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Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate whether vibration significantly affected the efficiency of off-road cyclists. Patients and methods: Eight male mountain cyclists (mean age 21.1-1 years; range, 19 to 22 years) between August 2017 and November 2017 were included. The experimental protocol included four testing sessions with a one-day interval between testing sessions: A familiarization session; performance of submaximal tests; performance of maximal graded exercise test; and a 30-min mountain bike trial performed with vibration or without vibration. Physiological measures including volume of oxygen uptake (VO2), volume of carbon dioxide output (VCO2), VO2, VCO2, heart rate, respiratory exchange ratio, rating of perceived exertion, and gross efficiency (GE) were compared between the trials performed with vibration or without vibration. Results: There was a significant increase in the GE with the addition of intermittent vibration, particularly over the last 15 min of the cycling trial (p 0.05). There were no significant effects of vibration on other parameters. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that addition of intermittent vibration may provide positive benefits in improving GE during a 30-min submaximal cycling trial. © 2021 Turkish Society of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. All rights reserved.

The etiology of periodontitis has traditionally been associated to a consortium of three bacterial species-the so-called "red-complex" of periodontal disease-which has been the target for most diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. However, other species have also been found to correlate with disease severity. In addition, the influence of smoking on periodontal microbiota is poorly understood. In the current manuscript, the composition of the subgingival microbiota in healthy individuals vs. patients with chronic periodontitis has been investigated using 16S pyrosequencing and the influence of smoking on periodontal composition has been examined. Subgingival bacterial communities were sampled from 82 patients: 22 non-smoking healthy controls, 28 non-smoking periodontal patients, and 32 smoking periodontal patients. Bacterial diversity was higher in periodontal patients than in healthy subjects, which could be interpreted as the consequence of a nutritionally richer environment or a reduced immune competence. Periodontal patients showed a significantly higher prevalence/relative abundance of "established" periopathogens but also other taxa whose role is not well-established and that should be targets for future research. These include Anaeroglobus, Bulleidia, Desulfobulbus, Filifactor, Mogibacterium, Phocaeicola, Schwartzia or TM7. The microbial community of smoking-associated periodontitis is less diverse and distinct from that of non-smokers, indicating that smoking has an influence on periodontal ecology. Interestingly, the high sequencing coverage allowed the detection at low proportions of periodontal pathogens in all healthy individuals, indicating that chronic periodontitis cannot be strictly considered an infectious disease but the outcome of a polymicrobial dysbiosis, where changes in the proportions of microbial consortia trigger the inflammatory and tissue-degradation responses of the host. © 2015 Camelo-Castillo, Mira, Pico, Nibali, Henderson, Donos and Tomás.

In this paper Morphological Analysis part of our proposed computer-aided sperm analysis system (CASA) is simulated and the results beside the algorithm steps are presented. The morphology analysis is simply dealing with shape of the sperms and extracting the shape characteristics in medical parameters. The characteristics are obtained by image processing algorithms which utilizes Cellular Nanoscale Network (CNN) based and spatial image processing blocks. The following calculation of medical parameters are obtained from the outputs of image processing blocks. The algorithm is so designed to adapt the final SoC architecture such as Xilinx Zynq7000 device. Publisher's Version

The aim of this study was to investigate the changes in serum levels of endothelial cell injury markers, soluble (s) E-selectin and thrombomodulin (TM), in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) before and after antirheumatic drug treatment and to assess the relationship between these changes and clinical responses to the drug treatment. Eleven patients with RA having active arthritis and 12 healthy volunteers were enrolled in the study. They were monitored by clinical and laboratory parameters while receiving a combination of methotrexate, hydroxychloroquine and sulphasalazine. Pre- and post-treatment clinical and laboratory parameters, including sE-selectin and sTM levels, were measured. The ages of the patients were comparable with those of the control groups. Significant improvements were detected in erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein, hemoglobin, morning stiffness, patients' global assessment, physicians' global assessment, number of tender joints and number of swollen joints improved at the end of the therapy (for each parameter p < 0.05). Significant improvements were detected in clinical and laboratory parameters. In the patient group there were significant decreases in the levels of sTM and sE-selectin after treatment (p < 0.05). The patient group had significantly higher sTM and sE-selectin levels than the control group at the beginning of the study (p < 0.01), but the difference returned to normal after the treatment (p > 0.05). The sE-selectin and sTM levels significantly correlated with each other, and also with clinical and laboratory findings. Combination treatment successfully treated RA patients. sE-selectin and sTM levels probably reflect disease activity and can be helpful in monitoring disease status and response to therapy. © Clinical Rheumatology 2004.