Search results for "adaptation"
showing 10 items of 1775 documents
Reliability and validity of the Finnish version of the Visual Analogue Scale Foot and Ankle (VAS-FA).
2018
Background: There have previously been no validated foot and ankle-specific patient-reported outcome measures in Finnish. Methods: The Visual Analogue Scale Foot and Ankle (VAS-FA) was translated and adapted into Finnish. Thereafter, 165 patients who had undergone foot and ankle surgery completed a questionnaire set on two separate occasions. Analyses included testing of floor-ceiling effect, internal consistency, reproducibility, and validity. Results: Minor linguistic differences emerged during the translation. Some structural adjustments were made. The mean (SD) total VAS-FA score was 74 (23). In the three subscales, maximum scores were noted in 2-5% of the responses, and internal consis…
Inferences on Sicilian Mesolithic subsistence patterns from cross-sectional geometry and entheseal changes
2020
International audience; Using cross-sectional geometry (CSG), entheseal changes (ECs), and presence of external auditory meatus exostosis (EAE), this study tests hypothesis-bases on isotopic and zooarchaeological evidence-that in the Sicilian Mesolithic terrestrial rather than marine resources were predominantly exploited, in substantial continuity with previous Epigravettian hunters. Results show similarities in the general frequency of ECs-a rough proxy for overall activity-with Late Pleistocene hunters, in contrast with Mesolithic coastal foragers or Neolithic herders/farmers. Yet, CSG suggests that this possible continuity in the type of resources exploited was accompanied by a behavior…
Consumer Culture
2013
The debate on standardization versus adaptation is everywhere apparent and addresses the question whether and to what extent consumer behaviour differs between countries. While some studies confirm the assumption of one single pan-European market, another stream of research emphasizes that European countries continue to possess predominantly distinct market identities and favour multi-regional strategies. Thus, in the tension between worldwide standardization, national customization, and hybrid approaches such as “glocalization,” the aim of this chapter is to shed light on the importance of cultural differences and similarities in international marketing. After discussing the meaning of cul…
Intercultural communication: Where we’ve been, where we’re going, issues we face
2015
The purpose of this review is to critically analyze the state of intercultural communication literature. This review has three purposes. First, this review summarizes where the discipline has been, paying close attention to the discipline’s history and some key areas of research. Second, this review discusses where the discipline is going, with an emphasis on how the discipline is expanding into new contextual areas of research. Finally, the review presents challenges, issues, and areas for future discussion for intercultural communication.
A family life cycle model adapted to the Spanish environment
2001
Aims to demonstrate, from a marketing and market segmentation point of view, the need to adapt the construct of the family life cycle to the particular features of the Spanish social environment, given the obvious differences in the structure of Spanish households in relation to the USA. From this marketing and cross‐cultural approach, a review of the literature has been conducted on the evolution of the construct and the most significant models that have been arising as the outcome of that evolution. A new life cycle model has been designed reflecting these particular features. Also, on the basis of data taken from the Family Budgets Survey, the capacity of the adapted model has been analy…
Managing risks in organizational purchasing through adaptation of buying centre structure and the buying process
2008
Abstract Although risk issues have extensively been explored, studies on risk perceptions and risk management from a buying centre perspective are surprisingly few. In this qualitative study, purchase-related risk management by adapting buying centre structures and buying processes was examined through semi-structured interviews among 15 business organizations. The findings suggest that although organizations perceive risks in highly similar ways, notable industry-specific differences exist in how risks are tolerated and managed. In the case of heightened perceived risk, high-tech companies were found to rely more on informality and decentralization of decision-making in risk management, wh…
New behavioural trait adopted or rejected by observing heterospecific tutor fitness
2010
Animals can acquire behaviours from others, including heterospecifics, but should be discriminating in when and whom to copy. Successful individuals should be preferred as tutors, while adopting traits of poorly performing individuals should be actively avoided. Thus far it is unknown if such adaptive strategies are involved when individuals copy other species. Furthermore, rejection of traits based on tutor characteristics (negative bias) has not been shown in any non-human animal. Here we test whether a choice between two new, neutral behavioural alternatives—breeding-sites with alternative geometric symbols—is affected by observing the choice and fitness of a heterospecific tutor. A fiel…
Wavelength-Gated Adaptation of Hydrogel Properties via Photo-Dynamic Multivalency in Associative Star Polymers.
2020
Abstract Responsive materials, such as switchable hydrogels, have been largely engineered for maximum changes between two states. In contrast, adaptive systems target distinct functional plateaus between these maxima. Here, we demonstrate how the photostationary state (PSS) of an E/Z‐arylazopyrazole photoswitch can be tuned by the incident wavelength across a wide color spectrum, and how this behavior can be exploited to engineer the photo‐dynamic mechanical properties of hydrogels based on multivalent photoswitchable interactions. We show that these hydrogels adapt to the wavelength‐dependent PSS and the number of arylazopyrazole units by programmable relationships. Hence, our material des…
Time scales of adaptive behavior and motor learning in the presence of stochastic perturbations.
2009
In this paper, the major assumptions of influential approaches to the structure of variability in practice conditions are discussed from the perspective of a generalized evolving attractor landscape model of motor learning. The efficacy of the practice condition effects is considered in relation to the theoretical influence of stochastic perturbations in models of gradient descent learning of multiple dimension landscapes. A model for motor learning is presented combining simulated annealing and stochastic resonance phenomena against the background of different time scales for adaptation and learning processes. The practical consequences of the model's assumptions for the structure of pract…
Fitness diversity based adaptation in Multimeme Algorithms:A comparative study
2007
This paper compares three different fitness diversity adaptations in multimeme algorithms (MmAs). These diversity indexes have been integrated within a MmA present in literature, namely fast adaptive memetic algorithm. Numerical results show that it is not possible to establish a superiority of one of these adaptive schemes over the others and choice of a proper adaptation must be made by considering features of the problem under study. More specifically, one of these adaptations outperforms the others in the presence of plateaus or limited range of variability in fitness values, another adaptation is more proper for landscapes having distant and strong basins of attraction, the third one, …