Ankle sprains are the most common sports-related injuries. Individuals with time-loss ankle sprains often experience residual symptoms and chronic ankle instability years after injury. Up to 90% of ...post-traumatic ankle osteoarthritis cases are associated with severe ankle sprain. This study aimed to examine whether ankle injury severity sustained during youth sports participation is associated with ankle symptoms and function.
Cohort study included 50 young adults (mean age, 23 years) with a 3-to 15-year history of a youth-sport related 'significant ankle sprain' (SAS). The primary independent variable was injury severity, which was captured in the index SAS injury details through interviews. SAS was defined as ligament and other intra/extra-articular structure injuries that disrupted youth sport participation, at least 3 days of time loss, and required medical consultation. Severe SAS was defined as SAS involving >28 days of time loss, and non-severe SAS only involved ankle ligaments and/or with ≤28 days of time loss. The Foot and Ankle Outcome Score questionnaire was used to assess ankle symptoms and function. Descriptive statistics and multivariable linear regression models were used to examine the association between SAS severity and outcomes, with sex and time since injury as covariates.
Compared to participants with non-severe SAS, participants with a history of severe SAS demonstrated significantly poorer outcomes in symptoms -18.4 (99% CI: -32.2 to -4.6), pain -10.1 (99% CI: -19.2 to -1.1) and QoL -17.1 (99% CI: -33.1 to -1.1) in multivariable linear regression models.
Severe ankle sprain with a loss of > 4 weeks from sports participation at the time of injury is independently associated with poorer ankle symptoms, pain, and ankle-related quality of life after 3-15 years. Secondary prevention measures are needed in individuals with a history of severe ankle sprains to mitigate the potential health consequences.
Adherence is a key implementation outcome that determines the effectiveness of an intervention. This study, an observational design involving coaches and players from 33 high school basketball teams, ...evaluated the dimensions of adherence to a basketball-specific neuromuscular training (NMT) warm-up program in youth basketball. Coach adherence (daily report of team adherence) was collected prospectively. Adherence measures: cumulative utilization (proportion of total sessions possible), utilization fidelity (average # of exercises completed per NMT session), utilization frequency (average # of NMT sessions completed per week) were calculated and further evaluated for optimal adherence (≥80%, ≥10.4 exercises/session and ≥2 sessions/week, respectively) per coach. Additionally, exercise fidelity (proportion of players performing individual exercises correctly) was assessed. Coach (n = 31; 27-59 years) median cumulative utilization was 80%, utilization fidelity was 12 (of a possible 13 exercises per session) and utilization frequency was 2.3 sessions per week. Optimal adherence ranged from 52% to 71% across measures of adherence. Player exercise fidelity was 48%. Time constraint (47%) was the most frequently reported adherence barrier. While coach adherence to the NMT warm-up program was reasonably high across measures of adherence, a considerable proportion of coaches did not attain optimal adherence levels and player exercise fidelity was low.
The interleukin-1 family members, IL-1β and IL-18, are processed into their biologically active forms by multi-protein complexes, known as inflammasomes. Although the inflammasome pathways that ...mediate IL-1β processing in myeloid cells have been defined, those involved in IL-18 processing, particularly in non-myeloid cells, are still not well understood. Here we report that the host defence molecule NOD1 regulates IL-18 processing in mouse epithelial cells in response to the mucosal pathogen, Helicobacter pylori. Specifically, NOD1 in epithelial cells mediates IL-18 processing and maturation via interactions with caspase-1, instead of the canonical inflammasome pathway involving RIPK2, NF-κB, NLRP3 and ASC. NOD1 activation and IL-18 then help maintain epithelial homoeostasis to mediate protection against pre-neoplastic changes induced by gastric H. pylori infection in vivo. Our findings thus demonstrate a function for NOD1 in epithelial cell production of bioactive IL-18 and protection against H. pylori-induced pathology.
