Search Results (375)

Background/Objectives: Defecatory straining requires coordinated abdominal-wall and lumbopelvic muscle activity to generate propulsive pressure. This study investigated whether sitting posture alters ultrasound-derived transversus abdominis (TrA) contractile behavior and trunk surface electromyographic (EMG) activity during simulated defecatory straining. Methods: Twenty healthy young adults (10 females and 10 males) performed quiet sitting and a maximal Valsalva maneuver in four standardized postures: neutral posture (NP), anterior trunk lean with anterior pelvic tilt (AT), posterior trunk lean/posterior pelvic tilt (PT), and collapsed posture (CO). TrA thickness was measured with B-mode ultrasonography, and the TrA contraction ratio was calculated as Valsalva thickness divided by resting thickness. Surface EMG root mean square amplitudes of the superficial multifidus (sMF), erector spinae (ES), external oblique (EO), and internal oblique (IO) were analyzed at rest, during Valsalva, and as an activation ratio (Valsalva/rest). Repeated-measures, one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni-adjusted comparisons was used. Results: Ultrasonographic measurements demonstrated excellent intra-rater reliability (ICC = 0.984–0.999). Resting TrA thickness did not differ among postures. During Valsalva, AT showed greater absolute and relative TrA thickness change than NP. EMG analyses showed higher absolute sMF and ES activity in AT both at rest and during Valsalva, whereas EO and IO activity during Valsalva did not differ among postures. The ES activation ratio was highest in NP among postures. Conclusions: Anterior trunk lean with anterior pelvic tilt was characterized by a distinct pattern of TrA behavior and posterior trunk muscle activity during a Valsalva-based simulated straining task. However, whether this posture-dependent muscle response increases intra-abdominal or rectal propulsive pressure or improves defecatory function remains unknown. The accompanying EMG pattern suggests that this advantage is associated with greater resting postural activation of the posterior trunk wall rather than generalized abdominal effort. Full article

Alpha-1 adrenergic receptor antagonists are widely used in the management of lower urinary tract symptoms, where they can induce ejaculatory dysfunction as a pharmacodynamic effect, particularly with α1A-selective agents. This observation has led to growing interest in their potential role as non-hormonal male contraceptives. This narrative review evaluates current clinical and preclinical evidence regarding the impact of α-blockers on the ejaculatory mechanism, with a focus on their potential application in male contraception. Both human and animal data were examined to contextualize the mechanistic basis for contraceptive potential. Evidence from clinical and pharmacological studies indicates that inhibition of α1-adrenoceptor-mediated smooth-muscle contraction in tissues involved in seminal emission, including the vas deferens, seminal vesicles, and prostate, can impair the emission phase of ejaculation. Agents such as tamsulosin and silodosin have been reported to induce anejaculation or markedly reduce semen volume, providing pharmacodynamic evidence of impaired seminal emission; however, these effects should not be considered equivalent to demonstrated contraceptive efficacy. Prospective clinical evidence currently includes one prospective pilot study and one randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial evaluating silodosin as a potential reversible non-hormonal male contraceptive. The prospective evidence includes marked and progressive suppression of sperm output and semen volume with repeated silodosin administration; at week 12, 94% of participants achieved a total sperm count ≤ 1 × 10⁶ per ejaculate, while the observed pregnancy incidence was 4% versus 17% with placebo. However, the available evidence remains insufficient to establish reliable contraceptive effectiveness for individual sexual exposures. Safety considerations, including cardiovascular effects and sexual dysfunction, also remain insufficiently characterized in healthy men. α1-adrenoceptor antagonists represent a biologically plausible pharmacologic strategy for male non-hormonal contraception by interfering with seminal emission and sperm delivery without directly suppressing spermatogenesis. Further pharmacokinetic–pharmacodynamic studies and rigorously designed multicentre clinical trials are required to determine the optimal dosing strategy, completeness and consistency of seminal emission suppression, contraceptive effectiveness, safety, acceptability, and reversibility of this approach. Full article

