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Purpose: The study explored the acceptability of high repetition arm training as part of a randomised controlled trial, early after stroke, when fatigue levels and emotional strain are often high. Materials and methods: 36 sub-acute stroke survivors (61 years+/-15) attended for assessment sessions at 3, 6, and 12 weeks after stroke. Individuals were randomised to receive 6 high repetition arm training sessions between 3 and 6 weeks (intervention) or the control group. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at trial completion. Interview transcripts were analysed through framework analysis conducted independently by 2 researchers. Results: Stroke survivors participated despite high levels of fatigue because they hoped for personal benefit or to potentially benefit future patients. Benefits reported from participation included physical improvements, psychological benefit, improved understanding of their condition as well as a feeling of hope and distraction. The arm training at three weeks after stroke, aiming for 420 movement repetitions was not considered to be too intensive or too early, and most individuals felt lucky to have been, or would have preferred to be in the early training group. Conclusion: High repetition arm training early after stroke was acceptable to participants. Study participation was generally viewed as a positive experience, suggesting that early intervention may not only be physically beneficial but also psychologically.Implications for rehabilitation Stroke survivors report that high repetition arm training early after stroke is acceptable. Participation in rehabilitation research early after stroke provides stroke survivors with hope and meaning despite the high prevalence of fatigue. Complex information needs to be repeated and provided in a number of formats early after stroke.

Purpose: The study explored the acceptability of high repetition arm training as part of a randomised controlled trial, early after stroke, when fatigue levels and emotional strain are often high. Materials and methods: 36 sub-acute stroke survivors (61 years+/-15) attended for assessment sessions at 3, 6, and 12 weeks after stroke. Individuals were randomised to receive 6 high repetition arm training sessions between 3 and 6 weeks (intervention) or the control group. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at trial completion. Interview transcripts were analysed through framework analysis conducted independently by 2 researchers. Results: Stroke survivors participated despite high levels of fatigue because they hoped for personal benefit or to potentially benefit future patients. Benefits reported from participation included physical improvements, psychological benefit, improved understanding of their condition as well as a feeling of hope and distraction. The arm training at three weeks after stroke, aiming for 420 movement repetitions was not considered to be too intensive or too early, and most individuals felt lucky to have been, or would have preferred to be in the early training group. Conclusion: High repetition arm training early after stroke was acceptable to participants. Study participation was generally viewed as a positive experience, suggesting that early intervention may not only be physically beneficial but also psychologically.Implications for rehabilitation Stroke survivors report that high repetition arm training early after stroke is acceptable. Participation in rehabilitation research early after stroke provides stroke survivors with hope and meaning despite the high prevalence of fatigue. Complex information needs to be repeated and provided in a number of formats early after stroke.

Forensic facial reconstruction currently relies on subjective manual methods to reconstruct a recognizable face from a skull. Automated approaches using algorithms and statistical norms have been able to reliably construct faces in real-time, but are unable to generate areas of the face that do not correlate strongly to the bone beneath, such as the eyes, lips and ears. Recent developments in deep learning have shown that generative models can produce realistic images indistinguishable from genuine human faces. Applying these techniques, we propose a generative deep learning solution to perform facial reconstruction directly from the bone with limited data and no background expertise. The model is trained on 665 3D Computed Tomography (CT) head scans that have been cleaned of noise, rotated to correct orientation and then filtered by density to find bone and soft tissue to be used as input and label respectively. It is trained with a combination of adversarial and VGGFace2 perceptual loss. The model is then compared to two baseline deep generative models and achieves a mIoU of 0.9410 and facial detection score of 88.32%. Results show the model is able to consistently generate accurate jaw and muscle structures. Additionally, it generates realistic ears, eyes and noses - features that are traditionally difficult to generate automatically with traditional techniques. Our model provides the basis for a complete, end-to-end solution for forensic facial reconstruction, with no prior knowledge or training on reconstruction techniques.

NEW FINDINGS: What is the central question of this study? Do circulating factors mediate exercise-induced effects on adipose tissue GLUT4 expression? What is the main finding and its importance? Serum (10%) obtained from human volunteers immediately after a single exercise bout increased GLUT4 protein levels in human adipocytes in culture. This result suggests that circulating factors might mediate the effects of exercise on adipose tissue GLUT4 and prompts further effort to identify the specific factor(s) and tissue(s) of origin. ABSTRACT: In this study, we tested the hypothesis that circulating factors generated during exercise increase adipose tissue GLUT4 expression. Serum was obtained from eight healthy subjects before and after 60 min of cycling exercise, and primary adipocytes were cultured from stromal vascular fractions that were isolated from subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue samples from one healthy, male volunteer. A 48 h exposure of human primary adipocytes to 10% serum obtained after exercise increased GLUT4 protein expression, on average, by 12% compared with exposure to 10% serum obtained at rest, before exercise. GLUT4 mRNA levels were increased after 12 h of exposure to exercise serum but were unchanged after 6 and 24 h of exposure. Our results suggest that circulating factors might mediate the effects of exercise on adipose tissue GLUT4 expression and encourage further efforts to identify the potential factor(s), tissue(s) of origin and physiological relevance.