Effects of a Massage Protocol in Tensiomyographic and Myotonometric Proprieties

Background: Pre-competition massage is usually used to improve athletic performance and reduce risk of injury. Despite its usual use, the effects of pre-competition massage on neuromuscular function have barely been studied. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of the pre-competition massage over the gastrocnemius neuromuscular function. Method: The study is a quasi-experimental clinical trial thirty healthy athletes were enrolled in the study. Subjects received an intervention in one leg (experimental), consisting of a massage, and no intervention in the opposite leg (control). From all values of neuromuscular function, the following were analyzed: contraction time (Tc) and maximal displacement (Dm) by tensiomyography, and stiffness and tone by myotonometry. Results: Main effects of pre-competition massage on neuromuscular function include a significant (p < 0.05) increase in Tc and Dm variables, as well as a reduction in stiffness and tone. Conclusion: Data shows an increase in Tc and maximal radial displacement (Dm) variables, as well as a reduction in stiffness and tone. More quality studies are needed to draw clear conclusions about the effects of pre-competition massage.

Caffeine-Induced Effects on Human Skeletal Muscle Contraction Time and Maximal Displacement Measured by Tensiomyography

Studies on muscle activation time in sport after caffeine supplementation confirmed the effectiveness of caffeine. The novel approach was to determine whether a dose of 9 mg/kg/ body mass (b.m.) of caffeine affects the changes of contraction time and the displacement of electrically stimulated muscle (gastrocnemius medialis) in professional athletes who regularly consume products rich in caffeine and do not comply with the caffeine discontinuation period requirements. The study included 40 professional male handball players (age = 23.13 ± 3.51, b.m. = 93.51 ± 15.70 kg, height 191 ± 7.72, BMI = 25.89 ± 3.10). The analysis showed that in the experimental group the values of examined parameters were significantly reduced (p ≤ 0.001) (contraction time: before = 20.60 ± 2.58 ms/ after = 18.43 ± 3.05 ms; maximal displacement: before = 2.32 ± 0.80 mm/after = 1.69 ± 0.51 mm). No significant changes were found in the placebo group. The main achievement of this research was to demonstrate that caffeine at a dose of 9 mg/kg in professional athletes who regularly consume products rich in caffeine has a direct positive effect on the mechanical activity of skeletal muscle stimulated by an electric pulse.

Li–He’s modified homotopy perturbation method coupled with the energy method for the dropping shock response of a tangent nonlinear packaging system

This paper couples Li–He’s homotopy perturbation method with the energy method to obtain an approximate solution of a tangent nonlinear packaging system. A higher order homotopy equation is constructed by adopting the basic idea of the Li–He’s homotopy perturbation method. The energy method is used to improve the maximal displacement and the frequency of the system to an ever higher accuracy. Comparison with the numerical solution obtained by the Runge–Kutta method shows that the shock responses of the system solved by the new method are more effective with a relative error of 0.15%.

Enhanced Performance of Fabry–Perot Tunable Filter by Groove Geometry Design of Double Folded Cantilever

Different grooves (v-shaped groove, trapezoidal groove and rectangular groove) are introduced into the traditional double-folded cantilever of Fabry–Perot Tunable Filter (FPTF) for the optical sensor. Using finite element simulation, the influence of groove geometry on the voltage–displacement relationship, stress distribution and reflector flatness of the FPTF are studied. The results show that the reflector supported by double folded cantilever with rectangular groove has a maximal displacement of 0.88 μm under 8 V driving voltage, which is 95% higher than double folded cantilever without groove. At 0.5 μm, the best flatness (warping angle of reflector) is only 0.0032° for reflector supported by double folded cantilever with rectangular groove, where the generated maximal stress in the double folded cantilever is 8.49 MPa. Compared with other double folded cantilevers with v-shaped groove, trapezoidal groove and without groove, the unique properties of double folded cantilever with rectangular groove are attributed to lower elastic modulus. The double folded cantilever with rectangular groove enlarges displacement results in wide range of bandpass wavelength of FPTF, and a best flatness to enhance the monochrome of bandpass wavelength.

Optimizing the Maximal Perturbation in Point Sets while Preserving the Order Type

Recently a new kind of fiducial marker based on order type (OT) has been proposed. Using OT one can unequivocally identify a set of points through its triples of point orientation, and therefore, there is no need to use metric information. These proposed order type tags (OTTs) are invariant under a projective transformation which allows identification of them directly from a photograph. The magnitude of noise in the point positions that a set of points can support without changing its OT, is named the maximal perturbation (MP) value. This value represents the maximal displacement that any point in the set can have in any direction without changing the triplet’s orientation in the set. A higher value of the MP makes an OTT instance more robust to perturbations in the points positions. In this paper, we address the problem of how to improve the MP value for sets of points. We optimize “by hand” the MP for all the 16 subsets of points in the set of OTs composed of six points, and we also propose a general algorithm to optimize all the sets of OTs composed of six, seven, and eight points. Finally, we show several OTTs with improved MP values, and their use in an augmented reality application.