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The aim of this research was to determine physiologic responses to typical activities of military Italian firefighters. Heart rate (HR), metabolic equivalent units (MET), skin temperature (T.Sk.), and galvanic skin response (GSR) were measured in 13 firefighters (age = 36.3 [+ or -] 6.9 yr; period of military fire service = 16.8 [+ or -] 7 yr) during the acclimation phase (5 min standing, still dressed in their protective clothing), the work phase (simulated firefighting situations), and the following 24 hours. Multivariate linear stepwise regression showed that body mass index was highly correlated with mean and minimal HR values during the acclimation phase (beta 0.59, p < 0.001 ; beta 1.90, p = 0.003) and with mean and maximum HR values during the work phase (beta 1.08, p = 0.05; beta 1.17, p = 0.04), increasing cardiovascular stress. Firefighting tasks were associated with high energy expenditure. The minimum and mean MET values, during the acclimation phase, were significantly correlated with age (beta 0.49, p = 0.008 and beta 0.46, p < 0.01 ). During the work phase, maximal MET values were also strongly correlated with weight (beta 0.51, p = 0.03). No correlations between predictor and dependent variables were found for GSR; however, the high GSR levels recorded during the work phase returned to normal values only 12 hours after completion of the work phase, indicating that high levels of psychological stress remain, even after physical recovery. The data obtained in this study demonstrate that the physical fitness and anthropometric characteristics of firefighters influence the performance of firefighting tasks. These results may be useful to set up specific training that meets the real needs of firefighters in terms of physical fitness. KEY WORDS firefighter's tasks, heart rate, energy expenditure, skin temperature, galvanic skin response, body mass index

Reverse integration in sports is a kind of integration in which athletes with disabilities outnumber their non-disabled counterparts. A new sport that reflects the concept of reverse integration is 'Baskin', which has similar rules to traditional basketball, with a difference: players are divided into five roles, according to the severity of their disability or lack thereof. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate, the degree of contribution to the match outcome of the Baskin scores of participants in different roles. The investigation was conducted by analysing the 2015/2016 Baskin league season, comparing the points scored by each player role. Results showed that the contribution of athletes with severe disabilities is decisive to the outcome of the games. Within the concept of reversed integration, some changes to the rules could be made to spread the scoring more evenly across the various player roles on the Baskin team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contamination of pharmaceutical products and medical devices with pyrogens such as endotoxins is the most common cause of systemic inflammation and, in worst cases, of septic shock. Thus, quantification of pyrogens is crucial. The limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL)-based assays are the reference tests for in vitro endotoxin detection, in association with the in vivo rabbit pyrogen test (RPT), according to European Pharmacopoeia (EP 2.6.14), and U.S. Pharmacopoeia (USP <85>). However, several substances interfere with LAL assay, while RPT is not accurate, not quantitative, and raises ethical limits. Biological assays, as monocyte activation tests, have been developed and included in European Pharmacopoeia (EP 7.0; 04/2010:20630) guidelines as an alternative to RPT and proved relevant to the febrile reaction in vivo. Because this reaction is carried out by endogenous mediators under the transcriptional control of nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB), we sought to determine whether a NF-kappaB reporter-gene assay, based on MonoMac-6 (MM6) cells, could reconcile the basic mechanism of innate immune response with the relevance of monocytoid cell lines to the organism reaction to endotoxins. This article describes both optimization and characterization of the reporter cells-based assay, which overall proved the linearity, accuracy, and precision of the test, and demonstrated the sensitivity of the assay to 0.24 EU/mL endotoxin, close to the pyrogenic threshold in humans. Moreover, the assay was experimentally compared to the LAL test in the evaluation of selected interfering samples. The good performance of the MM6 reporter test demonstrates the suitability of this assay to evaluate interfering or false-positive samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]