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The purpose of this case study was to assess the degree to which a 12-month power-based resistance-training program improved bone mineral density (BMD) and fall risk for a 70-year-old postmenopausal woman with osteoporosis and increased risk of falling. After an eight-week strength-development phase, we had the patient perform 44 weeks of resistance training with maximal force mobilization by instructing her to complete as many repetitions as possible during each 60-s set. We used dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) to assess BMD and Dynamic Gait Index (DGI) to assess fall risk before and after the intervention. Post compared to pre-training testing indicated an increase in BMD in the lumbar spine (24%) and femoral neck (29%) resulting in changes in T-score of 0.7 and 0.4 SD, respectively. Testing also revealed a seven-point change in DGI which improved her status to "safe ambulator." After a 12-month period of power training, BMD was increased and fall risk was reduced for a postmenopausal woman with osteoporosis and increased risk of falling.

Based on experiments and finite element analysis, the impact resistance of metal flexible net was studied, which can provide reference for the application of metal flexible net in rock fall protection. The oblique (30 degrees) impact experiment of metal flexible net was carried out, the corresponding finite element (FE) to the experiment was established, and the FE model was verified by simulation results to the experimental tests from three aspects: the deformation characteristics of metal flexible net, the time history curves of impact force on supporting ropes, and the maximum instantaneous impact force on supporting ropes. The FE models of metal flexible nets with inclination angles of 0, 15, 30, 45, 60, and 75 degrees were established, and the impact resistance of metal flexible nets with different inclination angles was analyzed. The research shows that the metal flexible net with proper inclination can bounce the impact rock fall out of the safe area and prevent rock fall falling on the metal flexible net, thus realizing the self-cleaning function. When the inclination angle of the metal flexible net is 15, 30, and 45 degrees, respectively, the bounce effect after impact is better, the remaining height is improved, the protection width is improved obviously, and the impact force is reduced. Herein, the impact force of rock fall decreases most obviously at 45 degrees inclination, and the protective performance is relatively good.

PURPOSE: Intra-limb and muscular coordination during gait are the result of the organisation of the neuromuscular system, which have been widely studied on a flat terrain. Environmental factors, such as the inclination of the terrain, is a challenge for the postural control system to maintain balance. Therefore, we hypothesised that the central nervous system flexibly modifies its control strategies during locomotion on slopes. METHODS: Ten subjects walked on an inclined treadmill at different slopes (from - 9° to + 9°) and speeds (from 0.56 to 2.22 m s-1). Intra-limb coordination was investigated via the Continuous Relative Phase, whereas muscular coordination was investigated by decomposing the coordinated muscle activation profiles into Basic Activation Patterns. RESULTS: A greater stride to stride variability of kinematics was observed during walking on slopes, as compared to walking on the level. On positive slopes, the stride period and width present a greater variability without modification of the time-pattern of the muscular activation and of the variability of intersegmental coordination. On negative slopes, the stride width is larger, the variability of the stride period and of the inter-segmental coordination is greater and the basic activation patterns become broader, especially at slow speeds. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that the control strategy of downhill walking corresponds to a more conservative gait pattern, which could be adopted to lower the risk of falling at the cost of a greater energy consumption. In uphill walking, where metabolic demands are high, the strategy adopted may be planned to minimise energy expenditure.

Moziyan is an area containing unstable rock masses located in Hechuan District, Chongqing, China and has constantly seen group-occurring rockfalls since 1964. The present study aims to investigate the damage of Moziyan rock mass and protect the mining areas and residential areas from rockfall phenomenon. Mohr–Coulomb model in FLAC–3D Program was built to find out the rockfall initiation position. RocFall program has been used to calculate the distribution curves of stopping positions, bounce height, total kinetic energy, and translational velocity of the falling blocks varying with horizontal distance. According to the simulation results, the stability of Moziyan rock mass is controlled by the unloading cracks behind the slope, and the falling blocks have a maximum bounce height and maximum total kinetic energy of 0 m and 2720.9 kJ respectively at the horizontal position of 461.6 m, where proper protection measures should be adopted to minimize the risk of the damage of the Moziyan rock mass. Conclusively, the results of simulation indicate that a barrier of 3 m height and 3000 kJ absorption capacity is enough to resist the falling stones with a maximum speed of 13.2 m/s at the horizontal position of 461.6 m.