Background/Objectives: Expanded inverted repeats (IRs) occur in Rhododendron plastomes, but their extent and evolutionary context remain incompletely resolved because repeat-rich genomes can be difficult to assemble from short reads. Methods: We assembled and curated the plastome of Rhododendron spinuliferum using publicly available PacBio HiFi reads and evaluated whether the same junction architecture was present using Illumina PE400 reads from a different individual. Results: Bandage-guided graph resolution and junction-spanning reads supported a 209,482 bp quadripartite plastome comprising a 108,321 bp large single-copy (LSC) region, a 2629 bp small single-copy (SSC) region, and two 49,266 bp IRs. All four inferred junctions were supported by HiFi reads and were also detected in the independent Illumina dataset, and short-read mapping covered every reference position without zero-depth sites. In a broad within-genus survey of 26 structurally resolved Rhododendron plastomes, R. spinuliferum had the longest validated conventional IR in the curated dataset. Twenty-four plastomes shared a 19-gene expanded-IR core and retained ndhF in the SSC, whereas R. vialii and R. datiandingense represented extreme SSC contraction and short-IR architecture, respectively. Ancestral-state reconstruction identified the expanded-IR core as the most likely crown state. After one IR copy was removed, repeat density was not correlated with IR length, and comparison with R. delavayi showed that the additional IR sequence in R. spinuliferum was distributed predominantly across intergenic regions. Conclusions: These results provide a validated plastome resource and clarify the structural evolution of expanded IRs in the sampled Rhododendron plastomes. Full article

Foot muscles contribute to impact attenuation and propulsion during running, yet the effects of repeated toe-flexor contractions and associated strength loss on running biomechanics remain poorly understood. The primary objective of this randomized crossover study was to investigate the acute effects of repeated concentric and isometric toe-flexor contractions on hallux flexion strength, used as an index of fatigue; secondary analyses examined running ground-reaction-force outcomes. Nineteen recreationally active adults completed two interventions one week apart: concentric toe-flexor contractions and isometric toe-flexor contractions combined with electrical stimulation of the medial longitudinal arch. Hallux flexion strength and ground reaction forces during treadmill running at 9 and 12 km·h⁻¹ were assessed before and after each intervention. The concentric protocol reduced hallux flexion strength by 20%, whereas the isometric protocol did not. None of the hypothesis-driven running biomechanical outcomes, including contact duration, impact peak force, active peak force, and vertical stiffness, changed significantly after either protocol. Exploratory secondary analyses suggested changes in selected leg stiffness and impulse variables. In recreationally active adults, repeated concentric toe-flexor contractions induced measurable neuromuscular fatigue, whereas the isometric protocol did not significantly reduce hallux flexion strength; biomechanical changes were limited to exploratory outcomes. Full article

A fixed-odds contract on short-horizon price direction has a positive expected value only when its win probability exceeds the break-even rate implied by the payout ratio. A deployable predictor must also produce signals at a sufficiently stable rate. We formulate this setting as selective prediction with a coverage constraint and combine a five-seed gradient-boosting ensemble over a 90-dimensional causal feature panel with daily adaptive quantile thresholds, each estimated from the preceding 14 to 28 days of model scores, with parameters selected on training data alone. Configurations are frozen after three chronological pseudo-out-of-sample folds and evaluated on a held-out period from 1 January to 10 June 2026, and the whole procedure is then repeated on a quarterly re-freezing cadence over seven successive windows. Across BTC and ETH at 5- and 10-min horizons, with a payout of 0.8 and a 55.56% break-even rate, the models execute 10.4 to 11.0 trades per day, and all four selective win rates exceed break-even. Under a dependence-aware block bootstrap, three of four remain significant, and within a 32-test confirmatory family, two survive Holm–Bonferroni correction. Coverage stays inside the operational band in 26 of 28 re-frozen windows. Compared under one execution protocol, a fixed calibration slice drifts out of band while a trailing window does not, and adaptive conformal inference (ACI) matches the proposed rule on coverage when its step size is tuned but not otherwise, whereas an outcome-driven conformal controller reduces coverage by more than an order of magnitude. The expected value is insensitive to exchange fees, which consume under 5% of the measured edge, and sensitive to the payout term. Under matched feature sets, training pools, and coverage, most of the apparent cross-asset difference does not persist. This paper presents a proof of concept for the framework rather than making any claim about cryptocurrency predictability. Full article

