Effects of cold water immersion and active recovery on hemodynamics and recovery of muscle strength following resistance exercise

Cold water immersion (CWI) and active recovery (ACT) are frequently used as post-exercise recovery strategies. However, the physiological effects of CWI and ACT after resistance exercise are not well characterized. We examined the effects of CWI and ACT on cardiac output (Q), muscle oxygenation (SmO2) and blood volume (tHb), muscle temperature (Tmuscle ) and isometric strength after resistance exercise. On separate days, 10 men performed resistance exercise, followed by 10 min CWI at 10°C or 10 min ACT (low-intensity cycling). Q (7.9±2.7 l) and Tmuscle (2.2±0.8ºC) increased, whereas SmO2 (-21.5±8.8%) and tHb (-10.1±7.7 μM) decreased after exercise (p<0.05). During CWI, Q ̇(-1.1±0.7 l) and Tmuscle (-6.6±5.3ºC) decreased, while tHb (121±77 μM) increased (p<0.05). In the hour after CWI, Q ̇and Tmuscle remained low, while tHb also decreased (p<0.05). By contrast, during ACT, Q ̇(3.9±2.3 l), Tmuscle (2.2±0.5ºC), SmO2 (17.1±5.7%) and tHb (91±66 μM) all increased (p<0.05). In the hour after ACT, Tmuscle and tHb remained high (p<0.05). Peak isometric strength during 10 s maximum voluntary contractions (MVCs) did not change significantly after CWI, whereas it decreased after ACT (-30 to -45 Nm; p<0.05). Muscle deoxygenation time during MVCs increased after ACT (p<0.05), but not after CWI. Muscle reoxygenation time after MVCs tended to increase after CWI (p=0.052). These findings suggest firstly that hemodynamics and muscle temperature after resistance exercise are dependent on ambient temperature and metabolic demands with skeletal muscle, and secondly, that recovery of strength after resistance exercise is independent of changes in hemodynamics and muscle temperature.

Patterned fen formation and development from the Great Sandy Region, south-east Queensland, Australia

The Great Sandy Region (incorporating Fraser Island and the Cooloola sand-mass), south-east Queensland, contains a significant area of Ramsar-listed coastal wetlands, including the globally important patterned fen complexes. These mires form an elaborate network of pools surrounded by vegetated peat ridges and are the only known subtropical, Southern Hemisphere examples, with wetlands of this type typically located in high northern latitudes. Sedimentological, palynological and charcoal analysis from the Wathumba and Moon Point complexes on Fraser Island indicate two periods of swamp formation (that may contain patterned fens), one commencing at 12 000 years ago (Moon Point) and the other ~4300 years ago (Wathumba). Wetland formation and development is thought to be related to a combination of biological and hydrological processes with the dominant peat-forming rush, Empodisma minus, being an important component of both patterned and non-patterned mires within the region. In contrast to Northern Hemisphere paludifying systems, the patterning appears to initiate at the start of wetland development or as part of an infilling process. The wetlands dominated by E. minus are highly resilient to disturbance, particularly burning and sea level alterations, and appear to form important refuge areas for amphibians, fish and birds (both non-migratory and migratory) over thousands of years.

Rainfall variability drives interannual variation in N2O emissions from a humid, subtropical pasture

Variations in interannual rainfall totals can lead to large uncertainties in annual N2O emission budget estimates from short term field studies. The interannual variation in nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from a subtropical pasture in Queensland, Australia, was examined using continuous measurements of automated chambers over 2 consecutive years. Nitrous oxide emissions were highest during the summer months and were highly episodic, related more to the size and distribution of rain events than soil water content. Over 48% of the total N2O emitted was lost in just 16% of measurement days. Interannual variation in annual N2O estimates was high, with cumulative emissions increasing with decreasing rainfall. Cumulative emissions averaged 1826.7 ± 199.9 g N2O-N ha−1 yr−1 over the two year period, though emissions from 2008 (2148 ± 273 g N2O-N ha−1 yr−1) were 42% higher than 2007 (1504 ± 126 g N2O-N ha−1 yr−1). This increase in annual emissions coincided with almost half of the summer precipitation from 2007 to 2008. Emissions dynamics were chiefly driven by the distribution and size of rain events which varied on a seasonal and annual basis. Sampling frequency effects on cumulative N2O flux estimation were assessed using a jackknife technique to inform future manual sampling campaigns. Test subsets of the daily measured data were generated for the pasture and two adjacent land-uses (rainforest and lychee orchard) by selecting measured flux values at regular time intervals ranging from 1 to 30 days. Errors associated with weekly sampling were up to 34% of the sub-daily mean and were highly biased towards overestimation if strategically sampled following rain events. Sampling time of day also played a critical role. Morning sampling best represented the 24 hour mean in the pasture, whereas sampling at noon proved the most accurate in the shaded rainforest and lychee orchard.

