College of New Jersey

Progression in resistance training is a dynamic process that requires an exercise prescription process, evaluation of training progress, and careful development of target goals. The process starts with the determination of individual needs and training goals. This involves decisions regarding questions as to what muscles must be trained, injury prevention sites, metabolic demands of target training goals, etc. The single workout must then be designed reflecting these targeted program goals including the choice of exercises, order of exercise, amount of rest used between sets and exercises, number of repetitions and sets used for each exercise, and the intensity of each exercise. For progression, these variables must then be varied over time and the exercise prescription altered to maintain or advance specific training goals and to avoid overtraining. A careful system of goal targeting, exercise testing, proper exercise technique, supervision, and optimal exercise prescription all contribute to the successful implementation of a resistance training program.

Faigenbaum, AD, Kraemer, WJ, Blimkie, CJR, Jeffreys, I, Micheli, LJ, Nitka, M, and Rowland, TW. Youth resistance training: Updated position statement paper from the National Strength and Conditioning Association. J Strength Cond Res 23(5): S60-S79, 2009-Current recommendations suggest that school-aged youth should participate daily in 60 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous physical activity that is developmentally appropriate and enjoyable and involves a variety of activities (219). Not only is regular physical activity essential for normal growth and development, but also a physically active lifestyle during the pediatric years may help to reduce the risk of developing some chronic diseases later in life (196). In addition to aerobic activities such as swimming and bicycling, research increasingly indicates that resistance training can offer unique benefits for children and adolescents when appropriately prescribed and supervised (28,66,111,139,147,234). The qualified acceptance of youth resistance training by medical, fitness, and sport organizations is becoming universal (5,6,8,12,18,33,104,167,192,215). Nowadays, comprehensive school-based programs are specifically designed to enhance health-related components of physical fitness, which include muscular strength (169). In addition, the health club and sport conditioning industry is getting more involved in the youth fitness market. In the U.S.A., the number of health club members between the ages of 6 and 17 years continues to increase (127,252) and a growing number of private sport conditioning centers now cater to young athletes. Thus, as more children and adolescents resistance train in schools, health clubs, and sport training centers, it is imperative to determine safe, effective, and enjoyable practices by which resistance training can improve the health, fitness, and sports performance of younger populations. The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) recognizes and supports the premise that many of the benefits associated with adult resistance training programs are attainable by children and adolescents who follow age-specific resistance training guidelines. The NSCA published the first position statement paper on youth resistance training in 1985 (170) and revised this statement in 1996 (72). The purpose of the present report is to update and clarify the 1996 recommendations on 4 major areas of importance. These topics include (a) the potential risks and concerns associated with youth resistance training, (b) the potential health and fitness benefits of youth resistance training, (c) the types and amount of resistance training needed by healthy children and adolescents, and (d) program design considerations for optimizing long-term training adaptations. The NSCA based this position statement paper on a comprehensive analysis of the pertinent scientific evidence regarding the anatomical, physiological, and psychosocial effects of youth resistance training. An expert panel of exercise scientists, physicians, and health/physical education teachers with clinical, practical, and research expertise regarding issues related to pediatric exercise science, sports medicine, and resistance training contributed to this statement. The NSCA Research Committee reviewed this report before the formal endorsement by the NSCA. For the purpose of this article, the term children refers to boys and girls who have not yet developed secondary sex characteristics (approximately up to the age of 11 years in girls and 13 years in boys; Tanner stages 1 and 2 of sexual maturation). This period of development is referred to as preadolescence. The term adolescence refers to a period between childhood and adulthood and includes girls aged 12-18 years and boys aged 14-18 years (Tanner stages 3 and 4 of sexual maturation). The terms youth and young athletes are broadly defined in this report to include both children and adolescents. By definition, the term resistance training refers to a specialized method of conditioning, which involves the progressive use of a wide range of resistive loads and a variety of training modalities designed to enhance health, fitness, and sports performance. Although the term resistance training, strength training, and weight training are sometimes used synonymously, the term resistance training encompasses a broader range of training modalities and a wider variety of training goals. The term weightlifting refers to a competitive sport that involves the performance of the snatch and clean and jerk lifts. This article builds on previous recommendations from the NSCA and should serve as the prevailing statement regarding youth resistance training. It is the current position of the NSCA that: A properly designed and supervised resistance training program is relatively safe for youth. A properly designed and supervised resistance training program can enhance the muscular strength and power of youth. A properly designed and supervised resistance training program can improve the cardiovascular risk profile of youth. A properly designed and supervised resistance training program can improve motor skill performance and may contribute to enhanced sports performance of youth. A properly designed and supervised resistance training program can increase a young athlete's resistance to sports-related injuries. A properly designed and supervised resistance training program can help improve the psychosocial well-being of youth. A properly designed and supervised resistance training program can help promote and develop exercise habits during childhood and adolescence.

