Alcohol ingestion impairs maximal post-exercise rates of myofibrillar protein synthesis following a single bout of concurrent training

Introduction The culture in many team sports involves consumption of large amounts of alcohol after training/competition. The effect of such a practice on recovery processes underlying protein turnover in human skeletal muscle are unknown. We determined the effect of alcohol intake on rates of myofibrillar protein synthesis (MPS) following strenuous exercise with carbohydrate (CHO) or protein ingestion. Methods In a randomized cross-over design, 8 physically active males completed three experimental trials comprising resistance exercise (8×5 reps leg extension, 80% 1 repetition maximum) followed by continuous (30 min, 63% peak power output (PPO)) and high intensity interval (10×30 s, 110% PPO) cycling. Immediately, and 4 h post-exercise, subjects consumed either 500 mL of whey protein (25 g; PRO), alcohol (1.5 g·kg body mass−1, 12±2 standard drinks) co-ingested with protein (ALC-PRO), or an energy-matched quantity of carbohydrate also with alcohol (25 g maltodextrin; ALC-CHO). Subjects also consumed a CHO meal (1.5 g CHO·kg body mass−1) 2 h post-exercise. Muscle biopsies were taken at rest, 2 and 8 h post-exercise. Results Blood alcohol concentration was elevated above baseline with ALC-CHO and ALC-PRO throughout recovery (P<0.05). Phosphorylation of mTORSer2448 2 h after exercise was higher with PRO compared to ALC-PRO and ALC-CHO (P<0.05), while p70S6K phosphorylation was higher 2 h post-exercise with ALC-PRO and PRO compared to ALC-CHO (P<0.05). Rates of MPS increased above rest for all conditions (~29–109%, P<0.05). However, compared to PRO, there was a hierarchical reduction in MPS with ALC-PRO (24%, P<0.05) and with ALC-CHO (37%, P<0.05). Conclusion We provide novel data demonstrating that alcohol consumption reduces rates of MPS following a bout of concurrent exercise, even when co-ingested with protein. We conclude that alcohol ingestion suppresses the anabolic response in skeletal muscle and may therefore impair recovery and adaptation to training and/or subsequent performance.

Latent class analysis reveals distinct subgroups of patients based on symptom occurrence and demographic and clinical characteristics

Context Cancer patients experience a broad range of physical and psychological symptoms as a result of their disease and its treatment. On average, these patients report ten unrelieved and co-occurring symptoms. Objectives To determine if subgroups of oncology outpatients receiving active treatment (n=582) could be identified based on their distinct experience with thirteen commonly occurring symptoms; to determine whether these subgroups differed on select demographic, and clinical characteristics; and to determine if these subgroups differed on quality of life (QOL) outcomes. Methods Demographic, clinical, and symptom data from one Australian and two U.S. studies were combined. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify patient subgroups with distinct symptom experiences based on self-report data on symptom occurrence using the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (MSAS). Results Four distinct latent classes were identified (i.e., All Low (28.0%), Moderate Physical and Lower Psych (26.3%), Moderate Physical and Higher Psych (25.4%), All High (20.3%)). Age, gender, education, cancer diagnosis, and presence of metastatic disease differentiated among the latent classes. Patients in the All High class had the worst QOL scores. Conclusion Findings from this study confirm the large amount of interindividual variability in the symptom experience of oncology patients. The identification of demographic and clinical characteristics that place patients are risk for a higher symptom burden can be used to guide more aggressive and individualized symptom management interventions.

Prediction of maximal surface electromyographically based voluntary contractions of erector spinae muscles from sonographic measurements during isometric contractions

Objectives Currently, there are no studies combining electromyography (EMG) and sonography to estimate the absolute and relative strength values of erector spinae (ES) muscles in healthy individuals. The purpose of this study was to establish whether the maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) of the ES during isometric contractions could be predicted from the changes in surface EMG as well as in fiber pennation and thickness as measured by sonography. Methods Thirty healthy adults performed 3 isometric extensions at 45° from the vertical to calculate the MVC force. Contractions at 33% and 100% of the MVC force were then used during sonographic and EMG recordings. These measurements were used to observe the architecture and function of the muscles during contraction. Statistical analysis was performed using bivariate regression and regression equations. Results The slope for each regression equation was statistically significant (P < .001) with R2 values of 0.837 and 0.986 for the right and left ES, respectively. The standard error estimate between the sonographic measurements and the regression-estimated pennation angles for the right and left ES were 0.10 and 0.02, respectively. Conclusions Erector spinae muscle activation can be predicted from the changes in fiber pennation during isometric contractions at 33% and 100% of the MVC force. These findings could be essential for developing a regression equation that could estimate the level of muscle activation from changes in the muscle architecture.