In order to provide a theoretical basis for reducing dust dusting, study the dusting characteristics of flake dust in production sites. Prediction calculation method of flake aluminium powder dust generation rate through research. Measure the mass loss of powder during different falling heights, different wind speeds and different solid flow diameters. The dust generation rate of the dust fall is calculated by mass loss of aluminium powder. Analyse the dust generation rate affected by falling heights, wind speeds and solid flow diameters. This study shows that the dust generation rate increases exponentially with the falling height, increases linearly with the wind speed, and decreases with the solid flow diameter. By combining these results with the dust generation theory by Marc, we obtained a calculation model of the flake aluminium dust generation rate, and this model has good accuracy with an average error of only 11.71% compared with the experimental values.

Inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors are widely used in many wearable systems for detecting falls in real-time and reducing the risks associated with the fall in all instances of accidents. This letter presents a highly portable and comfortable IMU-sensor-based fall detection system for elderly people. Using an accelerometer and a gyroscope, the proposed system can monitor the sudden rise of the acceleration and the orientation of the user's head to detect accidental falls. When an accidental fall is detected, the proposed system transmits alarm messages to the data server via the wireless network. Also, a complementary filter is adopted to eliminate the instability and drift of angular measurement by the accelerometer and the gyroscope, respectively. The functionality of the proposed system is verified in experiments that involve 120 falling and 450 nonfalling actions of five participants. The experimental results indicate that the proposed system achieves a fall detection accuracy of 95.44% and has the potential to assist in the everyday healthcare of elderly people.

The tonal system of Nuer has been a matter of much uncertainty. Here we present empirical evidence in favor of a three toneme system with some typologically rare features. One of them is an intriguing case of allotony based on the phonation of the vowel: the High toneme has a falling allotone over modal vowels. Moreover, the Rising toneme has four allotones: a rising, a mid, a low and a falling allotone. The falling allotone of the Rising toneme also occurs only on modal vowels in specific contexts. We suggest that some of the allotonic variation is motivated by tonal contour simplification. We also point out the role of free variation in some of the allotonic alternations, and the constraints that put limits on the free variation between allotones.

Older adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) have high incidence of falls. The aim of this study was to compare sensorimotor functions, balance, mobility, fear of falling, and fall history in older people with DM (with and without neuropathy) and non-diabetic healthy controls. We enrolled 153 participants aged 50–70 years: 51 people with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (D-PN), 52 with diabetes without neuropathy (D-noPN), and 50 healthy controls (HC). Participants completed a fear of falling assessment and detailed test battery comprising sensorimotor functions, lower limb strength, contrast vision, reaction time, balance, and mobility from which a composite physiological fall risk score (PFRS) was derived. In addition, a fall history of the past 3 months was recorded. Post hoc comparisons of ANOVA test revealed the D-PN had significant deficits than the other two groups in tests of lower limb sensation, knee extension strength, reaction time, postural sway, one leg standing, sit-to-stand and the timed up and go test. The D-PN had the highest fear of falling (30.18 ± 6.75) and the highest PFRS (1.68 ± 1.13). PFRS for the D-noPN (0.74 ± 0.80) was intermediate between HC (0.49 ± 0.96) and DP-N groups. Thirty-four D-PN participants (66.7%), 19 D-noPN participants (36.5%), and 7 HC (14.0%) reported one or more falls in the past 3 months (Chi2 test for trend = 28.1, df = 2, p

The decay of a two-dimensional solitary wave into three-dimensional waves in film flow along a vertical plate has been studied using a high-speed laser-induced fluorescence technique that allows high spatial and temporal resolution measurements of the thickness of wave liquid films. It has been shown that the three-dimensional wave packet resulting from the decay of a two-dimensional solitary wave has a strong perturbing effect on the falling film and leads to the formation of rivulets on its surface.

