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To describe bone injury patterns in elite track and field athletes. To investigate relationships between bone injury and athlete characteristics to inform future injury prevention strategies. Descriptive epidemiology study. Elite athletics training centres across the United Kingdom and internationally, observed between 2012 and 2020. 207 Olympic programme senior track and field athletes. Injury number, Incidence, Severity, Burden, Time Loss. There were 78 fractures during the study period. Gradual repetitive bone injuries were the most common type of injury mode. The foot, pelvis and the lumbar spine were the regions with the highest number of bone stress injuries. Stress fractures had a higher burden overall compared to stress reactions. Average return to full training was 67.4 days (±73.1) for stress reactions and 199 (±205.2) days for stress fractures. There was no relationship between bone injury type and age, sex, ethnicity, side dominance or event group. Bone stress injuries in athletics have a high severity and burden warranting continued efforts to prevent their occurrence and optimize management. Age, sex, ethnicity, side dominance and event region do not have any relationship with bone injury occurrence and are therefore unlikely to increase risk in this cohort. • Gradual repetitive injury of the foot was the most common bone injury in athletics. • Bone stress injuries in elite athletics have a high severity and burden. • All event groups are susceptible to bone injury. • Age, sex, ethnicity and event type have no relationship to bone injury rates. • Early identification of bone stress injury is key to minimising time loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the epidemiology and management of ankle ligament sprains over seven seasons in a professional ballet company. Descriptive epidemiology study. Medical attention injury, time-loss injury, and exposure data pertaining to 140 professional ballet dancers were prospectively recorded by Chartered Physiotherapists over seven seasons (2015/16–2021/22); a period including the COVID-19 global pandemic. Sixty-nine ankle sprains (46 time-loss) in 45 dancers (32 %) were recorded: 51 sprains were classified as grade I, 15 were classified as grade II, and three were classified as grade III; 53 sprains affected only one ligament, whilst 16 were multi-ligament sprains. For time-loss injuries, median time-loss durations varied by grading (I - 31 days, II - 54 days, and III - 147 days) and the number of ligaments affected (one - 31 days, two - 54 days, three - 134 days, four - 137 days), with time-loss ranging from 1 to 188 days. Of the 46 time-loss ankle sprains, eight were mild , nine were moderate , and 29 were severe. The incidence rate (injuries·1000 h−1) of medical attention ankle sprains was 0.073 (95 % CI: 0.046 to 0.117) in male dancers and 0.101 (95 % CI: 0.069 to 0.148) in female dancers, and the incidence of time-loss ankle sprains was 0.044 (95 % CI: 0.024 to 0.080) in male dancers and 0.064 (95 % CI: 0.040 to 0.103) in female dancers. No significant effect of sex was observed on either medical attention (p =.304) or time-loss (p =.327) ankle sprain incidence rates. Ten percent of dancers sustained multiple sprains across the seven seasons. Fifty and 39 % of ankle sprains in female and male dancers, respectively, were preceded by a history of ankle sprains. Jumping and landing (30 sprains) and non-dance movements (16 sprains) were the most common inciting movements. Bone bruising and synovitis were the most common concurrent pathologies. Ankle sprains placed a considerable burden on the ballet company studied. These time-loss durations specified by number and grade of ligament sprain, injury history, and secondary pathologies can guide return-to-dance rehabilitation pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This novel study aims to provide unique data on eccentric hamstring strength in elite track and field athletes. Clinical measurement, cross-sectional study. Across two British Athletics performance centres. 44 elite British track and field athletes. Eccentric hamstring force and torque were evaluated using the Nordbord device. Injury history and demographic data was collected to assess whether differences between gender, event group, limb symmetry and previous injury history were present. Average peak force for males and females was 418.38N and 318.54N. Relative to body weight there were no gender differences (Male 5.21N.kg−1, Female 4.99N.kg−1) (p = 0.62). The right limb was significantly stronger in long sprint (400m athletes) (p = 0.00018) (d = 0.56). No differences in relative force or torque were observed between previously injured and non-injured limbs. This study provides unique data in elite track and field athletes. Relative force per kilogram should be used when comparing male and female athletes. Unlike other studies, we found no difference in eccentric strength between previously injured and non-injured limbs. The novel finding of increased eccentric strength demonstrated in the right limb in 400m sprinters may be due to the asymmetric demands of bend running and may be considered normal. • Asymmetry of eccentric hamstring strength may be a normal finding. • No association between previous injury and hamstring strength. • No gender difference in relative eccentric hamstring strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The double-step paradigm investigates the characteristics of planning and execution when the motor system must rapidly adjust for a new goal location. Studies have provided detailed temporal information based on the duration available for the motor system to prepare a new movement trajectory (here referred to as re-preparation time). However, previous work has largely examined single displacement sizes, limiting the spatiotemporal understanding of movement planning and execution. The lack of a description of this behavioral timecourse across increasing displacement sizes is true for saccades, rapid eye movements that redirect the fovea. Furthermore, during the double-step paradigm, the primary saccade often fails to accurately foveate the final target location and a secondary saccade brings the target onto the fovea. However, it is also unknown how this compensation is concurrently modified with the exposure duration