High cycling cadence reduces carbohydrate oxidation at given low intensity metabolic rate

Cycling cadence (RPM)-related differences in blood lactate concentration (BLC) increase with increasing exercise intensity, whilst corresponding divergences in oxygen uptake (VO2) and carbon dioxde production (VCO2) decrease. We tested the hypothesis, that a higher RPM reduces the fraction (%) of the VO2 used for carbohydrate oxidation (relCHO) at a given BLC. Eight males (23.9 +/- 1.6 yrs; 177 +/- 3 cm; 70.3 +/- 3.4 kg) performed incremental load tests at 50 and 100 RPM. BLC, VO2 and VCO2 were measured. At respiratory exchange ratios (RER) <1, relCHO were calculated and the constant determining 50% relCHO (kCHO) was approximated as a function of the BLC. At submaximal workload, VO2 and RER were lower (p<0.001) at 50 than at 100 RPM. No differences were observed in VO2peak (3.96 +/- 0.22 vs. 4.00 +/ 0.25 l min-1) and RERpeak (1.18 +/- 0.02 vs. 1.15 +/- 0.02). BLC was lower (p<0.001) at 50 than at 100 RPM irrespective of cycling intensity. At 50 RPM, kCHO (4.2 +/- 1.4 (mmol l-1)3) was lower (p<0.05) than at 100 RPM (5.9 +/- 1.9 (mmol l-1)3). This difference in kCHO reflects a reduced CHO oxidation at a given BLC at 100 than at 50 RPM. At a low exercise intensity, a higher cycling cadence can substantially reduce the reliance on CHO at a given metabolic rate and/or BLC

Robust Adaptive Median Binary Pattern for noisy texture classification and retrieval

Texture is an important cue for different computer vision tasks and applications. Local Binary Pattern (LBP) is considered one of the best yet efficient texture descriptors. However, LBP has some notable limitations, mostly the sensitivity to noise. In this paper, we address these criteria by introducing a novel texture descriptor, Robust Adaptive Median Binary Pattern (RAMBP). RAMBP based on classification process of noisy pixels, adaptive analysis window, scale analysis and image regions median comparison. The proposed method handles images with high noisy textures, and increases the discriminative properties by capturing microstructure and macrostructure texture information. The proposed method has been evaluated on popular texture datasets for classification and retrieval tasks, and under different high noise conditions. Without any train or prior knowledge of noise type, RAMBP achieved the best classification compared to state-of-the-art techniques. It scored more than $90\%$ under $50\%$ impulse noise densities, more than $95\%$ under Gaussian noised textures with standard deviation $\sigma = 5$, and more than $99\%$ under Gaussian blurred textures with standard deviation $\sigma = 1.25$. The proposed method yielded competitive results and high performance as one of the best descriptors in noise-free texture classification. Furthermore, RAMBP showed also high performance for the problem of noisy texture retrieval providing high scores of recall and precision measures for textures with high levels of noise

Sports or physical activity for the inactive world:should we be encouraging safer physical activity patterns more than sports?

The scientific evidence on the positive effects of physical activity as part of a healthy lifestyle is well established. Physical activity has both direct and indirect effects for preventing several chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease (CVD), obesity, diabetes and cancer.1 Healthcare policies across the globe have developed numerous strategies to encourage physical activity with several calls for action to prevent and decrease overweight and obesity, such as calls for action in the US Department for health and Human Services in 2001, the UK House of Commons Health Committee report on obesity and the Department of Health physical activity guidelines in 2004.2-4 Moreover, numerous implementation initiatives have encouraged physical activity and sports participation with an aim of achieving health outcomes and cost saving strategies for healthcar

Parallel processing for scientific computations

The main contribution of the effort in the last two years is the introduction of the MOPPS system. After doing extensive literature search, we introduced the system which is described next. MOPPS employs a new solution to the problem of managing programs which solve scientific and engineering applications on a distributed processing environment. Autonomous computers cooperate efficiently in solving large scientific problems with this solution. MOPPS has the advantage of not assuming the presence of any particular network topology or configuration, computer architecture, or operating system. It imposes little overhead on network and processor resources while efficiently managing programs concurrently. The core of MOPPS is an intelligent program manager that builds a knowledge base of the execution performance of the parallel programs it is managing under various conditions. The manager applies this knowledge to improve the performance of future runs. The program manager learns from experience

Determining trade-off between sustainable yield and baseflow in the Kulnura - Mangrove Mountain aquifer system using simulation optimisation modelling