Yellow Peril

This catalogue essay was written to accompany Eugenia Lim's 2015 exhibition at Metro Arts, Brisbane, 'Yellow Peril'. It discusses Lim's exploration of her identity as a Chinese-Australian, providing contextual information of Chinese immigration during Australia's gold rush years and the work of Hong Kong born American artist, Tseng Kwong Chi. It presents Yellow Peril as an exhibition that speaks critically about art and our cultural history amidst a fine layering of imagery, object and context, with a vitality that is derived from its rich and compelling base in real life moments and connections.

Clustering acoustic events in environmental recordings for species richness surveys

Environmental acoustic recordings can be used to perform avian species richness surveys, whereby a trained ornithologist can observe the species present by listening to the recording. This could be made more efficient by using computational methods for iteratively selecting the richest parts of a long recording for the human observer to listen to, a process known as “smart sampling”. This allows scaling up to much larger ecological datasets. In this paper we explore computational approaches based on information and diversity of selected samples. We propose to use an event detection algorithm to estimate the amount of information present in each sample. We further propose to cluster the detected events for a better estimate of this amount of information. Additionally, we present a time dispersal approach to estimating diversity between iteratively selected samples. Combinations of approaches were evaluated on seven 24-hour recordings that have been manually labeled by bird watchers. The results show that on average all the methods we have explored would allow annotators to observe more new species in fewer minutes compared to a baseline of random sampling at dawn.

The impact of a self-development coaching programme on medical and dental students’ psychological health and academic performance: A randomised controlled trial

Background Psychological distress is well-documented worldwide among medical and dental students. Few studies have assessed the impact of self-development coaching programs on the students’ psychological health. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of a self-development coaching programme on the psychological health and academic performance of preclinical medical and dental students at Umm Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia. Methods Four-hundred and twenty-two participants (n = 422, 20–22 years) fulfilled the study requirements and were invited into a parallel-randomised controlled trial that was partially blinded. Participants were stratified by faculty, gender, and academic year, and then randomised. A total of 156 students participated in the intervention group (IG) and 163 students participated in the control group (CG). The IG received the selfdevelopment programme, involving skills and strategies aimed to improve students’ psychological health and academic performance, through a two-day workshop. Meanwhile, the CG attended an active placebo programme focussing on theoretical information that was delivered through a five-hour workshop. Both programmes were conducted by the same presenter during Week 1 of the second semester of the 2012–2013 academic year. Data were gathered immediately before (T1), one week after (T2) and five weeks (T3) after the intervention. Psychological health was measured using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21), the General Self-Efficacy (GSE), and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Academic performance was measured using students’ academic weighted grades (WG). Student cognitive and emotional perceptions of the intervention were measured using the Credibility/Expectancy Questionnaire (CEQ). Results Data from 317 students, who completed the follow ups, were analysed across the three time periods (IG, n = 155; CG, n = 162). The baseline variables and demographic data of the IG and CG were not significantly different. The IG showed short-term significant reductions in depression and anxiety in compared to CG from T1 to T2. The short-term changes in stress, GSE and SWLS of the IG were not significantly different from those of the CG. While both groups showed a significant change on most of the psychological variables from T1 to T3, no significant differences were found between the groups in this period. In addition, no significant difference was found in WG between the IG and CG after the intervention. No harms relevant to the intervention were reported. Conclusion The investigated self-development coaching programme showed only a short-term improvement on depression and anxiety compared with an active control. There was no effect of the intervention on academic performance.

