Statin use and self-reported swimming performance in US masters swimmers

Exercise and treating hyperlipidaemia with statins are two integral components of the American Heart Association guidelines to reduce cardiovascular risk in adults. Since statins can cause myalgias and myopathies, they could affect the duration or intensity of an exercise regimen. To determine the impact of statin use in adult masters swimmers, a survey was distributed to examine the association between swimming performance and statin usage in adult swimmers (≥35 years). After excluding those with chronic diseases or taking drugs that reduce physical capacity, 749 swimmers (118 taking statins, 73 not taking statins to control elevated cholesterol and 558 controls) were included in a regression model to determine the factors significantly affecting the duration and intensity of swimming workouts. Age and gender were significantly (P ≤ 0.001) associated with the distance swam per 60 min. Younger, male swimmers completed more yards per 60-min workout. Use of statins was not significantly associated with yards swam per 60-min workout. Nor did statin usage affect the number of swim sessions per month or the length of swim session. Evidently, statins do not cause enough fatigue or pain in masters swimmers to require a decrease in the duration or intensity of workouts.     

Struggling with Science and Status: Physiotherapy – Including Radiology and Cancer Treatment – and Physical Education at the State University in Ghent,Belgium, 1906–1936

The establishment of new academic specialties is an intriguing research topic from a social history of science perspective. In this article we focus on the ‘scientific migration’ within the Higher Institute of Physical Education (HIPE) and the Faculty of Medicine at the State University in Ghent, Belgium. The HIPE was ‘attached’ to the Faculty of Medicine in 1908, a world first that led to an interesting triangular relationship between physical education, physiotherapy, and medicine. The physiatrists (physicians-physiotherapists) who were appointed at the HIPE had to struggle with inferior status with respect to their colleagues within the Faculty of Medicine itself. Territorial power struggles arose on several levels. In 1936, after the first generation of physicians-physiotherapists had retired, physiotherapy was integrated fully into the Faculty of Medicine, and radiology and cancer treatment – which had been considered subsectors of physiotherapy – became autonomous specialties. Physical education, however, retained its inferior academic status.     

Where populist citizens get the news: An investigation of news audience polarization along populist attitudes in 11 countries

This article presents a secondary analysis of two multi-national cross-sectional surveys conducted in 2015 (11 countries, N?=?10,570) and 2017 (4 countries, N?=?2165) to examine the relationship between populist attitudes and media use. The results indicate that populist citizens are more likely to consume news than non-populist citizens. Specifically, populist citizens exhibit a preference for commercial television (TV) news, as well as a tendency to read tabloid newspapers. While they use fewer quality newspapers, public TV news are not systematically avoided. Regarding the online news environment, populist citizens prefer Facebook over Twitter as a source of political information. This selective pattern will be discussed in light of the debates on news audience polarization and political polarization.     

News audience fragmentation in the Japanese Twittersphere

ABSTRACT

Although computational approaches to ideology-based audience fragmentation are promising, they are not without limitations. First, most existing studies have focused on the US, and the cross-national validity of their results has rarely been tested. Second, previous studies that rely solely on behavioral data from social media tend to make strong analytical assumptions such as that Twitter users prefer to follow media and politicians whose ideological positions are similar to their own, and that the ideologies of political elites can be extrapolated to infer the ideologies of ordinary users. We aim to address these limitations. First, we focus on Japan to test the generalizability of US findings in an Asian context. Second, we do not rely solely on behavioral measurement but combine survey and social media data to infer the ideologies of Twitter users. Results indicate that our classifier built based on these self-reported ideologies produces more valid estimates than naïve extrapolation from views of the elites. Based on these improved estimates of Twitter users’ ideologies, we demonstrate that the ideological distributions of those who follow major Japanese media accounts on Twitter largely overlap, suggesting an absence of ideology-based audience fragmentation.     

Risk of venous thromboembolic disease in postmenopausal women taking oral or transdermal hormone replacement therapy

Objective  

The influence of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on hemostasis processes depends on the type of hormone, the combination of doses, the time of taking HRT, and the route of administration (oral, transdermal, implanted). The aim of the current study was to assess some parameters of coagulation, especially tissue factor pathway inhibitor (TFPI) and tissue factor (TF) in postmenopausal women using oral or transdermal HRT.     

Polyethylenimine-cyclodextrin-tegafur conjugate shows anti-cancer activity and a potential for gene delivery

Polyethylenimine-cyclodextrin-tegafur (PEI-CyD-tegafur) conjugate was synthesized as a novel multifunctional prodrug of tegafur for co-delivery of chemotherapeutic agent tegafur and enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) reporter plasmid DNA. Conjugation of tegafur to PEI-CyD via chemical linkage was characterized by ¹H NMR spectrometry and ultraviolet (UV) spectrometry. PEI-CyD-tegafur was able to condense plasmid DNA into complexes of around 150 nm with positive charge at the N/P ratio of 25, in accordance with electron microscopy observation of compact and monodisperse nanoparticles. The results of in vitro experiments showed enhanced cytotoxicity and considerable transfection efficiency in B16F10 cell line. Therefore, PEI-CyD-tegafur may have great potential as a co-delivery system with anti-cancer activity and potential for gene delivery.     

露迹:新生代小说中的元小说叙事手法

"露迹"是最重要的元小说叙事手法之一,也是先锋小说家们常用的写作策略。"露迹"手法的使用是新生代小说对先锋小说多元化创作的一种继承。但新生代小说家们将"露迹"手法纳入了更为合理的范畴,摆脱了先锋元小说创作中"形式大于内容"的怪圈。     

新媒体语境特征与用户态度关系构建的实证研究

通过对上海市民进行抽样调查,并使用结构方法模型对新媒体语境下的受众社会态度倾向进行实证研究,得出如下结论：新媒体语境通过社会懈怠对用户风险偏好和群体极化倾向产生正向影响,对责任与公平意识、道德发展以及亲社会倾向产生负向影响;媒体接触频率在新媒体与社会懈怠关系中具有显著正向调节作用,而媒体接触的多样性在其中的调节作用并不明显;在主效应和调节作用中,均表现出对男性的影响大于对女性的影响,其影响大小随着年龄的增加而呈减弱趋势。     

Using sexually explicit material in a therapeutic context

For most of us, sex is a subjective, lived experience that is as unique as our genetic make-up, our upbringing, our thoughts, values, feelings, beliefs and ideas. It is through our erotic interactions, or the absence thereof, that we form aspects of our fluid and mutable erotic paths and identities. Despite the proliferation of sexual imagery throughout our culture, many of us still struggle with what sex means to us, what we do, how we experience it and what that says about who we are as people. Some who struggle with this may seek the services of a psychosexual sex therapist. This paper aims to explain how such services function, why they are necessary and how the use of sexually explicit material, in some psychosexual therapeutic contexts, can help unravel the mixed responses we have to sex and our social conditioning, and enhance our overall relationship to eroticism, pleasure and general well-being.