Shoulder injuries in football are less common than lower limb injuries, but are often more serious than many other injuries and result in a longer time off play. No study has looked at the types of injuries and their interventions in professional footballers thus far. The aim was to review the serious shoulder injuries sustained in professional football over a period of four competitive seasons. Anonymous data was collected on all shoulder injuries claimed for from all English Premiership Football teams over four seasons. This data only applied to injuries that were claimed on health insurance from professional football clubs in the United Kingdom. It excluded minor injuries that did not require investigations or interventional treatment. There were 40 466 injury claims of which 3.3% were shoulder injuries (1335). This was equivalent to an average of 445 serious shoulder injuries per year. The percentage of shoulder injuries (injuries per year / total shoulder injuries) increased from 35% in the 2006-2007 season to 89% in the 2009-2010 season. There was also a steady increase in the number of MRI scans and injections, but not with MR arthrograms. There was an increase in the number of surgical interventions during the same time period. The vast majority of surgical procedures were arthroscopic stabilisations (26%) and labral repairs (23%). Stabilisations increased from 15% in 07-08 to 39% in 09-10 whereas the percentage of labral repairs has remained unchanged throughout. The incidences of signifi cant shoulder injuries and surgery have increased in professional football. The majority of the surgery has been labral and stabilisation surgery. Further investigation is required to examine the causes for these trends and possible injury reduction.group.bmj.com on June 22, 2015 -Published by

Bone daggers were once widespread in New Guinea. Their purpose was both symbolic and utilitarian; they functioned as objects of artistic expression with the primary function of stabbing and killing people at close quarters. Most daggers were shaped from the tibiotarsus of cassowaries, but daggers shaped from the femora of respected men carried greater social prestige. The greater cross-sectional curvature of human bone daggers indicates superior strength, but the material properties of cassowary bone are unknown. It is, therefore, uncertain whether the macrostructure of human bone daggers exists to compensate for inferior material properties of human femora or to preserve the symbolic value of a prestigious object. To explore this question, we used computed tomography to examine the structural mechanics of 11 bone daggers, 10 of which are museum-accessioned objects of art. We found that human and cassowary bones have similar material properties and that the geometry of human bone daggers results in higher moments of inertia and a greater resistance to bending. Data from finite-element models corroborated the superior mechanical performance of human bone daggers, revealing greater resistance to larger loads with fewer failed elements. Taken together, our findings suggest that human bone daggers were engineered to preserve symbolic capital, an outcome that agrees well with the predictions of signalling theory.

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Using a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) before a single bout of mechanical loading can reduce bone formation response. It is unknown whether this translates to an attenuation of bone strength and structural adaptations to exercise training. PURPOSE To determine whether NSAID use before exercise prevents increases in bone structure and strength in response to weight-bearing exercise. METHODS Adult female Wistar rats (n=43) were randomized to Ibuprofen (IBU) or Vehicle (VEH) and Exercise (EX) or Sedentary (SED) groups in a 2×2 (drug, activity) ANCOVA design with body weight as the covariate, and data are reported as mean±SE. IBU drops (30 mg/kg BW) or VEH (volume equivalent) were administered orally 1 hour before the bout of exercise. Treadmill running occurred 5 days/week for 60 min/day at 20 m/min with a 5° incline for 12 weeks. MicroCT, mechanical testing, and finite element modeling were used to quantify bone characteristics. RESULTS Drug*activity interactions were not significant. Exercise increased tibia cortical cross-sectional area (EX: 5.67±0.10; SED: 5.37±0.10 mm2, p<0.01) and structural estimates of bone strength (Imax: EX: 5.16±0.18; SED: 4.70±0.18 mm4, p<0.01; SecModPolar: EX: 4.01±0.11; SED: 3.74±0.10 mm3, p<0.01). EX had increased failure load (EX: 243±9; SED: 202±7 N, p<0.05) and decreased distortion in response to a 200 N load (Von Mises Stress at Tibia-Fibula Junction: EX: 48.2±1.3; SED: 51.7±1.2 MPa, p=0.01). There was no effect of ibuprofen on any measurement tested. Femur results revealed similar patterns. CONCLUSION Ibuprofen before exercise did not prevent the skeletal benefits of exercise in female rats. However, exercise that engenders higher bone strains may be required to detect an effect of ibuprofen.

The community of imaging missile system development is burdened by the custom build methodology for the implementation of Automatic Target Trackers (Autotrackers). Normally this is the most effective development path considering the high performance realtime requirements of an image processing system such as an Autotracker. However, with the progress made in modern and inexpensive compute platforms, it is now possible to achieve rapid insertion of the algorithm development platform with the sensor system, allowing refinement of algorithms and establishing known performance limits early in the development cycle. In past programs the Autotracker was often overlooked in importance, and was not given the financial resources for effective development within the system. In order to overcome this short coming, a cost effective Autotracker platform has been developed which can be readily inserted into most systems with minimum and sometimes no additional hardware or software required. We describe the hardware and interface design of a realtime multi-mode Terminal-homing Missile Autotracker that has been optimized to utilize the vector functionality of the Macintosh resident G4 Processor.