International Medal Research Articles

Explanatory Model for Elite Canoeists’ Performance Using a Functional Electromechanical Dynamometer Based on Detected Lateral Asymmetry

Canoe modality in flatwater canoeing has a clear asymmetrical nature. This study aimed (1) to determine the magnitude and direction of neuromuscular properties, range of motion (ROM) and lower-limb strength asymmetries in female and male canoeists; (2) to establish sex-individualized asymmetry thresholds for canoeists’ neuromuscular properties, ROM and lower-limb strength; and (3) to determine the relationship of canoeists’ neuromuscular properties, ROM and lower-limb strength asymmetries with a specific canoe–dynamometer performance test. Twenty-one international canoeists were assessed through tensiomyography (TMG), ROM, lower-limb explosive strength, and a specific canoe incremental dynamometric test. The magnitude of asymmetry assessed through TMG and ROM was not modulated either by sex or performance level (international medal vs. non-medal). Females showed greater asymmetry than males on muscle tone of the erector spinae towards non-stroke side (22.75% vs. 9.72%) and the tibialis anterior (30.97% vs. 16.29%), and Fmax in explosive leg press (2.41% vs. 0.63%) towards the stroke side. International medalists showed greater asymmetry in semitendinosus contraction time towards non-stroke side (20.51% vs. 9.43%) and reached Vmax earlier in explosive leg press towards stroke side leg (19.20% vs. 9.40%). A greater asymmetry in Fmax and in Vm, and a smaller asymmetry in Tvmax and in leg press showed a small predictive capacity for canoeists’ performance on a specific canoe incremental dynamometry test. Reporting reference data from world-class canoeists’ asymmetries can be of great importance for coaches to periodically control lateral asymmetry.

Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta Awarded Kew International Medal for Contributions to Science, Conservation and the Critical Challenges Facing Humanity

Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta Awarded Kew International Medal for Contributions to Science, Conservation and the Critical Challenges Facing Humanity

К 75-ЛЕТИЮ ПРОФЕССОРА Р.Д. КОСЬЯНА

On May 20, 2021, the head of the Laboratory of Lithodynamics and Geology of the Southern Department of the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor, Doctor of Geographical Sciences, prominent scientist and public figure Kosyan Ruben Derenikovich is 75 years old. R.D. Kosyan is a leading Russian expert in the field of studying the regularities of hydrogenic movements of detrital material in the coastal zone of the sea. He is a participant of many expeditions and thematic conferences, an expert on some major international projects, and lectures in various countries of the world. Under his leadership, a group of models was developed to calculate the long-shore sediment discharge, as well as the associated deformation of the relief in the coastal zone of the sea. R.D. Kosyan was awarded the Order of Courage, as well as the International Medal of the Black Sea Commission for merits in the study of the Black Sea. Congratulations to the wonderful scientist-oceanologist on the solemn date.

Physiological Profile Versus Fencing Performance in Elite Indian Male Fencers

Background: Fencing is a combat sport influenced by psychomotor abilities, explosive power and physical endurance. It requires anaerobic performance in bouts and aerobic performance to reach the tournament finals. The study was conducted to analyse the physiological profile of elite Indian male fencers in terms of anthropometry, aerobic fitness, anaerobic fitness and Fencing scores. Methods: 37 elite male fencers of a Sports institute volunteered to be part of the study. Results: Fencing score was significantly positively correlated with sports age (r=0.510, p=0.001) and Standing broad jump (SBJ) (r=0.408, p=0.012). Further, sports age and fencing scores were significantly positively correlated with national medals (r=0.610, p<0.0001), (r=0.659, p<0.0001) and international medals (r=0.532, p=0.001), (r=0.500, p=0.002) respectively. On Multiple Regression analysis, Sports age (β=1.300, 95% CI=0.437, 2.162), VO2max (β=0.753, 95% CI=0.266, 1.240) and fencing score (β=10.488, 95% CI=3.919, 17.058) were significant predictors of national medals. Height (β=0.069, 95% CI=0.025, 0.113), standing broad jump (β= -3.519, 95% CI= -5.731,-1.308), shuttle speed (β= -1.257, 95% CI= -5.731, -1.308) and fencing performance (β=1.235, 95% CI=0.410, 2.060) were significant predictors of international medals. Conclusion: Sports age and SBJ can predict fencing performance.VO2 max can predict national medals and height was a significant predictor of international medals won.