Whole-body cryotherapy (extreme cold air exposure) for preventing and treating muscle soreness after exercise in adults

Background Recovery strategies are often usedwith the intention of preventing orminimisingmuscle soreness after exercise. Whole-body cryotherapy, which involves a single or repeated exposure(s) to extremely cold dry air (below -100 °C) in a specialised chamber or cabin for two to four minutes per exposure, is currently being advocated as an effective intervention to reduce muscle soreness after exercise. Objectives To assess the effects (benefits and harms) of whole-body cryotherapy (extreme cold air exposure) for preventing and treating muscle soreness after exercise in adults. Search methods We searched the Cochrane Bone, Joint and Muscle Trauma Group Specialised Register, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, the British Nursing Index and the Physiotherapy Evidence Database. We also searched the reference lists of articles, trial registers and conference proceedings, handsearched journals and contacted experts. The searches were run in August 2015. Selection criteria We aimed to include randomised and quasi-randomised trials that compared the use of whole-body cryotherapy (WBC) versus a passive or control intervention (rest, no treatment or placebo treatment) or active interventions including cold or contrast water immersion, active recovery and infrared therapy for preventing or treating muscle soreness after exercise in adults. We also aimed to include randomised trials that compared different durations or dosages of WBC. Our prespecified primary outcomes were muscle soreness, subjective recovery (e.g. tiredness, well-being) and adverse effects. Data collection and analysis Two review authors independently screened search results, selected studies, assessed risk of bias and extracted and cross-checked data. Where appropriate, we pooled results of comparable trials. The random-effects model was used for pooling where there was substantial heterogeneity.We assessed the quality of the evidence using GRADE. Main results Four laboratory-based randomised controlled trials were included. These reported results for 64 physically active predominantly young adults (mean age 23 years). All but four participants were male. Two trials were parallel group trials (44 participants) and two were cross-over trials (20 participants). The trials were heterogeneous, including the type, temperature, duration and frequency of WBC, and the type of preceding exercise. None of the trials reported active surveillance of predefined adverse events. All four trials had design features that carried a high risk of bias, potentially limiting the reliability of their findings. The evidence for all outcomes was classified as ’very low’ quality based on the GRADE criteria. Two comparisons were tested: WBC versus control (rest or no WBC), tested in four studies; and WBC versus far-infrared therapy, also tested in one study. No studies compared WBC with other active interventions, such as cold water immersion, or different types and applications of WBC. All four trials compared WBC with rest or no WBC. There was very low quality evidence for lower self-reported muscle soreness (pain at rest) scores after WBC at 1 hour (standardised mean difference (SMD) -0.77, 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.42 to -0.12; 20 participants, 2 cross-over trials); 24 hours (SMD -0.57, 95%CI -1.48 to 0.33) and 48 hours (SMD -0.58, 95% CI -1.37 to 0.21), both with 38 participants, 2 cross-over studies, 1 parallel group study; and 72 hours (SMD -0.65, 95% CI -2.54 to 1.24; 29 participants, 1 cross-over study, 1 parallel group study). Of note is that the 95% CIs also included either no between-group differences or a benefit in favour of the control group. One small cross-over trial (9 participants) found no difference in tiredness but better well-being after WBC at 24 hours post exercise. There was no report of adverse events. One small cross-over trial involving nine well-trained runners provided very low quality evidence of lower levels of muscle soreness after WBC, when compared with infrared therapy, at 1 hour follow-up, but not at 24 or 48 hours. The same trial found no difference in well-being but less tiredness after WBC at 24 hours post exercise. There was no report of adverse events. Authors’ conclusions There is insufficient evidence to determine whether whole-body cryotherapy (WBC) reduces self-reportedmuscle soreness, or improves subjective recovery, after exercise compared with passive rest or no WBC in physically active young adult males. There is no evidence on the use of this intervention in females or elite athletes. The lack of evidence on adverse events is important given that the exposure to extreme temperature presents a potential hazard. Further high-quality, well-reported research in this area is required and must provide detailed reporting of adverse events.

