The Efficacy of Long-Term Kinesio Tape on Grip Strength in a Healthy Population

Kinesio® Tape was invented in 1973, and since has been used in various clinical and therapy settings to prevent and heal a multitude of physical conditions. Kinesio® Tape is a 100% cotton-based elastic tape that when applied to the skin pulls the skin upwards and creates more space by lifting the fascia and soft tissue, thus increasing blood flow and decreasing edema. The tape was also purported to facilitate the strengthening of weakened muscles through neuromuscular facilitation. The objective behind this study was to determine the long-term effects of applied forearm Kinesio® Tape on maximal grip strength when paired with an exercise program. The study took place at the CMS Athletic Training Center, and was designed to be a matched-pairs, single group, repeated measures experiment. Thirty- two healthy members of the Claremont College community voluntarily participated in this study. There was 16 male and 16 female participants (average age: 21.46 ± 1.76 years; average height 174.92 ± 9.40 cm; average body weight 69.17 ± 9.20 kg). The maximal grip strength of both the dominant and non-dominant hands was measured using a JAMAR Hydraulic Hand Dynamometer. Each of the 32 subjects also participated in an exercise program for two weeks and provided a grip strength measurement at the end of each week. Maximal grip strength values were assessed using a standard paired-samples t-test. Results revealed a significant difference in grip strength in the dominant arm (exercise with Kinesio® Tape) compared to the non-dominant arm (exercise only). When combined with a relatively low to medium level exercise program, Kinesio® Tape significantly increased grip strength when compared to an exercise program alone in a healthy population

Elementi nastali raspadom iz prirodnih radioaktivnih nizova u pitkoj vodi i cigaretama u Iranu

The uranium (238U) decay series provides the most important isotopes of elements radium (226Ra), radon (222Rn), and polonium (210Po) with half-lives of about 1600 years, 3.8 days, and 140 days, respectively. Although the chemical structure of radium is very similar to calcium, the fact that it produces a radioactive gas (radon) complicates its handling in the laboratory and natural environment. In this study, we used the average concentrations of naturally occurring radionuclide 226Ra in drinking water at different parts of Iran to estimate the annual effective dose. In the other part of the study, we measured the concentrations of 210Po in Iranian cigarettes to estimate the internal intake of this radionuclide and its concentration in the lung tissues of smokers. The results indicate that the average concentration of 226Ra in Iranian drinking water was below the 100 mBq L-1 recommended by the World Health Organization while the average concentration of 210Po and 210Pb in Iranian cigarettes was relatively high in comparison with other cigarettes found on the market.Uranijev (238U) radioaktivni niz obuhvaća najvažnije izotope radija (226Ra), radona (222Rn) i polonija (210Po), a poluvijek raspada im je 1600 godina za prvi element, 3,8 dana za drugi te 140 dana za treći. Premda je radijeva kemijska struktura vrlo slična kalcijevoj, rukovanje njime u laboratoriju i prirodnome okolišu otežano je činjenicom da proizvodi radioaktivni plin radon. S pomoću prosječnih koncentracija prirodnoga radionuklida 226Ra u pitkoj vodi izračunali smo njegovu godišnju efektivnu dozu u različitim dijelovima Irana. U drugome smo istraživanju izmjerili koncentracije 210Po u iranskim cigaretama i izračunali njegov unos i koncentracije u plućnome tkivu. Naši rezultati upućuju na to da je prosječna koncentracija 226Ra u pitkoj vodi niža od 100 mBq L-1 koju preporučuje Svjetska zdravstvena organizacija, dok je prosječna koncentracija 210Po i 210Pb u iranskim cigaretama relativno visoka u odnosu na druge cigarete dostupne na tržištu

Accelerating a Machine Learning Algorithm on a Graphics Processing Unit

Life long learning from zero(LL0) is a lifelong learning algorithm that has a dynamic neural network architecture. Many machine learning tools perform poorly on dynamic structures due to the overhead of growing computational maps with expanding networks. This thesis explores the possibility of delivering higher performance for the LL0 algorithm compared to the existing PyTorch implementation by developing a custom solution. This developed solution has a strongly coupled mapping of the LL0 algorithm with the GPU to achieve hardware acceleration. A set of benchmarks are defined to compare the performance of the between implementations. Furthermore, the thesis develops a methodology to investigate potential bottlenecks and parallelism with the implementation mapped to a GPU. The thesis achieves a significant speedup of ×19.48 on the number of feedforward per unit of time, compared with the similar PyTorch implementation, on an MNIST dataset