Observations from the recent Whole Heliosphere Interval (WHI) solar minimum campaign are compared to last cycle's Whole Sun Month (WSM) to demonstrate that sunspot numbers, while providing a good ...measure of solar activity, do not provide sufficient information to gauge solar and heliospheric magnetic complexity and its effect at the Earth. The present solar minimum is exceptionally quiet, with sunspot numbers at their lowest in 75 years and solar wind magnetic field strength lower than ever observed. Despite, or perhaps because of, a global weakness in the heliospheric magnetic field, large near‐equatorial coronal holes lingered even as the sunspots disappeared. Consequently, for the months surrounding the WHI campaign, strong, long, and recurring high‐speed streams in the solar wind intercepted the Earth in contrast to the weaker and more sporadic streams that occurred around the time of last cycle's WSM campaign. In response, geospace and upper atmospheric parameters continued to ring with the periodicities of the solar wind in a manner that was absent last cycle minimum, and the flux of relativistic electrons in the Earth's outer radiation belt was elevated to levels more than three times higher in WHI than in WSM. Such behavior could not have been predicted using sunspot numbers alone, indicating the importance of considering variation within and between solar minima in analyzing and predicting space weather responses at the Earth during solar quiet intervals, as well as in interpreting the Sun's past behavior as preserved in geological and historical records.
Case isolation and contact tracing can contribute to the control of COVID-19 outbreaks
. However, it remains unclear how real-world social networks could influence the effectiveness and efficiency of ...such approaches. To address this issue, we simulated control strategies for SARS-CoV-2 transmission in a real-world social network generated from high-resolution GPS data that were gathered in the course of a citizen-science experiment
. We found that tracing the contacts of contacts reduced the size of simulated outbreaks more than tracing of only contacts, but this strategy also resulted in almost half of the local population being quarantined at a single point in time. Testing and releasing non-infectious individuals from quarantine led to increases in outbreak size, suggesting that contact tracing and quarantine might be most effective as a 'local lockdown' strategy when contact rates are high. Finally, we estimated that combining physical distancing with contact tracing could enable epidemic control while reducing the number of quarantined individuals. Our findings suggest that targeted tracing and quarantine strategies would be most efficient when combined with other control measures such as physical distancing.
The primary objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a neuromuscular training (NMT) warm-up program in reducing the risk of ankle sprain injury (ASI) in youth soccer and ...basketball. The secondary objective included the evaluation of risk factors for ASI.
Secondary analysis of pooled data from 5 studies.
Male and female youth (11-18 years) soccer and basketball players (n = 2265) in Alberta, Canada.
Ankle sprain injury was the primary outcome and was recorded using a validated prospective injury surveillance system consistent in all studies. The primary exposure of interest was NMT warm-up, which included aerobic, strength, agility, and balance components. Multivariable Poisson regression, controlling for clustering by team and offset for exposure hours, was used to estimate incidence rate ratios (IRRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), with considerations for confounding and effect modification and evaluating all covariates as potential risk factors.
A total of 188 ASIs were reported in 171 players. Neuromuscular training significantly reduced the risk of ASI IRR = 0.68 (95% CI; 0.46-0.99). Independent risk factors for ASI included previous ASI IRR = 1.98 (95% CI; 1.38-2.81) and participation in basketball versus soccer IRR = 1.83 (95% CI; 1.18-2.85). Sex, age, body mass index, and previous lower extremity injury (without previous ASI) did not predict ASI (P > 0.05).
Exposure to an NMT program is significantly protective for ASI in youth soccer and basketball. Risk of ASI in youth basketball is greater than soccer, and players with a history of ASI are at greater risk.
Aims.
The rotational spectral modulation (spectro-photometric variability) of brown dwarfs is usually interpreted as a sign indicating the presence of inhomogeneous cloud covers in the atmosphere. ...This paper is aimed at exploring the role of temperature fluctuations in these spectral modulations. These fluctuations could naturally arise in a convective atmosphere impacted by such diabatic processes as complex chemistry, namely, a mechanism recently proposed to explain the L/T transition: CO/CH
4
radiative convection.
Methods.
After exploring the observed spectral-flux ratios between different objects along the cooling sequence, we used the 1D radiative-convective code
ATMO,
with ad hoc modifications of the temperature gradient, to model the rotational spectral modulation of 2MASS 1821, 2MASS 0136, and PSO 318.5-22. We also explored the impact of CH
4
abundance fluctuations on the spectral modulation of 2MASS 0136.
Results.
The spectral-flux ratio of different objects along the cooling sequence and the rotational spectral modulation within individual objects at the L/T transition have similar characteristics. This strongly suggests that the main parameter varying along the cooling sequence, namely, temperature, might play a key role in the rotational spectral modulations at the L/T transition. Modeling the spectral bright-to-faint ratio of the modulation of 2MASS 1821, 2MASS 0136, and PSO 318.5-22 shows that most spectral characteristics can be reproduced by temperature variations alone. Furthermore, the approximately anti-correlated variability between different wavelengths can be easily interpreted as a change in the temperature gradient in the atmosphere, which is a consequence we expect from CO/CH
4
radiative convection as an explanation of the L/T transition. The deviation from an exact anti-correlation could then be interpreted as a phase shift similar to the hot-spot shift at different bandpasses in the atmospheres of hot Jupiters.
