The relationship between monocarboxylate transporters 1 and 4 expression in skeletal muscle and endurance performance in athletes

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between skeletal muscle monocarboxylate transporters 1 and 4 (MCT1 and MCT4) expression, skeletal muscle oxidative capacity and endurance performance in trained cyclists. Ten well-trained cyclists (mean +/- SD; age 24.4 +/- 2.8 years, body mass 73.2 +/- 8.3 kg, VO(2max) 58 +/- 7 ml kg(-1) min(-1)) completed three endurance performance tasks [incremental exercise test to exhaustion, 2 and 10 min time trial (TT)]. In addition, a muscle biopsy sample from the vastus lateralis muscle was analysed for MCT1 and MCT4 expression levels together with the activity of citrate synthase (CS) and 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase (HAD). There was a tendency for VO(2max) and peak power output obtained in the incremental exercise test to be correlated with MCT1 (r = -0.71 to -0.74; P < 0.06), but not MCT4. The average power output (P (average)) in the 2 min TT was significantly correlated with MCT4 (r = -0.74; P < 0.05) and HAD (r = -0.92; P < 0.01). The P (average) in the 10 min TT was only correlated with CS activity (r = 0.68; P < 0.05). These results indicate the relationship between MCT1 and MCT4 as well as cycle TT performance may be influenced by the length and intensity of the task.

Methodology for studying the numerical speed of sound in finite differences schemes

The space and time discretization inherent to all FDTD schemesintroduce non-physical dispersion errors, i.e. deviations ofthe speed of sound from the theoretical value predicted bythe governing Euler differential equations. A generalmethodologyfor computing this dispersion error via straightforwardnumerical simulations of the FDTD schemes is presented.The method is shown to provide remarkable accuraciesof the order of 1/1000 in a wide variety of twodimensionalfinite difference schemes.

OSIRISv1.2: a named entity recognition system for sequence variants of genes in biomedical literature

Background: Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, among other type of sequence variants, constitute key elements in genetic epidemiology and pharmacogenomics. While sequence data about genetic variation is found at databases such as dbSNP, clues about the functional and phenotypic consequences of the variations are generally found in biomedical literature. The identification of the relevant documents and the extraction of the information from them are hampered by the large size of literature databases and the lack of widely accepted standard notation for biomedical entities. Thus, automatic systems for the identification of citations of allelic variants of genes in biomedical texts are required. Results: Our group has previously reported the development of OSIRIS, a system aimed at the retrieval of literature about allelic variants of genes http://ibi.imim.es/osirisform.html. Here we describe the development of a new version of OSIRIS (OSIRISv1.2, http://ibi.imim.es/OSIRISv1.2.html webcite) which incorporates a new entity recognition module and is built on top of a local mirror of the MEDLINE collection and HgenetInfoDB: a database that collects data on human gene sequence variations. The new entity recognition module is based on a pattern-based search algorithm for the identification of variation terms in the texts and their mapping to dbSNP identifiers. The performance of OSIRISv1.2 was evaluated on a manually annotated corpus, resulting in 99% precision, 82% recall, and an F-score of 0.89. As an example, the application of the system for collecting literature citations for the allelic variants of genes related to the diseases intracranial aneurysm and breast cancer is presented. Conclusion: OSIRISv1.2 can be used to link literature references to dbSNP database entries with high accuracy, and therefore is suitable for collecting current knowledge on gene sequence variations and supporting the functional annotation of variation databases. The application of OSIRISv1.2 in combination with controlled vocabularies like MeSH provides a way to identify associations of biomedical interest, such as those that relate SNPs with diseases.

Defining the Attributes of Good In-Service Portland Cement Concrete Pavements, December 2004

Much of the current research in portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements deals with the analysis of early pavement life failures and seeks to find ways to prevent those from reoccurring. The Long Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) portion of the Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP) has identified some of the key factors in designing and building new PCC pavements. This statement will build on the Iowa Highway Research Board (IHRB) project TR-463, Field Performance Study of Past Iowa Pavement Research: A Look Back. In Iowa and across the nation, there are multiple pavements that were built more than 20 years ago that have been and are continuing to provide very good service to the public. They are found on both state and local routes and in both low and high traffic volume areas. There is a need to learn what went into those pavements, from the subgrade through the surface, that makes them perform so well. The purpose of this research project was to conduct a scoping study that could be used to evaluate the need for additional research to study the attributes of well-performing concrete pavements. The concept of zero-maintenance jointed plain concrete pavements” was iterated in this study for long-lasting, well-performing portland cement concrete pavement sections. The scope of the study was limited to a brief literature survey, pavement performance data collection from many counties, cities, and primary and interstate roads in Iowa, field visits to many selected pavement sites, and analysis of the collected data. No laboratory orfield testing was conducted for this phase of the project. A problem statement with a research plan was created that could be used to guide the second phase of the project.