Air radon concentration decrease in a waste water treatment plant

Rn-222 is a naturally occurring gas created from the decay of Ra-226. The long-term health risk of breathing radon is lung cancer. One particular place where indoor radon concentrations can exceed national guidelines is in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) where treatment processes may contribute to ambient airborne concentrations. The aim of this paper was to study the radon concentration decrease after the application of corrective measures in a Spanish WWTP. According to first measures, air radon concentration exceeded International Commission Radiologica1 Protection (ICRP) normative (recommends intervention between 400 and 1000 Bq m(-3)). Therefore, the WWTP improved mechanical forced ventilation to lower occupational exposure. This measure allowed to increase the administrative controls, since the limitation of workers access to the plant changed from 2 h d(-1) (considering a maximum permissible dose of 20 mSv y(-1) averaged over 5 y) to 7 h d(-1).Juste Vidal, BJ.; Ortiz Moragón, J.; Verdú Martín, GJ.; Martorell Alsina, SS. (2015). Air radon concentration decrease in a waste water treatment plant. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/RPD/NCV329

Impact of Aspect Oriented Programming on Software Development Quality Metrics

The aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a new paradigm for improving the system’s features such as modularity, readability and maintainability. Owing to a better modularisation of cross-cutting concerns, the developed system implementation would be less complex, and more readable.Thus, software development efficiency would increase, so the system would be created faster than its object-oriented programming (OOP) equivalent. In this paper, we provide some insight into the OO software development quality metrics were significantly associated with using AOP.The method that we are currently studying is based on a popular C & K metrics suite that extends the metrics traditionally used with the OO paradigm and also extend to AO paradigm. We argue that a shift similar to the one leading to the Chidamber and Kemerer’s metrics is necessary when moving from OO to AOP software

Use of passive alpha detectors to screen for uranium contamination in a field at Fernald, Ohio

This paper reports the results from a field test of newly developed techniques for inexpensive, in situ screening of soil for alpha contamination. Passive alpha detectors that are commercially available for the detection indoor airborne alpha activity (i.e., {sup 222}Rn) have been modified so they can be applied to the detection of alpha contamination on surfaces or in soils. Results reported here are from an intercomparison involving several different techniques with all measurements being made at the same sites in a field near the formerly used uranium processing facility at Fernald, Ohio, during the summer of 1994. The results for two types of passive alpha detector show that the quality of calibration is improved if soils samples are milled to increase homogeneity within the soil matrices. The correlation between laboratory based radiochemical analyses and quick, field-based screening measurements is acceptable and can be improved if the passive devices are left for longer exposure times in the field. The total cost per measurement for either type of passive alpha detector is probably less than $25 and should provide a cost-effective means for site managers to develop the information needed to find areas with remaining alpha contamination so resources can be allocated efficiently

Bibliometric Survey for Cryptanalysis of Block Ciphers towards Cyber Security

In Cryptography, Block Cipher is an algorithm used to encode the data which is used to transfer over internet. Cryptanalyst tries to break secret code by using different methods like Brute Force attack, Linear Cryptanalysis and differential cryptanalysis etc. The basic aim of this bibliometric survey is to understand the extent of the available literature for the area of cryptanalysis of block ciphers towards cyber security. The bibliometric analysis is primarily based on Scopus as it provides research database for various areas and tools like Sciencescape, Gephi etc. It is analyzed by bibliometric survey that major publications are from conference, journals and articles from Chinese publications, followed by India and United States. The time series dataset started from 2004 to till date. The most of the research publication is by the subject areas of Computer Science followed by Engineering and Mathematics

Electret ion chamber-based passive radon-thoron discriminative monitors

Electret ion chambers (EICs), commercially available under brand name E-PERM®, are widely used for measuring indoor and outdoor 222Rn concentrations in air. These are designed to respond only to 222Rn and not to 220Rn by restricting diffusional entry area. Such radon EIC (R EIC) monitors are modified by increasing the entry area to allow 220Rn, in addition to 222Rn. Such modified units are called RT EIC. When a set of R and RT EICs are collocated, it is possible to discriminate and measure both radon and thoron concentrations, using appropriate calibration factors (CFs) and algorithms. The EICs come in different volumes, providing different sensitivities. The thoron CFs for 58-, 210- and 960-ml volume R and RT pairs are, respectively, 2.8-, 18.7- and 89-V drop per (kBq m-3 d), respectively. These provide much wider sensitivities and ranges compared to alpha track-based passive radon-thoron discriminative monitors