The quadruplex structures formed by guanine-rich nucleic acid sequences have received significant attention recently because of growing evidence for their role in important biological processes and as therapeutic targets. G-quadruplex DNA has been suggested to regulate DNA replication and may control cellular proliferation. Sequences capable of forming G-quadruplexes in the RNA have been shown to play significant roles in regulation of polyadenylation and splicing events in mammalian transcripts. Whether quadruplex structure directly plays a role in regulating RNA processing requires investigation. Computational approaches to study G-quadruplexes allow detailed analysis of mammalian genomes. There are no known easily accessible user-friendly tools that can compute G-quadruplexes in the nucleotide sequences. We have developed a web-based server, QGRS Mapper, that predicts quadruplex forming G-rich sequences (QGRS) in nucleotide sequences. It is a user-friendly application that provides many options for defining and studying G-quadruplexes. It performs analysis of the user provided genomic sequences, e.g. promoter and telomeric regions, as well as RNA sequences. It is also useful for predicting G-quadruplex structures in oligonucleotides. The program provides options to search and retrieve desired gene/nucleotide sequence entries from NCBI databases for mapping G-quadruplexes in the context of RNA processing sites. This feature is very useful for investigating the functional relevance of G-quadruplex structure, in particular its role in regulating the gene expression by alternative processing. In addition to providing data on composition and locations of QGRS relative to the processing sites in the pre-mRNA sequence, QGRS Mapper features interactive graphic representation of the data. The user can also use the graphics module to visualize QGRS distribution patterns among all the alternative RNA products of a gene simultaneously on a single screen. QGRS Mapper can be accessed at http://bioinformatics.ramapo.edu/QGRS/.

A taxonomy of part‐whole or meronymic relations is developed to explain the ordinary English‐speaker's use of the term “part of” and its cognates. The resulting classification yields six types of meronymic relations: 1. component‐integral object (pedal‐bike), 2. member‐collection (ship‐fleet), 3. portion‐mass (slice‐pie), 4. stuff‐object (steel‐car), 5. feature‐activity (paying‐shopping), and 6. place‐area (Everglades‐Florida). Meronymic relations ore further distinguished from other inclusion relations, such as spatial inclusion, and class inclusion, and from several other semantic relations: attribution, attachment, and ownership. This taxonomy is then used to explain cases of apparent intransitivity in merological syllogisms, and standard form syllogisms whose premises express different inclusion relations. The data suggest that intransitivities arise due to equivocations between different types of semantic relations. These results are then explained by means of the relation element theory which accounts for the character and behavior of semantic relations in terms of more primitive relational elements. The inferential phenomena observed are then explained by means of a single principle of element matching.

The health, fitness and other advantages of youth sports participation are well recognised. However, there are considerable challenges for all stakeholders involved-especially youth athletes-in trying to maintain inclusive, sustainable and enjoyable participation and success for all levels of individual athletic achievement. In an effort to advance a more unified, evidence-informed approach to youth athlete development, the IOC critically evaluated the current state of science and practice of youth athlete development and presented recommendations for developing healthy, resilient and capable youth athletes, while providing opportunities for all levels of sport participation and success. The IOC further challenges all youth and other sport governing bodies to embrace and implement these recommended guiding principles.

Computational approaches to drug discovery can reduce the time and cost associated with experimental assays and enable the screening of novel chemotypes. Structure-based drug design methods rely on scoring functions to rank and predict binding affinities and poses. The ever-expanding amount of protein-ligand binding and structural data enables the use of deep machine learning techniques for protein-ligand scoring. We describe convolutional neural network (CNN) scoring functions that take as input a comprehensive three-dimensional (3D) representation of a protein-ligand interaction. A CNN scoring function automatically learns the key features of protein-ligand interactions that correlate with binding. We train and optimize our CNN scoring functions to discriminate between correct and incorrect binding poses and known binders and nonbinders. We find that our CNN scoring function outperforms the AutoDock Vina scoring function when ranking poses both for pose prediction and virtual screening.

