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Feasibility and safety of impact‑loading exercise in patients with multiple myeloma—a pilot study
Get PDFPurpose Patients with multiple myeloma (MM) develop osteolytic lesions with fractures, pain, and impaired quality of life. Preclinical data show an anabolic effect of loading exercise in osteolytic lesions of MM. This 6-month pilot study evaluated feasibility and safety of impact-loading exercise in patients with MM after assessment of spinal stability. Methods We assigned 20 patients to perform 45 min of guided impact-loading exercise twice a week and home-based training once a week or stretching exercise twice a week. Primary endpoint was assessment of feasibility and safety. Secondary endpoints were assessments of physical performance, quality of life, and bone remineralization. Results Of 77 eligible patients with MM, 26% accepted participation. In the impact group, 9/12 and in the stretching group 7/8 patients completed training with adherence rates of 65.8 and 81.1%. Ninety percent of the stamping and jumping exercises were performed with increasing intensity from the prescribed training volume of ≥ 100%. Low severity pain events were reported after 32.9% of impact sessions. No serious adverse events were observed. After 6 months, 6-minute walk distance increased in the impact group by 35 m and in the stretching group by 46 m, and chair-rise test improved in the stretching group by 1.7 s. Global health status increased by 24.9% in the impact group, and functional scale by 31.9% in the stretching group based upon EORTC QLQ-C30. No signs of bone remineralization were observed in computed tomography. Conclusion Impact training is feasible and appears to be safe in selected MM patients
Enhancing densification of metakaolin-based geopolymers via the cold sintering process
Get PDFClay-based materials typically require high-temperature processing (>900 ◦C), resulting in high energy consumption. This study explores cold sintering of metakaolin (MK) powders to achieve high mechanical strength at significantly lower processing temperatures. By applying uniaxial pressure of 400 MPa and heating to only 240 ◦ C in the presence of 15 mol/L NaOH solution, successful densification of structurally sound and dense samples with an average density of 2.16 g/cm³ and a biaxial flexural strength of ~35 MPa was achieved. This strength surpasses that of conventionally sintered MK (1470 ◦C) by ~30 %. Densification was found to be governed by synergistic mechanisms involving MK exfoliation, conformal sintering around aggregates, and the precipitation of an amorphous sodium aluminosilicate hydrate phase. Crack formation was avoided through process optimization and verified using X-ray micro-computed tomography. These findings offer new insights into the chemo- mechanical mechanisms of cold sintering and demonstrate its potential as an efficient route for producing structural materials
Connected matchings
Get PDFWe show that each set of points in the plane in general position has a straight-line matching with at least edges whose segments form a connected set, and such a matching can be computed in time. As an upper bound, we show that for some planar point sets in general position the largest matching whose segments form a connected set has edges. We also consider a colored version, where each edge of the matching should connect points with different colors
Maker-Breaker resolving game played on corona products of graphs
Get PDFThe Maker-Breaker resolving game is a game played on a graph by Resolver and Spoiler. The players taking turns alternately in which each player selects a not yet played vertex of . The goal of Resolver is to select all the vertices in a resolving set of , while that of Spoiler is to prevent this from happening. The outcome of the game played is one of , , and , where (resp. ), if Resolver (resp. Spoiler) has a winning strategy no matter who starts the game, and , if the first player has a winning strategy. In this paper, the game is investigated on corona products of graphs and . It is proved that if , then . No such result is possible under the assumption . It is proved that if , otherwise , and that if , otherwise . Several results are also given on corona products in which the second factor is of diameter at most
Vibrational signal types recorded in two grassland habitats
No full textA dataset accompanying the publication López Díez J.J. et al. (2025): Spatial and temporal variation in vibroscape composition in two grassland habitats. Scientific Reports 15: 21910, https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.07.03.601657[.] Contains audio clips of identified Vibrational Signal Types (VSTs) extracted from vibroscape recordings made in Bistra (Central Slovenia) and Krkavče (SW Slovenia). Original vibroscape recordings from which the VSTs were extracted are available on request from the authors
Insights into surface microstructural engineering of Inconel 625 for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction performance
Get PDFA cross-sectional study of laboratory parameters 5–6 months after the first COVID-19 infection
Get PDFObjectives: Despite extensive study of COVID-19 disease, only a few studies also addressed the aftermath of the disease and potential long-term consequences. The aim of this study was to assess COVID-19 resolution through the cross-sectional analysis of an extensive range of haematological and biochemical laboratory parameters and to find potential markers still associated with disease severity 5-6-months post infection.
Methods: In this study, we analysed 92 routine biochemical, haematological and immunological parameters in 75 non-vaccinated patients 5–6 months after recorded first time SARS-CoV-2 infection without reinfection. Demographic and disease severity data were obtained through surveys.
Results: The majority of analysed parameters were within the normal reference intervals, however, statistically significant correlations with the disease severity were detected in 15 parameters: B lymphocytes, NK cells, interleukin (IL)-12, IL-1β, cortisol, ferritin, SARS-CoV-2 specific IgG and IgM antibodies, Na, Cl, creatinine, alkaline phosphatase, cholesterol, HbA1c and alpha 2 and beta 2 globulin fractions of the proteinogram.
Conclusions: Although most observed parameters returned to their normal reference intervals, significant correlations were still observed with disease severity, that could indicate either the pre-infection baseline state which affected disease outcome or minor remaining alterations in function of certain organs, pertaining their stress or damage during the acute phase of the disease