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Engineering.The public water supply in the Gosford-Wyong area of New South Wales is reliant on streams that originate in elevated sandstone country. About half of the stream flow is believed to be baseflow from the sandstone aquifer system in the Kulnura - Mangrove Mountain area. At the same time as the population is growing steadily on the coast, there is increased demand for groundwater for horticultural, agricultural and industrial purposes along the sandstone ridges. Hence, good groundwater management is critical, to ensure that stream baseflow is not jeopardised. A management model that couples a simulation model with an optimisation model has been developed for the Kulnura-Mangrove Mountain aquifer system to evaluate the trade-offs between increased aquifer yields and baseflow reduction. The project has been successful in developing trade-off curves for sustainable yield versus reduction in baseflow. It is believed that this is the first time that rigorous trade-off curves for sustainable yield have been developed for a stream-aquifer system in Australia. The objectives of this research were to determine the sustainable yield(s) of the aquifer system in relation to extraction limits from both groundwater and surface water; to determine the magnitude, distribution and dynamics of baseflow to the streams which drain the Kulnura - Mangrove Mountain aquifer; to determine groundwater entitlement limits that would preserve baseflow to streams in order to facilitate groundwater allocation policy; and to explore how groundwater extraction limits would change for tolerable reductions in baseflow. The simulation model is necessarily coarse, with 500 m spatial resolution, as replication of a very large regional aquifer was required. Given the wide variation in vertical relief in the area, approximately 400 metres, it was necessary to divide the vertical profile into 30 layers. Otherwise, it would not have been possible to track the many baseflow-receiving creeks that descend from high elevations to the sea. The calibration results of the simulation model show that the model performs very well in representing the values and the patterns of groundwater level for both steady state and transient conditions, is able to reproduce large vertical hydraulic gradients between aquifer layers, and also replicates baseflow reasonably well. The optimisation model was developed with the objective of preserving stream baseflow within tolerable limits while maximising the pumping rates from the aquifer system. Constraints were designed in terms of hydraulic gradient, with reduction tolerance ranges from 0.1 % to 10 %. Conversion from hydraulic gradient reduction to baseflow reduction was achieved by running reported optimal production patterns through the model in simulation mode. This work differs from that of previous researchers in not making a pre-emptive assumption of linearity between groundwater pumping and stream baseflow. A very large optimisation problem has been solved in this study, consisting of up to 5700 decision variables and 8000 constraints. The study has been successful in generating trade-off curves that will provide a scientific basis for government / community decisions on responsible water allocation between computing users

Performance analysis of local area networks

A simulation of the TCP/IP protocol running on a CSMA/CD data link layer was described. The simulation was implemented using the simula language, and object oriented discrete event language. It allows the user to set the number of stations at run time, as well as some station parameters. Those parameters are the interrupt time and the dma transfer rate for each station. In addition, the user may configure the network at run time with stations of differing characteristics. Two types are available, and the parameters of both types are read from input files at run time. The parameters include the dma transfer rate, interrupt time, data rate, average message size, maximum frame size and the average interarrival time of messages per station. The information collected for the network is the throughput and the mean delay per packet. For each station, the number of messages attempted as well as the number of messages successfully transmitted is collected in addition to the throughput and mean packet delay per station

The Schur-Szegö Composition of Real Polynomials of Degree 2

A real polynomial P in one real variable is hyperbolic if its roots are all real. n j j The composition of Schur-Szeg¨ of the polynomials P = o j =0 Cn aj x and n n j j j j Q = j =0 Cn bj x is the polynomial P Q = j =0 Cn aj bj x . In the present paper we show how for n = 2 and when P and Q are real or hyperbolic the roots of P Q depend on the roots or the coefficients of P and Q. We consider also the case when n 2 is arbitrary and P and Q are of the form (x - 1)n-1 (x + b). This case is interesting in the context of the possibility to present every polynomial having one of its roots at (-1) as a composition of n - 1 polynomials of the form (x + 1)n-1 (x + b).Sin resume

La coherencia y la cohesión textuales: ¿problema lingüístico o pedagógico?