Expectation and variation with a virtual die

By the time students reach the middle years they have experienced many chance activities based on dice. Common among these are rolling one die to explore the relationship of frequency and theoretical probability, and rolling two dice and summing the outcomes to consider their probabilities. Although dice may be considered overused by some, the advantage they offer is a familiar context within which to explore much more complex concepts. If the basic chance mechanism of the device is understood, it is possible to enter quickly into an arena of more complex concepts. This is what happened with a two hour activity engaged in by four classes of Grade 6 students in the same school. The activity targeted the concepts of variation and expectation. The teachers held extended discussions with their classes on variation and expectation at the beginning of the activity, with students contributing examples of the two concepts from their own experience. These notions are quite sophisticated for Grade 6, but the underlying concepts describe phenomena that students encounter every day. For example, time varies continuously; sporting results vary from game to game; the maximum temperature varies from day to day. However, there is an expectation about tomorrow’s maximum temperature based on the expert advice from the weather bureau. There may also be an expectation about a sporting result based on the participants’ previous results. It is this juxtaposition that makes life interesting. Variation hence describes the differences we see in phenomena around us. In a scenario displaying variation, expectation describes the effort to characterise or summarise the variation and perhaps make a prediction about the message arising from the scenario. The explicit purpose of the activity described here was to use the familiar scenario of rolling a die to expose these two concepts. Because the students had previously experienced rolling physical dice they knew instinctively about the variation that occurs across many rolls and about the theoretical expectation that each side should “come up” one-sixth of the time. They had observed the instances of the concepts in action, but had not consolidated the underlying terminology to describe it. As the two concepts are so fundamental to understanding statistics, we felt it would be useful to begin building in the familiar environment of rolling a die. Because hand-held dice limit the explorations students can undertake, the classes used the soft-ware TinkerPlots (Konold & Miller, 2011) to simulate rolling a die multiple times.

Prospective external validation of an accelerated (2-h) acute coronary syndrome rule-out process using a contemporary troponin assay

Background: Recently there have been efforts to derive safe, efficient processes to rule out acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in emergency department (ED) chest pain patients. We aimed to prospectively validate an ACS assessment pathway (the 2-Hour Accelerated Diagnostic Protocol to Assess Patients with Chest Pain Symptoms Using Contemporary Troponins as the Only Biomarker (ADAPT) pathway) under pragmatic ED working conditions. Methods: This prospective cohort study included patients with atraumatic chest pain in whom ACS was suspected but who did not have clear evidence of ischaemia on ECG. Thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) score and troponin (TnI Ultra) were measured at ED presentation, 2 h later and according to current national recommendations. The primary outcome of interest was the occurrence of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) including prevalent myocardial infarction (MI) at 30 days in the group who had a TIMI score of 0 and had presentation and 2-h TnI assays <99th percentile. Results: Eight hundred and forty patients were studied of whom 177 (21%) had a TIMI score of 0. There were no MI, MACE or revascularization in the per protocol and intention-to-treat 2-h troponin groups (0%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0% to 4.5% and 0%, 95% CI 0% to 3.8%, respectively). The negative predictive value (NPV) was 100% (95% CI 95.5% to 100%) and 100% (95% CI 96.2% to 100%), respectively. Conclusions: A 2-h accelerated rule-out process for ED chest pain patients using electrocardiography, a TIMI score of 0 and a contemporary sensitive troponin assay accurately identifies a group at very low risk of 30-day MI or MACE.

Altered nociceptive, endocrine, and dorsal horn neuron responses in rats following a neonatal immune challenge

Summary The neonatal period is characterized by significant plasticity where the immune, endocrine, and nociceptive systems undergo fine-tuning and maturation. Painful experiences during this period can result in long-term alterations in the neurocircuitry underlying nociception, including increased sensitivity to mechanical or thermal stimuli. Less is known about the impact of neonatal exposure to mild inflammatory stimuli, such as lipopolysaccharide (LPS), on subsequent inflammatory pain responses. Here we examine the impact of neonatal LPS exposure on inflammatory pain sensitivity and HPA axis activity during the first three postnatal weeks. Wistar rats were injected with LPS (0.05 mg/kg IP, Salmonella enteritidis) or saline on postnatal days (PNDs) 3 and 5 and later subjected to the formalin test at PNDs 7, 13, and 22. One hour after formalin injection, blood was collected to assess corticosterone responses. Transverse spinal cord slices were also prepared for whole-cell patch clamp recording from lumbar superficial dorsal horn neurons (SDH). Brains were obtained at PND 22 and the hypothalamus was isolated to measure glucocorticoid (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) transcript expression using qRT-PCR. Behavioural analyses indicate that at PND 7, no significant differences were observed between saline- or LPS-challenged rats. At PND 13, LPS-challenged rats exhibited enhanced licking (p < .01), and at PND 22, increased flinching in response to formalin injection (p < .05). LPS-challenged rats also displayed increased plasma corticosterone at PND 7 and PND 22 (p < .001) but not at PND 13 following formalin administration. Furthermore, at PND 22 neonatal LPS exposure induced decreased levels of GR mRNA and increased levels of MR mRNA in the hypothalamus. The intrinsic properties of SDH neurons were similar at PND 7 and PND 13. However, at PND 22, ipsilateral SDH neurons in LPS-challenged rats had a lower input resistance compared to their saline-challenged counterparts (p < .05). These data suggest neonatal LPS exposure produces developmentally regulated changes in formalin-induced behavioural responses, corticosterone levels, and dorsal horn neuron properties following noxious stimulation later in life. These findings highlight the importance of immune activation during the neonatal period in shaping pain sensitivity later in life. This programming involves both spinal cord neurons and the HPA axis.