Background: Steel club training is a form of strength and conditioning exercise that involves swinging weighted clubs through circular and pendular movements, thereby imposing substantial rotational and multiplanar demands on the trunk. However, the core muscle activation patterns elicited by these exercises remain poorly characterized. Purpose: This study aimed to characterize global, muscle-specific, and side-to-side core muscle activation across a battery of steel club exercises and compare it with that of conventional plank variations. Methods: A within-subject experimental design was used in a single-session laboratory setting. Fourteen trained males (n = 14) performed ten steel club exercise conditions (comprising seven distinct movement patterns, with unilateral variations performed bilaterally) using 8 and 16 kg clubs and four isometric plank variations; data from n = 13 were available for the Shield Cast 16 kg condition and the omnibus ANOVA due to one excluded signal. Surface electromyography was bilaterally recorded from the rectus abdominis, external oblique, internal oblique, and multifidus muscles and normalized to maximal voluntary contraction (% MVC). Repeated-measures ANOVA was used to assess global and muscle-specific differences across exercise conditions, and paired-samples t-tests were used to evaluate side-to-side differences. Results: Global core activation significantly differed across exercises (p < 0.001, ηp² = 0.798) and was generally greater during steel club exercises than during conventional planks. The Lateral Pendulum to Shoulder Cast (54.77 ± 9.32% MVC), Gamma Cast (47.79 ± 8.96% MVC), and Shield Cast (43.96 ± 11.25% MVC), all performed with 16 kg, elicited greater global activation than each of the four plank variations (all adjusted p < 0.05). The internal oblique showed the greatest activation across most steel club exercises, reaching 69.40 ± 12.18% MVC during the Lateral Pendulum to Shoulder Cast. Several unilateral exercises also elicited significant side-to-side differences, particularly Mills and Reverse Mills (all p < 0.05). Conclusions: Among experienced steel club practitioners, these exercises elicited exercise-specific, dynamic, and multiplanar core activation patterns, with several exercises—particularly those performed with 16 kg—producing greater global activation than conventional plank variations. These findings support steel club training as a complementary modality for dynamic core training, although the independent contributions of movement pattern and external load, as well as long-term adaptations, remain to be established. Full article

Background/Objectives: Hypertension remains one of the leading modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular disease worldwide. Although exercise is widely recommended as a first-line non-pharmacological intervention, adherence to conventional exercise programs is often limited. Isometric training, particularly wall squat exercise, has emerged as a promising alternative for blood pressure (BP) management. This study evaluated blood pressure changes following a 12-week isometric wall squat training program in adults with hypertension and explored whether these changes differed according to subsequent antihypertensive medication initiation. Methods: A quasi-experimental longitudinal study was conducted in 119 adults with medically diagnosed hypertension. Participants completed a 12-week isometric wall squat training program consisting of three weekly sessions, each including four 2 min contractions separated by 2 min recovery periods. Blood pressure was assessed at baseline, week 8, and week 12 using standardized procedures. Mixed repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to assess changes over time in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), with antihypertensive medication initiation included as a between-subject factor. Results: Mean blood pressure progressively decreased throughout the intervention. Mean SBP decreased from 148.0 ± 7.1 mmHg at baseline to 132.0 ± 10.7 mmHg at week 12 (Δ = −16.0 mmHg), whereas mean DBP decreased from 94.4 ± 4.9 mmHg to 85.1 ± 5.6 mmHg (Δ = −9.3 mmHg). Significant main effects of time were observed for both SBP (F = 321.61, p < 0.001, ηp² = 0.733) and DBP (F = 191.60, p < 0.001, ηp² = 0.621). No significant time × antihypertensive medication initiation interaction was observed for either SBP (p = 0.526) or DBP (p = 0.126). Conclusions: A 12-week isometric wall squat training program was associated with clinically meaningful reductions in systolic and diastolic blood pressure in adults with hypertension. These findings suggest that isometric wall squat exercise may represent a feasible, low-cost, and time-efficient complementary strategy for non-pharmacological blood pressure management. However, because of the quasi-experimental design and the absence of a control group, randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm these findings and establish the effectiveness of this intervention. Full article