As an artist, whose involvement with creating art in public spaces now spans 19 years, one of the key issues I have is with how to link public art (mostly incorporated in new public infrastructures) with the natural environments and prior histories that the artwork and infrastructure have displaced. My aim is always to address the importance of the balance between nature and culture. The way in which our relationship to nature and the prior histories of a ‘site’ are translated, depends foremost on the nature of the commission and its location.

When we imaginatively picture what might happen, we may take what we imagine to be either realistic or fantastic. A wine glass falling to the floor and shattering is realistic. A wine glass falling and morphing into a bird and flying away is fantastic. What does the distinction consist in? Two important necessary conditions are here defined. The first is a condition on the realistic representation of spatial configuration, grounded in an account of the imagistic representation of spatial configuration. The second is a condition on the manner in which realistic courses of mental imagery may be grounded in remembered perceptions. This is defined in terms of an account of the representation of comparative similarity.

A 59-year-old man presents with left shoulder pain after falling while playing with his dog at the park. He drove himself to the emergency department (ED). He reports 5/10 pain and has reduced range of motion of the shoulder. His shoulder looks normal on exam and is not squared off. You wonder if he might have a posterior shoulder dislocation.

Pacheco-Vazquez and Ruiz-Suarez reported an interesting cooperative behavior for disks falling in a particle bed. This behavior involved the formation of upward and downward convex configurations during the falling of five steel disks into a bed of polystyrene particles. We used discrete element method simulations to investigate the generation mechanism for this cooperative behavior. Particles with a diameter of 5.0 mm and a density of 14.0 kg/m3 were placed randomly in a container with a width of 900 mm or 2700 mm and a height of 2700 mm. Model spheres with the same mass and diameter as the steel disks with a diameter of 25.4 mm and a thickness of 5.0 mm were then dropped into the particle bed, and we investigated the cooperative behavior of the model spheres. Similar cooperative behaviors were observed for the containers with widths of 900 mm and 2700 mm, indicating that the container side walls do not affect the occurrence of this behavior when the width is larger than 900 mm. The falling velocity of each disk was strongly dependent on the packing fractions over the disk and the flow velocity of the bed particles around the disks. Based on these results, the generation mechanism of the upward and downward convex configurations is discussed.

Rivulet is a very common form of flow during the refrigerant falling film evaporation process. In this work, a visual refrigeration cycle system is designed to observe the evaporative flow characteristics of R134a. The cross-sectional profile of the liquid film is obtained using a camera equipped with a charge-coupled device (CCD HV1351UM), after which the contact angle is measured by an edge detection technique and circle fitting under superheated conditions (0.2–1.8 °C). In the image fitting process, the pixels with the largest coefficient of determination (R2) are selected for fitting. The data show that the contact angle increases with the wall superheat because the increase in the wall superheat intensifies the evaporation at the contact line. In conclusion, we show that the measured contact angles lie close to the curve, θ = 12 . 12 Δ T 0 . 343 .

The present study aimed to investigate the fear of falling and its associ-ated factors among patients with vestibular hypofunction. We conduct-ed a cross-sectional survey using structured questionnaires to evaluate fear of falling and activities of daily living among participants. Vestibular function was assessed via a rotary chair test. This study was conduct-ed from January through March 2018. The subjects were 167 individuals older than 20 years who agreed to participate in this study. Data were analyzed using SPSS ver. 22.0. The significant variables associated with fear of falling were gender (P=0.012), age (P

Shell-side falling film flow is extremely important for the heat transfer performance of spiral wound heat exchangers used in liquefied process of natural gas. In this paper, 3-D simulations using hydrocarbon (n-pentane) as the testing fluid are conducted to study the fluid flow characteristic of heat exchanger with curved egg-shaped tube. The effects of different Re numbers (Re) and longitudinal inter-tube spacing (S) on the inter-tube flow modes and the distribution of film thickness (δ) with Re varying from 327 to 2944 are investigated. The axial and circumferential distribution of δ is analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The results show that when Re is relatively small (327 and 736), the effect of S on average value of δ (δa) is negligible. When Re is relatively large (1472 and 2944), the increase of S would thicken δ on tube lower perimeter. When Re increased from 327 to 2944, δa firstly increases and then decreases as the increase of Re and the ratio (Lb) of the axial length of basin zone to the axial measurement range increases from 52% to 76%. In addition, δ of basin zone is almost always much lower (59.23% thinner when Re = 2944) than the classic prediction results of equal-perimeter circular tube.