Correlation between architectural variables and torque in the erector spinae muscle during maximal isometric contraction

This study analysed whether a significant relationship exists between the torque and muscle thickness and pennation angle of the erector spinae muscle during a maximal isometric lumbar extension with the lumbar spine in neutral position. This was a cross-sectional study in which 46 healthy adults performed three repetitions for 5 s of maximal isometric lumbar extension with rests of 90 s. During the lumbar extensions, bilateral ultrasound images of the erector spinae muscle (to measure pennation angle and muscle thickness) and torque were acquired. Reliability test analysis calculating the internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of the measure, correlation between pennation angle, muscle thickness and torque extensions were examined. Through a linear regression the contribution of each independent variable (muscle thickness and pennation angle) to the variation of the dependent variable (torque) was calculated. The results of the reliability test were: 0.976–0.979 (pennation angle), 0.980–0.980 (muscle thickness) and 0.994 (torque). The results show that pennation angle and muscle thickness were significantly related to each other with a range between 0.295 and 0.762. In addition, multiple regression analysis showed that the two variables considered in this study explained 68% of the variance in the torque. Pennation angle and muscle thickness have a moderate impact on the variance exerted on the torque during a maximal isometric lumbar extension with the lumbar spine in neutral position.

A comparison land-water environment of maximal voluntary isometric contraction during manual muscle testing through surface electromyography

Background The aim of this study was to compare through surface electromyographic (sEMG) recordings of the maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) on dry land and in water by manual muscle test (MMT). Method Sixteen healthy right-handed subjects (8 males and 8 females) participated in measurement of muscle activation of the right shoulder. The selected muscles were the cervical erector spinae, trapezius, pectoralis, anterior deltoid, middle deltoid, infraspinatus and latissimus dorsi. The MVC test conditions were random with respect to the order on the land/in water. Results For each muscle, the MVC test was performed and measured through sEMG to determine differences in muscle activation in both conditions. For all muscles except the latissimus dorsi, no significant differences were observed between land and water MVC scores (p = 0.063–0.679) and precision (%Diff = 7–10%) were observed between MVC conditions in the muscles trapezius, anterior deltoid and middle deltoid. Conclusions If the procedure for data collection is optimal, under MMT conditions it appears that comparable MVC sEMG values were achieved on land and in water and the integrity of the EMG recordings were maintained during wáter immersion.

Maximal regularity for second order non-autonomous Cauchy problems

We consider some non-autonomous second order Cauchy problems of the form u + B(t)(u) over dot + A(t)u = f (t is an element of [0, T]), u(0) = (u) over dot(0) = 0. We assume that the first order problem (u) over dot + B(t)u = f (t is an element of [0, T]), u(0) = 0, has L-p-maximal regularity. Then we establish L-p-maximal regularity of the second order problem in situations when the domains of B(t(1)) and A(t(2)) always coincide, or when A(t) = kappa B(t).

Nucleocapsid gene variability reveals two subgroups of Lettuce necrotic yellows virus

The complete nucleocapsid (N) genes of eight Australian isolates of Lettuce necrotic yellows virus (LNYV) were amplified by reverse transcription PCR, cloned and sequenced. Phylogenetic analyses of these sequences revealed two distinct subgroups of LNYV isolates. Nucleotide sequences within each subgroup were more than 96% identical but heterogeneity between groups was about 20% at the nucleotide sequence level. However, less than 4% heterogeneity was noted at the amino acid level, indicating mostly third nucleotide position changes and a strong conservation for N protein function. There was no obvious geographical or temporal separation of the subgroups in Australia.

