Comparing the Effects of Pulsed Shortwave Diathermy and Static Stretching on Shoulder Range of Motion.

Life Sciences

The purpose of a warm-up is to physiologically prepare the body for upcoming physical work. The relative effectiveness of different modes of warm-up, however, is unknown. A common method is a passive warm-up, which is the therapeutic use of an external heat source to warm the muscles. To maximize the benefits of heating modalities, it is thought that an active warm-up such as stretching or exercises should be combined with a passive heating treatment to improve range of motion (ROM) or performance. We wanted to see how this combined technique compared to stretching or heating treatments in isolation. To assess this we took measurements of internal rotation, external rotation, posterior shoulder tightness and scapular movement before and after each treatment. The four treatments consisted of a control treatment, a static stretching routine, a deep heating treatment, and a treatment of deep heating followed by static stretching. 10 college aged students participated in the study by receiving treatments every Thursday for 4 weeks. In order to qualify, the participant took part in overhead activity at least twice a week and was free of significant shoulder injuries for at least one year. Most research in this field focuses on either a deep heating modality or a stretching routine; there is very little research directly comparing the two in combination for the shoulder. We found no statistical significance for all measurements but we did find a main effect for time for posterior shoulder tightness, meaning that all participants improved from pre to post treatment. We also found clinical relevance (an increase of 2-3°) for posterior shoulder tightness, external rotation, and internal rotation. Even though there was no statistical significance, our results show positive trends indicating that heating and stretching the posterior shoulder capsule increases range of motion.

Serotonin is a common neurotransmitter found throughout the brain. Increasing evidence suggests that serotonin plays a key role in aggression and impulsivity in a variety of species. However, the underlying nature of how serotonin functionally impacts aggression has not been discovered. The present study sought to address this unexplored aim by examining the aggressive responses of male Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens) to varying concentrations of Prozac. Prozac, a commonly prescribed antidepressant, is designed to increase levels of serotonin in the brain. Recent local news has indicated that Prozac appears in Missoula’s water supply and it is speculated that consuming this water may have adverse effects (Mayrer, 2010). Siamese fighting fish are ideal subjects for aggression studies as they have distinct aggressive behaviors in nature that are easy to observe. Previous researchers administered Prozac via injection, neglecting less invasive methods. For this experiment, a novel method of administration was used involving a timed exposure to water treated with Prozac. To study the effects of environmental Prozac absorption, fish were exposed to different concentrations of Prozac, and their aggression responses were recorded and coded. The study’s results indicated a decrease in aggression when subjects were exposed to Prozac. These data indicate that there is a link between aggression and serotonin levels. The method of administration has become increasingly relevant for modeling rising levels of Prozac in waste water. The results of this research will further our understanding of the environmental consequences of chemical pollutants for Missoula and in an aquatic systems.

Context: Athletic training and nursing programs are one of the few academic programs that students obtain clinical hours concurrently with a full class schedule. The expectations for students are high as evidenced through the work they put into the program. Relationships are often strained because individuals not directly involved in the program have a difficult time understanding the long hours of the program.

Purpose: This study is the first to examine longitudinal changes in mood patterns among college students completing a healthcare professional program and those students not completing a professional program. The significance of this study is to allow us to better understand the effects of participating in a rigorous professional program on students. Participants: A convenience sampling strategy was used to recruit students currently taking classes in an athletic training program, nursing program, and community health program. Methods: The Profile of Mood States (POMS) is a 65-item questionnaire that measures mood states on a 5-level adjectival scale: not at all, a little, moderately, quite a bit, and extremely. The POMS measures scores along 6 mood states: tension-anxiety, depression-dejection, anger-hostility, fatigue-inertia, confusion-bewilderment, and vigor-activity. The athletic training, nursing and community health students completed the questionnaire in September, October and December. Results: Mean scores over the three time points for each factor reflect an increase in tension-anxiety, depression-dejection, anger-hostility, fatigue-inertia, confusion-bewilderment and total mood disturbance for all three subject groups with nursing students having the greatest increase. As the semester progressed, vigor-activity scores decreased for all students regardless of their program. Conclusion: At this point in time it is evident that college students experience changes in mood regardless of their chosen program or major. Our results suggest that college is a challenging time for all students and as the semester progresses, vigor gives way to tension, depression, fatigue and confusion.

The highly technical barrier to entry for Big Data and real time analytics has proven to be a hindrance to groups and projects that seek to find insight in large quantities of data or data with a high rate of change. A modular framework that would allow stakeholders to rapidly write and deploy filters to the IBM Infosphere Streams product would provide this level of abstraction and make Big Data technology much easier to implement and use.

A common pipeline for data will be developed in tandem to this project in which a simple schema is created. This schema provides a common mechanism to rapidly identify information from a variety of sources of large and changing sets of data. In addition to this common schema, a modular interface implemented using primitive operators will provide a simple API in a common programming language for domain experts to develop filters without the need for a comprehensive understanding of the underlying IBM Infosphere Stream technical details.

While a large amount of effort has been applied to make large scale data analysis more expressive and powerful, this has been at the expense of agile development and ease of implementation for non-technical users. The novel nature of this project is to bring a subset of this expressive power with the benefit of ease of use to facilitate rapid and iterative development. This allows domain experts to effectively explore data more quickly.

This research project provides value as it abstracts much of the complexity of applying filtering to a rapidly growing and changing set of data. Stakeholders can then implement Big Data and real time analysis rapidly and with technical agility. This notion, whether applied to business intelligence, academia, or government, has tremendous value as it provides a comfortable mechanism to understand data with more clarity.

The MINERVA project consists of an array of four robotically controlled telescopes that will be dedicated to searching for extrasolar planets through precision photometry and radial velocity measurement methods. Before the search for exoplanets can begin, the telescopes, image de-rotators, camera, guide cameras and spectrograph must be calibrated and characterized. I present the characterization of several of these instruments. I measured the maximum altitude reliably observed using right ascension, declination, and position angle data for characterization of the telescope altitude and azimuth drives. This maximum altitude will be used to define a region in the sky that will be avoided during future robotic observations. I examined the effect of updating the solution used to point the telescope on the precision of the altitude, azimuth, and the image de-rotator angle. I tested the photometric abilities of the system by observing the known transiting exoplanets WASP-33B and WASP-35B. All of these tests and characterizations will allow the MINERVA telescope array to maximize the amount of time spent observing good targets. Future work preparing the MINERVA telescope array for implementation will include using the guide camera to improve pointing precision, and characterizing the camera and spectrograph.

The spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi is the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. B. burgdorferi is transmitted to mammals via a tick in an enzootic cycle; humans are incidental hosts in the cycle. Understanding the complex mechanism of gene regulation during the transmission of B. burgdorferi may provide clues toward developing new treatments for Lyme disease. We are interested in the alternative sigma factor RpoS, which directs the expression of genes required for transmission and mammalian infection. The rpoS gene is transcribed as a long mRNA and then processed into a functional, short mRNA that is translated into the alternative sigma factor. We hypothesize that the long mRNA is processed by the riboendonuclease RNase Y, which is encoded by the rny gene. To test this hypothesis, I am generating a conditional rny mutant by replacing the native rny promoter with a synthetic flac promoter that can be artificially regulated by the sugar analog IPTG. This inducible rny mutant will allow us to experimentally control the amount of RNase Y in B. burgdorferi, so that we can genetically assay if RNase Y plays a role in rpoS mRNA processing.