The corporate social responsibility literature has focused on creating broad associations, such as simply being “socially responsible,” and on the simple transfer of positive affect from sponsored causes to sponsoring firms. Both views fail to recognize the power of social initiatives as a means for differentiating among socially responsible firms and, in particular, for reinforcing the brand's positioning. The authors adopt a more traditional branding perspective and show that the fit between a firm's specific associations and a sponsored cause can reinforce or blur the firm's positioning, influence liking for the sponsorship, and bolster or undermine the firm's equity. They also show that communications decisions can mitigate the negative effects of low fit. Finally, they show that sponsorship effects can persist for as long as a year despite day-to-day exposure to other brand communications.

A new measure of Machiavellianism, the Machiavellian Personality Scale (MPS), was developed and validated over two studies. Machiavellianism is conceptualized as one's propensity to distrust others, engage in amoral manipulation, seek control over others, and seek status for oneself. Study 1 developed and tested the factor structure of the scale, whereas Study 2 provided evidence for the convergent, divergent, and criterion-related validity of the MPS. The results of these studies supported the a priori factor structure of the MPS and indicated that it is a valid predictor of such outcomes as job satisfaction, task performance, and counterproductive work behaviors.

Hypotheses about the association of school organizational characteristics with school crime and disorder were tested in a nationally representative sample of 254 secondary schools. Relatively small intra-class correlations suggest that most of the variance in the individual measures of school disorder result from within-school rather than between-school variation. Therefore only a small portion of this variation is potentially explainable by between-school influences. Nevertheless, school climate explained a substantial percentage of the variance in all measures of school disorder, controlling for the effects of community characteristics and school student composition. Schools in which students perceived greater fairness and clarity of rules had less delinquent behavior and less student victimization. Rule fairness and clarity did not influence teacher victimization. Schools with more positive psychosocial climates had less teacher victimization, but climate did not influence student victimization or delinquent behavior.

Two hundred and twenty-two tumors in 218 patients were collected from different institutions and doctors. Eight patients had died less than eighteen months after the diagnosis was made, one of an unrelated disease, the others as a result of their tumor. The remaining 210 patients with 214 tumors were followed for an average of 9.9 years, the range being two to thirty-four years. In each case, skeletal maturity, location of the lesion, roentgenographic findings, histological characteristics, and treatment were analyzed. Skeletal maturity, as evidenced by closure of the epiphyses, was present in all patients. This observation may explain the predominance of females (27:11) in the patients less than twenty years old. More than half (55 per cent) of the lesions were located in the lower end of the femur, the upper part of the tibia, and the lower end of the radius. Other sites were the sacrum, pelvis, proximal end of the femur and fibula, and the small bones of the hands and feet. The roentgenographic findings were sufficiently characteristic to be helpful but not diagnostic. They were influenced by previous treatment of fracture. The histological features permitted grading as suggested by Jaffe, Lichtenstein, and Portis30. However, the grading was not of prognostic value although it did serve to alert the surgeon to the possibility that the tumor was malignant. A consistently accurate prediction as to local recurrence or pulmonary metastasis could not be made on the basis of the histological grade. The treatment of the tumors in this series was performed by many surgeons and varied considerably. All patients had a preliminary biopsy. The primary surgical treatment ranged from curettage or excision, with or without bone-grafting, to amputation. The success of surgical treatment, whether by curettage or resection, appeared to depend on the completeness with which the tumor was removed. After primary curettage, thirty-five of forty-five tumors recurred; whereas, after primary curettage combined with bone-grafting, twenty-two of the ninety-one tumors recurred. After primary resection, ten of the forty-four tumors recurred, whereas, after primary resection combined with bone-grafting, four of twenty-two tumors recurred. Primary amputation was performed for ten tumors none of which recurred. After primary irradiation, six of ten tumors recurred. Ninety-seven per cent of the recurrences occurred within two years of the time that the initial diagnosis was made. At the time of this study, 189 of the 218 patients were alive and well, and twenty-nine had died. Of the 189 who were alive and well, 121 had had no recurrence after primary treatment and sixty-eight had required secondary procedures. Of the twenty-nine patients who had died, fourteen had died of their tumor, three of postirradiation sarcoma, and twelve of unrelated disease. Eighteen of the twenty-nine dead patients had recurrent lesions. In the whole series, 180 secondary procedures were performed, 140 on sixty-eight patients who survived and forty on the twenty-nine patients who died. Of the 140 procedures on surviving patients, eighteen were for infection, five for lung metastases, four for fracture or non-union of a bone graft, and 113 for fifty-nine recurrences. The forty procedures done on the patients who died included one for infection, one for fracture of the bone graft, two for lung metastases, and thirty-six for recurrences. Of the seventy-seven patients who had recurrent lesions, fifty-six had one recurrence; sixteen, two recurrences; and four, three recurrences. Success in the treatment of recurrences was observed after a second curettage with or without bone-grafting in nine of sixteen patients, after secondary resection with or without bone-grafting in sixteen of thirty-five patients, after secondary irradiation in five of thirty-six patients, and after amputation in thirty-nine of forty-six patients. Irradiation, used for ten primary and thirty-six secondary tumors, was clearly beneficial in eight, possibly helpful in nine, and clearly ineffective in twenty-nine. Three of the patients so treated had postirradiation sarcoma. The average follow-up of patients who had radiotherapy was 9.2 years (the range four months to thirty-four years). In five of the six patients with pulmonary metastases, lobectomy was successful.