Development of Performance Properties of Ternary Mixes: Scoping Study, June 2005

Pozzolans and slag extend the market for concrete products by improving specific properties of the products, which allows the products to be constructed with materials or placed in environments that would have precluded the use of portland cement alone. In properly formulated concrete mixes, pozzolans and slag have been shown to enhance long-term strength, decrease permeability, increase durability, reduce thermal cracking of mass concrete, minimize or eliminate cracking related to alkali-silica reaction (ASR), and minimize or eliminate cracking related to sulfate attack. The purpose of this research project was to conduct a scoping study that could be used to evaluate the need for additional research in the area of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) that are used in concrete for highway applications. Special emphasis was given to the concept of using two or more SCMs in a single concrete mixture. The scope of the study was limited to a literature survey and panel discussions concerning issues relevant to the project. No laboratory work was conducted for this project. A problem statement with research plan was created that could be used to guide a pooled fund project.

Computerunterstützte Rigiditätsmessung zur Differenzierung psychopathologischer Gruppen [Computer-assisted determination of rigidity in the differentiation of psychopathologic groups]

The measurement of rigidity and perseveration respectively gets increasing importance in clinical psychodiagnostics. Recently we have developed a computer-assisted technique which allows to get information about inadequate persisting in psychic processes and behaviour within shortest time and to differentiate between psychopathological groups. 257 patients of both sexes who came for elucidation of their disorders to the department of clinical psychodiagnostics were investigated. The most significant differences between the groups were found in redundance of second degree (the patient has to press 10 buttons indiscriminately according to the beat of a metronom--standard condition) and in personal speed (the patient has to press 10 buttons as fast as possible--speed condition). Furthermore the psychopathological groups were ranged in the particular variables of rigidity according to their mean values and their average ranges the schizophrenics and effective psychoses were characterized by a high tendency of perseveration while the neurotics, patients with organic brain syndrome and alcohol and drug dependents showed more flexibility.

Multisensory facilitation of behavior in monkeys: effects of stimulus intensity.

Multisensory stimuli can improve performance, facilitating RTs on sensorimotor tasks. This benefit is referred to as the redundant signals effect (RSE) and can exceed predictions on the basis of probability summation, indicative of integrative processes. Although an RSE exceeding probability summation has been repeatedly observed in humans and nonprimate animals, there are scant and inconsistent data from nonhuman primates performing similar protocols. Rather, existing paradigms have instead focused on saccadic eye movements. Moreover, the extant results in monkeys leave unresolved how stimulus synchronicity and intensity impact performance. Two trained monkeys performed a simple detection task involving arm movements to auditory, visual, or synchronous auditory-visual multisensory pairs. RSEs in excess of predictions on the basis of probability summation were observed and thus forcibly follow from neural response interactions. Parametric variation of auditory stimulus intensity revealed that in both animals, RT facilitation was limited to situations where the auditory stimulus intensity was below or up to 20 dB above perceptual threshold, despite the visual stimulus always being suprathreshold. No RT facilitation or even behavioral costs were obtained with auditory intensities 30-40 dB above threshold. The present study demonstrates the feasibility and the suitability of behaving monkeys for investigating links between psychophysical and neurophysiologic instantiations of multisensory interactions.

Identity of care in a Psychosocial Care Center for Children and Adolescents who uses drugs

Objective To associate the territory of identity with the production of care within a PCC focusing on children and adolescents with drug abuse and their institutional identity. Method We used the “ process tracing methodology” in four research categories: focus groups, characterization of professionals, observing the everyday and interviewing two members of emblematic cases of the service. Results territory of identity of the institution, which operates the production of care is crossed by the difficulty of dealing with the complexity brought by the users and the performance of the PCC network. This paper is also permeated by different conceptions of care and small problematization of these issues in collective spaces of service. Conclusion The discussion in focus groups and other devices can be powerful resources to reframe the meaning of care and identity of collective service.

