Search results for " Program"
showing 10 items of 3075 documents
Growth patterns at distal radius and tibial shaft in pubertal girls: a 2-year longitudinal study.
2005
Bone changes, in terms of both size and BMD, were assessed longitudinally in pubertal girls. Before puberty, BMD at the distal radius declined, whereas bone size increased, suggesting that normal growing girls experience a transient period of increased bone fragility. This could explain the elevated low-trauma forearm fracture rates reported in earlier studies. Introduction: Longitudinal data on bone growth during puberty are sparse. Such information is needed to understand the sequence of biological changes, the physical and mechanical consequences for the growing skeleton, and the implications for later life. Materials and Methods: The geometric properties and volumetric BMD (vBMD) of the…
Predicting gully occurrence at watershed scale: Comparing topographic indices and multivariate statistical models
2020
In this study, the ability of five topographic indices to predict the gully trajectories observed in two adjacent watersheds located in Sicily (Italy) was evaluated. Two of these indices, named MSPI and MTWI, as far as we know, have never been employed to this aim. They were obtained by multiplying the stream power index (SPI) and the topographic wetness index (TWI), respectively, by the convergence index (CI). The predictive ability of the topographic indices was measured by using both cut-off independent (AUC: area under the receiver operating characteristic curve) and dependent statistics (Cohen's kappa index κ, sensitivity, specificity). These statistics were calculated also for 100 MAR…
Soil fungal community composition does not alter along a latitudinal gradient through the maritime and sub-Antarctic
2012
We investigated the relationships between fungal community composition, latitude and a range of physicochemical parameters in 58 soils sampled from a 2370 km latitudinal gradient between South Georgia (54 S, 38 W) in the sub-Antarctic and Mars Oasis (72 S, 68 W) on Alexander Island in the southern maritime Antarctic. Our study, which is based on approximately ten times the number of samples used in previous similar studies, indicates that latitude and its associated environmental parameters are not related to fungal community composition. Significant changes in the composition of soil fungal communities were observed in relation to gradients of the ratio of total organic carbon to nitrogen,…
Bone mineral density and physical activity in 50–60-year-old women
1991
Abstract The bone mineral density (BMD) of the calcaneus was measured utilizing a single energy photon absorption method in 108 women, aged 50–60 years. The women who participated in vigorous exercise two or more times a week or whose total physical activity amounted to 4 h a week had significantly higher BMD values than those who exercised less than two times a week or did less than 4 h physical activity a week. The physically active women also showed higher values for leg extension force and maximal oxygen uptake. BMD and leg extension force were positively correlated, whereas correlations between BMD and body mass, and the width of the calcaneus were negative. When other life-style varia…
A methodology and algorithms for an optimal identification of Tourist Local Systems
2007
In last years, despite the emphasis on the importance of tourism as a leading industry in the development of a country’s economy, there is a lack of criteria and methodologies for the identification, the promotion and the governance of Tourism Local Systems (TLS). Moreover, nowadays an important debate is more and more emerging on the sustainable tourism development which involve three interconnected aspects: environmental, socio-cultural and economic. To this end, in this paper, a rigorous mathematical model is proposed for the optimal identification and dimensioning of TLS. The model here presented consists of a two stage methodology: at first, all the factors that characterize a geograph…
Programa de deshabituación. ¿Cuáles son los factores que llevan al dropout?
2004
La toxicodependencia, es considerada como uno de los grandes problemas de la socie¬dad actual.El internamiento de los toxicodependientes, en unidades de tratamiento de deshabi¬tuación, es uno de los modelos de intervención implantados en Portugal, como una de las formas de dar respuesta a esta problemática.Aunque la adhesión al programa de deshabituación sea significativa, cabe destacar que el cumplimiento del mismo, no siempre se verifica.Es este contexto, desenvolvemos el trabajo con el objetivo de conocer eventuales factores asociados al «dropout», es decir, salida del programa sin ser por alta clínica.Siendo un trabajo desenvuelto en el ámbito académico, fue condicionado por el tiempo d…
Clarkson-McCarthy inequalities with unitary and isometry orbits
2020
Abstract A refinement of a trace inequality of McCarthy establishing the uniform convexity of the Schatten p-classes for p > 2 is proved: if A , B are two n-by-n matrices, then there exists some pair of n-by-n unitary matrices U , V such that U | A + B 2 | p U ⁎ + V | A − B 2 | p V ⁎ ≤ | A | p + | B | p 2 . A similar statement holds for compact Hilbert space operators. Another improvement of McCarthy's inequality is given via the new operator parallelogramm law, | A + B | 2 ⊕ | A − B | 2 = U 0 ( | A | 2 + | B | 2 ) U 0 ⁎ + V 0 ( | A | 2 + | B | 2 ) V 0 ⁎ for some pair of 2n-by-n isometry matrices U 0 , V 0 .
An integrated approach of analytical chemistry
1999
The tremendous development of physical methods of analysis offers an impressive number of tools to simultaneously determine a large number of elements and compounds at very low concentration levels. Todays Analytical Chemistry provides appropriate media to solve technical problems and to obtain correct information about chemical systems in order to take the most appropriate decisions for problem solving. In recent years the development of new strategies for sampling, sample treatment and data exploitation through the research on field sampling, microwaveassisted procedures and chemometrics, additionally the revolution of the analytical methodology provided by the development of flow analysi…
The stable repression of mesenchymal program is required for hepatocyte identity: A novel role for hepatocyte nuclear factor 4α
2011
The concept that cellular terminal differentiation is stably maintained once development is complete has been questioned by numerous observations showing that differentiated epithelium may undergo an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) program. EMT and the reverse process, mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition (MET), are typical events of development, tissue repair, and tumor progression. In this study, we aimed to clarify the molecular mechanisms underlying these phenotypic conversions in hepatocytes. Hepatocyte nuclear factor 4α (HNF4α) was overexpressed in different hepatocyte cell lines and the resulting gene expression profile was determined by real-time quantitative polymerase…
On the coupling between agent internal and agent/ environmental dynamics: Development of spatial representations in evolving autonomous robots
2008
In this article we describe how a population of evolving robots can autonomously develop forms of spatial representation which allow them to self-localize and to discriminate different locations of their environment by integrating sensory-motor information over time. The evolving robots also display a remarkable ability to generalize their skill in new environmental conditions that they have never experienced before. The analysis of the obtained results indicates that the evolved robots come up with simple and robust solutions that exploit quasi-periodic limit cycle dynamics emerging from the coupling between the robot/environmental dynamics and a robot's internal dynamics. More specifical…