Those aspects of Erikson's theory of psychosocial development concerning the formation of a sense of personal identity are examined in light of research evidence. When the Stage 5 component is considered as a bipolar dimension, the expectation is that the transition from adolescence to adulthood involves a progressive strengthening in the sense of identity. When the identity construct is expanded to include the processes by which an identity is formed, it is hypothesized that over time there will be progressive developmental shifts in identity status, that is, from the identity diffusion status into either the foreclosure or moratorium status, from the foreclosure into the moratorium status, and from the moratorium into the identity achievement status. The circumstances associated with progressive shifts, regressive changes, and reentry into an identity crisis are discussed. The review of the literature focuses on questions of the direction and timing of identity development, sex differences in development, and the identification of antecedent conditions relating to the choice of developmental pathways.

The Questionnaire for Eudaimonic Well-Being (QEWB) was developed to measure well-being in a manner consistent with how it is conceptualized in eudaimonist philosophy. Aspects of eudaimonic well-being assessed by the QEWB include self-discovery, perceived development of one's best potentials, a sense of purpose and meaning in life, intense involvement in activities, investment of significant effort, and enjoyment of activities as personally expressive. The QEWB was administered to two large, ethnically diverse samples of college students drawn from multiple sites across the United States. A three-part evaluation of the instrument was conducted: (1) evaluating psychometric properties, (2) comparing QEWB scores across gender, age, ethnicity, family income, and family structure, and (3) assessing the convergent, discriminant, construct, and incremental validity of the QEWB. Six hypotheses relating QEWB scores to identity formation, personality traits, and positive and negative psychological functioning were evaluated. The internal consistency of the scale was high and results of independent CFAs indicated that the QEWB items patterned onto a common factor. The distribution of scores approximated a normal curve. Demographic variables were found to predict only small proportions of QEWB score variability. Support for the hypotheses tested provides evidence for the validity of the QEWB as an instrument for assessing eudaimonic well-being. Implications for theory and future research directions are discussed.

BACKGROUND: Retrospective trials have reported that chemotherapy-induced cognitive dysfunction was experienced by a subset of patients with breast carcinoma. However, recent evidence indicated that a subset also exhibited impaired cognitive function at baseline, before the start of chemotherapy. A prospective, longitudinal trial that incorporates baseline neuropsychologic evaluations is necessary to determine to what extent cognitive dysfunction is attributable to chemotherapy in this population. METHODS: Eighteen women with breast carcinoma underwent a comprehensive neuropsychologic evaluation before treatment and at short-term and long-term intervals after chemotherapy. The incidence, nature, severity, and chronicity of cognitive dysfunction developing in patients with breast carcinoma treated with a standard dose of adjuvant chemotherapy were assessed. RESULTS: Before the start of systemic therapy, 33% of women in the current cohort exhibited cognitive impairment. At the short-term postchemotherapy time point, 61% of the cohort exhibited a decline relative to baseline in 1 or more domains of cognitive functioning and reported greater difficulty in maintaining their ability to work. The most common domains of cognitive dysfunction were related to attention, learning, and processing speed. At the long-term postchemotherapy time point, approximately 50% of patients who experienced declines in cognitive function demonstrated improvement, whereas 50% remained stable. Self-reported ability to perform work-related activities also improved over this interval. Neither impairment at baseline nor subsequent treatment-related cognitive decline exhibited any statistically significant correlation with affective well-being or with demographic or clinical characteristics. CONCLUSIONS: The current study is the first longitudinal trial to report evidence of an association between cognitive dysfunction and chemotherapy in a subgroup of women with nonmetastatic breast carcinoma. The importance of using prospective research designs, appropriate cognitive measures, and statistical methods to evaluate subgroup effects was discussed. Identification of mechanisms associated with cognitive dysfunction and of risk factors contributing to subgroup vulnerability is necessary.