Visual fingerprints of the acoustic environment: The use of acoustic indices to characterise natural habitats

Acoustic recordings play an increasingly important role in monitoring terrestrial environments. However, due to rapid advances in technology, ecologists are accumulating more audio than they can listen to. Our approach to this big-data challenge is to visualize the content of long-duration audio recordings by calculating acoustic indices. These are statistics which describe the temporal-spectral distribution of acoustic energy and reflect content of ecological interest. We combine spectral indices to produce false-color spectrogram images. These not only reveal acoustic content but also facilitate navigation. An additional analytic challenge is to find appropriate descriptors to summarize the content of 24-hour recordings, so that it becomes possible to monitor long-term changes in the acoustic environment at a single location and to compare the acoustic environments of different locations. We describe a 24-hour ‘acoustic-fingerprint’ which shows some preliminary promise.

Investigation of the effect of balconies on natural ventilation of dwellings in high-rise residential buildings in subtropical climate

Balconies, as one of the main architectural features in subtropical climates, are assumed to enhance the ventilation performance of buildings by redirecting the wind. Although there are some studies on the effect of balconies on natural ventilation inside buildings, the majority have been conducted on single zone buildings with simple geometries. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of balconies on the internal air flow pattern and ventilation performance of multi-storey residential buildings with internal partitions. To this end, a sample residential unit was selected for investigation and three different conditions tested, base case (no balcony), an open balcony and a semi-enclosed balcony. Computational Fluid Dynamics is used as an analysis method due to its accuracy and ability to provide detailed results. The cases are analysed in terms of average velocity, flow uniformity and number of Air Changes per Hour (ACH). The results suggest the introduction of a semi-enclosed balcony into high-rise dwellings improves the average velocity and flow uniformity. Integrating an open balcony results in reduction of the aforementioned parameters at 0° wind incidence.

The ninth 48hr game making challenge (2015)

The 48 hour game making challenge has been running since 2007. In recent years, we have not only been running a 'game jam' for the local community but we have also been exploring the way in which the event itself and the place of the event has the potential to create its own stories. The 2015 challenge is part of a series of data collection opportunities focussed on the game jam itself and the meaning making that the participants engage in about the event. We are continuing the data collection commenced in 2012: "Game jams are the creative festivals of the game development community and a game jam is very much an event or performance; its stories are those of subjective experience. Participants return year after year and recount personal stories from previous challenges; arrival in the 48hr location typically inspires instances of individual memory and narration more in keeping with those of a music festival or an oft frequented holiday destination. Since its inception, the 48hr has been heavily documented, from the photo-blogging of our first jam and the twitter streams of more recent events to more formal interviews and documentaries (see Anderson, 2012). We have even had our own moments of Gonzo journalism with an on-site press room one year and an ‘embedded’ journalist another year (Keogh, 2011). In the last two years of the 48hr we have started to explore ways and means to collect more abstract data during the event, that is, empirical data about movement and activity. The intent behind this form of data collection was to explore graphic and computer generated visualisations of the event, not for the purpose of formal analysis but in the service of further story telling." [exerpt from truna aka j.turner, Thomas & Owen, 2013) See: truna aka j.turner, Thomas & Owen (2013) Living the indie life: mapping creative teams in a 48 hour game jam and playing with data, Proceedings of the 9th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment, IE'2013, September 30 - October 01 2013, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Traffic and nucleation events as main sources of ultrafine particles in high-insolation developed world cities

