212Bi partially decays by β− populating excited levels of 212Po. Some of these excited states of 212Po decay with very low probability by direct alpha-particle emissions instead of a gamma-alpha ...cascade. This effect was known since the earliest times after the discovery of radioactivity. Emission energies of these long-range alpha particles were measured in the past, but the activity ratios were not accurately determined. Relative intensities for these decays have now been experimentally determined. Results agree with data previously reported. It is the first time that an uncertainty estimate is provided for such experiment.
•Long-range alpha particles from 212Po have been experimentally measured.•Alpha-particle spectrometry with a planar Si detector was the technique used.•Relative intensities for the long-range alpha particles have been determined.•Uncertainty budget is given for the relative intensities.
This study analyzed the effects of pseudoephedrine (PSE) provided at different time of day on neuromuscular performance, side effects, and violation of the current doping cut‐off threshold World ...Anti‐Doping Agency (WADA). Nine resistance‐trained males carried out bench press and full squat exercises against four incremental loads (25%, 50%, 75%, and 90% one repetition maximum 1RM), in a randomized, double‐blind, cross‐over design. Participants ingested either 180 mg of PSE (supra‐therapeutic dose) or placebo in the morning (7:00 h; AMPLAC and AMPSE) and in the afternoon (17:00 h; PMPLAC and PMPSE). PSE enhanced muscle contraction velocity against 25% and 50% 1RM loads, only when it was ingested in the mornings, and only in the full squat exercise (4.4–8.7%; P < 0.05). PSE ingestion raised urine and plasma PSE concentrations (P < 0.05) regardless of time of day; however, cathine only increased in the urine samples. PSE ingestion resulted in positive tests occurring in 11% of samples, and it rose some adverse side effects such us tachycardia and heart palpitations. Ingestion of a single dose of 180 mg of PSE results in enhanced lower body muscle contraction velocity against low and moderate loads only in the mornings. These mild performance improvements are accompanied by undesirable side effects and an 11% risk of surpassing the doping threshold.
The development of the Grijalva-Usumacinta river basin exerts modifications on its discharge area. A sediment core was studied to reconstruct environmental changes and trace element contamination ...status during the past 45 years. 210Pb-derived mass accumulation rates indicate higher sediment input to the area since 1995, related to increased precipitation and floodings in the catchment area. Sediments show finer particles from the late 1970s on, likely related to dams construction upriver and/or land use changes. Heavy metal enrichment factors (EF < 2) suggest minimum contamination. Benthic foraminifera and redox-sensitive - elements (As, Ba, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, V and Zn) indicate the sediments before 2000 were deposited under oxygenated conditions. Afterwards, environmental conditions changed and benthic foraminifera and dinocysts assemblages changed suggesting eutrophication and lower oxygen conditions during the last 20 years. Monitoring should be continued to assess eutrophication/hypoxic/pollution trends that could become deleterious to the marine biota.
•Sediments from past 45 years record environmental changes in the marine area off the largest river in southern Gulf of Mexico•Mass accumulation rates indicate higher sediment input to the area since 1995.•Higher sediment input related to increased precipitation and flooding in Tabasco City and the catchment area.•Grain size variation reflects land use change and damming since the 1980s.•Benthic Foraminifera and Dinocysts indicate a process of eutrophication in bottom waters during the last 20 years.
Sphingolipid (SL) metabolism is a complex biological system that produces and transforms ceramides and other molecules able to modulate other cellular processes, including survival or death pathways ...key to cell fate decisions. This signaling pathway integrates several types of stress signals, including chemotherapy, into changes in the activity of its metabolic enzymes, altering thereby the cellular composition of bioactive SLs. Therefore, the SL pathway is a promising sensor of chemosensitivity in cancer and a target hub to overcome resistance. However, there is still a gap in our understanding of how chemotherapeutic drugs can disturb the SL pathway in order to control cellular fate. We propose to bridge this gap by a systems biology approach to integrate i) a dynamic model of SL analogue (BODIPY-FL fluorescent-sphingomyelin analogue, SM-BOD) metabolism, ii) a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) of the fluorescence features to identify how the SL pathway senses the effect of chemotherapy and iii) a fuzzy logic model (FLM) to associate SL composition with cell viability by semi-quantitative rules. Altogether, this hybrid model approach was able to predict the cell viability of double experimental perturbations with chemotherapy, indicating that the SL pathway is a promising sensor to design strategies to overcome drug resistance in cancer.
