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This study examined the potential influence of moderate intensity physical activity (PA) levels and gender on central pain modulation using conditioned pain modulation (CPM) in healthy men and women. Twenty four individuals (12 men and 12 women) who reported engaging in the moderate intensity PA for 150 min or more per week and 24 individuals (12 men and 12 women) who reported engaging in moderate intensity PA for 60 min or less per week completed a self-report PA questionnaire and a 7-day PA assessment using an accelerometer. Furthermore, the participants completed the CPM testing to evaluate the efficiency of central pain modulation. The active individuals scored higher on the PA questionnaire and spent more minutes for light, lifestyle, moderate and vigorous intensity PA than the less active individuals. The active men and women exhibited comparable magnitudes of CPM, and showed a greater magnitude of CPM when compared to their less active counterparts. However, these beneficial effects of higher dose moderate intensity PA disappeared when time spent for vigorous intensity PA was statistically controlled for. These results suggest that the higher dose moderate intensity PA does not add to the benefits from vigorous intensity PA to further improve central pain modulatory systems.

We study projective varieties X ⊂ P r of dimension n ≥ 2, of codimension c ≥ 3 and of degree d ≥ c + 3 that are of maximal sectional regularity, i.e. varieties for which the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity reg(C) of a general linear curve section is equal to d − c + 1, the maximal possible value (see [10]). As one of the main results we classify all varieties of maximal sectional regularity. If X is a variety of maximal sectional regularity, then either (a) it is a divisor on a rational normal (n + 1)-fold scroll Y ⊂ P n+3 or else (b) there is an n-dimensional linear subspace F ⊂ P r such that X ∩ F ⊂ F is a hypersurface of degree d − c + 1. Moreover, suppose that n = 2 or the characteristic of the ground field is zero. Then in case (b) we obtain a precise description of X as a birational linear projection of a rational normal n-fold scroll.H i (P r , I X (m − i)) = 0 for all i ≥ 1.The m-regularity condition implies the (m + 1)-regularity condition, so that one defines the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity reg(X) of X as the least integer m such that X is m-regular. It is well known that if X is m-regular then its homogeneous ideal is generated by forms of degree ≤ m. This algebraic implication of m-regularity has an elementary geometric consequence that any (m + 1)-secant line to X should be contained in X. We say that a linear space L ⊂ P r is k-secant to X if length(X ∩ L) := dim k (O P r /I X + I L ) ≥ k.A well known conjecture due to Eisenbud and Goto (see [6]) says thatObviously this conjecture implies the following conjecture (1.2) X has no proper k-secant line if k > d − c + 1. So far the conjecture (1.1) has been proved only for irreducible but not necessarily smooth curves by Gruson-Lazarsfeld-Peskine[10] and for smooth complex surfaces by H. Pinkham[20] and R. Lazarsfeld[14]. Moreover, in [10] the curves in P r whose regularity takes the maximally possible value d − r + 2 are completely classified: they are either