Fragile X syndrome (FRAX) is caused by CGG repeat expansion in the FMR1 gene, which triggers aberrant DNA hypermethylation, chromatin condensation, and transcriptional gene silencing. However, the mechanism that underlies this repeat-induced epigenetic defect remains poorly understood. SMCHD1 is a chromatin regulator that promotes de novo DNA methylation and heterochromatin formation at long repetitive elements, including the D4Z4 macrosatellite repeat implicated in facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD). Given the mechanistic parallels between FSHD and FRAX, we hypothesized that SMCHD1 contributes to repeat-induced FMR1 hypermethylation. To test this, we disrupted SMCHD1 in an XY FRAX human embryonic stem cell (hESC) line carrying a heavily methylated CGG-expanded FMR1 allele. Despite efficient loss of SMCHD1, FMR1 hypermethylation remained unchanged, indicating that SMCHD1 is dispensable for FMR1 gene silencing. We next combined SMCHD1 knockout with CRISPR-mediated CGG repeat contraction to determine whether removal of the pathogenic mutation could restore the aberrant methylation. Nevertheless, FMR1 hypermethylation was preserved in all edited clones. These findings demonstrate that, unlike D4Z4 silencing in FSHD, FMR1 repeat-induced hypermethylation does not depend on SMCHD1 activity. Moreover, correction of the underlying CGG expansion through repeat contraction is insufficient to restore the normal hypomethylated state of the FMR1 locus in pluripotent stem cells. Full article

Tremella sanguinea is a morphologically distinctive gelatinous mycoparasite of Stereum within Tremellales whose generic placement has remained unresolved for lack of high-quality genomic resources. We combined Oxford Nanopore long-read sequencing, short-read whole-genome sequencing and Hi-C chromatin conformation capture to assemble the first telomere-to-telomere (T2T) genome of this species: 21.44 Mb in nine gap-free chromosomes, with telomeric repeats recovered at all 18 chromosome ends. Phylogenomic analysis of nine Tremellales genomes, including the type species of Phaeotremella, placed T. sanguinea within Phaeotremella as sister to P. skinneri (divergence 24.50 Ma; 95% HPD 22.14–26.89) rather than within Tremella sensu stricto, corroborating at genome scale a placement previously indicated by multi-locus data, providing the first divergence-time estimates for the lineage, and reconciling its position with its dark, foliose basidiocarp morphology. Gene family evolution was contraction-biased, most strongly at the Phaeotremella crown node (92 expansions vs. 855 contractions). The carbohydrate-active enzyme repertoire of T. sanguinea (185 genes) fell within the range reported for Tremellales, whereas families that expanded on its branch were significantly enriched for transport functions, including dipeptide and allantoate transport. These results indicate that T. sanguinea acquires host-derived nutrients through uptake of small molecules rather than through an expanded hydrolytic repertoire, and provide genomic evidence for revising its generic placement within the segregate genera of Tremella sensu lato. Full article