Concordance of genetic risk across migraine subgroups: Impact on current and future genetic association studies

BACKGROUND There has been intensive debate whether migraine with aura (MA) and migraine without aura (MO) should be considered distinct subtypes or part of the same disease spectrum. There is also discussion to what extent migraine cases collected in specialised headache clinics differ from cases from population cohorts, and how female cases differ from male cases with respect to their migraine. To assess the genetic overlap between these migraine subgroups, we examined genome-wide association (GWA) results from analysis of 23,285 migraine cases and 95,425 population-matched controls. METHODS Detailed heterogeneity analysis of single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) effects (odds ratios) between migraine subgroups was performed for the 12 independent SNP loci significantly associated (p < 5 x 10(-8); thus surpassing the threshold for genome-wide significance) with migraine susceptibility. Overall genetic overlap was assessed using SNP effect concordance analysis (SECA) at over 23,000 independent SNPs. RESULTS: Significant heterogeneity of SNP effects (p het < 1.4 x 10(-3)) was observed between the MA and MO subgroups (for SNP rs9349379), and between the clinic- and population-based subgroups (for SNPs rs10915437, rs6790925 and rs6478241). However, for all 12 SNPs the risk-increasing allele was the same, and SECA found the majority of genome-wide SNP effects to be in the same direction across the subgroups. CONCLUSIONS Any differences in common genetic risk across these subgroups are outweighed by the similarities. Meta-analysis of additional migraine GWA datasets, regardless of their major subgroup composition, will identify new susceptibility loci for migraine.

On the Rademacher maximal function

Tools known as maximal functions are frequently used in harmonic analysis when studying local behaviour of functions. Typically they measure the suprema of local averages of non-negative functions. It is essential that the size (more precisely, the L^p-norm) of the maximal function is comparable to the size of the original function. When dealing with families of operators between Banach spaces we are often forced to replace the uniform bound with the larger R-bound. Hence such a replacement is also needed in the maximal function for functions taking values in spaces of operators. More specifically, the suprema of norms of local averages (i.e. their uniform bound in the operator norm) has to be replaced by their R-bound. This procedure gives us the Rademacher maximal function, which was introduced by Hytönen, McIntosh and Portal in order to prove a certain vector-valued Carleson's embedding theorem. They noticed that the sizes of an operator-valued function and its Rademacher maximal function are comparable for many common range spaces, but not for all. Certain requirements on the type and cotype of the spaces involved are necessary for this comparability, henceforth referred to as the “RMF-property”. It was shown, that other objects and parameters appearing in the definition, such as the domain of functions and the exponent p of the norm, make no difference to this. After a short introduction to randomized norms and geometry in Banach spaces we study the Rademacher maximal function on Euclidean spaces. The requirements on the type and cotype are considered, providing examples of spaces without RMF. L^p-spaces are shown to have RMF not only for p greater or equal to 2 (when it is trivial) but also for 1 < p < 2. A dyadic version of Carleson's embedding theorem is proven for scalar- and operator-valued functions. As the analysis with dyadic cubes can be generalized to filtrations on sigma-finite measure spaces, we consider the Rademacher maximal function in this case as well. It turns out that the RMF-property is independent of the filtration and the underlying measure space and that it is enough to consider very simple ones known as Haar filtrations. Scalar- and operator-valued analogues of Carleson's embedding theorem are also provided. With the RMF-property proven independent of the underlying measure space, we can use probabilistic notions and formulate it for martingales. Following a similar result for UMD-spaces, a weak type inequality is shown to be (necessary and) sufficient for the RMF-property. The RMF-property is also studied using concave functions giving yet another proof of its independence from various parameters.

