Functional fitness

The current use of intracorporeal left ventricular assist devices in children is still limited by small body dimensions. Many children weighing of less than 30 kg requiring durable mechanical circulatory support are implanted with the Berlin Heart EXCOR, a paracorporeal device. We present the case of a girl aged 10 years with a body surface area of 1.01 m2 undergoing a safe and effective HeartMate3 implantation despite extremely small thoracic dimensions. Using computed tomography-derived three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction, it was possible to simulate several device positions finding the best HeartMate3 lodging...

Since December 2019, few issues have garnered as much global attention as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-19). The imposed lockdowns in 2020/21, which led to the closure of all gyms, barred people from participating in their favourite sports activities. This study explores athletes' self-evaluations of their performance levels upon return to training facilities post-reopening. Data were collected in May 2021, after the end of the second lockdown, using a national online questionnaire...

BACKGROUND: Physical activity (PA) has multiple benefits for older adults (≥70 years old). Despite this many older adults do not undertake the World Health Organisation guideline recommended amount of PA. This systematic review examines barriers and motivators to PA in adults aged ≥70 years. METHODS: We analysed the quantitative literature, including observational studies and baseline data from randomised controlled trials. Studies examining specific diseases (e...

Bacteria synchronize the expression of genes with related functions by organizing genes into operons so that they are cotranscribed together in a single polycistronic messenger RNA. However, some cellular processes may benefit if the simultaneous production of the operon proteins coincides with the inhibition of the expression of an antagonist gene. To coordinate such situations, bacteria have evolved noncontiguous operons (NcOs), a subtype of operons that contain one or more genes that are transcribed in the opposite direction to the other operon genes...

A total of 425 weaned pigs (Exp. 1: 225 pigs [5.8 ± 0.9 kg]; Exp. 2: 200 pigs [6.1 ± 1.2 kg]) were used to determine the optimal dietary standardized ileal digestible ( SID ) arginine ( Arg ) level in early nursery diets based on growth and health responses. The basal diet in Exp.1 was formulated to meet SID Arg recommendation (0.66%; NRC, 2012) and in Exp. 2, SID Arg was set to simulate current industry practices for feeding nursery pigs (1.15 %). Basal diets were supplemented with 0...

Identification of fruit fly larvae is difficult due to the limited morphological characteristics present. However, this is the stage at which fruit flies are intercepted at ports of entry through horticultural imports. Molecular tools are useful but are time-consuming and expensive compared to morphological identifications. This project aims to use available information from the literature and our own research to build a multi-entry identification key for thirteen tephritid species and species groups that are of economic concern for the European Union...

INTRODUCTION: Theory of mind (ToM) refers to the ability to understand and attribute mental states to oneself and others. A ToM measure is warranted for preschool children to assess their ToM development from a multidimensional perspective (i.e., cognitive and affective dimensions). This study aimed to develop the Preschool Theory of Mind Assessment (ToMA-P) and to evaluate its construct validity and applicability. METHODS: The ToMA-P was developed based on comprehensive literature review and revised with expert panel feedback...

INTRODUCTION: Life's Essential 8 (LE8) is prompted by the American Heart Association (AHA) to assess cardiovascular health. The association between LE8 and cognitive function in America is unknown. Our study was to investigate the association of LE8 with cognitive function in general adults. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 2,301 participants were enrolled in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES). LE8 scores (range 0-100) were obtained from measurements based on American Heart Association definitions, divided into health behavior and health factor scores...

Kinetoplastid pathogens including Trypanosoma brucei , T. cruzi , and Leishmania species, are early diverged, eukaryotic, unicellular parasites. Functional understanding of many proteins from these pathogens has been hampered by limited sequence homology to proteins from other model organisms. Here we describe the development of a high-throughput deep mutational scanning approach in T. brucei that facilitates rapid and unbiased assessment of the impacts of many possible amino acid substitutions within a protein on cell fitness, as measured by relative cell growth...

BACKGROUND: Large field of view CZT SPECT cameras with a ring geometry are available for some years now. Thanks to their good sensitivity and high temporal resolution, general dynamic SPECT imaging may be performed more easily, without resorting to dedicated systems. To evaluate the dynamic SPECT imaging by such cameras, we have performed an in vivo pilot study to analyze the kidney function of a pig and compare the results to standard dynamic planar imaging by a conventional gamma camera...

