Injury Risk Estimation Expertise Assessing the ACL Injury Risk Estimation Quiz

Background: Available methods for screening anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury risk are effective but limited in application as they generally rely on expensive and time-consuming biomechanical movement analysis. A potential efficient alternative to biomechanical screening is skilled movement analysis via visual inspection (ie, having experts estimate injury risk factors based on observations of athletes’ movements). Purpose: To develop a brief, valid psychometric assessment of ACL injury risk factor estimation skill: the ACL Injury Risk Estimation Quiz (ACL-IQ). Study Design: Cohort study (diagnosis); Level of evidence, 3. Methods: A total of 660 individuals participated in various stages of the study, including athletes, physicians, physical therapists, athletic trainers, exercise science researchers/students, and members of the general public in the United States. The ACL-IQ was fully computerized and made available online (www.ACL-IQ.org). Item sampling/reduction, reliability analysis, cross-validation, and convergent/discriminant validity analysis were conducted to optimize the efficiency and validity of the assessment. Results: Psychometric optimization techniques identified a short (mean time, 2 min 24 s), robust, 5-item assessment with high reliability (test-retest: r = 0.90) and consistent discriminability (average difference of exercise science professionals vs general population: Cohen d = 1.98). Exercise science professionals and general population individuals scored 74% and 53% correct, respectively. Convergent and discriminant validity was demonstrated. Scores on the ACL-IQ were most associated with ACL knowledge and various cue utilities and were least associated with domain-general spatial/decision-making ability, personality, or other demographic variables. Overall, 23% of the total sample (40% exercise science professionals; 6% general population) performed better than or equal to the ACL nomogram. Conclusion: This study presents the results of a systematic approach to assess individual differences in ACL injury risk factor estimation skill; the assessment approach is efficient (ie, it can be completed in\3 min) and psychometrically robust. The results provide evidence that some individuals have the ability to visually estimate ACL injury risk factors more accurately than other instrument-based ACL risk estimation methods (ie, ACL nomogram). The ACL-IQ provides the foundation for assessing the efficacy of observational ACL injury risk factor assessment (ie, does simple skilled visual inspection reduce ACL injuries?). It also provides a representative task environment that can be used to increase our understanding of the perceptual-cognitive mechanisms underlying observational movement analysis and to improve injury risk assessment performance

Reproducibility of four frequently used local heating protocols to assess cutaneous microvascular function.

BACKGROUND: Skin microvascular responses to local heating are frequently used to assess microvascular function. Several local heating protocols have been developed, all varying slightly in execution. The aim of this study was to determine the inter-day reproducibility of the four most commonly used local heating protocols in healthy young subjects. METHODS: Fifteen, healthy males (28±5yrs, BMI 25±2kg/m(2)) attended two experimental trials 2-7days apart. During each trial, baseline and maximal thermally stimulated forearm skin responses were examined simultaneously at four sites on the dominant forearm using laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF). The following heating protocols were adopted: 1. Rapid 39°C (0.5°C/5s), 2. Rapid 42°C (0.5°C/5s) 3. Gradual 42°C (0.5°C/2min 30s) and 4. Slow 42°C (0.5°C/5min). The coefficient of variation (CV) was calculated for absolute flux, cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC; flux/mean arterial pressure, MAP) and CVC expressed as a percentage of maximal CVC at 44°C (%CVCmax) at three different time points; baseline (33°C), plateau (39/42°C) and maximal (44°C). RESULTS: Reproducibility of baseline flux, CVC and %CVCmax was 17-29% across all protocols. During the plateau, Rapid, Gradual and Slow 42°C demonstrated a reproducibility of 13-18% for flux and CVC and 5-11% for %CVCmax. However, Rapid 39°C demonstrated a lower reproducibility for flux, CVC and %CVCmax (all 21%). Reproducibility at 44°C was 12-15% for flux and CVC across all protocols. CONCLUSION: This is the first study examining inter-day reproducibility across four local heating protocols. The good-to-moderate reproducibility of the Rapid, Gradual and Slow 42°C protocols support their (simultaneous) use to assess microvascular function. Using Rapid 39°C may require a greater number of subjects to detect differences within subjects

