their claims on the bank, they rely on regulators to do it for them. Remuneration systems for bank managers should provide proper incentives. According to the author, incentives should be structured such as to reward particular strategic achievements. Banks can apply executive stock option plans, but should confine options to a secondary place behind other long-term incentives based on success criteria that further shareholder interests without compromising the regulatory mission. Such an incentive framework tends, however, to be very complex so that the general ambiguities associated with the concept of governance could imply that in the banking firm, selecting managers with a proper intrinsic motivation may be superior to defining complex remuneration programs. In the third paper "Corporate Governance Issues in Non-Shareholder Value Financial Institutions: ACase Study of Mutual Building Societies in the UK", David T. Llewellyn, Loughborough University, focuses on corporate governance in non-incorporated financial firms. The author describes the relevant stakeholders and the nature of agency problems in different types of financial firms. He compares monitoring mechanisms, incentives, abilities and feasibilities of managers and members of mutuals. Mutuality raises specific corporate governance issues: Corporate governance is less clearly defined because the firm's objectives are less clearly defined. Conflicts of interest between managers and owners are less easily identified and it is more difficult to create management incentives. The almost exclusive source of capital is retained profits and each member has a non-exclusive and non-marketable claim to residual net worth. Voting rights are typically not proportional to the size of the ownership stake. There is no market in ownership claims and therefore no effective market in corporate control. Consequently, there is ample scope for mutuals to be inefficient. There is, however, no evidence that the efficiency and performance of mutuals are poorer that that of incorporated financial firms. In the fourth paper "Corporate Governance in Emerging Market Banks", Bridget Gandy, Fitch Ratings Ltd., and her co-authors from the rating agency look at the framework for corporate governance of banks in a sample of emerging market countries. Since the crisis in the late 1990s in Latin America and Asia, there has been a marked improvement in corporate governance of financial institutions in the regions under observation. Many countries have taken legal steps to develop functioning market economies with a view to the need to satisfy the demands of international capital markets. Several banks have listed their shares on stock exchanges in developed markets and foreign bank ownership and involvement in local banking systems have increased. In Central and Eastern Europe, countries' desire for EU-accession has impacted on the development of their corporate governance systems. At the individual bank level, Fitch Ratings looks at bank board independence and quality, oversight and the importance of related party transactions, the integrity of the audit process, acceptability of executive and director remuneration, ownership structures and transparency. In evaluating the quality of governance at the country level, the authors apply a three-pillar approach in line with Montesquieu: Powers and responsibilities need to be separated between a representative legislature, a competent and accountable executive branch and a fair and independent judiciary. The paper contains an interesting table in which a number of key regulatory initiatives in a sample of emerging market countries are compared. The authors point out that large scale privatizations have reduced the importance of state-owned banks in many countries. There are, however, still several examples with complex holding structures involving banks with potential negative implications for corporate governance quality and problems with related party transactions. Acquisitions by foreign banks with developed corporate governance standards have generally had a positive impact and also listing of bank shares on foreign stock exchanges with tough disclosure and transparency requirements have contributed positively to the quality of corporate governance in emerging market banks. Read together, the four papers give a good overview of the development of corporate governance practices and remaining problems in financial institutions of different types and with domicile in different countries

Illegitimacy in a handloom weaving community: fertility patterns in Culcheth, Lancs., 1781-1860

This is a study of illegitimacy in a rural industrial district in which the phenomenon became extremely common during the early nineteenth century, subsequently declining sharply in frequency from around the 1840s to levels reminiscent of the preceding century. In the normal course of events a thesis within the field of socio-economic history will often evolve from the author having first selected a subject, then an approach to its study, and finally a location for implementing or testing his model. However in the present case the subject matter was virtually thrust at the author by his chance acquaintanceship with Culcheth's poor law papers the bulk of which, having been discovered in an attic, passed into his custody in 1965 to be dried out and sorted. The surprising volume of bastardy papers and account books led to a perusal of the parish registers and to the discovery of an illegitimacy ratio sometimes exceeding 30% of registered births. This was sufficiently odd to warrant further investigation, although four years elapsed before the author was in a position to embark on the task ... [see pdf file for full abstract]

Investigating the biological properties of carbohydrate derived fulvic acid (CHD-FA) as a potential novel therapy for the management of oral biofilm infections.