The path to international medals: A supervised machine learning approach to explore the impact of coach-led sport-specific and non-specific practice.

Research investigating the nature and scope of developmental participation patterns leading to international senior-level success is mainly explorative up to date. One of the criticisms of earlier research was its typical multiple testing for many individual participation variables using bivariate, linear analyses. Here, we applied state-of-the-art supervised machine learning to investigate potential non-linear and multivariate effects of coach-led practice in the athlete’s respective main sport and in other sports on the achievement of international medals. Participants were matched pairs (sport, sex, age) of adult international medallists and non-medallists (n = 166). Comparison of several non-ensemble and tree-based ensemble binary classification algorithms identified “eXtreme gradient boosting” as the best-performing algorithm for our classification problem. The model showed fair discrimination power between the international medallists and non-medallists. The results indicate that coach-led other-sports practice until age 14 years was the most important feature. Furthermore, both main-sport and other-sports practice were non-linearly related to international success. The amount of main-sport practice displayed a parabolic pattern while the amount of other-sports practice displayed a saturation pattern. The findings question excess involvement in specialised coach-led main-sport practice at an early age and call for childhood/adolescent engagement in coach-led practice in various sports. In data analyses, combining traditional statistics with advanced supervised machine learning may improve both testing of the robustness of findings and new discovery of patterns among multivariate relationships of variables, and thereby of new hypotheses.

The Life and Works of Solomon Epstein, MD, FRCP (1940–2020)

The Life and Works of Solomon Epstein, MD, FRCP (1940–2020)

Cysts of the Iris Pigment Epithelium. What Is New and Interesting? The 2016 Jose Rizal International Medal Lecture.

Cysts of the iris pigment epithelium (IPE) can involve the pupillary margin, midzone, or peripheral location or can be free-floating in the aqueous or vitreous or lodged in the anterior chamber angle. Avariant of IPE cyst, known as iris flocculi, can be a marker for systemic thoracic aneurysm. Review of IPE cysts and description of new observations of the lesions. Review of IPE cysts. Lesions in 672 eyes were classified as of the pupillary margin (n = 49; 7%), midzone (n = 188; 28%), peripheral (n = 424; 63%), or dislodged/free-floating (n = 11; 2%). Cysts of the IPE occurred most often in young adults (21-40 years) (n = 229; 34%) manifesting with peripheral or midzonal cysts. The characteristic clinical features of pupillary margin cyst were teardrop configuration at the pupillary margin, midzonal cyst with fusiform brown appearance, peripheral cyst as iris stromal bulge, dislodged cyst as a brown lesion in the angle, and free-floating cyst with round mass moving by gravitational forces in the aqueous or vitreous. Ultrasound biomicroscopy and anterior segment optical coherence tomography demonstrated the lesions. Surgical intervention for drainage/resection was rarely necessary (<1%). Some (<1%) cysts were associated with iris nevus, iris melanoma, or ciliary body melanoma. Pupillary margin cysts (flocculi) can be found with dissecting thoracic aortic aneurysm, related to genetic mutation in smooth muscle of the iris and aorta. Cysts of the IPE most often affect the peripheral region (iridociliary) and rarely require intervention. These cysts can be associated with underlying iris or ciliary body nevus or melanoma. Patients with iris flocculi should be monitored for dissecting thoracic aneurysm.

Kew International Medal is Awarded to Professor Sebsebe Demissew

TAXONVolume 65, Issue 6 p. 1467-1467 Plant Systematics WorldsFree Access Kew International Medal is Awarded to Professor Sebsebe Demissew First published: 01 December 2016 https://doi.org/10.12705/656.39AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume65, Issue6December 2016Pages 1467-1467 RelatedInformation

Society for Endocrinology International Medal Lecture

Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology ISSN 1470-3947 (print) | ISSN 1479-6848 (online)

Many roads lead to Rome – Developmental paths to Olympic gold in men's field hockey