Mapping species distributions: A comparison of skilled naturalist and lay citizen science recording

To assess the ability of traditional biological recording schemes and lay citizen science approaches to gather data on species distributions and changes therein, we examined bumblebee records from the UK’s national repository (National Biodiversity Network) and from BeeWatch. The two recording approaches revealed similar relative abundances of bumblebee species but different geographical distributions. For the widespread common carder (Bombus pascuorum), traditional recording scheme data were patchy, both spatially and temporally, reflecting active record centre rather than species distribution. Lay citizen science records displayed more extensive geographic coverage, reflecting human population density, thus offering better opportunities to account for recording effort. For the rapidly spreading tree bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum), both recording approaches revealed similar distributions due to a dedicated mapping project which overcame the patchy nature of naturalist records. We recommend, where possible, complementing skilled naturalist recording with lay citizen science programmes to obtain a nation-wide capability, and stress the need for timely uploading of data to the national repository

Biodiversity Loss and the Taxonomic Bottleneck: Emerging Biodiversity Science

Human domination of the Earth has resulted in dramatic changes to global and local patterns of biodiversity. Biodiversity is critical to human sustainability because it drives the ecosystem services that provide the core of our life-support system. As we, the human species, are the primary factor leading to the decline in biodiversity, we need detailed information about the biodiversity and species composition of specific locations in order to understand how different species contribute to ecosystem services and how humans can sustainably conserve and manage biodiversity. Taxonomy and ecology, two fundamental sciences that generate the knowledge about biodiversity, are associated with a number of limitations that prevent them from providing the information needed to fully understand the relevance of biodiversity in its entirety for human sustainability: (1) biodiversity conservation strategies that tend to be overly focused on research and policy on a global scale with little impact on local biodiversity; (2) the small knowledge base of extant global biodiversity; (3) a lack of much-needed site-specific data on the species composition of communities in human-dominated landscapes, which hinders ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation; (4) biodiversity studies with a lack of taxonomic precision; (5) a lack of taxonomic expertise and trained taxonomists; (6) a taxonomic bottleneck in biodiversity inventory and assessment; and (7) neglect of taxonomic resources and a lack of taxonomic service infrastructure for biodiversity science. These limitations are directly related to contemporary trends in research, conservation strategies, environmental stewardship, environmental education, sustainable development, and local site-specific conservation. Today’s biological knowledge is built on the known global biodiversity, which represents barely 20% of what is currently extant (commonly accepted estimate of 10 million species) on planet Earth. Much remains unexplored and unknown, particularly in hotspots regions of Africa, South Eastern Asia, and South and Central America, including many developing or underdeveloped countries, where localized biodiversity is scarcely studied or described. ‘‘Backyard biodiversity’’, defined as local biodiversity near human habitation, refers to the natural resources and capital for ecosystem services at the grassroots level, which urgently needs to be explored, documented, and conserved as it is the backbone of sustainable economic development in these countries. Beginning with early identification and documentation of local flora and fauna, taxonomy has documented global biodiversity and natural history based on the collection of ‘‘backyard biodiversity’’ specimens worldwide. However, this branch of science suffered a continuous decline in the latter half of the twentieth century, and has now reached a point of potential demise. At present there are very few professional taxonomists and trained local parataxonomists worldwide, while the need for, and demands on, taxonomic services by conservation and resource management communities are rapidly increasing. Systematic collections, the material basis of biodiversity information, have been neglected and abandoned, particularly at institutions of higher learning. Considering the rapid increase in the human population and urbanization, human sustainability requires new conceptual and practical approaches to refocusing and energizing the study of the biodiversity that is the core of natural resources for sustainable development and biotic capital for sustaining our life-support system. In this paper we aim to document and extrapolate the essence of biodiversity, discuss the state and nature of taxonomic demise, the trends of recent biodiversity studies, and suggest reasonable approaches to a biodiversity science to facilitate the expansion of global biodiversity knowledge and to create useful data on backyard biodiversity worldwide towards human sustainability

