Plasma microRNA-320a as a Potential Biomarker of Physiological Changes during Training in Professional Volleyball Players

A deeper insight into the mechanisms responsible for athlete performance that may serve as specific and detailed training indicators is still desired, because conventionally used biomarkers provide limited information about the adaptive processes that occur during exercise. The objective of our study was to assess insulin-like growth factor 1 receptors (IGF1R) gene expression and evaluate plasma concentration of selected microRNAs (miRNAs) during a 10-week training period (sampling times: week 1, 4, 7, and 10) in a group of 12 professional female volleyball players. Circulating miRNAs (miR-223, miR-320a, and miR-486) with established concentration in plasma and documented association with the IGF1 signaling pathway, which is involved in muscle development and recovery, were tested. The levels of analyzed miRNAs, tested by one-way ANOVA, were significantly different between four training periods during a 10-week training cycle (miR-223 p < 0.0001, miR-320a p = 0.00021, miR-486 p = 0.0037, respectively). The levels of IGF1R also appeared to be different (p = 0.00092), and their expression showed a trend to increase between the first and third periods. In the fourth period, the expression decreased, although it was higher compared with the baseline. Correlations between concentration levels of miR-223 and miR-320a (rs = 0.54, p < 0.001), as well as between miR-320a and miR-486 (rs = 0.73, p < 0.001) were also found. In the fourth period, a negative correlation between miR-223 plasma level and leucocyte IGF1R expression was found (rs = −0.63, p = 0.028). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that miR-320a (p = 0.024) and creatine kinase (p = 0.028) had the greatest impact on the expression levels of the IGF1R gene. Future studies are required to define whether these miRNAs, especially miR-320a, as well as IGF1R expression could be useful biomarkers of physiological changes during exercise and to discover their detailed biological roles in mode-specific exercise training adaptations of professional athletes.

Effectiveness of the dementia nursing competence e-learning program for nurses in acute care hospitals in Japan

Objective The number of older patients with dementia hospitalised in acute care hospitals increased and these patients underwent physical restrictions leading to a degeneration of essential mental and physical function. The dementia nursing competence e-learning program with audio-visual materials has been developed in acute care hospitals. Methods An application form that explained the research was distributed to 1,944 registered nurses from seven hospitals, and 110 people applied. Nurses used an e-learning program for a month in May and practiced applying the knowledge learned from programs June through November 2020. The nurses completed a questionnaire survey at four periods: first (before program/baseline), second (after program), third (three months later), and fourth (six months later). In the second, third, and fourth periods, ‘Technical knowledge of the dementia nursing’ and ‘dementia nursing intervention’ were significantly improved as compared with the first. In the fourth period, ‘confidence of reduce of physical restriction’ showed significant improvement compared to the first. In ‘Ethical sensitivity scale of nurses’, the first of the four sub-scales significantly increased as compared with the first period. In ‘Self-assessment Scale of Nursing Practice for Elderly Patients with Cognitive Impairment with the Aim of Person-centred Care in Acute Care Hospitals’, the fourth sub-scale showed significant improvement compared to the first. In the ‘Personhood’ sub- scale of the Japanese version of Approaches to Dementia Questionnaire, the fourth period showed a significant increase compared to the first. Conclusion The results suggest that this program was effective and led to reduced physical restrictions in nursing practice.

Effect of Pelleted Fermented Feed in Production Performance of Laying Hens

lactobacilli, Bacillus subtills, Bifidobacterium, Saccharomyces cerevisiae were applied to produce fermented feeds (FF), The FF was pelleted to investigated for its influences in production performance for laying hens, the (FF) was ferment with 10 g/kg feed of the probiotic with a wetting ratio of half a liter/kg of feed for 48 hours where it was used at rates 0, 25%, 50 %, 75%, and 100% for the treatments T1, T2, T3, T4, and T5 respectively, and the duration of the study lasted for seven periods, each period was two weeks, as for the following study results: Significant superiority (P<0.05) for treatment T5 during The first and sixth period and the treatment T4 during the second, third and fourth periods compared with the control treatment in the percentage of egg production, in egg weight significantly increased (P<0.05) of treatment T3 in the second, sixth and seventh periods, and treatment T4 during the third period exceeded treatment T5 during the fourth period, men while in the feed conversion factor, T4 treatment improved significantly (P≤0.05) during the third period and together with The treatment of T5 during the fourth period and all treatments of (FF) in the fifth period and the treatments T3, T5 in the sixth period and the treatment T3 in the seventh period, a significant (P<0.05) superiority was obtained for the treatments T4 and T5 during the second, third, fourth and sixth periods in the cumulative egg production and egg mass.