Road traffic emissions are often considered the main source of ultrafine particles (UFP, diameter smaller than 100 nm) in urban environments. However, recent studies worldwide have shown that - in high-insolation urban regions at least - new particle formation events can also contribute to UFP. In order to quantify such events we systematically studied three cities located in predominantly sunny environments: Barcelona (Spain), Madrid (Spain) and Brisbane (Australia). Three long term datasets (1-2 years) of fine and ultrafine particle number size distributions (measured by SMPS, Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer) were analysed. Compared to total particle number concentrations, aerosol size distributions offer far more information on the type, origin and atmospheric evolution of the particles. By applying k-Means clustering analysis, we categorized the collected aerosol size distributions in three main categories: “Traffic” (prevailing 44-63% of the time), “Nucleation” (14-19%) and “Background pollution and Specific cases” (7-22%). Measurements from Rome (Italy) and Los Angeles (California) were also included to complement the study. The daily variation of the average UFP concentrations for a typical nucleation day at each site revealed a similar pattern for all cities, with three distinct particle bursts. A morning and an evening spike reflected traffic rush hours, whereas a third one at midday showed nucleation events. The photochemically nucleated particles burst lasted 1-4 hours, reaching sizes of 30-40 nm. On average, the occurrence of particle size spectra dominated by nucleation events was 16% of the time, showing the importance of this process as a source of UFP in urban environments exposed to high solar radiation. On average, nucleation events lasting for 2 hours or more occurred on 55% of the days, this extending to >4hrs in 28% of the days, demonstrating that atmospheric conditions in urban environments are not favourable to the growth of photochemically nucleated particles. In summary, although traffic remains the main source of UFP in urban areas, in developed countries with high insolation urban nucleation events are also a main source of UFP. If traffic-related particle concentrations are reduced in the future, nucleation events will likely increase in urban areas, due to the reduced urban condensation sinks.

Miniscleral lens wear influences corneal curvature and optics

Purpose Transient changes in corneal topography associated with soft and conventional or reverse geometry rigid contact lens wear have been well documented; however, only a few studies have examined the influence of scleral contact lens wear upon the cornea. Therefore, in this study, we examined the influence of modern miniscleral contact lenses, which land entirely on the sclera and overlying tissues, upon anterior corneal curvature and optics. Methods Anterior corneal topography and elevation data were acquired using Scheimpflug imaging (Pentacam HR, Oculus) immediately prior to and following 8 hours of miniscleral contact lens wear in 15 young healthy adults (mean age 22 ± 3 years, 8 East Asian, 7 Caucasian) with normal corneae. Corneal diurnal variations were accounted for using data collected on a dedicated measurement day without contact lens wear. Corneal clearance was quantified using an optical coherence tomographer (RS-3000, Nidek) following lens insertion and after 8 hours of lens wear. Results Although corneal clearance was maintained throughout the 8 hour lens wear period, significant corneal flattening (up to 0.08 ± 0.04 mm) was observed, primarily in the superior mid-peripheral cornea, which resulted in a slight increase in against-the-rule corneal astigmatism (mean +0.02/-0.15 x 94 for an 8 mm diameter). Higher order aberration terms of horizontal coma, vertical coma and spherical aberration all underwent significant changes for an 8 mm corneal diameter (p ≤ 0.01), which typically resulted in a decrease in RMS error values (mean change in total higher order RMS -0.035 ± 0.046 µm for an 8 mm diameter). There was no association between the magnitude of change in central or mid-peripheral corneal clearance during lens wear and the observed changes in corneal curvature (p > 0.05). However, Asian participants displayed a significantly greater reduction in corneal clearance (p = 0.04) and greater superior-nasal corneal flattening compared to Caucasians (p = 0.048). Conclusions Miniscleral contact lenses that vault the cornea induce significant changes in anterior corneal surface topography and higher order aberrations following 8 hours of lens wear. The region of greatest corneal flattening was observed in the superior-nasal mid-periphery, more so in Asian participants. Practitioners should be aware that corneal measurements obtained following miniscleral lens removal may mask underlying corneal steepening.