and displacement of the movement goal. Here, we examined the amount of time required to change the initial saccade direction to a new target location for relatively small (20°, 30°, and 40°) and large (60° and 90°) target spatial separations. Interestingly, we found a clear relationship between the saccade direction and the amount of time allowed to redirect the movement; across separations, intermediate saccades occurred when approximately 60-140 ms was available to readjust the movement plan. Additionally, there was a consistent relationship between the timing of the secondary saccade and the re-preparation time across jump sizes, suggesting that concurrent movement correction planning was dependent on the amount of exposure to the final movement goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A team of students and faculty from engineering and nursing developed a wearable Tracheostomy Overlay System (TOS) for use with standardized patients. This device was designed to improve education of health professions students while learning assessment and care of a patient with a tracheostomy in clinical practice. The initial study of the TOS included nursing student participants (N = 57) who were tested on tracheostomy care and suctioning using either the traditional teaching method (a manikin) or the new TOS on a standardized patient to determine effectiveness of the TOS as a teaching method. Self-efficacy surveys were collected and identified clinical behavior was observed and quantified by two trained, independent observers. Survey results indicated significantly more positive clinical interaction (19.7 ± 8.34 TOS vs. 4.0 ± 4.80 manikin, p < .05) and self-correction (3.04 ± 1.95 TOS vs. 0.43 ± 0.73 manikin, p < .05) when the participants used the TOS. The TOS has the potential to improve simulated nursing education in both academia and clinical practice settings for patients with a tracheotomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 32-year-old HIV positive male presents with fevers and a non-productive cough. Initial X-ray and subsequent computerised tomography of the chest shows a bilateral miliary pattern of pulmonary infiltration highly suggestive of disseminated tuberculosis. However subsequent results were consistent with disseminated cryptococcosis, including pulmonary involvement, with cryptococcus identified on transbronchial tissue biopsy, and on blood and cerebrospinal fluid cultures. Imaging features of pulmonary cryptococcosis are generally of well-defined pleural-based nodules and less commonly alveolar infiltrates, lymphadenopathy, pleural effusions or cavitating lesions. Miliary pulmonary infiltrates are an exceptionally rare presentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by recent experiments on many-body localized systems coupled to an environment, we apply a Flow Equation method to study the problem of a disorder chain of spinless fermions, coupled via density-density interactions to a second clean chain of spinless fermions. In particular, we focus on the conditions for the onset of a many-body localized phase in the clean sector of our model by proximity to the dirty one. We find that a many-body localization proximity effect in the clean component is established when the density of dirty fermions exceeds a threshold value. From the flow equation method we find that, similar to many-body localization in a single chain, the many-body localization proximity effect is also described by an extensive set of local integrals of motion. Furthermore, by tuning the geometry of the inter-chain couplings, we show that the dynamics of the model is ruled, on intermediate time scales, by an emergent set of quasi-conserved charges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a description and analyses of NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) high-rate Ka-band downlink system for the upcoming NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) mission developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). NISAR is a collaborative Earth-Science mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which features an L-band SAR instrument and an S-band SAR instrument. The simultaneous dual-frequency radar system at peak rates will produce data at gigabit-per-second speeds, which drives the data-volume requirements. The key driving requirement for the Payload Communication Subsystem is to provide a minimum of 35 Terabits per day of radar science data to the ground. NASA's high-rate transmitter on the flight system is a software-defined radio based on the Universal Space Transponder platform, providing an offset quadrature phase shift key modulated waveform with Low-Density Parity Check encoding of the data transfer frames. Two transmitters used in a dual-polarization configuration with each transmitter providing two giga-symbols per second (Gsps) of coded data provides an aggregate rate of four Gsps. In this system, using the ISRO-provided 70-cm high-gain antenna, only 1 W of signal power is necessary on each polarization to overcome propagation losses and achieve a successful RF link. Several Near Earth Network (NEN) ground station sites (Alaska in the United States, Svalbard in Norway, and Punta Arenas in Chile) are baselined for the space-to-Earth communications link. Each ground station will also feature multiple upgrades to support NISAR's transmission starting with new Ka-band antennas, and new electronic units such as wideband downconverters and high-rate receivers. In addition, a baseband data processor called Data Acquisition Processor and Handling Network Environment (DAPHNE), newly developed by the NEN, provides data storage and connectivity to backhaul networks. With NISAR's unprecedented large volume of data (nearly 5 Petabytes over the mission duration), a cloud system enables science data processing cost reduction to the mission. The NASA downlink system described herein will be the first operational use of Gsps-class downlink rates on an Earth-Science mission. • Description of Ka-band downlink system to support 35 Terabits per day of data • Discussion of ground infrastructure updates to support high-rate/volume downlinks • Link degradation contributors from Ka-band atmospheric propagation effects • Demonstrate large link margin to proposed ground stations [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]