Conclusions.
Our results suggest that the rotational spectral modulation from cloud opacity and temperature variations are degenerate. If the nearly anti-correlated signal between different wavelengths is, indeed, a strong sign of a change in the temperature gradient, the detection of direct cloud spectral signatures, for instance, the silicate absorption feature at 10
μ
m, would help to confirm the presence of clouds and their contribution to spectral modulations (which does not exclude temperature variations or other mechanisms that may also be at play). Future studies considering the differences in the spectral modulation of objects with and without the silicate absorption feature may give us some insight into how to distinguish cloud-opacity fluctuations from temperature fluctuations.
Suppressed recombination allows divergence between homologous sex chromosomes and the functionality of their genes. Here, we reveal patterns of the earliest stages of sex-chromosome evolution in the ...diploid dioecious herb
on the basis of cytological analysis,
genome assembly and annotation, genetic mapping, exome resequencing of natural populations, and transcriptome analysis. The genome assembly contained 34,105 expressed genes, of which 10,076 were assigned to linkage groups. Genetic mapping and exome resequencing of individuals across the species range both identified the largest linkage group, LG1, as the sex chromosome. Although the sex chromosomes of
are karyotypically homomorphic, we estimate that about one-third of the Y chromosome, containing 568 transcripts and spanning 22.3 cM in the corresponding female map, has ceased recombining. Nevertheless, we found limited evidence for Y-chromosome degeneration in terms of gene loss and pseudogenization, and most X- and Y-linked genes appear to have diverged in the period subsequent to speciation between
and its sister species
, which shares the same sex-determining region. Taken together, our results suggest that the
Y chromosome has at least two evolutionary strata: a small old stratum shared with
, and a more recent larger stratum that is probably unique to
and that stopped recombining ∼1 MYA. Patterns of gene expression within the nonrecombining region are consistent with the idea that sexually antagonistic selection may have played a role in favoring suppressed recombination.
Epidemiology of all‐complaint injuries in youth basketball Owoeye, Oluwatoyosi B. A.; Ghali, Brianna; Befus, Kimberley ...
Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports,
December 2020, 2020-Dec, 2020-12-00, 20201201, Letnik:
30, Številka:
12
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This study evaluated the incidence and characteristics of all‐complaint injuries, including acute and overuse injuries, in female and male youth basketball players. A total of 518 players ...(16 ± 1.4 years; 38.6% females), from 63 teams, participated in this prospective cohort study. Players were observed through one competitive high school or club basketball season to record exposure and all‐complaint injuries, defined as any complaint resulting from participating in basketball‐related activities, including but irrespective of the need for medical attention or time loss. Injury incidence rates and rate ratios were derived from Poisson's regression with 99.4% CI (Bonferroni's correction for multiple comparisons). The overall injury incidence rate was 14.4 (99.4% CI: 12.2‐17.0) injuries/1000 h; 13.8 (99.4% CI: 11.2‐16.8) in females and 14.8 (99.4% CI: 11.7‐18.8) in males. While the incidence of injury was similar across injury classifications for female and male players, a potential lower overuse knee injury rate was noted for females vs males IRR = 0.61 (99.4% CI: 0.34‐1.07). The most commonly injured body location was the ankle (45%) in females and the knee (51%) in males. Overuse (vs acute) injuries were about 2x more common in the knee while acute (vs overuse) injuries were about 3x more common in the ankle, overall, and for female and male players. Based on an all‐complaint injury definition, injury rates in competitive female and male youth basketball players are much higher than previously reported. This study provides an evidence base to inform more tailored interventions to reduce injuries in youth basketball.
Understanding changes in human mobility in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic is crucial for assessing the impacts of travel restrictions designed to reduce disease spread. Here, relying on ...data from mainland China, we investigate the spatio-temporal characteristics of human mobility between 1st January and 1st March 2020, and discuss their public health implications. An outbound travel surge from Wuhan before travel restrictions were implemented was also observed across China due to the Lunar New Year, indicating that holiday travel may have played a larger role in mobility changes compared to impending travel restrictions. Holiday travel also shifted healthcare pressure related to COVID-19 towards locations with lower healthcare capacity. Network analyses showed no sign of major changes in the transportation network after Lunar New Year. Changes observed were temporary and did not lead to structural reorganisation of the transportation network during the study period.
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