Economic growth of the country is part of economic development, as development is the phenomenon which follows growth and involves not only an increase in the total output but also a change in the structural and institutional factors that operate in economy and a welfare quotient. India has been observing an economic phenomenon called the stagflation, which has slowed economic growth in country and thus economic development The objective of this paper is on growth witnessed in India and reasons why growth rate after displaying great momentum has reduced in past two years which has also reduced the level of development. Paper has also explored various measures of the economic development in an economy. The paper tries to estimate the reasons for stagflation in the economy and probable solutions to it. KEYWORDS: economic development, economic growth, stagflation

Gefördert im Rahmen des Projekts DEAL

O human image made of water and protein, destined for the contours of the grave: let me perish, my lips against yours! —Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain 1 Franz Kafka lived for forty years, falling ...

The dynamic viscosities of four high-viscous vacuum oil samples, working liquids (BM-1CM, BM-1CN, LEYBONOL LVO 500, and Alkaren-D24) for diffusion vacuum pumps, have been measured over the temperat...

Several studies use force sensitive resistors (FSR) to compute gait and balance parameters related to falls without investigating the number of sensor units required to produce useful information. We propose a model with minimal sensors for an instrumented insole by investigating and optimizing the location and variety of sensors required to efficiently detect people at risk of falling. Datasets previously recorded on twelve Parkinson’s disease (PD) participants (67.7 ± 10.07 years), nine healthy elderly (66.8 ± 8.0 years) and ten young healthy adults (28.27 ± 3.74 years) were used in this study. We compared the datasets obtained from the use of four FSRs with those of three, two, one and no FSR; each set was combined with an inertial measurement unit (IMU). During the walking activity, the risk of falling scores from four FSRs and IMU (acceleration in y-axis only) were not significantly different compared with two FSRs and IMU (p > 0.05), whereas significant difference was found for three FSRs and IMU and one FSR and IMU (p 0.05). We concluded that it is feasible to estimate the risk index after reducing the number of sensing units from four to two FSRs during walking test and from four to three FSRs during sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit tests. The FSRs should be placed at strategic positions to avoid information loss.

For the analysis of falling film mass transfer such as gas absorption in liquid phase flowing over a vertical wall, conventionally an infinite penetration depth for penetrating component has been assumed. This assumption is originated from the fact that magnitude of diffusion depth is too small relative to the film thickness as if the mass transfer into the liquid film is taking place in a semi-infinite geometry. Despite its validity in the most engineering applications, it is still an unanswered question that ‘to what physically meaningful extent the diffusion may occur or the mass transfer boundary layer into the liquid film could progress alongside the wall, and consequently how it might affect the mass transfer characteristics’. We addressed such concern here by considering a finite depth of penetration into the film, derived governing equations for the continuity of mass and solved it analytically and numerically. The progress of penetration depth over the vertical coordinate i.e. flowing direction of falling film is observable as it approaches the film thickness far down the wall. The method gives the opportunity to examine the progress of the penetration depth with mass transfer properties such as diffusivity, average liquid velocity and etc. which have not been touched before.

When a falling chain strikes a surface, it can accelerate downwards faster than free-fall. This counterintuitive effect occurs when a tension is created in the chain above where it strikes the surface. The size of this tension, and how it is produced, depend on the type of chain used. For a chain made of rods that are slightly tilted from horizontal, the impact-induced tension is readily observable. Here are reported experimental observations on such a falling chain for two different situations: when the chain strikes an inclined surface, and when the chain's mass density decreases with height. It is found that both of these arrangements can increase the downward acceleration. To quantitatively describe these observations a theoretical model is developed. The model successfully predicts the chain's position and velocity, even when the top end approaches the surface, without any free parameters. The model also predicts that uniform rods are practically the best for producing large tensions., Comment: 31 pages, 8 figures. Paper and supplement combined