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We determined if dehydration alone or in combination with hyperthermia accelerates muscle glycogen use during intense exercise. Seven endurance‐trained cyclists (VO2max = 54.4 ± 1.05 mL/kg/min) ...dehydrated 4.6% of body mass (BM) during exercise in the heat (150 min at 33 ± 1 °C, 25 ± 2% humidity). During recovery (4 h), subjects remained dehydrated (HYPO trial) or recovered all fluid losses (REH trials). Finally, subjects exercised intensely (75% VO2max) for 40 min in a neutral (25 ± 1 °C; HYPO and REH trials) or in a hot environment (36 ± 1 °C; REHHOT). Before the final exercise bout vastus lateralis glycogen concentration was similar in all three trials (434 ± 57 mmol/kg of dry muscle (dm)) but muscle water content was lower in the HYPO (357 ± 14 mL/100 g dm) than in REH trials (389 ± 25 and 386 ± 25 mL/100 g dm; P < 0.05). After 40 min of intense exercise, intestinal temperature was similar between the HYPO and REHHOT trials (39.2 ± 0.5 and 39.2 ± 0.4 °C, respectively) and glycogen use was similar (172 ± 86 and 185 ± 97 mmol/kg dm, respectively) despite large differences in muscle water content. In contrast, during REH, intestinal temperature (38.5 ± 0.4 °C) and glycogen use (117 ± 52 mmol/kg dm) were significantly lower than during HYPO and REHHOT. Our data suggest that hyperthermia stimulates glycogen use during intense exercise while muscle water deficit has a minor role.
We studied if dehydrating exercise would reduce muscle water (H2Omuscle) and affect muscle electrolyte concentrations. Vastus lateralis muscle biopsies were collected prior, immediately after, and 1 ...and 4 h after prolonged dehydrating exercise (150 min at 33 ± 1 °C, 25% ± 2% humidity) on nine endurance‐trained cyclists (VO2max = 54.4 ± 1.05 mL/kg/min). Plasma volume (PV) changes and fluid shifts between compartments (Cl− method) were measured. Exercise dehydrated subjects 4.7% ± 0.3% of body mass by losing 2.75 ± 0.15 L of water and reducing PV 18.4% ± 1% below pre‐exercise values (P < 0.05). Right after exercise H2Omuscle remained at pre‐exercise values (i.e., 398 ± 6 mL/100 g dw muscle−1) but declined 13% ± 2% (342 ± 12 mL/100 g dw muscle−1; P < 0.05) after 1 h of supine rest. At that time, PV recovered toward pre‐exercise levels. The Cl− method corroborated the shift of fluid between extracellular and intracellular compartments. After 4 h of recovery, PV returned to pre‐exercise values; however, H2Omuscle remained reduced at the same level. Muscle Na+ and K+ increased (P < 0.05) in response to the H2Omuscle reductions. Our findings suggest that active skeletal muscle does not show a net loss of H2O during prolonged dehydrating exercise. However, during the first hour of recovery H2Omuscle decreases seemly to restore PV and thus cardiovascular stability.
Abstract
The small subunit ribosomal RNA gene (16S rRNA) has been successfully used to catalogue and study the diversity of prokaryotic species and communities but it offers limited resolution at the ...species and finer levels, and cannot represent the whole-genome diversity and fluidity. To overcome these limitations, we introduced the Microbial Genomes Atlas (MiGA), a webserver that allows the classification of an unknown query genomic sequence, complete or partial, against all taxonomically classified taxa with available genome sequences, as well as comparisons to other related genomes including uncultivated ones, based on the genome-aggregate Average Nucleotide and Amino Acid Identity (ANI/AAI) concepts. MiGA integrates best practices in sequence quality trimming and assembly and allows input to be raw reads or assemblies from isolate genomes, single-cell sequences, and metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs). Further, MiGA can take as input hundreds of closely related genomes of the same or closely related species (a so-called 'Clade Project') to assess their gene content diversity and evolutionary relationships, and calculate important clade properties such as the pangenome and core gene sets. Therefore, MiGA is expected to facilitate a range of genome-based taxonomic and diversity studies, and quality assessment across environmental and clinical settings. MiGA is available at http://microbial-genomes.org/.
It is habitual for combat sports athletes to lose weight rapidly to get into a lower weight class. Fluid restriction, dehydration by sweating (sauna or exercise) and the use of diuretics are among ...the most recurrent means of weight cutting. Although it is difficult to dissuade athletes from this practice due to the possible negative effect of severe dehydration on their health, athletes may be receptive to avoid weight cutting if there is evidence that it could affect their muscle performance. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to investigate if hypohydration, to reach a weight category, affects neuromuscular performance and combat sports competition results.