Abstract This study focused on a specific risky practice common among contemporary college students: the hookup. Hookups are defined as a sexual encounter which may or may not include sexual intercourse, usually occurring on only one occasion between two people who are strangers or brief acquaintances. The aim of this study was to determine the relative importance of a variety of social and psychological predictors in understanding differences among undergraduate students who had never hooked up, those who had hooked up without sexual intercourse, and those who had hooked up with sexual intercourse. Analyses revealed that, as predicted, social, individual, and relational psychological variables helped to explain the variance among college students' varied hookup experiences. By examining the full range of sexual involvement characteristic of the casual sexual phenomenon of hooking up within a multivariate model, we were able to achieve a more differentiated understanding of college students' casual sexual experimentation.

Two hundred and twenty-two tumors in 218 patients were collected from different institutions and doctors. Eight patients had died less than eighteen months after the diagnosis was made, one of an unrelated disease, the others as a result of their tumor. The remaining 210 patients with 214 tumors were followed for an average of 9.9 years, the range being two to thirty-four years. In each case, skeletal maturity, location of the lesion, roentgenographic findings, histological characteristics, and treatment were analyzed. Skeletal maturity, as evidenced by closure of the epiphyses, was present in all patients. This observation may explain the predominance of females (27:11) in the patients less than twenty years old. More than half (55 per cent) of the lesions were located in the lower end of the femur, the upper part of the tibia, and the lower end of the radius. Other sites were the sacrum, pelvis, proximal end of the femur and fibula, and the small bones of the hands and feet. The roentgenographic findings were sufficiently characteristic to be helpful but not diagnostic. They were influenced by previous treatment of fracture. The histological features permitted grading as suggested by Jaffe, Lichtenstein, and Portis30. However, the grading was not of prognostic value although it did serve to alert the surgeon to the possibility that the tumor was malignant. A consistently accurate prediction as to local recurrence or pulmonary metastasis could not be made on the basis of the histological grade. The treatment of the tumors in this series was performed by many surgeons and varied considerably. All patients had a preliminary biopsy. The primary surgical treatment ranged from curettage or excision, with or without bone-grafting, to amputation. The success of surgical treatment, whether by curettage or resection, appeared to depend on the completeness with which the tumor was removed. After primary curettage, thirty-five of forty-five tumors recurred; whereas, after primary curettage combined with bone-grafting, twenty-two of the ninety-one tumors recurred. After primary resection, ten of the forty-four tumors recurred, whereas, after primary resection combined with bone-grafting, four of twenty-two tumors recurred. Primary amputation was performed for ten tumors none of which recurred. After primary irradiation, six of ten tumors recurred. Ninety-seven per cent of the recurrences occurred within two years of the time that the initial diagnosis was made. At the time of this study, 189 of the 218 patients were alive and well, and twenty-nine had died. Of the 189 who were alive and well, 121 had had no recurrence after primary treatment and sixty-eight had required secondary procedures. Of the twenty-nine patients who had died, fourteen had died of their tumor, three of postirradiation sarcoma, and twelve of unrelated disease. Eighteen of the twenty-nine dead patients had recurrent lesions. In the whole series, 180 secondary procedures were performed, 140 on sixty-eight patients who survived and forty on the twenty-nine patients who died. Of the 140 procedures on surviving patients, eighteen were for infection, five for lung metastases, four for fracture or non-union of a bone graft, and 113 for fifty-nine recurrences. The forty procedures done on the patients who died included one for infection, one for fracture of the bone graft, two for lung metastases, and thirty-six for recurrences. Of the seventy-seven patients who had recurrent lesions, fifty-six had one recurrence; sixteen, two recurrences; and four, three recurrences. Success in the treatment of recurrences was observed after a second curettage with or without bone-grafting in nine of sixteen patients, after secondary resection with or without bone-grafting in sixteen of thirty-five patients, after secondary irradiation in five of thirty-six patients, and after amputation in thirty-nine of forty-six patients. Irradiation, used for ten primary and thirty-six secondary tumors, was clearly beneficial in eight, possibly helpful in nine, and clearly ineffective in twenty-nine. Three of the patients so treated had postirradiation sarcoma. The average follow-up of patients who had radiotherapy was 9.2 years (the range four months to thirty-four years). In five of the six patients with pulmonary metastases, lobectomy was successful.