Falling coffee filters are a common object of study in introductory physics laboratory classes. They are usually used to demonstrate the terminal velocity, and determine how the drag force depends on this velocity. However they can also be used to demonstrate other ways that the air affects the motion of the falling coffee filter. In particular, a qualitatively different fluid force acts during the initial acceleration from rest, and causes this acceleration to be much less than the acceleration of an object in vacuum. This fluid force, commonly known as the `added mass', is easily observable with coffee filters using either a sonic motion sensor or video analysis. Here the added mass is experimentally measured for a falling coffee filter. In addition, the theoretical value for the added mass of a coffee filter moving through an ideal fluid is calculated. The two values agree relatively well. Finally, it is shown how the added mass is relevant to experiments that only measure the terminal velocity., Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. Contains both the paper and the supplementary material

As countries across the world struggle to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, pundits often remark that countries with higher levels of regime legitimacy, state capacity, and political trust are more likely to curtail the spread of the virus. This article offers a first-cut glance analyzing whether these countries are indeed, more successful at containing the virus. By combining data from 10 different sources, I find that countries with higher levels of legitimacy and trust actually experienced greater increases in COVID-19 cases, albeit the strength of this relationship is moderate. State capacity had a stronger positive relationship with increases in COVID-19 cases, but GDP per capita largely drives this relationship. In sum, these results counter expectations regarding the role of certain political indicators on virus containment. Future research should refrain from the “blame game” in terms of politics and should instead look at unique factors characterizing industrialized democracies that make a virus much harder to contain.

Falling is one of the causes of accidental death of elderly people over 65 years old in Taiwan. If the fall incidents are not detected in a timely manner, it could lead to serious injury or even death of those who fell. General fall detection approaches require the users to wear sensors, which could be cumbersome for the users to put on, and misalignment of sensors could lead to erroneous readings. In this paper, we propose using computer vision and applied machine-learning algorithms to detect fall without any sensors. We applied OpenPose real-time multi-person 2D pose estimation to detect movement of a subject using two datasets of 570 &times, 30 frames recorded in five different rooms from eight different viewing angles. The system retrieves the locations of 25 joint points of the human body and detects human movement through detecting the joint point location changes. The system is able to effectively identify the joints of the human body as well as filtering ambient environmental noise for an improved accuracy. The use of joint points instead of images improves the training time effectively as well as eliminating the effects of traditional image-based approaches such as blurriness, light, and shadows. This paper uses single-view images to reduce equipment costs. We experimented with time series recurrent neural network, long- and short-term memory, and gated recurrent unit models to learn the changes in human joint points in continuous time. The experimental results show that the fall detection accuracy of the proposed model is 98.2%, which outperforms the baseline 88.9% with 9.3% improvement.

Background The 400‑m walk test (400MWT) of usual gait speed is an assessment of mobility limitations in geriatric medicine and sarcopenic research. Objective The aim of this study was to describe the course of gait speed during a 400MWT in community-dwelling older adults in terms of physical, psychological and general health-related outcomes. Possible plateau phases during the 400MWT could enable integrated measurements of short distance walk tests. Methods In this study 148 community-dwelling older adults (mean age 80.4 ± 4.4 years, 61% women) performed a 400MWT at comfortable gait speed. Additionally, an 8m walk test was carried out and history of falling, sex, comorbidities, fear of falling, executive function and gait variability were determined as covariates. Results Gait speed was higher in the beginning and the end of the 400MWT compared to the middle part with respect to all analyzed covariates. Mean gait speed of the 8 m walk test was significantly faster than mean gait speed of the 400MWT (t (df = 147) = 0.07, p = 0.001). Conclusion The course of gait speed during a 400MWT performed by community-dwelling older adults was not affected by sex, gait variability, comorbidity, history of falling, fear of falling or executive function. Gait speed measurements of the 400MWT do not fully represent assessment of supervised short distance gait speed in community-dwelling adults. Hintergrund Der 400 m-Gehtest (400MWT) in habitueller Ganggeschwindigkeit erfasst Mobilitätseinschränkungen in der Geriatrie und Sarkopenieforschung. Ziel Ziel der Studie war es, den Verlauf der Ganggeschwindigkeit während eines 400MWT bei selbstständig lebenden älteren Erwachsenen in Abhängigkeit von physischen, psychologischen und allgemein gesundheitsbezogenen Faktoren zu beschreiben. Mögliche Plateauphasen während des 400MWT könnten integrierte Messungen kurzer Gehtests ermöglichen. Methode Insgesamt 148 selbstständig lebende ältere Erwachsene (Durchschnittsalter 80,4 ± 4,4 Jahre, 61 % Frauen) absolvierten einen 400MWT in habitueller Ganggeschwindigkeit. Zusätzlich wurde ein 8 m-Gehtest durchgeführt, daneben wurden die Parameter Sturzereignisse, Geschlecht Komorbidität, Angst vor Stürzen, exekutive Funktionen und Gangvariabilität als Kovariaten bestimmt. Ergebnisse Die Ganggeschwindigkeit im 400MWT war hinsichtlich aller analysierten Kovariaten anfangs und am Ende höher als im mittleren Teil. Die durchschnittliche Ganggeschwindigkeit im 8 m-Gehtest war signifikant höher als im 400MWT (t (df = 147) = 0,07, p = 0,001). Schlussfolgerung Der Verlauf der Ganggeschwindigkeit während eines 400MWT bei selbstständig lebenden älteren Erwachsenen wurde nicht von den Kovariaten Geschlecht, Gangvariabilität, Komorbidität, Sturzereignisse, Sturzangst oder exekutive Funktionen beeinflusst. Ganggeschwindigkeitsmessungen des 400MWT sind nur bedingt auf supervidierte, kürzere Assessments der Ganggeschwindigkeit bei selbstständig lebenden Erwachsenen generalisierbar.

