Introduction: The measurement of technique for an athlete has traditionally been performed in the laboratory where the required instrumentation is available and environmental conditions can be easily controlled. In this environment, dynamic characteristics of athletes are assessed using treadmills, rowing and cycling machines and even flumes and tethers for swimmers. In general these machines allow for the monitoring of athletes using instrumentation that cannot be used in the training environment, but instead requires the athlete to remain quasi-static, thus enabling a constant field of view for optical devices and relatively constant proximity for tethered electronic sensors, breath gas analysis etc. The use of accelerometers to measure activity levels for sporting, health and gait analysis is emerging as a popular method of biomechanical quantification of health and sporting activity. Detailed analyses of the fine structure of movements reveal critical performance characteristics, which potentially can shave milliseconds from lap times. The objective of this research was to measure the intra-stroke movement patterns for elite swimmers, specifically the timing of arm-stroke and leg-kick and provide new information to QAS swimming coaches on as the athletes are freely swimming in training and/or race simulation conditions.

We review the characteristics of the Orion/Eridanus bubble , its relationship to the Orion OB association, and the molecular cl ouds in the region. We discuss the relationship of the Orion region to other near by OB associations and cloud complexes including the Gould’s Belt system of sta rs and Lindblad’s Ring of gas. Gravitational fragmentation and collapse of th e walls of old supershells naturally leads to the formation of giant molecular c ouds that can explain the systematic motions in the Solar vicinity. We can use such a model to understand the evolution of the ISM and of star formation within ab out 600 pc of the Sun over the past 60 Myr.

To investigate whether apoptosis contributes to neuronal degeneration in bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), morphological changes consistent with apoptosis were sought and in-situ end labelling (ISEL) was applied, in a series of 20 BSE cases and 10 age-matched normal control cattle. Apoptotic changes were not found in neurons but were occasionally seen in glial cells. Relatively few ISEL-positive neurons were found, but many labelled nuclei were seen in glial cells in certain areas. None of the labelled cells showed morphological features of apoptosis. ISEL+cells occurred in areas of spongÍiform change and other areas of grey matter lacking spongiform change. Some association was found between degree of cellular DNA fragmentation and accumulation of abnormal prion protein (PrPSc). Interestingly, small or moderate numbers of T lymphocytes, not present in the normal central nervous system (CNS), were detected in the CNS parenchyma in most BSE cases. There was a pronounced astrogliosis, but markers of macrophage or microglial activation were only slightly increased. The results indicate that nuclear DNA vulnerability is enhanced in certain neuroanatomical areas in BSE, but evidence that apoptosis plays a role in neuronal loss in BSE was very limited.

Sporadically occurring non‐suppurative encephalitis appears to be a frequent condition of Swiss cattle. Fifty‐one such cases diagnosed over a period of 10 years were examined retrospectively to investigate whether they constituted one or more distinct diseases, and to search for aetiological agents. Three cases were characterised by periventricular granulomatous encephalitis, and most probably represented a different disease, but the remaining 48 cases had disseminated non‐suppurative encephalitis with widespread neuronal changes. Neuronal degeneration was very marked in the hippocampus of 10 cases and in the cerebellar Purkinje cells of 11. It was thought that the latter cases represented morphological variations of the same disease rather than a different disease because of their overlapping morphological features. The 48 cases had the following features in common: the disease had primarily neurological signs affecting mostly adult cattle, it was a sporadic condition, and there was a clear tendency for it to have a subacute to chronic course. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification for chlamydial DNA was negative except in one of 32 specimens, and immunohistochemistry did not demonstrate the presence of chlamydial antigens either in the one PCR‐positive case or in the other cases examined. Immunohistochemistry for rabies virus, Borna disease virus, and central European tickborne encephalitis virus was negative. In four cases, immunolabelled cells were found in the lesions with antibodies against paramyxovirus antigens.

In situ hybridization, (ISH) using a digoxigenin-antisense RNA-probe to detect chlamydial rRNA was applied to post mortem tissue of birds. The technique was optimized and validated using tissue from experimentally-infected chicken embryos. Tissue sections were also tested by immunohistochemistry (peroxidase-antiperoxidase reaction, PAP) for the presence of chlamydial antigen using a genus specific monoclonal antibody. In the chicken embryo tissue, ISH and PAP were comparably sensitive and specific (100% and 100%, respectively). ISH and PAP in general were correlated to microscopic lesions. For further comparison, ISH with PAP was applied retrospectively to tissues of 82 birds from which Chlamydia had been isolated, or which were suggestive of chlamydiosis. Using in situ hybridization 47 of 82 birds were found to be positive, and as were 23 of 82 birds with PAP. None of the ISH-only positive cases were found to be strongly positive. On the other hand, cases which were found positive with the ISH were also positive with other methods (PAP and isolation of Chlamydiae from chicken embryos). There was no close correlation between the positive cells and histological lesions. In spite of the higher sensitivity and specificity of the ISH, this technique is not suitable for routine diagnostic investigations. ISH is expensive, laborious, and time consuming.

We describe the use of a multi-aperture Hartmann mask coupled to a slightly out-of-focus focal plane array imager to monitor atmospheric turbulence ('seeing') produced by refractive index fluctuations. The imager (a CCD) is located inside or outside the focal surface of the imaging system so that each sub-aperture of the Hartmann mask produces an image well separated from all of the other images produced by the mask. Since the depth of focus of the sub-apertures is an order of magnitude larger than that of the parent optical system, the individual images are still diffraction-limited, We obtain short (10 to 100 msec) exposures and monitor the position fluctuations of the images. Analysis of the position and intensity fluctuations of the images can be used to determine the atmospheric parameter ro, the wind direction and velocity, and, under some circumstances, the distance of the turbulent layer from the observing site.