This study examined the developmental sporting activities of the Olympic Champions 2012 in men's field hockey. The volume of organised practice/training and non-organised sporting leisure play in both field hockey and other sports through childhood, adolescence and adulthood was examined and compared between the Olympic Champions and (1) current national class players and (2) international medallists of one decade earlier. Analyses revealed that the Olympic Champions performed moderate volumes of organised field hockey practice/training throughout their career and attained their first international senior medal after accumulating 4393 ± 1389 practice/training hours, but they engaged in extensive other sporting activities during childhood and youth. It took them 18 ± 3 years of involvement to attain an international medal and they had engaged for 22 ± 3 years when winning the Olympic gold medal. The Olympic Champions did not differ from national class players in the amount of hockey-specific practice/training, but in greater amounts of organised involvement in other sports and later specialisation. They differed from the international medallists of one decade earlier in less increase of organised hockey-specific practice/training during adulthood and a longer period of involvement until attaining their first international medal. The sporting activities were characterised by sizeable interindividual variation within each subsample. The findings are reflected against the deliberate practice and Developmental Model of Sports Participation (DMSP) frameworks and are discussed with reference to the concept of long-term sustainability.

Turbulent times in mathematics: the life of J. C. Fields and the history of the Fields Medal

Despite the renown of the Fields Medals, J. C. Fields has been until now a rather obscure figure, and recovering details about his professional activities and personal life was not at all a simple task. This work is a triumph of persistence with far-flung archival and documentary sources, and provides a rich non-mathematical portrait of the man in all aspects of his life and career. Highly readable and replete with period detail, the book sheds useful light on the mathematical and scientific world of Fields' time, and is sure to remain the definitive biographical study. --Tom Archibald, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada Drawing on a wide array of archival sources, Riehm and Hoffman provide a vivid account of Fields' life and his part in the founding of the highest award in mathematics. Filled with intriguing detail--from a childhood on the shores of Lake Ontario, through the mathematics seminars of late 19th century Berlin, to the post-WW1 years of the fragmented international mathematical community--it is a richly textured story engagingly and sympathetically told. Read this book and you will understand why Fields never wanted the medal to bear his name and yet why, quite rightly, it does. --June Barrow-Green, Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom One of the little-known effects of World War I was the collapse of international scientific cooperation. In mathematics, the discord continued after the war's end and after the Treaty of Versailles had been signed in 1919. Many distinguished scientists were involved in the war and its aftermath, and from their letters and papers, now almost a hundred years old, we learn of their anguished wartime views and their struggles afterwards either to prolong the schism in mathematics or to end it. J. C. Fields, the foremost Canadian mathematician of his time, was educated in Canada, the United States, and Germany, and championed an international spirit of cooperation to further the frontiers of mathematics. It was during the awkward post-war period that J. C. Fields established the Fields Medal, an international prize for outstanding research, which soon became the highest award in mathematics. J. C. Fields intended it to be an international medal, and a glance at the varying backgrounds of the fifty-two Fields medallists shows it to be so. Who was Fields? What carried him from Hamilton, Canada West, where he was born in 1863, into the middle of this turbulent era of international scientific politics? A modest mathematician, he was an unassuming man. This biography outlines Fields' life and times and the difficult circumstances in which he created the Fields Medal. It is the first such published study.

Jan Rydberg Receives Carl Hanson Award 2008

This international medal is jointly awarded by the SCI and DECHEMA every three years to an eminent scientist in the field of solvent extraction. At the recent International Conference on Solvent Ex...

Training and performance characteristics among Norwegian international rowers 1970-2001.

This study quantified changes in training volume, organization, and physical capacity among Norwegian rowers winning international medals between 1970 and 2001. Twenty-eight athletes were identified (27 alive). Results of physiological testing and performance history were available for all athletes. Twenty-one of 27 athletes responded to a detailed questionnaire regarding their training during their internationally competitive years. Maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max) increased 12% (6.5+/- 0.4 vs. 5.8+/-0.2 L min(-1)) from the 1970s to the 1990s. Similarly, 6-min ergometer rowing performance increased almost 10%. Three major changes in training characteristics were identified: (1) training at a low blood lactate (< 2 mM) increased from 30 to 50 h month(-1) and race pace and supra-maximal intensity training (approximately 8-14 mM lactate) decreased from 23 to approximately 7 h month(-1); (2) training volume increased by approximately 20%, from 924 to 1128 h yr(-1); (3) altitude training was used as a pre-competition peaking strategy, but it is now integrated into the winter preparation program as periodic 2-3-week altitude camps. The training organization trends are consistent with data collected on athletes from other sports, suggesting a "polarized" pattern of training organization where a high volume of low intensity training is balanced against regular application of training bouts utilizing 90%-95% of VO2 max.