The idiosyncratic risk during the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia

Conservatism in the CAPM and L-CAPM standards often emphasizes systematic risk to explain the phenomenon of the risk-return relationship and ignores idiosyncratic risk with the assumption that the risk can be diversified. The effect of the Covid-19 outbreak raises the question of whether the idiosyncratic risk can still be ignored considering that the risk has a close relationship to firm-specific risk. This study sets a portfolio consisting of 177 active public firms in the Indonesia Stock Exchange before and after the Covid-19 pandemic. On portfolio set, idiosyncratic risk is estimated by the standard CAPM and L-CAPM in the observation range from January 2, 2019, to June 30, 2021. The results of the analysis show that L-CAPM and CAPM produce significantly different idiosyncratic risks. Empirical evidence shows that the highest firm-specific risk is in the third period and has a stable condition since the fourth period. This condition is confirmed by regression results that idiosyncratic risk together with systematic risk positively affects stock returns in the fourth period as suggested by the efficient market hypothesis. Uniquely, both systematic risk and idiosyncratic risk based on L-CAPM do not show a significant effect on stock returns in the fifth period, so it is a strong indication that liquidity is an important factor that must be considered in making investments.

Effect of Pelleted Fermented Feed-in Egg Quality of Laying Hens

lactobacilli, Bacillus subtills, Bifidobacterium, Saccharomyces cerevisiae were applied to produce fermented feeds (FF), The FF was pelleted to investigated for its influences on egg quality for laying hens, the (FF) was ferment with 10 g / kg feed of the probiotic with a wetting ratio of half a liter/kg of feed for 48 hours where it was used at rates 0, 25%, 50 %, 75%, and 100% for the treatments T1, T2, T3, T4, and T5 respectively, and the duration of the study lasted for seven periods, each period was two weeks, as for the following study results: Significant superiority (P≤0.05) for all FF treatments during the second period and treatment T5 during the third and sixth periods, and for treatments T3, T4 and T5 during the fourth period in the shell weight. As for the shell thickness, a significant superiority (P≤0.01) was obtained for treatment T3 in the fourth period and for treatment T2 in the fifth, sixth, and seventh periods, and in the yolk height, there were a significant superiority (P≤0.01) for the treatment T4 during the first, second and seventh periods, and for the treatments T2 and T5 during the fourth and fifth periods, as for the yolk diameter, a significant superiority (P≤0.01)was obtained for the treatments T2, T3 and T4 in the fourth and fifth periods, and T2 during the seventh period, and in albumen height, a significant (P≤0.01) was increased for the treatments T3, T4, and T5 during the second period, and a significant superiority was obtained for treatment T5 in the fifth period and a significant superiority for the two treatments T1 and T2 in the seventh period.

Bertrand Russell, Fu Tong, and the Emergence of Scientific Secularism in Early 1920s China

In the May Fourth period (1917–1921), the Chinese intellectual world saw the emergence of various forms of secularism, which culminated around the year 1922, when a nationwide non-religious movement was formed. The Western-educated philosopher Fu Tong influenced and contributed to the discourse on science and religion in the early 1920s, and his philosophy of religion served as a conduit for the introduction of Bertrand Russell’s ideas about religion into Chinese public and intellectual discourses. This article establishes a connection between Fu and the lectures on religious belief that Russell delivered in Peking in January 1921 and documents the transfer of ideas from Russell to Fu’s philosophical writings on religion between 1921 and 1922. In its central analysis, the article focuses on Fu’s philosophy of religion and his theory of scientific secularism, which he developed as a critique of the Marxist-led non-religious movement from 1922 onward. The discussion also sheds light on the network of intellectual connections underlying the emergence of the notion of scientific secularism in 1920s China.