L’objectif de notre recherche est de montrer l’importance que l’on doit apporter, apprenant et enseignant, à la cohérence (se manifestant au niveau global du texte) et à la cohésion (se manifestant au niveau local du texte) pour arriver à un texte bien clair et compréhensible. Nous avons montré les principaux points qu’il faut prendre en compte dans la cohérence et la cohésion avec des exemples illustratifs. Nous sommes arrivés aussi au fait que la cohésion relève plutôt d’une connaissance linguistique (les connecteurs, l’anaphore, …), alors que la cohérence exige une connaissance pédagogique, étant la technique et le mécanisme de bien gérer la structure d’un texte. Tout enseignant est censé prendre en considération ces deux éléments lors de la correction des textes des apprenants en accordant une importance pas seulement à la phrase, mais aussi à la totalité du texte.The objective of our research is to show the importance that we must attribute, learners and teachers, to the coherence (manifested in the overall level of text) and to the cohesion (manifested at the local level of text) to achieve a clear and understandable text. We showed the main points to be considered in the coherence and cohesion with illustrative examples. We concluded that cohesion is rather a linguistic knowledge (connectors, anaphora ...), and coherence requires pedagogical knowledge, such as the technique and mechanism to manage the structure of a text. Each teacher is expected to consider these two elements in the proofreading of learners by giving importance not only to the sentence, but also to the entire text.El objetivo de esta investigación es mostrar la importancia que deben tener , para el profesor y el estudiante, la coherencia (que se manifiesta a nivel global del texto), y la cohesión (que se manifiesta a nivel local del texto) para conseguir un texto claro y comprensible. Mostraremos los principales elementos que hay que tener en cuenta en la coherencia y la cohesión con ejemplos. Hemos constatado el hecho de que la cohesión implica sobre todo un conocimiento lingüístico (conectores, anáforas, …), mientras que la coherencia exige un conocimiento pedagógico, que haga hincapié en la técnica y en los mecanismos para gestionar perfectamente la estructura de un texto. Todo profesor debería tener en cuenta estos dos elementos cuando corrige los textos de los estudiantes, dando importancia no solo a la frase, sino también a la totalidad del texto

Yerba Maté (Illex Paraguariensis) ingestion augments fat oxidation and energy expenditure during exercise at various submaximal intensities

Methods: Fourteen healthy males and females were randomised in a repeated measures crossover experimental design. All participants ingested either 1000 mg of YM or placebo capsules (PLC) 60 min before performing two incremental exercise ergometry tests. Power output was initiated at and increased by 0.5 W.kg-1of body weight every 3 min stage, until reaching peak oxygen uptake V O 2 Peak. Expired gases and stoichiometric indirect calorimetry were used to analyse FAO and EEFAO. Capillary blood samples were collected and analysed for blood lactate concentration (BLC) at rest and at each submaximal and maximal power output. Results: YM significantly increased FAO and EEFAOby 24% in all submaximal exercise intensities below 70% of V O 2 peak (p < 0.001, ANOVA main effects) with post hoc tests showing a higher FAO and EEFAO(p < 0.05) at the lower exercise intensities (e.g. 0.26 ± 0.09 vs. 0.35 ± 0.10 and 0.25 ± 0.12 vs. 0.33 ± 0.11 g.min-1at 40 and 50% of V O 2 peak respectively). These changes were combined with a trend towards a decrease in BLC (P = 0.066), and without a significant difference in V O 2 peak, peak power, peak RER, or peak BLC. Conclusions: Acute YM ingestion augments the exercise dependent increase in FAO and EEFAOat submaximal exercise intensities without negatively affecting maximal exercise performance, suggesting a potential role for YM ingestion to increase the exercise effectiveness for weight loss and sports performance. Background: Ingesting Yerba Maté (YM) has become widely popular for health promotion, obesity prevention and body weight reduction, primarily due its thermogenic effectiveness. However, the YM effects on fat metabolism during exercise, when fat metabolism is already increased several fold, are unknown. The present study investigated whether acute YM ingestion augments fat metabolism parameters of fatty acid oxidation (FAO) and energy expenditure derived from FAO (EEFAO) during exercise with several intensities

Uncertainty modeling of random and systematic errors by means of Monte Carlo and fuzzy techniques

The standard reference in uncertainty modeling is the “Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement (GUM)”. GUM groups the occurring uncertain quantities into “Type A” and “Type B”. Uncertainties of “Type A” are determined with the classical statistical methods, while “Type B” is subject to other uncertainties which are obtained by experience and knowledge about an instrument or a measurement process. Both types of uncertainty can have random and systematic error components. Our study focuses on a detailed comparison of probability and fuzzy-random approaches for handling and propagating the different uncertainties, especially those of “Type B”. Whereas a probabilistic approach treats all uncertainties as having a random nature, the fuzzy technique distinguishes between random and deterministic errors. In the fuzzy-random approach the random components are modeled in a stochastic framework, and the deterministic uncertainties are treated by means of a range-of-values search problem. The applied procedure is outlined showing both the theory and a numerical example for the evaluation of uncertainties in an application for terrestrial laserscanning (TLS).DFG/KU/1250/4-