Background/Objectives: Brain pericytes are contractile mural cells of the neurovascular unit whose responses to endothelin-1 (ET-1) are mediated primarily by endothelin type A (ETA) receptors. ET-1/ETA signaling has been implicated in pathological pericyte contraction in neurovascular disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and in cerebrovascular dysfunction after subarachnoid hemorrhage, motivating pharmacological evaluation of selective ETA receptor antagonists at the pericyte level. Clazosentan is a selective ETA receptor antagonist used clinically for cerebral vasospasm; however, its pharmacodynamic effects on brain pericytes remain insufficiently characterized. Methods: Pericyte impedance-based contractile and recovery responses to ET-1 were evaluated by xCELLigence real-time cell index analysis. Pericyte viability, morphology, and ETA protein abundance were examined using Cell Counting Kit-8 assay, immunocytochemistry, and Western blotting. As a secondary barrier-related assessment, transendothelial electrical resistance (TEER) was measured in primary rat brain endothelial cell-based in vitro blood–brain barrier models. Results: ET-1 induced impedance-based contractile responses with a concentration-related trend, followed by recovery responses, and increased ETA protein abundance in a time- and concentration-related manner; clazosentan significantly attenuated ET-1-induced ETA upregulation. Repeated ET-1 exposure was associated with an enhanced subsequent ET-1-induced impedance-based contractile response and a more sustained response, suggesting contractile sensitization; both effects were significantly attenuated by clazosentan. Clazosentan did not overtly disrupt TEER-assessed barrier properties. Conclusions: These findings suggest that ET-1/ETA signaling may shift brain pericytes toward a sensitized contractile response state and that selective ETA blockade by clazosentan attenuates this process without overtly disrupting TEER-assessed barrier properties under the present in vitro conditions. These observations support further pharmacological characterization of clazosentan as a modulator of pericyte ET-1 responses. Full article

Reliable mechanical parameters are needed to predict deformation during staged slope excavation, yet deep inclinometer profiles are high-dimensional and repeated numerical inversion is costly. This study integrates principal component analysis, Gaussian process regression (GPR), and sequential Bayesian updating to infer six effective parameters from multi-stage horizontal displacement profiles of a highway slope in Shaoyang, China. FLAC3D simulations were performed for a 120-point Latin hypercube design. Three principal components explained over 99% of profile variance. Ten repetitions of five-fold cross-validation yielded mean PCA–GPR $R^2$ values of 0.9769–0.9945. Empirical coverages of the 95% marginal prediction intervals ranged from 93.2% to 96.0%, and the GPR predictive covariance was included in the likelihood. Truncated multivariate Gaussian approximations were used to transfer posterior means and covariance structures between excavation stages. A five-strategy comparison showed that adding Stage 3 reduced parameter standard deviations by 10.0–22.0%, followed by a further 11.1–32.2% reduction after Stage 4. Sensitivity and posterior-contraction analyses indicated stronger constraints on the stiffness parameters, whereas ${\varphi }_2$ remained weakly identifiable. The final posterior means reproduced the spatially held-out, within-site CX-2 profile with a mean absolute error of 0.18 mm. The framework quantifies the parameter-specific information gained from complete profiles across excavation stages; its findings remain conditional on the monitored site and the adopted modeling and error assumptions. Full article

