A fast reaction to visual stimuli is important for the success of any athlete. A fast reaction time enables a quick response in key situations. We have studied how age, sport engagement, moderate physical activity and lateralization affect the simple reaction time to visual stimuli in schoolchildren between the ages of 9 and 13. The reaction time to visual stimuli was statistically significantly shorter in older children compared to younger ones. The sport club basketball players who had been training and playing basketball for several years had a statistically significantly shorter reaction time to visual stimuli compared to schoolchildren of the same age from a rural environment who did not engage in sports. Moderate physical activity and lateralization did not significantly affect the reaction time values. The simple reaction time to visual stimuli was used in this study to evaluate the speed and explosive abilities of young basketball players. By training certain movements, we managed to improve their reaction time and thus influence the quality of their game. Integrating training of these skills into sport clubs and schools would affect the improvement of basketball performance and the prevention of injury.
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which encompasses two different phenotypes—Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC)—consists of chronic, relapsing disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. In 20–30% of cases, the disease begins in the pediatric age. There have been just a few studies that used fractals for IBD investigation, but none of them analyzed intestinal cell chromatin. The main aim of this study was to assess whether it is possible to differentiate between the two phenotypes in pediatric patients, or either of the phenotypes versus control, using the fractal dimension and lacunarity of intestinal cell chromatin. We analyzed nuclei from at least seven different intestinal segments from each group. In the majority of colon segments, both the fractal dimension (FD) and the lacunarity significantly differed between the UC group and CD group, and the UC group and control group. In addition, the ileocecal valve and rectum were the only segments in which CD could be differentiated from the controls based on the FD. The potential of the fractal analysis of intestinal cell nuclei to serve as an observer-independent histological tool for ulcerative colitis diagnosis was identified for the first time in this study. Our results pave the way for the development of computer-aided diagnosis systems that will assist the physicians in their clinical practice.
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