Particularities of Initial Selection of Primary School Age Sambo Wrestlers Based on the Study of Psychomotor Abilities

The purpose of the study was to identify the particularities of psychomotor abilities in 8-9 years old sambo athletes in the process of initial sport selection. Material and methods. The research presents an algorithm of the leading factors of the step-by-step selection of 165 8-9-year-old pupils for sambo wrestling. The first stage of selection was a thorough checkup, which determined that more than 50 % of the total number of pupils had disturbance of morphology and functionality of different body systems, there remained 68 examinees. At the third stage of selection the identification of intellectual abilities showed that only 73.53 % of pupils out of 68 (i.e. 50 pupils) had an average level of attention stability. According to the appreciation of psychomotor abilities of pupils we identified a decrease on the examinees number with 20 % out of 50 pupils. At the special stage of selection 17.5 % of 8-9 years old pupils, in 70 % of cases (i.e. for the majority of tests) failed to execute the requirements for motor abilities and coordination capacity. The basic experiment was elaborated and realized on the basis of an yearlong pedagogical experiment for which we organized two experimental study groups of sambo wrestlers in their first year of sport training: control group, that included 15 pupils that did not undergo any special selection, and the experimental group, consisting of 15 8-9 years old pupils that were specially selected. We created identical conditions for the learning and training process throughout a year for both groups. However, only in the experimental group we included the experimental methodology of sport diagnostics that contained a complex of scientifically based criteria and conditions. Results and discussion. During the experiment we identified the indices of “timely” reaction of the sambo wrestlers in the control group which improved only by 6 %, compared to the experimental group (57% more compared to the indices at the beginning of the experiment). It presented the dynamics of the tapping test of the sambo wrestlers in the control and experimental groups, from the first to the fourth period. The dynamics showed the local tiredness of the nervous and muscular system of the body, caused by the depression of their brain motor centers, which increased in both groups, but had a visible tendency of aggravation to the fourth period in the control group (from the first to the fourth period – within the limits of 62.80 %) compared to the experimental group, where the speed of elementary movements of children in the tapping test decreased inconclusively in every time period. Thus, at the end of the second period the results of the experimental group decreased by 11.25 %, to the end of the third period they lowered by 36.62 %, to the end of the fourth period they decreased by 15.55 % of the data of the previous period, which in conclusion comprised the decrease from the first to the fourth period up to 63.42 %. Conclusion. Thus, the veridically relevant situation of psychomotor development in the experimental group of sambo wrestlers, in our opinion, became possible due to their preliminary readiness (selection results) and the active experimental training action on them

Problems of Pension Development in Ukraine in the Context of Social Protection

The article analyzes the pension system in Ukraine as a component of social protection. The structure of the three-tier pension system is given. The principles of realization of the process of reforming the pension system of Ukraine are determined. Problems of domestic development of pension provision are considered in stages. The first stage (1991-2004) was the period of Ukraine's use of the old norms on pensions, which was characteristic of the command-and-control economy. The second period (2004-2009) is a period of active discussion and adoption of a number of documents on the construction of a three-tier pension system. 2010-2014 – the third period of significant changes in the mandatory pension insurance. The fourth period – 2014-2018 – the period of introduction of strict restrictions and freezing of pension indexation. The dynamics of expenditures and revenues of the Pension Fund of Ukraine for 2016-2019 is analyzed. It is determined that the main reasons for the increase in arrears of payments to the Pension Fund are: non-payment of obligations on the amount of SDRs by individual entrepreneurs; lack of funds to finance current liabilities of state-owned enterprises to reimburse the amounts of actual costs for the payment and delivery of preferential pensions and debt repayment.

Looking, Reading, and Intertextuality in Ding Ling's “Shafei nüshi de riji” 莎菲女士的日記 (Miss Sophia's Diary)

This article examines Ding Ling's 丁玲 (1904–86) practice of intertextuality in her famous 1927 story “Shafei nüshi de riji” 莎菲女士的日記 (Miss Sophia's Diary) by means of the Bakhtinian concept of dialogism. Sophia's diary is in dialogue with a plethora of texts she has read or encountered before. Ding Ling uses these intertexts to shed light on Sophia's negotiations with the New Woman's identity, as well as with the medium of the written word. At the same time, Sophia's diary is perennially in dialogue with anticipated readers or interlocutors. The story's thematization of reading is inseparable from the motifs of looking and gazing: just as Sophia is constantly preoccupied with how people look at her, she is anxious about how her diary will be read. Thus, her diary has an inherently dialogical stance as Sophia flirts with different intertextual ways of defining herself, always implicitly in contention with others who might view or read her otherwise. The article ends by reflecting on the resonances between Sophia's textual flirtations and the story's depictions of erotic desire, suggesting that the idea of promiscuity emerges as a figure for the practice of intertextuality during the May Fourth period.