To address three major industry pain points—the lack of quantified profit-sharing standards in the two-stage pricing under the separation model of military research and production, the absence of stable Nash equilibrium in single-layer synchronous optimization, and insufficient incentives for full-cycle process optimization in design units—this paper constructs a two-level Stackelberg leader–follower game model with the general contracting unit as the leader and design and general contracting units as followers. This aligns with current prototype incentives and phased pricing policies for production rewards and penalties. At the theoretical level, it improves the complete proof system for the two-stage concave profit two-level Stackelberg Nash equilibrium, distinguishes the mathematical differences in equilibrium existence between sequential decision-making and synchronous optimization, and extracts general rules for phased differentiated profit sharing: high-innovation segments should be allocated more profit weight; simply maximizing total alliance profit may cause imbalanced interests, while introducing a minimum net profit-weighted objective can achieve Pareto improvements without profit loss. This conclusion can be applied to multi-stage general contracting scenarios across industries, such as EPC and military–civil collaborative innovation, enriching the basic theory of profit sharing and hierarchical games. Theoretically, the existence of the lower-level Nash equilibrium is proven using Brouwer’s fixed-point theorem, and combining it with the strictly monotonically decreasing feature of the best response function, uniqueness of the equilibrium is derived. Multiple sets of differentiated initial values are simulated to rule out multi-equilibrium bifurcation risk. The model incorporates the military’s reward and penalty policies as rigid exogenous constraints, sets dual individual rationality constraints of ‘cooperative profit greater than baseline profit with no allocation, and both parties’ net profit non-negative,’ and introduces differentiated cost-reduction efficiency and quadratic increasing effort costs to characterize the heterogeneous input of the two types of development entities. For models with piecewise nonlinearity and multi-constraint nonconvex structures, this paper modifies the standard PSO into a Bi-PSO solving framework through hierarchical temporal adaptation. It does not innovate the underlying particle update mechanism and is only used to match the sequential decision order of the leader–follower game. By comparing five algorithms—IPM, GA, SA, DE, and adaptive PSO—through 20 repeated simulations: gradient-based interior point methods easily get stuck in locally invalid solutions that violate cooperation thresholds; differential evolution has the best numerical global search performance, but all general evolutionary algorithms optimize allocation and effort variables simultaneously, disrupting the Stackelberg hierarchical timing. Only Bi-PSO maintains consistent game logic. Using a pricing case for a certain type of equipment and jointly calibrating all parameters with policy documents, three simulation scenarios were set up: no allocation, equal 50/50 split, and single-layer profit maximization. Under the no-allocation mode, R&D investment from the design unit drops to zero and alliance benefits plummet; a blanket equal split ignores differences in technical contributions across two stages, leading to clear efficiency losses; single-layer optimization only pursues total profit maximization, causing a severe imbalance in profit distribution. The two-layer basic framework can achieve the upper limit of alliance benefits, and by adding a weighted optimization goal that considers both total profit and cooperation fairness, it can achieve equal net profits for both parties without reducing overall profit. Through single-parameter sweeps and two-factor heatmap simulations, the study further revealed the coupled effects of main party efficiency and mass production rewards and penalties on equilibrium input and optimal sharing ranges. A robust check was performed by replacing the logarithmic concave output function, producing a standardized allocation range resilient to parameter perturbations: optimal split for the prototype stage is 0.4–0.6 for the design unit, and for mass production stage 0.7–0.9. The findings suggest that high-contribution stages in multi-phase collaboration contracts should receive more benefits, and a weighted fairness objective can achieve Pareto improvements. These conclusions can extend to multi-stage collaboration scenarios such as EPC and military–civilian cooperation. Theoretically, this research further completes the equilibrium proof system for two-party concave payoff two-layer games, providing a new reference for the theory of phased differentiated benefit-sharing contracts in the military sector. Methodologically, it proposes a two-layer intelligent solving tool adapted to leader–follower sequential decisions, effectively mitigating issues where single-layer model equilibria fail or analytical algorithms struggle with multi-constraint nonconvex games. The results can provide quantitative support for the military, general contracting unit, and design unit in drafting equipment incentive pricing contracts and managing full-cycle cost collaboration. Full article