The will to survive is very essential for someone to keep himself struggle until he survives a dreadful situation. This perfectly matches with a case of a man surviving an accident. A 35 year old man met with an accident and fell into a ditch with his motorbike on top of him and the handle of the motorbike pressed his vocal cord. Nobody noticed him falling into the ditch nor could he shout for help. He was all alone by himself in an isolated area where no help will arrive unless somebody sees him. He fell on the ground where the area of the soil under his head was raised which made even harder for him to move his head and free his vocal cord. To save himself he dug out the soil under his head so that he could move his head by creating some space by reducing the bumpiness of the soil. After digging out the soil for several hours he finally could move his head and free his vocal cord too. He shouted for help and soon some people gathered there who took him to the hospital. The victim suffered cervical injury, bruises and cuts on his body along with psychological trauma. Keywords: will power, survival, struggle, accident, dreadful situation.

Osteoporosis is characterized by a loss of bone mass along with alterations in its structure, with subsequent increase in bone fragility and susceptibility to fractures, ultimately reinforcing the importance of its prevention by the reduction of the risk of falling.

Methods of prevention and equipment to reduce the risk of falls based on accelerometer and gyroscope sensor have developed rapidly because its operations are cheaper than video cameras. Improved accuracy of detection and fall prediction based on accelerometer and gyroscope sensor is carried out by utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) to predict falling patterns. However, the existing fall prediction system is less responsive and also has a low level of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. The current system does not have a notification system to care givers or doctors in the hospital. To overcome the above problems, this study proposes the development of smart fall prediction system based on accelerometer and gyroscope for the prevention of fractures in geriatric populations (JaPiGi) which are accurate and have high sensitivity and specificity. This study uses Fuzzy Mamdani to recognize movements falling forward, falling sideways, sitting, sleeping, squatting and praying. The total data tested was 100 data from 10 participants. The introduction of this movement is based on 6 input variables from data of accelerometer and gyroscope sensor. To calculate the accuracy, precision, sensitivity and specificity in this study using the equation Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC). Motion recognition is carried out 3 times with an average accuracy of 90%.