We tested 163 (124 men and 39 woman) combat sports athletes during the 2013 senior Spanish National Championships. Body mass and urine osmolality (UOSM) were measured at the official weigh-in (PRE) and 13-18 h later, right before competing (POST). Athletes were divided according to their USOM at PRE in euhydrated (EUH; UOSM 250-700 mOsm · kgH2O(-1)), hypohydrated (HYP; UOSM 701-1080 mOsm · kgH2O(-1)) and severely hypohydrated (S-HYP; UOSM 1081-1500 mOsm · kgH2O(-1)). Athletes' muscle strength, power output and contraction velocity were measured in upper (bench press and grip) and lower body (countermovement jump - CMJ) muscle actions at PRE and POST time-points.
At weigh-in 84 % of the participants were hypohydrated. Before competition (POST) UOSM in S-HYP and HYP decreased but did not reach euhydration levels. However, this partial rehydration increased bench press contraction velocity (2.8-7.3 %; p < 0.05) and CMJ power (2.8 %; p < 0.05) in S-HYP. Sixty-three percent of the participants competed with a body mass above their previous day's weight category and 70 of them (69 % of that sample) obtained a medal.
Hypohydration is highly prevalent among combat sports athletes at weigh-in and not fully reversed in the 13-18 h from weigh-in to competition. Nonetheless, partial rehydration recovers upper and lower body neuromuscular performance in the severely hypohydrated participants. Our data suggest that the advantage of competing in a lower weight category could compensate the declines in neuromuscular performance at the onset of competition, since 69 % of medal winners underwent marked hypohydration.
Introduction: We evaluated the efficacy and safety of the recommended scheme by international guideline in 2012 (2012’s scheme) in comparison with a less aggressive scheme (2019’s scheme) proposed by ...Umpierrez et al.
Methods: A non-blinded randomized clinical study was conducted in which two short-time insulin schemes for hyperglycemic control (2012’s vs. 2019’s) were compared in hospitalized patients of Hospital Universitario Clínica San Rafael (HUCSR) in Bogotá Colombia in a period between october 2019 and february 2022.
Results: Totally, 91 patients joined the trial. There were no statically significant difference between the demographic characteristics and outcomes.
Conclusions: The two schemes are equally safe and efficient in our population and can be used interchangeably.
Disclosure
C. A. Yepes: Speaker’s Bureau; Medtronic, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi. J. M. Mora: None. E. Moscoso: None. J. R. Rodríguez: None. L. A. León: None. J. Gomez: None. N. Buriticá: None.
It is estimated that 71 million people live with chronic hepatitis C viral infection (HCV). Part of the comorbidities associated with cirrhosis is frailty. Remarkably, diet is highly important in the ...management of cirrhosis and liver diseases. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the quality of the diet in this population. In this context, we evaluated the frailty and quality of the diet in patients with chronic HCV infection with or without cirrhosis, as well as the association between demographic, clinical, and anthropometric variables.
A cross-sectional study was conducted in the hepatitis clinic of the Civil Hospital of Guadalajara Fray Antonio Alcalde. Each participant was required to complete the Liver Frailty index (LFI) which include hand grip strength, chair stand test and balance test. Additionally, the mini survey was applied to evaluate the quality of food consumption (Mini-ECCA v.2). This questionnaire includes 14 questions, each with 3 or 4 response options on a Likert scale. The outcome yields three classifications: “healthy food intake, habit to be improved, and unhealthy food intake." Finally, upper arm anthropometry was performed. P< 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
A preliminary sample of 20 patients was assessed. Of them, 60% (n=12) had only chronic HCV infection, 85% (n=17) of LFI were considered pre-fragile, while the rest of the participants were classified as fragile. The quality of the diet, 65% (n=13), was considered “a habit to be improved.” A relationship was found between the quality of the diet and LFI. Likewise, a negative correlation was also found between the mean arm muscle circumference (MAMC) and the LFI score (r=-0.577; p=0.008) as well as MAMC and time in chair supports (r=-0.504;p=0.023). In addition, we found a positive correlation between the MAMC and hand grip strength (r=-0.624; p=0.003).
Some degree of frailty was found in the participants, and the quality of the diet was found to be “a habit to be improved” in most of the population sample.
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