Genetic team composition and level of selection in the evolution of cooperation

In cooperative multiagent systems, agents interac to solve tasks. Global dynamics of multiagent teams result from local agent interactions, and are complex and difficult to predict. Evolutionary computation has proven a promising approach to the design of such teams. The majority of current studies use teams composed of agents with identical control rules ("geneti- cally homogeneous teams") and select behavior at the team level ("team-level selection"). Here we extend current approaches to include four combinations of genetic team composition and level of selection. We compare the performance of genetically homo- geneous teams evolved with individual-level selection, genetically homogeneous teams evolved with team-level selection, genetically heterogeneous teams evolved with individual-level selection, and genetically heterogeneous teams evolved with team-level selection. We use a simulated foraging task to show that the optimal combination depends on the amount of cooperation required by the task. Accordingly, we distinguish between three types of cooperative tasks and suggest guidelines for the optimal choice of genetic team composition and level of selection

Cumulative dominance and heuristic performance in binary multi-attribute choice

Several studies have reported high performance of simple decision heuristics multi-attribute decision making. In this paper, we focus on situations where attributes are binary and analyze the performance of Deterministic-Elimination-By-Aspects (DEBA) and similar decision heuristics. We consider non-increasing weights and two probabilistic models for the attribute values: one where attribute values are independent Bernoulli randomvariables; the other one where they are binary random variables with inter-attribute positive correlations. Using these models, we show that good performance of DEBA is explained by the presence of cumulative as opposed to simple dominance. We therefore introduce the concepts of cumulative dominance compliance and fully cumulative dominance compliance and show that DEBA satisfies those properties. We derive a lower bound with which cumulative dominance compliant heuristics will choose a best alternative and show that, even with many attributes, this is not small. We also derive an upper bound for the expected loss of fully cumulative compliance heuristics and show that this is moderateeven when the number of attributes is large. Both bounds are independent of the values ofthe weights.

The provision of relative performance feedback information: An experimental analysis of performance and happiness

This paper studies the effect of providing relative performance feedback information onindividual performance and on individual affective response, when agents are rewardedaccording to their absolute performance. In a laboratory set-up, agents perform a realeffort task and when receiving feedback, they are asked to rate their happiness, arousaland feeling of dominance. Control subjects learn only their absolute performance, whilethe treated subjects additionally learn the average performance in the session.Performance is 17 percent higher when relative performance feedback is provided.Furthermore, although feedback increases the performance independent of the content(i.e., performing above or below the average), the content is determinant for theaffective response. When subjects are treated, the inequality in the happiness and thefeeling of dominance between those subjects performing above and below the averageincreases by 8 and 6 percentage points, respectively.

The use of derivatives in the Spanish mutual fund industry

We study the use of derivatives in the Spanish mutual fund industry. The picture that emerges from our analysis is rather negative. In general, the use of derivatives does not improve the performance of the funds. In only one out of eight categories we find some (very weak and not robust) evidence of superior performance. In most of the cases users significantly underperform non users. Furthermore, users do not seem to exhibit superior timing or selectivity skills either, but rather the contrary. This bad performance is only partially explained by the larger fees funds using derivatives charge. Moreover,we do not find evidence of derivatives being used for hedging purposes. We do find evidence of derivatives being used for speculation. But users in only one category exhibit skills as speculators. Finally, we find evidence of derivatives being used to manage the funds cash inflows and outflows more efficiently.

Market structure and hospital efficiency: Evaluating potential effects of deregulation in a national health service

In this article we examine the potential effect of market structureon hospital technical efficiency as a measure of performance controlled byownership and regulation. This study is relevant to provide an evaluationof the potential effects of recommended and initiated deregulation policiesin order to promote market reforms in the context of a European NationalHealth Service. Our goal was reached through three main empirical stages.Firstly, using patient origin data from hospitals in the region of Cataloniain 1990, we estimated geographic hospital markets through the Elzinga--Hogartyapproach, based on patient flows. Then we measured the market level ofconcentration using the Herfindahl--Hirschman index. Secondly, technicaland scale efficiency scores for each hospital was obtained specifying aData Envelopment Analysis. According to the data nearly two--thirds of thehospitals operate under the production frontier with an average efficiencyscore of 0.841. Finally, the determinants of the efficiency scores wereinvestigated using a censored regression model. Special attention waspaid to test the hypothesis that there is an efficiency improvement in morecompetitive markets. The results suggest that the number of competitors inthe market contributes positively to technical efficiency and there is someevidence that the differences in efficiency scores are attributed toseveral environmental factors such as ownership, market structure andregulation effects.

Energy as an indicator of modernisation in Latin America by 1925

In absence of comparable macroeconomic indicators for most of the Latin American economiesbeyond the 1930s, this paper presents an estimate of the apparent consumption per head of coal and petroleum for 25 countries of Latin American and the Caribbean for the year 1925, doubling the number of countries for which energy consumption estimates were previously available. Energy consumption is then used as an indicator of economic modernisation. As a result, the paper provides the basis for a quantitative comparative analysis of modernisation performance beyond the few countries for which historical national accounts are available in Latin America.