Chunli Bai Awarded SCI’s International Medal

Chunli Bai Awarded SCI’s International Medal

James Dewar, His Flask and Other Achievements

James Dewar is widely known today for his pioneering work in cryogenics. During his lifetime as well, he was amply recognized for that portion of his wide-ranging scientific work, receiving several international medals and the honor of being elevated to the British peerage as Sir James Dewar. Figure 1 is a photograph of Dewar taken in London at the height of his career, around 1900. The setting is the Royal Institution of Great Britain, where he carried out most of his cryogenics research. Dewar holds in his hands his most famous invention, the dewar flask. This double-walled container, constructed with reflective surfaces and insulated by an intervening vacuum, has been universally used to this day to store cryogenic fluids. So ubiquitous are these vessels in laboratories around the world and so frequently are they referred to by scientists in ordinary conversation that they are often simply called dewars. What is more, the general public has long made use of smaller versions of them as food and drink containers known as vacuum bottles or thermos flasks.

Le pharmacien Juan A. Dominguez initiateur de la pharmacologie argentine

Pharmacist Juan A. Dominguez, pioneer of the Argentine Pharmacology ; Prominent argentine pharmacist (1876-1946), organized the scientific study of the local medicinal flora, the determination of their constituents and ists therapeutical use, following the line of research started by the pharmacists D. Parodi, C. Murray, J.A. Boeri and P.N. Arata. He attained his degree in 1896 ; he traveled specially through France and Germany ; anew in his country he began botanical researchs as Assistant in the chair of Arata, teaching « Vegetal Micrography » ; later used to classify plants (1897-1898). He was appointed Assistant Professor of Pharmacognosy (1899) ; he published his first scientific paper in 1900 : ; « Pharmacological study of the gum named « brea » ; later, Contribution to the study of the ergot Sclerotium clavus D.C. , from a plant of Tierra del Fuego , southernmost of Argentina. In 1903 he recorded his studies on the argentine medical flora in one volumen « Datos para la Materia Medica Argentina » by which he received the « Felix de Azara Prize » from the National Academy of Medicine. In 1905 he also received the Scientific International Medal from the Academie Internationale de Botanique . He donated to the Medical Faculty his very valuable herbaria and collections of drugs and woods and other argentine natural products that later would constitute the Botanical and Pharmacological Institute - now called J.A. Dominguez - being an excellent medium for cooperative laboratory work, promoting systematic and phytochemical research pertaining to medical plants with the participation of eminent professionals as E. Autran, E. Hassler, C.H. Hicken, M. Lillo, C. Spegazzini, L. Hauman, and for the teaching of and research in Pharmaceutical Botany an Pharmacognosy. In 1928 his 3 volume work « Materia Medica » was awarded with nie National Prize of Sciences. He was appointed professor of Pharmacognosy (1914) and he initiated the chair of Argentine Pharmacology (1921). On account of his great scientific work he was appointed Doctor Honoris Causa, the highest distinction awarded by die University of Buenos Aires. Dominguez organized the Botanical Museum, the greatest contribution to the argentine Botany : 500 000 specimens belonging to 40000 species, the 70 % of the argentine flora. It also contains the medical archives and the letters vith Humboldt of the famous french physician and naturalist Aime Bonpland in part published by Dominguez.

ジェイムズ・ワット国際賞受賞に際して

ジェイムズ・ワット国際賞受賞に際して

The Mees Medal

In mid‐March, during, its spring meeting in Washington, D.C., the Optical Society of America announced the establishment of the C. E. K. Mees International Medal in memory of the late C. E. K. Mees, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company Research Laboratories. The silver medal, which bears the motto “Optics Transcends All Boundaries”, was established with the help of a gift from Dr. Mees' family and will be awarded by the Optical Society as a means of recognizing “the extension of the frontiers of optics as Mees himself extended photography”. A relief portrait of Dr. Mees appears on the medal's face; the reverse side bears a chart showing the history of the extension of the photographic spectrum.

James Watt International Medal of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers: Dr. H. H. Blache

James Watt International Medal of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers: Dr. H. H. Blache

Presentation of the James Watt International Medal

Presentation of the James Watt International Medal