Introduction: Difficulty falling asleep is connected to the malfunctioning of the sleep and wakefulness mechanism of the human body caused by various reasons. There are a series of adverse reactions resulting from abnormal or poor quality of sleep during sleep per se. This symptom severely affects an individual's physical condition and mental health. Objective: To explore the effect of physical exercise on patients with difficulty falling asleep. Methods: Mathematical statistics were used to analyze 60 patients with difficulty falling asleep. We divided the patients into a sports group and a control group. The patients in the sports group took sports training, while the control group did not. After two weeks of intervention and comparison, we used mathematical statistics to evaluate the groups’ cognitive function. Results: After physical exercise, the patient's sleep quality was higher and sleep disorders were reduced. Conclusion: Physical activity is a simple and popular way of exercising. It is effective in improving the cognitive function of patients with difficulty falling asleep. Level of evidence II; Therapeutic studies - investigation of treatment results. RESUMO Introdução: A dificuldade em adormecer está ligada ao mau funcionamento do mecanismo do ciclo sono-vigília no corpo humano e é causada por diversos motivos. Existe uma serie de reações adversas que resultam da má qualidade – ou qualidade anormal - do sono, especificamente durante o sono. Esses sintomas afetam seriamente a condição física e a saúde mental das pessoas. Objetivo: Explorar o efeito de exercícios físicos em pacientes com dificuldade em adormecer. Métodos: Estatísticas matemáticas foram usadas para analisar 60 pacientes com dificuldade em adormecer. Dividimos os pacientes em um grupo de esportes e outro de controle. Os pacientes no grupo de esportes tiveram treinamento esportivo, enquanto o grupo de controle não. Após duas semanas de intervenção e comparação, usamos estatísticas matemáticas para avaliar a função cognitiva dos grupos. Resultados: Após o exercício físico, houve melhora na qualidade de sono dos pacientes e os transtornos do sono diminuíram. Conclusão: A atividade física é uma forma simples e popular de se exercitar. É eficaz na melhora da função cognitiva de pacientes com dificuldade de adormecer. Nível de evidência II; Estudos terapêuticos – investigação de resultados de tratamento. RESUMEN Introducción: La dificultad en dormirse se relaciona al mal funcionamiento del mecanismo del ciclo sueño-vigilia en el cuerpo humano y es causada por diversos motivos. Existe una serie de reacciones adversas que resultan de la mala calidad o calidad anormal del sueño, durante el sueño en sí. Esos síntomas afectan seriamente la condición física y la salud mental de las personas. Objetivo: Explorar el efecto de ejercicios físicos en pacientes con dificultad en dormirse. Métodos: Dividimos los pacientes en un grupo de deportes y otro de control. Los pacientes en el grupo de deportes tuvieron entrenamiento deportivo, mientras el grupo de control no. Tras dos semanas de intervención y comparación, usamos estadísticas matemáticas para evaluar la función cognitiva de los grupos. Resultados: Tras el ejercicio físico, hubo mejoría en la calidad del sueño de los pacientes y los trastornos del sueño disminuyeron. Conclusión: La actividad física es una forma simple y popular de ejercitarse. Es eficaz en la mejoría de la función cognitiva de pacientes con dificultad de dormirse. Nivel de evidencia II; Estudios terapéuticos – investigación de resultados de tratamiento.

Arboreal habitats are characterized by a complex three-dimensional array of branches that vary in numerous characteristics, including incline, compliance, roughness, and diameter. Gaps must often be crossed, and this is frequently accomplished by leaping. Geckos bearing an adhesive system often jump in arboreal habitats, although few studies have examined their jumping biomechanics. We investigated the biomechanics of landing on smooth surfaces in crested geckos, Correlophus ciliatus, asking whether the incline of the landing platform alters impact forces and mid-air body movements. Using high-speed videography, we examined jumps from a horizontal take-off platform to horizontal, 45° and 90° landing platforms. Take-off velocity was greatest when geckos were jumping to a horizontal platform. Geckos did not modulate their body orientation in the air. Body curvature during landing, and landing duration, were greatest on the vertical platform. Together, these significantly reduced the impact force on the vertical platform. When landing on a smooth vertical surface, the geckos must engage the adhesive system to prevent slipping and falling. In contrast, landing on a horizontal surface requires no adhesion, but incurs high impact forces. Despite a lack of mid-air modulation, geckos appear robust to changing landing conditions.

