Isometric Force-Time Curve Assessment: Accuracy, Precision, and Repeatability of a Mobile Application and Portable and Lightweight Device.

Strength assessment is one of the main fields in sports performance, physical rehabilitation, physical activity, and health. We aimed to compare maximal voluntary isometric contractions (MVICs) and paired voluntary isometric contractions (VICs) of knee extensors between an isokinetic dynamometer (BIODEX) and a portable and lightweight device (DINABANG). From 19 volunteers (age: 28.

The agglomeration and dispersion dichotomy of human settlements on Earth.

Human settlements on Earth are scattered in a multitude of shapes, sizes and spatial arrangements. These patterns are often not random but a result of complex geographical, cultural, economic and historical processes that have profound human and ecological impacts. However, little is known about the global distribution of these patterns and the spatial forces that creates them.

A Deep Gravity model for mobility flows generation.

The movements of individuals within and among cities influence critical aspects of our society, such as well-being, the spreading of epidemics, and the quality of the environment. When information about mobility flows is not available for a particular region of interest, we must rely on mathematical models to generate them. In this work, we propose Deep Gravity, an effective model to generate flow probabilities that exploits many features (e.

Non-invasive indirect monitoring of intra-abdominal pressure using microwave reflectometry: system design and proof-of-concept clinical trial.

Monitoring intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) has become a standard in intensive care units. Correlation between the abdominal wall's thickness (AWTh) and IAP has been reported previously. The abdominal wall can be modeled as a compound of parallel dielectric slabs; changes in their width have a direct effect on the reflection coefficient of the abdominal wall at microwave frequencies.

Social media usage reveals recovery of small businesses after natural hazard events.

The challenge of nowcasting the effect of natural hazard events (e.g., earthquakes, floods, hurricanes) on assets, people and society is of primary importance for assessing the ability of such systems to recover from extreme events.

Data-driven generation of spatio-temporal routines in human mobility.

The generation of realistic spatio-temporal trajectories of human mobility is of fundamental importance in a wide range of applications, such as the developing of protocols for mobile ad-hoc networks or what-if analysis in urban ecosystems. Current generative algorithms fail in accurately reproducing the individuals' recurrent schedules and at the same time in accounting for the possibility that individuals may break the routine during periods of variable duration. In this article we present Ditras (DIary-based TRAjectory Simulator), a framework to simulate the spatio-temporal patterns of human mobility.

Identifying and modeling the structural discontinuities of human interactions.

The idea of a hierarchical spatial organization of society lies at the core of seminal theories in human geography that have strongly influenced our understanding of social organization. Along the same line, the recent availability of large-scale human mobility and communication data has offered novel quantitative insights hinting at a strong geographical confinement of human interactions within neighboring regions, extending to local levels within countries. However, models of human interaction largely ignore this effect.

Evacuation time estimate for total pedestrian evacuation using a queuing network model and volunteered geographic information.

Estimating city evacuation time is a nontrivial problem due to the interaction between thousands of individual agents, giving rise to various collective phenomena, such as bottleneck formation, intermittent flow, and stop-and-go waves. We present a mean field approach to draw relationships between road network spatial attributes, the number of evacuees, and the resultant evacuation time estimate (ETE). Using volunteered geographic information, we divide 50 United Kingdom cities into a total of 704 catchment areas (CAs) which we define as an area where all agents share the same nearest exit node.

Returners and explorers dichotomy in human mobility.

The availability of massive digital traces of human whereabouts has offered a series of novel insights on the quantitative patterns characterizing human mobility. In particular, numerous recent studies have lead to an unexpected consensus: the considerable variability in the characteristic travelled distance of individuals coexists with a high degree of predictability of their future locations. Here we shed light on this surprising coexistence by systematically investigating the impact of recurrent mobility on the characteristic distance travelled by individuals.

Emergence of structural and dynamical properties of ecological mutualistic networks.

Mutualistic networks are formed when the interactions between two classes of species are mutually beneficial. They are important examples of cooperation shaped by evolution. Mutualism between animals and plants has a key role in the organization of ecological communities.

Human mobility in a continuum approach.

Human mobility is investigated using a continuum approach that allows to calculate the probability to observe a trip to any arbitrary region, and the fluxes between any two regions. The considered description offers a general and unified framework, in which previously proposed mobility models like the gravity model, the intervening opportunities model, and the recently introduced radiation model are naturally resulting as special cases. A new form of radiation model is derived and its validity is investigated using observational data offered by commuting trips obtained from the United States census data set, and the mobility fluxes extracted from mobile phone data collected in a western European country.

