Search results for "QUALITY"

Deliberation favours social efficiency by making people disregard their relative shares: evidence from USA and India

2017

Groups make decisions on both the production and the distribution of resources. These decisions typically involve a tension between increasing the total level of group resources (i.e. social efficiency) and distributing these resources among group members (i.e. individuals' relative shares). This is the case because the redistribution process may destroy part of the resources, thus resulting in socially inefficient allocations. Here we apply a dual-process approach to understand the cognitive underpinnings of this fundamental tension. We conducted a set of experiments to examine the extent to which different allocation decisions respond to intuition or deliberation. In a newly developed app…

Case Management for Depression by Health Care Assistants in Small Primary Care Practices

2009

BACKGROUND: Case management by health care assistants in small primary care practices provides unclear benefit for improving depression symptoms. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether case management provided by health care assistants in small primary care practices is more effective than usual care in improving depression symptoms and process of care for patients with major depression. DESIGN: Cluster randomized, controlled trial. A central automated system generated the randomization scheme, which was stratified by urban and rural practices; allocation sequence was concealed until groups were assigned. SETTING: 74 small primary care practices in Germany from April 2005 to September 2007. PATIEN…

The age of peak performance in Ironman triathlon: a cross-sectional and longitudinal data analysis.

2013

Abstract Background The aims of the present study were, firstly, to investigate in a cross-sectional analysis the age of peak Ironman performance within one calendar year in all qualifiers for Ironman Hawaii and Ironman Hawaii; secondly, to determine in a longitudinal analysis on a qualifier for Ironman Hawaii whether the age of peak Ironman performance and Ironman performance itself change across years; and thirdly, to determine the gender difference in performance. Methods In a cross-sectional analysis, the age of the top ten finishers for all qualifier races for Ironman Hawaii and Ironman Hawaii was determined in 2010. For a longitudinal analysis, the age and the performance of the annua…

The Complex Interaction Between the Major Sleep Symptoms, the Severity of Obstructive Sleep Apnea, and Sleep Quality

2021

Introduction: Little information exists in the general population whether clinical presentation phenotypes of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) differ in terms of sleep quality and comorbidities.Aim: The purpose of our study was to assess possible differences between symptomatic and asymptomatic OSA patients concerning syndrome's severity, patients' sleep quality, and comorbidities.Subjects and methods: First, in a nationwide, stratified, epidemiological survey, 4,118 Cypriot adult participants were interviewed about sleep habits and complaints. In the second stage of the survey, 264 randomly selected adults underwent a type III sleep study for possible OSA. Additionally, they completed the Gre…

Guía para la incorporación de la perspectiva de género en la docencia en Sociología, Economía y Ciencias Políticas

2019

Sociology has constructed a male worldview that entails a biased interpretation of social reality. For its part, the traditional economy has made invisible the dependence of the commercial sphere of the domestic sphere. And in the field of political science, we also find many gender biases in basic concepts such as justice, equality or citizenship. This article, based on the work done by the authors in the Guia per a una docència universitària amb perspectiva de gènere de Sociologia, Economia i Ciència Política, offers some proposals, teaching resources and consultation tools to introduce the gender perspective in teaching, knowledge transfer and research in these disciplines.

Repeatability of in-vitro optical quality measurements of intraocular lenses with a deflectometry technique effect of the toricity

2018

Aim To evaluate the repeatability of an optical device for measuring the Zernike coefficients of toric intraocular lenses (IOLs) and assess whether its toricity has any impact in its repeatability. Methods An experienced technician used the NIMO TR1504 to measure the Zernike coefficients 30 times for an aperture of 4.50 mm for all lenses included. The IOLs included were divided into two group: toric and non-toric ones. The cylindrical powers of the toric lenses included in the present study were 1.00, 1.50, 2.25, 3.00 and 3.75 D. Finally, the repeatability of the NIMO TR1504 was described in terms of within subject standard deviation (Sw) and repeatability limit. Results The Sw was smaller …

Intercomparison of methods to estimate gross primary production based on CO2 and COS flux measurements

2022

Separating the components of ecosystem-scale carbon exchange is crucial in order to develop better models and future predictions of the terrestrial carbon cycle. However, there are several uncertainties and unknowns related to current photosynthesis estimates. In this study, we evaluate four different methods for estimating photosynthesis at a boreal forest at the ecosystem scale, of which two are based on carbon dioxide (CO2) flux measurements and two on carbonyl sulfide (COS) flux measurements. The CO2-based methods use traditional flux partitioning and artificial neural networks to separate the net CO2 flux into respiration and photosynthesis. The COS-based methods make use of a unique 5…

Direct pathway cloning and expression of the radiosumin biosynthetic gene cluster

2023

Radiosumins are a structurally diverse family of low molecular weight natural products that are produced by cyanobacteria and exhibit potent serine protease inhibition. Members of this family are dipeptides characterized by the presence of two similar non-proteinogenic amino acids. Here we used a comparative bioinformatic analysis to identify radiosumin biosynthetic gene clusters from the genomes of 13 filamentous cyanobacteria. We used direct pathway cloning to capture and express the entire 16.8 kb radiosumin biosynthetic gene cluster from Dolichospermum planctonicum UHCC 0167 in Escherichia coli. Bioinformatic analysis demonstrates that radiosumins represent a new group of chorismate-der…

2021

Animal Welfare Attitudes (AWA) are defined as human attitudes towards the welfare of animals in different dimensions and settings. Demographic factors, such as age and gender are associated with AWA. The aim of this study was to assess gender differences among university students in a large convenience sample from twenty-two nations in AWA. A total of 7914 people participated in the study (5155 women, 2711 men, 48 diverse). Participants completed a questionnaire that collected demographic data, typical diet and responses to the Composite Respect for Animals Scale Short version (CRAS-S). In addition, we used a measure of gender empowerment from the Human Development Report. The largest varia…

Goose, Duck and Garganey

2019

Duck, goose and garganey are waterfowls consumed in a lower proportion than chicken. These species are of great economic importance in Asia, Europe and USA. Among the three species, duck is the main bird produced for the meat system while goose is commercially produced by at lower proportion than duck. Differently, garganey is considered as game meat, which has been poorly studied in last decades. The productive system of duck and goose share similarities with which other such as physical structure, animal management, feeding strategies, management of environmental conditions, transport, and slaughter. However, these variables and related aspects of farming and meat processing can be manage…