Insight into the Writing and Reviewing of Scientific Papers in English from the Standpoint of Journal Editor / 体力科学

Publishing scientific papers in English is a major part of professional activities for researchers in the biomedical field. This is because new knowledge becomes most valuable when shared with people around the world, whereas papers written in a local language are difficult to be shared with. Unfortunately, the style of scientific writing is often critically unsatisfactory in manuscripts written in English by researchers who use English as a second language. These researchers are strongly encouraged to learn essential aspects of writing scientific papers in English. To foster the ability for writing scientific papers, young researchers outside of English-speaking countries should be encouraged to take a hands-on education in scientific writing and reviewing in English, and discouraged to publish papers and books in a local language. Increased availability of hands-on education by qualified researchers would be urged for strengthening research capabilities in the biomedical field.

Power spectrum of heart rate fluctuations during incremental cycle exercise / 体力科学

Spectral analysis was applied to investigate whether the system for control of heart rate (HR) is influenced by exercise intensity. Five healthy males performed incremental exercise on an electrically braked cycle ergometer until exhaustion. The work rate was increased at 12 W/min following 2 min of exercise at a constant load of 20 W. HR was measured every second from R-R intervals. The power spectrum was calculated every 10 s using the FFT method for 64 consecutive data points. Power spectra during 20 W exercise showed a similar pattern to those in previous reports on resting HR perturbations, Although interindividual differences were observed for the spectrum patterns related to exercise intensity, there was a characteristic pattern revealing dissipation of the spectral power above a frequency of 0.2 Hz for all subjects. This pattern was not maintained for more than 1 min in any of the subjects, and was followed by a semirandom pattern whose magnitude varied among the subjects. These results support the hypothesis that the cardiac pacemaker is influenced by exercise intensity, presumably due to sympatho-vagal interaction with the respiratory control system.