Formation of Supermassive Black Holes

Evidence shows that massive black holes reside in most local galaxies. Studies have also established a number of relations between the MBH mass and properties of the host galaxy such as bulge mass and velocity dispersion. These results suggest that central MBHs, while much less massive than the host (~ 0.1%), are linked to the evolution of galactic structure. In hierarchical cosmologies, a single big galaxy today can be traced back to the stage when it was split up in hundreds of smaller components. Did MBH seeds form with the same efficiency in small proto-galaxies, or did their formation had to await the buildup of substantial galaxies with deeper potential wells? I briefly review here some of the physical processes that are conducive to the evolution of the massive black hole population. I will discuss black hole formation processes for `seed' black holes that are likely to place at early cosmic epochs, and possible observational tests of these scenarios.Comment: To appear in The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review. The final publication is available at http://www.springerlink.co

Impact of physical activity level and dietary fat content on passive overconsumption of energy in non-obese adults

Background: Passive overconsumption is the increase in energy intake driven by the high-fat energy-dense food environment. This can be explained in part because dietary fat has a weaker effect on satiation (i.e. process that terminates feeding). Habitually active individuals show improved satiety (i.e. process involved in post-meal suppression of hunger) but any improvement in satiation is unknown. Here we examined whether habitual physical activity mitigates passive overconsumption through enhanced satiation in response to a high-fat meal. Methods: Twenty-one non-obese individuals with high levels of physical activity (HiPA) and 19 individuals with low levels of physical activity (LoPA) matched for body mass index (mean = 22.8 kg/m2) were recruited. Passive overconsumption was assessed by comparing ad libitum energy intake from covertly manipulated high-fat (HFAT; 50% fat) or high-carbohydrate (HCHO; 70% carbohydrate) meals in a randomized crossover design. Habitual physical activity was assessed using SenseWear accelerometers (SWA). Body composition, resting metabolic rate, eating behaviour traits, fasting appetite-related peptides and hedonic food reward were also measured. Results: In the whole sample, passive overconsumption was observed with greater energy intake at HFAT compared to HCHO (p  0.05). SWA confirmed that HiPA were more active than LoPA (p  0.05 for all). Conclusions: Non-obese individuals with high or low physical activity levels but matched for BMI showed similar susceptibility to passive overconsumption when consuming an ad libitum high-fat compared to a high-carbohydrate meal. This occurred despite increased total daily energy expenditure and improved body composition in HiPA. Greater differences in body composition and/or physical activity levels may be required to impact on satiation

Search for direct pair production of the top squark in all-hadronic final states in proton-proton collisions at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for direct pair production of the scalar partner to the top quark using an integrated luminosity of 20.1fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at √s = 8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC are reported. The top squark is assumed to decay via t˜→tχ˜01 or t˜→ bχ˜±1 →bW(∗)χ˜01 , where χ˜01 (χ˜±1 ) denotes the lightest neutralino (chargino) in supersymmetric models. The search targets a fully-hadronic final state in events with four or more jets and large missing transverse momentum. No significant excess over the Standard Model background prediction is observed, and exclusion limits are reported in terms of the top squark and neutralino masses and as a function of the branching fraction of t˜ → tχ˜01 . For a branching fraction of 100%, top squark masses in the range 270–645 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 30 GeV. For a branching fraction of 50% to either t˜ → tχ˜01 or t˜ → bχ˜±1 , and assuming the χ˜±1 mass to be twice the χ˜01 mass, top squark masses in the range 250–550 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 60 GeV

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Розрахунок та проектування окремого фундаменту будівлі на природній ґрунтовій основі. Методичні рекомендації до виконання практичних завдань та курсового проекту з дисципліни «Механіка ґрунтів, основи і фундаменти» сту- дентами напрямів підготовки 6.060101 Будівництво та 6.050301 Гірництво

Подано методичні рекомендації до виконання практичних завдань та кур- сового проекту з дисципліни «Механіка ґрунтів, основи і фундаменти» для сту- дентів напрямів підготовки 6.060101 Будівництво та 6.050301 Гірництво. Розглянуто порядок проектування фундаменту будівлі мілкого закладан- ня на природній ґрунтовій основі. Методичні рекомендації передбачають виконання курсового проекту «Розрахунок та проектування окремого фундаменту будівлі на природній ґрун- товій основі» як із викладачем, так і під час самостійної роботи. Можна використовувати також у підготовці курсового та дипломного про- ектування