An allometry-based approach for understanding forest structure, predicting tree-size distribution and assessing the degree of disturbance.

Tree-size distribution is one of the most investigated subjects in plant population biology. The forestry literature reports that tree-size distribution trajectories vary across different stands and/or species, whereas the metabolic scaling theory suggests that the tree number scales universally as -2 power of diameter. Here, we propose a simple functional scaling model in which these two opposing results are reconciled.

A universal model for mobility and migration patterns.

Introduced in its contemporary form in 1946 (ref. 1), but with roots that go back to the eighteenth century, the gravity law is the prevailing framework with which to predict population movement, cargo shipping volume and inter-city phone calls, as well as bilateral trade flows between nations. Despite its widespread use, it relies on adjustable parameters that vary from region to region and suffers from known analytic inconsistencies.

ABDOPRE: an external device for the reduction of intra-abdominal pressure.

This article describes a device for the reduction of intra-abdominal pressure. The device (ABDOPRE) includes a unique external servo-control mechanism, based on urinary bladder pressure measurement. The results of ABDOPRE use in the first four intra-abdominal hypertension patients are reported; the device resulted in a reduction of intra-abdominal pressure between 16% and 35% in 3 cases and in a paradoxical increase of the intra-abdominal pressure in an obese woman, likely due to inappropriate chamber size for the patient's anatomy.

Self-similarity and scaling in forest communities.

Ecological communities exhibit pervasive patterns and interrelationships between size, abundance, and the availability of resources. We use scaling ideas to develop a unified, model-independent framework for understanding the distribution of tree sizes, their energy use, and spatial distribution in tropical forests. We demonstrate that the scaling of the tree crown at the individual level drives the forest structure when resources are fully used.

Universal scaling of optimal current distribution in transportation networks.

Transportation networks are inevitably selected with reference to their global cost which depends on the strengths and the distribution of the embedded currents. We prove that optimal current distributions for a uniformly injected d -dimensional network exhibit robust scale-invariance properties, independently of the particular cost function considered, as long as it is convex. We find that, in the limit of large currents, the distribution decays as a power law with an exponent equal to (2d-1)/(d-1).

[Ponderal index to describe a term neonatal population].

Introduction: The terms small, appropriate, and large for gestational age cannot identify some alterations in body composition that might be identified by the ponderal index. The aim of the present study was to correlate birth weight with ponderal index to identify other patterns of intrauterine growth.

Population And Methods: We performed a cross-sectional, descriptive study in which only one curve of the ponderal index was created for each week of gestational age (weeks 33 to 42) and including the 10th, 50th and 90th centiles because sex does not influence this index.

[Perinatal Information System. Incorporation latency and impact on perinatal clinical registry].

The Perinatal Information System (SIP) is a clinical record, local management and quality assurance software standard in Latin America and the Caribbean. The time to implement SIP in a Maternity Hospital is evaluated as well as the effect of statistics on perinatal health indicators in subsequent years. In the sample of 20 Maternity Hospitals (5 Countries, 40% Private and 60% Public) 85% had a reliable information system by the third year of use of SIP.

Oro-naso-pharyngeal suction at birth: effects on respiratory adaptation of normal term vaginally born infants.

The effect of oro-naso-pharyngeal suction at birth on pulmonary mechanics is described in a random assigned controlled study of 40 normal term vaginally born infants. Twenty cases had their oro-naso-pharynx suctioned immediately after birth (S Group), whereas 20 were not suctioned in the neonatal period (NS Group). A computerized pneumotachographic system (MECVENT) was used for the assessment of respiratory mechanics (Dynamic Compliance (C.

Electroencephalogram in vitro and cortical transmembrane potentials in the turtle Chrysemys d'orbigny.

An experimental stable model of an in vitro turtle brain (Chrysemys d'orbigny) was developed in order to compare electrographic activity (EEG) with transmembrane potentials. Two preparations were used: a whole intact hemisphere and a whole open hemisphere. The latter permitted easier impalement of cortical neurons through the ependymal surface.

Cesarean section odds ratios.

Cesarean section (CS) rates for primiparas, multiparas with and without previous CS were investigated in seven obstetrical settings. Despite the great diversity of global CS rates (5.3 to 17.

Assessment of pulmonary dynamics in normal newborns: a pneumotachographic method.

A pneumotachographic method for assessment of pulmonary dynamics in critically ill newborns in an intensive care setting was developed in our laboratory. Before the results obtained with this method could be applied, the normal range of values were determined in 48 normal term and preterm newborns. Their body weight ranged between 1200 and 4100 g, and postnatal ages between 24 hours and 21 days.