Body physique and dominant somatotype in elite and low-profile athletes with different specializations.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Somatotyping is helpful in sports in which the body shape could influence the resulting performance. The purpose of this study was to determine the somatotype of high profile Lithuanian athletes in kayaking, basketball and football and to compare between disciplines and with low level sportsmen of the same age. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 72 young male sportsmen aged from 18 to 24 years were divided into three groups (kayakers, basketball and football players). Each group contained almost equal numbers of low level and elite, international level sportsmen. Anthropometric measurements of the players were used to establish somatotypes. RESULTS: The greatest difference was observed in the mesomorphic component of elite kayakers compared to the low profile sportsmen. Mesomorphy could also be used to predict sport ability. The range of mesomorphy for elite footballers was from 0 to 4.6, for basketball players from 4.6 to 5.9, and for kayaking, from 5.9 and higher. Individual groups of elite sportsmen displayed different modes of somatotype. The kayakers were predominantly endomorphic; the basketball players mostly endomorphic and the footballers most often ectomorphic. No distinguishable patterns of somatotype were displayed by the low level sportsmen. CONCLUSIONS: Morphometric characteristics of the athlete's body and the fractional somatotype can be used as guiders and markers of the chosen sport and method of training. The results emphasize the necessity for a specific somatotype to reach a high profile in the selected area of sport and thus support morphometric oriented studies. Further studies could elucidate differentiation by age and sex.

Effects of non-invasive respiratory support on gas exchange and outcomes in COVID-19 outside the ICU.

Non-invasive respiratory support (NRS) outside of the ICU has played an important role in the management of COVID-19 pneumonia. There is little data to guide selection of NRS modality. We present outcomes of NRS outside the ICU and discuss the effects of NRS on gas exchange with implications for management.

X-ray micro-tomography of a coronary stent deployed in a model artery.

Coronary stents are small scaffolds routinely implanted during angioplasty procedures to re-open coronary arteries which have become narrowed by an atherosclerotic plaque. Despite the advent of drug-eluting stents to reduce restenosis (re-narrowing) after the procedure, complications still arise and mechanical factors may be partly the cause. Stents are being used in increasingly complex cases, so new forms of pre-clinical testing may be helpful in evaluating stent designs and deployment techniques. With this in mind, an in vitro experiment was conducted to evaluate the use of X-ray micro-tomography to image stents at various stages of deployment. A stent was deployed in an artificial artery while using a synchrotron X-ray source to obtain the tomography scans. A volume element (voxel) size of 5.3 microm was achieved, with a vertical field of view of 4.5mm. The imaging of the stent and artificial artery materials was better than expected, despite some attenuation artifacts and the high monochromatic beam energy used (25 keV). Experimental problems are discussed, together with recommendations for improving the technique. It is intended that this technique will be of interest to engineers and clinicians as a pre-clinical test.

Power of performance of the thumb adductor muscles: effect of laterality and gender.

The aim of this work was to originally measure mechanical power output of the thumb adductor muscles during fast adduction of the thumb in the horizontal plane. This information will contribute to biomechanical guidelines to help clinicians, sport medicine and rehabilitation specialists in the objective functional evaluation of abnormalities of thumb adductors. Participants performed 20 fast adductions in response to audio signals. Maximum and average angular velocity and angular acceleration were measured. Tangential components of these parameters were then derived. The force of adduction was obtained from the tangential acceleration and the mass of the rotational system. The power was then calculated as the product of the force of adduction and average tangential velocity during the acceleration phase of adduction. All young and untrained males and females were strictly right handed. There was no significant difference in power between dominant and nondominant muscles for either males or females, but males developed significantly more power than females. Because adduction was performed at maximal speed, these data may be explained by the influence of parallel and series elastic elements in the muscle, as well as by influence of fast twitch fibers. Power may be used as a clinical index of the effectiveness of muscle contraction. The similarity of power outputs from dominant and nondominant thumb adductor muscles of right-handers can suggest a classical Bernstein approach. This theoretical approach purports that peripheral factors can distort central commands projected to dominant and nondominant extremities.

SVM detection of epileptiform activity in routine EEG.

Routine electroencephalogram (EEG) is an important test in aiding the diagnosis of patients with suspected epilepsy. These recordings typically last 20-40 minutes, during which signs of abnormal activity (spikes, sharp waves) are looked for in the EEG trace. It is essential that events of short duration are detected during the routine EEG test. The work presented in this paper examines the effect of changing a range of input values to the detection system on its ability to distinguish between normal and abnormal EEG activity. It is shown that the length of analysis window in the range of 0.5s to 1s are well suited to the task. Additionally, it is reported that patient specific systems should be used where possible due to their better performance.