Kashdan, Biswas-Diener, and King (2008) provide a wide-ranging critique of eudaimonic theory and research. In this paper, I question whether the timing of their analysis is appropriate given that work on eudaimonic constructs has begun only recently. In an effort to increase the clarity regarding points at issue, both conceptual and operational definitions of hedonia and eudaimonia as two conceptions of happiness are analyzed along with definitions of four conceptions of well-being (subjective, hedonic, psychological, and eudaimonic), and both hedonism and eudaimonism as ethical philosophies. Responses are provided to numerous points in the Kashdan et al. (2008 Kashdan, TB, Biswas-Diener, R and King, LA. 2008. Reconsidering happiness: The costs of distinguishing between hedonics and eudaimonia. Journal of Positive Psychology, 3: 219–233. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) critique including their claims that work from a eudaimonic perspective (1) does not fully capture the philosophical roots of eudaimonia, (2) is overly abstract, (3) lacks clarity at the point of operationalization and measurement, (4) is overly complex thus preventing meaningful scientific inquiry, (5) provides evidence only for quantitative, not qualitative, differences, (6) is potentially elitist, and (7) misrepresents the moral standing of hedonia and eudaimonia. Evidence is presented in support of the view that hedonia and eudaimonia represent inter-related but reliably distinguishable and qualitatively distinct conceptions of happiness making independent contributions to an array of outcome variables. A set of recommendations is advanced as to how theory-building and empirical research can be strengthened in light of the multiple conceptualizations of happiness and well-being now current in the literature.

Psychologists have demonstrated the value of diversity--particularly diversity of viewpoints--for enhancing creativity, discovery, and problem solving. But one key type of viewpoint diversity is lacking in academic psychology in general and social psychology in particular: political diversity. This article reviews the available evidence and finds support for four claims: (1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years. (2) This lack of political diversity can undermine the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike. (3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority's thinking. (4) The underrepresentation of non-liberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination. We close with recommendations for increasing political diversity in social psychology.

The current manuscript has been adapted from the official position statement of the UK Strength and Conditioning Association on youth resistance training. It has subsequently been reviewed and endorsed by leading professional organisations within the fields of sports medicine, exercise science and paediatrics. The authorship team for this article was selected from the fields of paediatric exercise science, paediatric medicine, physical education, strength and conditioning and sports medicine.

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is used routinely in the development and validation of assessment instruments. One of the most significant challenges when one is performing EFA is determining how many factors to retain. Parallel analysis (PA) is an effective stopping rule that compares the eigenvalues of randomly generated data with those for the actual data. PA takes into account sampling error, and at present it is widely considered the best available method. We introduce a variant of PA that goes even further by reproducing the observed correlation matrix rather than generating random data. Comparison data (CD) with known factorial structure are first generated using 1 factor, and then the number of factors is increased until the reproduction of the observed eigenvalues fails to improve significantly. We evaluated the performance of PA, CD with known factorial structure, and 7 other techniques in a simulation study spanning a wide range of challenging data conditions. In terms of accuracy and robustness across data conditions, the CD technique outperformed all other methods, including a nontrivial superiority to PA. We provide program code to implement the CD technique, which requires no more specialized knowledge or skills than performing PA.

Bioprinting is an emerging technology in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The process consists of simultaneous deposition of cells, biomaterial and/or growth factors under pressure through a micro-scale nozzle. Cell viability can be controlled by varying the parameters like pressure and nozzle diameter. The process itself can be a very useful tool for evaluating an in vitro cell injury model. It is essential to understand the cell responses to process-induced mechanical disturbances because they alter cell morphology and function. We carried out analysis and quantification of the degree of cell injury induced by bioprinting process. A parametric study with different process parameters was conducted to analyze and quantify cell injury as well as to optimize the parameters for printing viable cells. A phenomenological model was developed correlating the percentage of live, apoptotic and necrotic cells to the process parameters. This study incorporates an analytical formulation to predict the cell viability through the system as a function of the maximum shear stress in the system. The study shows that dispensing pressure has a more significant effect on cell viability than the nozzle diameter. The percentage of live cells is reduced significantly (by 38.75%) when constructs are printed at 40 psi compared to those printed at 5 psi.