Hyperhomocysteinemia,MMPs and Cochlear Function: A Short Review

Hyperhomocysteinemia (HHCY) has been demonstrated to affect cochlear microvasculature as well as cochlear epithelial cells directly, with a resultant alteration of the expression of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and their inhibitors, tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs). Hence, ascertaining the optimum concentration of MMPs and TIMPs in the cochlea could help to inhibit hearing loss due to HHCY by the administration of appropriate MMP inhibitors, Since infections/inflammations as well as ototoxic antibiotics have a similar mechanism of otic pathology, the cochlear damage they cause could also be similarly prevented.     

Numerical investigation on the flow and power of small-sized multi-bladed straight Darrieus wind turbine

Straight Darrieus wind turbine has attractive characteristics such as the ability to accept wind from random direction and easy installation and maintenance. But its aerodynamic performance is very complicated,especially for the existence of dynamic stall. How to get better aerodynamic performance arouses lots of interests in the design procedure of a straight Darrieus wind turbine. In this paper,mainly the effects of number of blades and tip speed ratio are discussed. Based on the numerical investigation,an assumed asymmetric straight Darrieus wind turbine is proposed to improve the averaged power coefficient. As to the numerical method,the flow around the turbine is simulated by solving the 2D unsteady Navier-Stokes equation combined with continuous equation. The time marching method on a body-fitted coordinate system based on MAC (Marker-and-Cell) method is used. O-type grid is generated for the whole calculation domain. The characteristics of tangential and normal force are discussed related with dynamic stall of the blade. Averaged power coefficient per period of rotating is calculated to evaluate the eligibility of the turbine.     

Validity and feasibility of an obstacle course to assess fundamental movement skills in a pre-school setting

Failure to master age-appropriate fundamental movement skills (FMS) at a young age can limit motor skill competence affecting health. Assessments often have issues with feasibility and implementation in a field setting. As such, the purpose of this study was to investigate the validity and feasibility of the Athletic Skills Track (AST), in a pre-school setting. For the validation study sixty-five 3–6 year old children (25 boys and 40 girls) from five pre-schools across Adelaide, Australia participated. Correlations and linear regression analysis (adjusted for age and gender) were used to investigate the association between the time to complete the AST and the raw score of the Test of Gross Motor Development 2 (TGMD-2). For the feasibility study pre-school staff completed a semi-structured interview regarding the feasibility of the AST. The AST took less than a minute per child and the TGMD-2 around 20 minutes for two children. There was a strong negative correlation (r = ?0.63, p < 0.01) between the AST scores and the TGMD-2 scores. All five staff reported strengths of the AST to be its short administration time, setup and appropriateness. These results suggest that the AST could be a feasible and valid method of FMS assessment in Australian pre-schools.     

Naming speed, phonological awareness, and orthographic knowledge in second graders

Concurrent relationships among measures of naming speed, phonological awareness, orthographic skill, and other reading subskills were explored in a representative sample of second graders. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that naming speed, as measured by the the rapid automatized naming (RAN) task, accounted for a sizable amount of unique variance in reading with vocabulary and phonemic awareness partialled out. The unique contribution of naming speed to reading was relatively stronger for orthographic skills, whereas the contribution of phonemic skills was stronger for nonword decoding. In further analyses, marked difficulties on a range of reading tasks, including orthographic processing, were seen in a subgroup with a double deficit (slow naming speed and low phonemic awareness) but not in groups with only a single deficit. These findings are broadly consistent with Bowers and Wolf's (1993a, 1993b; Wolf & Bowers, 1999) double-deficit hypothesis of reading disability.     

Association between COMT Val158Met polymorphism and competition results of competitive swimmers

Recent studies have shown the contribution of genetic determinants to athletes’ physical ability. However, despite the fact that cognitive abilities like self-control and stress-tolerance influence athletes’ competitive performance, few studies to date have investigated the association between genetic polymorphism, which is linked to cognitive ability and athletic performance. The present study investigated the link between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which are known to exert influences on dopaminergic neural function and competitive performance of swimmers. The results have revealed superior competitive performance in competitive swimmers with Met allele of catechol-O-methyltransferase Val158Met polymorphism than those with Val/Val genotype. The investigated SNPs of DRD2 and DRD3 were not associated with swimmer’s competitive performance. This finding indicates that genetic polymorphism linked to cognitive ability influences the athletes’ performance.