On the maximal rate of non-square STBCs from complex orthogonal designs

A Linear Processing Complex Orthogonal Design (LPCOD) is a p x n matrix epsilon, (p >= n) in k complex indeterminates x(1), x(2),..., x(k) such that (i) the entries of epsilon are complex linear combinations of 0, +/- x(i), i = 1,..., k and their conjugates, (ii) epsilon(H)epsilon = D, where epsilon(H) is the Hermitian (conjugate transpose) of epsilon and D is a diagonal matrix with the (i, i)-th diagonal element of the form l(1)((i))vertical bar x(1)vertical bar(2) + l(2)((i))vertical bar x(2)vertical bar(2)+...+ l(k)((i))vertical bar x(k)vertical bar(2) where l(j)((i)), i = 1, 2,..., n, j = 1, 2,...,k are strictly positive real numbers and the condition l(1)((i)) = l(2)((i)) = ... = l(k)((i)), called the equal-weights condition, holds for all values of i. For square designs it is known. that whenever a LPCOD exists without the equal-weights condition satisfied then there exists another LPCOD with identical parameters with l(1)((i)) = l(2)((i)) = ... = l(k)((i)) = 1. This implies that the maximum possible rate for square LPCODs without the equal-weights condition is the same as that or square LPCODs with equal-weights condition. In this paper, this result is extended to a subclass of non-square LPCODs. It is shown that, a set of sufficient conditions is identified such that whenever a non-square (p > n) LPCOD satisfies these sufficient conditions and do not satisfy the equal-weights condition, then there exists another LPCOD with the same parameters n, k and p in the same complex indeterminates with l(1)((i)) = l(2)((i)) = ... = l(k)((i)) = 1.

Search for Maximal Flavor Violating Scalars in Same-Charge Lepton Pairs in pp̅ Collisions at √s=1.96 TeV

Models of Maximal Flavor Violation (MxFV) in elementary particle physics may contain at least one new scalar SU$(2)$ doublet field $\Phi_{FV} = (\eta^0,\eta^+)$ that couples the first and third generation quarks ($q_1,q_3$) via a Lagrangian term $\mathcal{L}_{FV} = \xi_{13} \Phi_{FV} q_1 q_3$. These models have a distinctive signature of same-charge top-quark pairs and evade flavor-changing limits from meson mixing measurements. Data corresponding to 2 fb$^{-1}$ collected by the CDF II detector in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 1.96$ TeV are analyzed for evidence of the MxFV signature. For a neutral scalar $\eta^0$ with $m_{\eta^0} = 200$ GeV/$c^2$ and coupling $\xi_{13}=1$, $\sim$ 11 signal events are expected over a background of $2.1 \pm 1.8$ events. Three events are observed in the data, consistent with background expectations, and limits are set on the coupling $\xi_{13}$ for $m_{\eta^0} = 180-300$ GeV/$c^2$.

On the maximal rate of (n+1) x n and (n+2) x n complex orthogonal designs

For p x n complex orthogonal designs in k variables, where p is the number of channels uses and n is the number of transmit antennas, the maximal rate L of the design is asymptotically half as n increases. But, for such maximal rate codes, the decoding delay p increases exponentially. To control the delay, if we put the restriction that p = n, i.e., consider only the square designs, then, the rate decreases exponentially as n increases. This necessitates the study of the maximal rate of the designs with restrictions of the form p = n+1, p = n+2, p = n+3 etc. In this paper, we study the maximal rate of complex orthogonal designs with the restrictions p = n+1 and p = n+2. We derive upper and lower bounds for the maximal rate for p = n+1 and p = n+2. Also for the case of p = n+1, we show that if the orthogonal design admit only the variables, their negatives and multiples of these by root-1 and zeros as the entries of the matrix (other complex linear combinations are not allowed), then the maximal rate always equals the lower bound.

A Novel Construction of Complex Orthogonal Designs with Maximal Rate and Low-PAPR

Space-time block codes based on orthogonal designs are used for wireless communications with multiple transmit antennas which can achieve full transmit diversity and have low decoding complexity. However, the rate of the square real/complex orthogonal designs tends to zero with increase in number of antennas, while it is possible to have a rate-1 real orthogonal design (ROD) for any number of antennas.In case of complex orthogonal designs (CODs), rate-1 codes exist only for 1 and 2 antennas. In general, For a transmit antennas, the maximal rate of a COD is 1/2 + l/n or 1/2 + 1/n+1 for n even or odd respectively. In this paper, we present a simple construction for maximal-rate CODs for any number of antennas from square CODs which resembles the construction of rate-1 RODs from square RODs. These designs are shown to be amenable for construction of a class of generalized CODs (called Coordinate-Interleaved Scaled CODs) with low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) having the same parameters as the maximal-rate codes. Simulation results indicate that these codes perform better than the existing maximal rate codes under peak power constraint while performing the same under average power constraint.