Muscle cramps are among the most common acute complications of hemodialysis (HD), often occurring even in the absence of electrolyte disturbances. Most cramps are painful and may cause patients to fear future dialysis sessions. We hypothesized that susceptibility to muscle cramps may be related to impaired skeletal muscle myokine secretion. No significant differences in pre-dialysis myokine levels were observed between patients with and without muscle cramps (myostatin 36.2 vs. 86.9 (p = 0.09), fibronectin type III domain-containing protein 5 (FNDC5) 0.6 vs. 0.6 (p = 0.61), interleukin-6 (IL-6) 2.4 vs. 2.0 (p = 0.4). However, after adjustment for lean tissue mass (LTM) and lean tissue index (LTI), myostatin levels were significantly lower in patients with cramps (0.80 [0.35–1.84] vs. 1.49 [0.45–6.31], respectively, (p = 0.048) for LTM, and 2.26 [1.04–4.06] vs. 3.89 [1.52–19.47], respectively, (p = 0.04) for LTI). In multivariable logistic regression analysis, log2-transformed myostatin concentration was independently and inversely associated with muscle cramps after adjustment for dialysis vintage, body mass index (BMI), and extracellular water. No association was found between muscle cramps and ultrafiltration volume or serum sodium and potassium levels. The study included 67 hemodialysis patients (HD patients), of whom 39 experienced repeated muscle cramps during dialysis. Muscle cramps were defined as painful involuntary muscle contractions lasting more than one minute during or shortly after a dialysis session. Plasma levels of myokines—myostatin, FNDC5, and IL-6—were assessed. Pre-dialysis myostatin, but not FNDC5 or IL-6, was independently associated with the occurrence of intradialytic muscle cramps. Further studies are needed to confirm its clinical utility. Full article

Background: Myricaria squamosa Desv., a perennial shrub of the Tamaricaceae family, holds significant ecological, medicinal and economic values on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. Methods: This study performed chloroplast whole-genome sequencing of M. squamosa and analyzed its genomic characteristics, codon usage bias, and phylogenetic relationships. Results: The M. squamosa chloroplast genome spans 154,689 bp, with a GC content of 36.3%. A total of 129 functional genes were annotated, including 84 protein-coding genes, 37 transport RNA (tRNA) genes, and eight ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes. Structural analysis revealed that contraction and expansion of the inverted repeat (IR) boundaries in Tamaricaceae species primarily involve the rps19 and ycf1 genes. We identified 214 simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci. Comparative genomic analysis indicated higher variability in the large single-copy (LSC) and small single-copy (SSC) regions compared to the IR regions, and greater divergence in intergenic spacers than in protein-coding regions. All protein-coding sequences contain a total of 26,045 codons, with leucine (2750) being the most frequent, and a pronounced preference for adenine/thymine (A/T) endings. Phylogenetic reconstruction revealed that M. squamosa is most closely related to Myricaria laxiflora. Conclusions: This study provides valuable insights into the chloroplast genomic structure, codon usage patterns, and SSR distribution of M. squamosa, contributing to genomic evolution studies and taxonomic revision within the Tamaricaceae family. Full article

Mechanomyography (MMG) records mechanical vibrations generated by active muscle contraction and may provide a simple field-applicable method for detecting post-loading muscle responses. This study aimed to characterize post-loading changes in multidimensional and time–frequency MMG features of the forearm flexor–pronator muscles after a repetitive gripping exercise. Eight healthy volunteers were assessed bilaterally, yielding 16 forearms for exploratory analysis. MMG signals were recorded before loading, immediately after loading, and 24 h after loading from the volar forearm region overlying the superficial flexor–pronator muscle group, anatomically corresponding to the flexor digitorum superficialis. The loading task consisted of repeated gripping using a 30 kg grip trainer. Multiple MMG trials at each time point were averaged within each subject-arm unit. Time-domain, envelope-based, spectral, band-power, wavelet-energy, and exploratory spectrogram-derived band-power features were extracted using a reproducible Python 3.12 pipeline (Google Colaboratory environment). Changes across time points were assessed using Friedman tests, followed by Wilcoxon signed-rank tests with a multiplicity adjustment. After the false discovery rate correction, 11 of 23 conventional MMG features showed significant time effects. These features were concentrated in amplitude- and energy-related domains, including RMS, envelope, peak-to-peak amplitude, signal energy, and wavelet energy. They decreased immediately after loading and increased at 24 h. An exploratory spectrogram analysis showed similar temporal changes in the absolute band power across predefined frequency bands, whereas the relative band-power distribution remained stable. These findings suggest that a multidimensional MMG feature analysis can detect post-loading changes in the superficial forearm flexor–pronator region after a repetitive gripping exercise. Full article