In mountain regions around the world, downhill ski areas represent a significant source of anthropogenic disturbance while also providing recreation and revenue. Ski-run creation always results in some level of disturbance, but disturbance intensity varies greatly with construction method. Ski runs may be established either by clearing (cutting and removing tall vegetation) or by clearing and t...

The deformation of skis and the contact pressure between skis and snow are crucial factors for carved turns in alpine skiing. The purpose of the current study was to develop and to evaluate an optimization method to determine the bending and torsional stiffness that lead to a given bending and torsional deflection of the ski. Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and classical torsion theory were applied...

The control of c-ski transgene expression and muscle hypertrophy have been investigated in transgenic mice. In adult animals, the level of transgene expression is linked to the specialized phenotype of individual muscles, high levels occur in fast muscles and significantly lower levels in muscles with high metabolic activity (diaphragm, soleus). These findings have led us to propose that a thre...

A new scorecard issued in December 2000 and posted at http://www.skiareacitizens. com/ has rated 51 ski resorts on how environmentally sound their operations are. Comprising environmentalist groups such as Durango-based Colorado Wild and Utah’s Save Our Canyons, the Ski Area Citizen’s Coalition said it designed the scorecard to exert economic pressure; by choosing environmentally friendly ski a...

The aim of this research was to determine relations between estimated motor abilities and efficiency of alpine ski learning in children ski beginners. It included 54 children between 7 and 8 years of age (average 7.44 ± 0.52 years). Children were tested for balance, agility, strength, coordination and frequency of movement on ten motor ability tests. After motor abilities were assessed, partici...

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the role of autophagy in the shikonin (SKI) induced apoptosis in human medullary thyroid carcinoma TT cells and the potential molecular mechanism. Methods: Human medullary thyroid carcinoma TT cells were used in the present experiment. The proliferative capability was evaluated by MTT assay, the cell apoptosis rate was determined by flow cytometry, the...

BACKGROUND There is limited empirical knowledge about the effect of ski geometry, particularly in the context of injury prevention in alpine ski racing. We investigated the effect of sidecut radius on biomechanical variables related to the mechanics of turning. METHODS During a field experiment, six European Cup level athletes skied on three different pairs of giant slalom (GS) skis varying i...

Sphingosine kinase inhibitor (SKI) II has been reported as a dual inhibitor of sphingosine kinases (SKs) 1 and 2 and has been extensively used to prove the involvement of SKs and sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) in cellular processes. Dihydroceramide desaturase (Des1), the last enzyme in the de novo synthesis of ceramide (Cer), regulates the balance between dihydroceramides (dhCers) and Cers. Both...

The oncogenic protein Ski associates with Smad proteins and counteracts their activation of gene expression and growth inhibition in response to transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta). Here we show that Ski protein levels are increased in all 44 human melanoma tumor tissues analyzed in vivo. In addition, Ski subcellular localization changes from nuclear, in preinvasive melanomas (melanomas ...