Falling film evaporation is widely used in solar desalination systems. Fouling is an important problem to be addressed in many applications involving heat transfer including processes involving the utilization of solar energy in desalination applications. In the research upon which this paper partly reports, an experimental investigation was carried out on a vertical tube in falling film evaporation to determine the effects of temperature, velocity, the use of a porous-sintered tube, and the use of Teflon coating on calcium carbonate deposition characteristics. During the fouling experiments, the pressure inside the test tubes was maintained constant at 101.3 kPa, and the inlet temperature was maintained at 373 K, while allowing the water mass velocity to vary from 0.42 to 1.05 kg m−1 s−1. Results show that the fouling in the test tube becomes more serious as the temperature increases and the flowrate decreases. Compared with stainless-steel tubes, porous-sintered tubes can significantly reduce fouling resistance, but at the same time they bring about a decrease in the heat transfer coefficient. The Teflon coating also has anti-fouling performance but does not affect the heat transfer coefficient in stainless-steel tubes. Through the weighing of local fouling deposits, it has been found that the mass of the fouling deposits in the lower part of the tested tubes is greater than that in the upper part.

When working with Pamalka Manjitha Karunanayake in 2018, the two of us ended up recording in Cult Studios (Colombo, Sri Lanka). There, I audio-recorded Pamalka's rendering of some marvelous samples all of which showcasing his deep understanding of the raga charukeshi. Charukeshi is a highly ambivalent raga. As a result, the performance of a skilled player will always convey joy as well as grief, and oscillate between emotional qualities. On this December 4th 2018 none of us had any clue about the catastrophes that were in store. Nevertheless, I had field-recorded impressive sounds of some demolition machinery, tearing down an old building that had been used as an arts centre in Fulda, central-Germany. That was meant to gentrify the neighbourhood. I brought these somehow eerie recordings to my longtime colleague Bernie Rothauer in Salzburg to see what could be done with them in his Ôbaxé studio. Bernie loves to work with weird soundscapes. My then working title was "Making a Trance." This contribution comes as a post-workshop interview about how that music came into being.

Biped robots are expected to be able to work in complex environments. However, these robots will inevitably fall at times and such falls may cause injury to the robot itself or to people nearby. Therefore, it is necessary to detect that the robot is falling to be able to warn the robot in sufficient time when it is about to fall and to switch its controller to protect the vulnerable parts of the robot. Modeling and analysis of the biped robot falling problem cannot be fully accurate and many current learning-based methods rely on large quantities of fall data that are difficult to use to train fragile robots. A machine learning-based fall detection method is therefore proposed in this paper. This method requires only a small amount of training data to obtain good fall detection, making the training process on the robot platform much safer. A support vector machine is used to determine the state of the robot and the decision boundary of the stable state is updated during motion to enable the classifier to match the motion capability of the robot.

Principles from human-human physical interaction may be necessary to design more intuitive and seamless robotic devices to aid human movement. Previous studies have shown that light touch can aid balance and that haptic communication can improve performance of physical tasks, but the effects of touch between two humans on walking balance has not been previously characterized. This study examines physical interaction between two persons when one person aids another in performing a beam-walking task. 12 pairs of healthy young adults held a force sensor with one hand while one person walked on a narrow balance beam (2 cm wide x 3.7 m long) and the other person walked overground by their side. We compare balance performance during partnered vs. solo beam-walking to examine the effects of haptic interaction, and we compare hand interaction mechanics during partnered beam-walking vs. overground walking to examine how the interaction aided balance. While holding the hand of a partner, participants were able to walk further on the beam without falling, reduce lateral sway, and decrease angular momentum in the frontal plane. We measured small hand force magnitudes (mean of 2.2 N laterally and 3.4 N vertically) that created opposing torque components about the beam axis and calculated the interaction torque, the overlapping opposing torque that does not contribute to motion of the beam-walker’s body. We found higher interaction torque magnitudes during partnered beam-walking vs. partnered overground walking, and correlation between interaction torque magnitude and reductions in lateral sway. To gain insight into feasible controller designs to emulate human-human physical interactions for aiding walking balance, we modeled the relationship between each torque component and motion of the beam-walker’s body as a mass-spring-damper system. Our model results show opposite types of mechanical elements (active vs. passive) for the two torque components. Our results demonstrate that hand interactions aid balance during partnered beam-walking by creating opposing torques that primarily serve haptic communication, and our model of the torques suggest control parameters for implementing human-human balance aid in human-robot interactions.