Search results for "reduction"

Nutraceuticals and functional foods for the control of plasma cholesterol levels. An intersociety position paper

2018

Current evidence shows that cholesterol management either reduces the likelihood of cardiovascular disease (CVD) or slows down its progression. Hence, it is important that all health professionals make appropriate use of all the available intervention strategies to control risk factors: from dietary improvement and positive lifestyle changes to the use of functional foods, food supplements, and drugs. This review examines the effect of the most frequently occurring cholesterol-lowering substances in functional foods or in supplements across Europe, namely plant sterols and stanols, monacolin K found in red yeast rice, berberine and beta-glucans. We conclude that currently available suppleme…

Is there such a thing as sustainable physical activity?

2016

- This study aims to assess the prevalence of different modes of commuting to school and work for 10-12year-olds and their parents; to assess the associations with demographic variables (country, sex, parental education and ethnicity) and with weight status in eight European countries. As part of the ENERGY project a cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2010 in which modes of commuting and socio-demographic variables for children (N=7903) and one of their parents (n=6455) were measured by questionnaires. Children's weight and height were objectively measured; parents self-reported their weight and height. Logistic multilevel regression analyses assessed the associations between mode of c…

Towards human cell simulation

2019

The faithful reproduction and accurate prediction of the phe-notypes and emergent behaviors of complex cellular systems are among the most challenging goals in Systems Biology. Although mathematical models that describe the interactions among all biochemical processes in a cell are theoretically feasible, their simulation is generally hard because of a variety of reasons. For instance, many quantitative data (e.g., kinetic rates) are usually not available, a problem that hinders the execution of simulation algorithms as long as some parameter estimation methods are used. Though, even with a candidate parameterization, the simulation of mechanistic models could be challenging due to the extr…

Reduction in tobacco consumption: an emerging topic within the smoking debate

2009

Geographical cues: evidences from New and Old World countries' wine consumers

2020

PurposeThis systematic review aims to investigate how geographical cues affect wine consumers' behaviors, with reference to the New and Old Worlds, and accordingly, how are recent consumption patterns and new consumer profiles modifying roles of geographical cues?Design/methodology/approachThis work employed a systematic literature review methodology on the extant literature published from 2009 to 2019.FindingsResults, summarized in a conceptual framework, emphasize five thematic areas on how geographical cues should be considered for future research and for new marketing strategies to capture consumers of New and Old World wines. Consumers' wine knowledge, socio-ethno-demographic factors, …

The diagnosis and management of gastric cancer: Expert discussion and recommendations from the 12th ESMO/World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer, B…

2011

Well-recognized experts in the field of gastric cancer discussed during the 12th European Society Medical Oncology (ESMO)/World Congress Gastrointestinal Cancer (WCGIC) in Barcelona many important and controversial topics on the diagnosis and management of patients with gastric cancer. This article summarizes the recommendations and expert opinion on gastric cancer. It discusses and reflects on the regional differences in the incidence and care of gastric cancer, the definition of gastro-esophageal junction and its implication for treatment strategies and presents the latest recommendations in the staging and treatment of primary and metastatic gastric cancer. Recognition is given to the ne…

Black box scatter search for general classes of binary optimization problems

2010

The purpose of this paper is to apply the scatter search methodology to general classes of binary problems. We focus on optimization problems for which the solutions are represented as binary vectors and that may or may not include constraints. Binary problems arise in a variety of settings, including engineering design and statistical mechanics (e.g., the spin glass problem). A distinction is made between two sets of general constraint types that are handled directly by the solver and other constraints that are addressed via penalty functions. In both cases, however, the heuristic treats the objective function evaluation as a black box. We perform computational experiments with four well-k…

The Reduction of Dimension in the Study of Economic Growth Models

2002

We examine the dimension reduction method and prove that it could be misleading if we try to get some insight into the dynamics of the original system from the dynamics of the transformed system alone. The reduced system seemingly may give rise to a continuum multiplicity of steady states when, actually, it does exist a unique and isolated steady state or even it does not exist a steady state at all. We show how the dynamics for the primary variables that is recovered from the solution to the reduced system may be refuted by solving the original one. In our opinion there is no alternative because nothing can be regarded as a close substitute for the study of the original system. Although th…

Optimal Placements of SVC Devices in Low Voltage Grids with High Penetration of PV Systems

2018

With the increase of load demand and distributed photovoltaic (PV) systems on the electric grid, maintaining the required voltage tolerance at the point delivery (customer homes/businesses) is becoming more challenging for electric power utilities. In a residential neighborhood, the peak load typically occurs in the early evening hours while maximum PV generation occurs during mid day. As a result, the lowest voltage operating points occur in the evening hours; whereas the highest voltage operating point occur during the day, when the PV systems are injecting more power than what is locally consumed. Static VAR Compensators (SVCs) can be used to mitigate voltage violations and smooth out th…

A General and Accurate Measurement Procedure for the Detection of Power Losses Variations in Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor Drives

2020

The research of innovative solutions to improve the efficiency of electric drives is of considerable interest to challenges related to energy savings and sustainable development. In order to successfully validate the adoption of new and innovative software or hardware solutions in the field of electric drives, accurate measurement procedures for either efficiency or power losses are needed. Moreover, high accuracy and expensive measurement equipment are required to satisfy international standard prescriptions. In this scenario, this paper describes an accurate measurement procedure, which is independent of the accuracy of the adopted instrumentation, for the power losses variations involved…