Response of selected hormonal markers during training cycles on indian female swimmers

The present study was taken up to monitor the fluctuations of the hormones testosterone, cortisol and T/C (Testosterone/Cortisol) ratio concentrations during the three phases of training namely preparatory phase, pre-competitive phase and competitive phase in Indian female swimmers. Blood samples were collected at the completion of each phase to study the impact of training on these hormones. Our results reveal that the testosterone and T/C ratio significantly decreases whereas cortisol increases in the subsequent periodised cycle and it was due to the intensity and volume of training. Our study concludes that the intensity and volume of training has effects on these hormones and also, a swimmer with higher testosterone, lowest cortisol and highest T/C ratio has the highest percentage difference of performance record between the preparatory and competitive phase. Hence, monitoring of these hormones is essential to avoid overtraining and to enhance the performance of the swimmers

Low expression of G protein-coupled oestrogen receptor 1 (GPER) is associated with adverse survival of breast cancer patients

G protein-coupled oestrogen receptor 1 (GPER), also called G protein-coupled receptor 30 (GPR30), is attracting considerable attention for its potential role in breast cancer development and progression. Activation by oestrogen (17β-oestradiol; E2) initiates short term, non-genomic, signalling events both in vitro and in vivo. Published literature on the prognostic value of GPER protein expression in breast cancer indicates that further assessment is warranted. We show, using immunohistochemistry on a large cohort of primary invasive breast cancer patients (n=1245), that low protein expression of GPER is not only significantly associated with clinicopathological and molecular features of aggressive behaviour but also significantly associated with adverse survival of breast cancer patients. Furthermore, assessment of GPER mRNA levels in the METABRIC cohort (n=1980) demonstrates that low GPER mRNA expression is significantly associated with adverse survival of breast cancer patients. Using artificial neural networks, genes associated with GPER mRNA expression were identified; these included notch-4 and jagged-1. These results support the prognostic value for determination of GPER expression in breast cancer

Spontaneous emission of non-dispersive Rydberg wave packets

Non dispersive electronic Rydberg wave packets may be created in atoms illuminated by a microwave field of circular polarization. We discuss the spontaneous emission from such states and show that the elastic incoherent component (occuring at the frequency of the driving field) dominates the spectrum in the semiclassical limit, contrary to earlier predictions. We calculate the frequencies of single photon emissions and the associated rates in the "harmonic approximation", i.e. when the wave packet has approximately a Gaussian shape. The results agree well with exact quantum mechanical calculations, which validates the analytical approach.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure