Search results for "patch"

Testosterone and attribution of successful competition

2000

Mood, personal merit, and/or its perception have been suggested to be mediating factors in testosterone responses to competition. Previously we have found that personal contribution and attribution were related to testosterone levels after successful competition. To confirm such associations, two basketball teams (n = 17 players) that emerged as winners in two actual matches were studied. Salivary testosterone levels and mood were measured before and after the games. Individual contribution to the outcome was assessed, and personal satisfaction and causal attribution of outcome were reported by players. Testosterone concentrations increased to near significance in Team 1 but not in Team 2, …

Effects of strength training on muscle power and serum hormones in middle-aged and older men.

2001

Effects of 16-wk strength training on maximal strength and power performance of the arm and leg muscles and serum concentrations [testosterone (T), free testosterone (FT), and cortisol] were examined in 11 middle-aged (M46; 46 ± 2 yr) and 11 older men (M64; 64 ± 2 yr). During the 16-wk training, the relative increases in maximal strength and muscle power output of the arm and leg muscles were significant in both groups ( P < 0.05–0.001), with no significant differences between the two groups. The absolute increases were higher ( P < 0.01–0.05) in M46 than in M64 mainly during the last 8 wk of training. No significant changes were observed for serum T and FT concentrations. Analysis o…

METODOLOGIE DI ANALISI DEL PAESAGGIO NELLA VALUTAZIONE DELL’ETEROGENEITÁ STRUTTURALE NEI REEF A VERMETI

2012

Landscape ecology is a discipline that uses many indices to describe environmental dynamics as a function of structural patch organization. Application of landscape ecology methods can be a way to evaluate heterogeneity and fragmentation of a habitat. Landscape indices were applied to evaluate if the algal heterogeneity of a vermetid reef can be related to the reef structure. Results show that heterogeneity is independent from reef width, but algal patches are wider and less abundant in a large cuvette and less wide but in higher number in small cuvette.

On the transient response of actively repaired damaged structures by the boundary element method

2010

The transient fracture mechanics behavior of damaged structures repaired through active piezoelectric patches is presented in this paper. The analyses have been performed through a boundary element code implemented in the framework of piezoelectricity to take account of the coupling between the elastic and the electric fields, which represents the peculiar feature of piezoelectric media. The multi-domain technique has been also involved to assemble the host structures and the active patches and to model the cracks. Moreover, the patches have been considered elastically bonded to the damaged structure by means of a zero thickness adhesive layer. This has been achieved through the implementat…

A fast BEM for the analysis of plates with bonded piezoelectric patches

2010

In this paper a fast boundary element method for the elastodynamic analysis of 3D structures with bonded piezoelectric patches is presented. The elastodynamic analysis is performed in the Laplace domain and the time history of the relevant quantities is obtained by inverse Laplace transform. The bonded patches are modelled using a semi-analytical state-space variational approach. The computational features of the technique, in terms of required storage memory and solution time, are improved by a fast solver based on the use of hierarchical matrices. The presented numerical results show the potential of the technique in the study of structural health monitoring (SHM) systems.

A New Meta-Heuristic Multi-Objective Approach For Optimal Dispatch of Dispersed and Renewable Generating Units in Power Distribution Systems

2011

The application of stochastic methods in engineering research and optimization has been increasing over the past few decades. Ant Colony Optimization, in particular, has been attracting growing attention as a promising approach both in discrete and continuous domains. The present work proposes a multi-objective Ant Colony Optimization for continuous domains showing good convergence properties and uniform coverage of the non-dominated front. These properties have been proved both with mathematical test functions and with a complex real world problem. Besides the second part of the chapter presents the application of the new algorithm to the problem of optimal dispatch of dispersed power gene…

Is There Anything New to Say About SIFT Matching?

2020

SIFT is a classical hand-crafted, histogram-based descriptor that has deeply influenced research on image matching for more than a decade. In this paper, a critical review of the aspects that affect SIFT matching performance is carried out, and novel descriptor design strategies are introduced and individually evaluated. These encompass quantization, binarization and hierarchical cascade filtering as means to reduce data storage and increase matching efficiency, with no significant loss of accuracy. An original contextual matching strategy based on a symmetrical variant of the usual nearest-neighbor ratio is discussed as well, that can increase the discriminative power of any descriptor. Th…

Smoking, health and ageing.

2008

Abstract On March 19, 2008 a Symposium on Pathophysiology of Ageing and Age-Related diseases was held in Palermo, Italy. Here, the lecture of V. Nicita-Mauro on Smoking, health and ageing is summarized. Smoking represents an important ageing accelerator, both directly by triggering ana inflammatory responses, and indirectly by favoring the occurrence of several diseases where smoking is a recognized risk factor. Hence, non-smokers can delay the appearance of diseases and of ageing process, so attaining longevity.

Rilievi diagnostico-differenziali nell'eczema da contatto

2012

Role of Testosterone in Male Sexual Impotent Patients

1985

The role of biological factors contributing to development of sexual dysfunction (SD) has given rise to controversy over many years. Whereas a broad consensus is achieved that schizophrenia and affective psychoses have a biological etiology, such mechanisms receive less acceptance for SD. Conversely, the observation that SD is frequently a concomitant factor in affective illness is subject of current interest in research. For both diseases SD and affective disorder impaired gonadal function is documented (Rubin et al., 1981; Benkert and Holsboer, 1984), whereas both disorders may well occur independantly from each other. In the following section we outline briefly some of the presently avai…