Background: A number of oral diseases, including periodontitis, derive from microbial biofilms and are associated with increased antimicrobial resistance. Despite the widespread use of mouthwashes being used as adjunctive measures to control these biofilms, their prolonged use is not recommended due to various side effects. Therefore, alternative broad-spectrum antimicrobials that minimise these effects are highly sought after. Carbohydrate derived fulvic acid (CHD-FA) is an organic acid which has previously demonstrated to be microbiocidal against Candida albicans biofilms, therefore, the aims of this study were to evaluate the antibacterial activity of CHD-FA against orally derived biofilms and to investigate adjunctive biological effects.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; Methods: Minimum inhibitory concentrations were evaluated for CHD-FA and chlorhexidine (CHX) against a range of oral bacteria using standardised microdilution testing for planktonic and sessile. Scanning electron microscopy was also employed to visualise changes in oral biofilms after antimicrobial treatment. Cytotoxicity of these compounds was assessed against oral epithelial cells, and the effect of CHD-FA on host inflammatory markers was assessed by measuring mRNA and protein expression.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; Results: CHD-FA was highly active against all of the oral bacteria tested, including Porphyromonas gingivalis, with a sessile minimum inhibitory concentration of 0.5%. This concentration was shown to kill multi-species biofilms by approximately 90%, levels comparable to that of chlorhexidine (CHX). In a mammalian cell culture model, pretreatment of epithelial cells with buffered CHD-FA was shown to significantly down-regulate key inflammatory mediators, including interleukin-8 (IL-8), after stimulation with a multi-species biofilm.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; Conclusions: Overall, CHD-FA was shown to possess broad-spectrum antibacterial activity, with a supplementary function of being able to down-regulate inflammation. These properties offer an attractive spectrum of function from a naturally derived compound, which could be used as an alternative topical treatment strategy for oral biofilm diseases. Further studies in vitro and in vivo are required to determine the precise mechanism by which CHD-FA modulates the host immune response.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt

Imaging in Vascular Access

This review examines four imaging modalities; ultrasound (US), digital subtraction angiography (DSA), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT), that have common or potential applications in vascular access (VA). The four modalities are reviewed under their primary uses, techniques, advantages and disadvantages, and future directions that are specific to VA. Currently, US is the most commonly used modality in VA because it is cheaper (relative to other modalities), accessible, non-ionising, and does not require the use of contrast agents. DSA is predominantly only performed when an intervention is indicated. MRI is limited by its cost and the time required for image acquisition that mainly confines it to the realm of research where high resolution is required. CT’s short acquisition times and high resolution make it useful as a problem-solving tool in complex cases, although accessibility can be an issue. All four imaging modalities have advantages and disadvantages that limit their use in this particular patient cohort. Current imaging in VA comprises an integrated approach with each modality providing particular uses dependent on their capabilities. MRI and CT, which currently have limited use, may have increasingly important future roles in complex cases where detailed analysis is required

Effects of inaccuracies in arterial path length measurement on differences in MRI and tonometry measured pulse wave velocity

Abstract Background Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cf-PWV) and aortic PWV measured using MRI (MRI-PWV) show good correlation, but with a significant and consistent bias across studies. The aim of the current study was to evaluate whether the differences between cf.-PWV and MRI-PWV can be accounted for by inaccuracies of currently used distance measurements. Methods One hundred fourteen study participants were recruited into one of 4 groups: Type 2 diabetes melltus (T2DM) with cardiovascular disease (CVD) (n = 23), T2DM without CVD (n = 41), CVD without T2DM (n = 25) and a control group (n = 25). All participants underwent cf.-PWV, cardiac MRI and whole body MR angiography(WB-MRA). 90 study participants also underwent aortic PWV using MRI. cf.-PWVEXT was performed using a SphygmoCor device (Atcor Medical, West Ryde, Australia). The true intra-arterial pathlength was measured using the WB-MRA and then used to recalculate the cf.-PWVEXT to give a cf.-PWVMRA. Results Distance measurements were significantly lower on WB-MRA than on external tape measure (mean diff = −85.4 ± 54.0 mm,p < 0.001). MRI-PWV was significantly lower than cf.-PWVEXT (MRI-PWV = 8.1 ± 2.9 vs. cf.-PWVEXT = 10.9 ± 2.7 ms−1,p < 0.001). When cf.-PWV was recalculated using the inter-arterial distance from WB-MRA, this difference was significantly reduced but not lost (MRI-PWV = 8.1 ± 2.9 ms−1 vs. cf.-PWVMRA 9.1 ± 2.1 ms−1, mean diff = −0.96 ± 2.52 ms−1,p = 0.001). Recalculation of the PWV increased correlation with age and pulse pressure. Conclusion Differences in cf.-PWV and MRI PWV can be predominantly but not entirely explained by inaccuracies introduced by the use of simple surface measurements to represent the convoluted arterial path between the carotid and femoral arteries

Effective Quantum Observables

Thought experiments about the physical nature of set theoretical counterexamples to the axiom of choice motivate the investigation of peculiar constructions, e.g. an infinite dimensional Hilbert space with a modular quantum logic. Applying a concept due to BENIOFF, we identify the intrinsically effective Hamiltonians with those observables of quantum theory which may coexist with a failure of the axiom of choice. Here a self adjoint operator is intrinsically effective, iff the Schroedinger equation of its generated semigroup is soluble by means of eigenfunction series expansions.Comment: TeX-file, 32 page