Older workers spend less time in extreme trunk and upper-arm postures during order-picking tasks: Results from field testing.

Order picking tasks require repetitive trunk and upper arms movements that may increase the risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders, particularly among older workers due to the decline of their physical capabilities with aging. We proposed an approach based on a limited number of wearable inertial sensors to assessed exposures to non-neutral trunk and upper arms postures among both older and young workers during their regular work-shifts. The obtained data were processed accordingly to international standards (ISO 11226 and EN 1005-4) to detect the existence of possible differences associated with age-specific working strategies.

Landscape metrics as predictors of water-related ecosystem services: Insights from hydrological modeling and data-based approaches applied on the Arno River Basin, Italy.

The study addresses the challenge of integrating complex landscape-hydrological interactions into predictive models for improved water resource management. The aim is to investigate the effectiveness of landscape metrics-quantitative indices measuring landscape composition and configuration-as predictors of WES in the Arno River Basin, Italy. Utilizing two hydrological models alongside a random forest algorithm, we assessed spatial and temporal variations in water yield, runoff, and groundwater recharge.

Suitability of different machine learning algorithms for the classification of the proportion of grassland-based forages at the herd level using mid-infrared spectral information from routine milk control.

As the call for an international standard for milk from grassland-based production systems continues to grow, so too do the monitoring and evaluation policies surrounding this topic. Individual stipulations by countries and milk producers to market their milk under their own grass-fed labels include a compulsory number of grazing days per year (ranging from 120 d for certain labels to 180 d for others), a specified amount of herbage in the diet, or a prescribed dietary proportion of grassland-based forages (GBF) fed and produced on-farm. As these multifarious policy and label requirements are laborious and costly to monitor on-farm, fast economical proxies would be advantageous to verify the proportion of GBF consumed by the cows in the final product.

Shoulder kinematics during cyclic overhead work are affected by a passive arm support exoskeleton.

Purpose: We investigated the influence of passive arm-support exoskeleton (ASE) with different levels of torque (50, 75, and 100%) on upper arm osteokinematics.

Methods: Twenty participants completed a cyclic overhead drilling task with and without ASE. Task duration, joint angles, and angular acceleration peaks were analyzed during ascent and descent phases of the dominant upper arm.

Left ventricular structure and function following renal sympathetic denervation in patients with HFpEF: an echocardiographic 9-year long-term follow-up.

Background: High blood pressure is a major risk factor for cardiac remodeling and left ventricular hypertrophy, increasing cardiovascular risk and leading to heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). Since renal sympathetic denervation (RDN) reduces blood pressure in the long term, we aimed to investigate the long-term effect of RDN in patients with HFpEF in the present analysis.

Methods: Patients previously enrolled in a local RDN registry who underwent high-frequency RDN with the use of the Symplicity Flex® renal denervation system between 2011 and 2014 were followed up.