Muscle atrophy and functional decline (sarcopenia) are common manifestations of frailty and are critical contributors to morbidity and mortality in older people1 . Deciphering the molecular mechanisms underlying sarcopenia has major implications for understanding human ageing2 . Yet, progress has been slow, partly due to the difficulties of characterizing skeletal muscle niche heterogeneity (whereby myofibres are the most abundant) and obtaining well-characterized human samples3,4 . Here we generate a single-cell/single-nucleus transcriptomic and chromatin accessibility map of human limb skeletal muscles encompassing over 387,000 cells/nuclei from individuals aged 15 to 99 years with distinct fitness and frailty levels...

To solve the problems of UAV path planning, such as low search efficiency, uneven path, and inability to adapt to unknown environments, this paper proposes A double-layer optimization A* and dynamic window method for UAV path planning. Firstly, the neighboring node clip-off rule is defined to optimize the node expansion mode of the A* algorithm, and the obstacle coverage model is designed to dynamically adjust the heurizing function of the A* algorithm to improve the path search efficiency. Then, the Bresenham algorithm is adopted for collision detection and critical path nodes are extracted to significantly reduce the number of path turning points...

BACKGROUND: Water is one of the most essential nutrients for life. The water turnover (WT), total body water (TBW), and total energy expenditure (TEE) can be measured using the doubly labeled water (DLW) method. WT and TBW are lower in older adults than in young adults, and the former are susceptible to dehydration, necessitating to identify predictors of the WT in older adults. OBJECTIVE: The current study aimed to examine the association between WT and physical activity, physical function, and body composition in Japanese adults aged 65 years and above and identify predictors for WT in this population...

Imbalances of iron and dopamine metabolism along with mitochondrial dysfunction have been linked to the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD). We have previously suggested a direct link between iron homeostasis and dopamine metabolism, as dopamine can increase cellular uptake of iron into macrophages thereby promoting oxidative stress responses. In this study, we investigated the interplay between iron, dopamine, and mitochondrial activity in neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells and human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived dopaminergic neurons differentiated from a healthy control and a PD patient with a mutation in the α-synuclein (SNCA) gene...

Wound healing is crucial for survival, prevention of infection, and restoration of tissue function. The immune system drives this process with 3 main phases: inflammation, proliferation, and remodeling. Keloids and hypertrophic scars reveal disruptions in these phases, underscoring the balance needed for healing. Limb amputation, a life-changing event, demands careful consideration for healing and function. Factors such as amputation level, surgical technique, and prosthetic fitting shape outcomes, while complications such as heterotopic ossification challenge recovery...

INTRODUCTION: Although Chagas disease causes high levels of morbidity, the muscle function and tolerance to physical activity in Chagas disease patients are still not completely understood. OBJECTIVE: To compare health-related fitness of patient groups with acute Chagas disease versus chronic Chagas disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study involving 18 patients. The data were obtained from patient´s records, and functional capacity was measured with the sixminute walk test, the peripheral muscle strength with handgrip strength, and respiratory muscle strength using the maximum inspiratory pressure and the maximum expiratory pressure...

Federated recommender systems (FRSs), with their improved privacy-preserving advantages to jointly train recommendation models from numerous devices while keeping user data distributed, have been widely explored in modern recommender systems (RSs). However, conventional FRSs require transmitting the entire model between the server and clients, which brings a huge carbon footprint for cost-conscious cross-device learning tasks. While several efforts have been dedicated to improving the efficiency of FRSs, it's suboptimal to treat the whole model as the objective of compact design...

A series of activated biochar (KBBC-700, KBBC-800 and KBBC-900) which were modified by KOH and pyrolysis at various temperatures from ball-milling bamboo powder were obtained. The physicochemical properties and pore structures of activated biochar were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), fourier transform infrared spectoscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and N2 adsorption/desorption. The adsorption performance for the removal of methylene blue (MB) was deeply studied. The results showed that KBBC-900 obtained at activation temperature of 900 °C exhibited a great surface area which reached 562 m2 /g with 0...

PURPOSE: To examine the distortion of the linear quadratic (LQ) model of in vitro cytogenetic dose response over an extended range of γ-ray doses by analyzing the available literature data, and to establish the dose ranges, in which the LQ dose response curve (DRC) can be most accurately fitted for biological dosimetry. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data on yields of dicentrics (Dic) or dicentrics plus centric rings (Dic + CR) induced in vitro in human lymphocytes by acute γ-rays were extracted from 108 open sources...

In the search for novel succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor (SDHI) fungicides to control Rhizoctonia solani , thirty-five novel pyrazole-4-carboxamides bearing either an oxime ether or an oxime ester group were designed and prepared based on the strategy of molecular hybridization, and their antifungal activities against five plant pathogenic fungi were also investigated. The results indicated that the majority of the compounds containing oxime ether demonstrated outstanding in vitro antifungal activity against R...