103 research outputs found

    Modulation of gastrointestinal transit by circadian rhythms and lifestyle

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    Complexity Science in Human Change

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    This reprint encompasses fourteen contributions that offer avenues towards a better understanding of complex systems in human behavior. The phenomena studied here are generally pattern formation processes that originate in social interaction and psychotherapy. Several accounts are also given of the coordination in body movements and in physiological, neuronal and linguistic processes. A common denominator of such pattern formation is that complexity and entropy of the respective systems become reduced spontaneously, which is the hallmark of self-organization. The various methodological approaches of how to model such processes are presented in some detail. Results from the various methods are systematically compared and discussed. Among these approaches are algorithms for the quantification of synchrony by cross-correlational statistics, surrogate control procedures, recurrence mapping and network models.This volume offers an informative and sophisticated resource for scholars of human change, and as well for students at advanced levels, from graduate to post-doctoral. The reprint is multidisciplinary in nature, binding together the fields of medicine, psychology, physics, and neuroscience

    Evaluating footwear “in the wild”: Examining wrap and lace trail shoe closures during trail running

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    Trail running participation has grown over the last two decades. As a result, there have been an increasing number of studies examining the sport. Despite these increases, there is a lack of understanding regarding the effects of footwear on trail running biomechanics in ecologically valid conditions. The purpose of our study was to evaluate how a Wrap vs. Lace closure (on the same shoe) impacts running biomechanics on a trail. Thirty subjects ran a trail loop in each shoe while wearing a global positioning system (GPS) watch, heart rate monitor, inertial measurement units (IMUs), and plantar pressure insoles. The Wrap closure reduced peak foot eversion velocity (measured via IMU), which has been associated with fit. The Wrap closure also increased heel contact area, which is also associated with fit. This increase may be associated with the subjective preference for the Wrap. Lastly, runners had a small but significant increase in running speed in the Wrap shoe with no differences in heart rate nor subjective exertion. In total, the Wrap closure fit better than the Lace closure on a variety of terrain. This study demonstrates the feasibility of detecting meaningful biomechanical differences between footwear features in the wild using statistical tools and study design. Evaluating footwear in ecologically valid environments often creates additional variance in the data. This variance should not be treated as noise; instead, it is critical to capture this additional variance and challenges of ecologically valid terrain if we hope to use biomechanics to impact the development of new products

    Towards a framework for the study of ongoing socio-technical transitions: explored through the UK self-driving car paradigm

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    The UK government set out to see self-driving cars on roads by 2021. The idea of a self-driving car has been around for almost a century, and more recent technological developments have made self-driving cars a real-life possibility. While a fully self-driving automobility system is some distance away, real-life testing is bringing autonomous driving closer to consumers. Some claim this to be the biggest disruption to mobility systems since the invention of the car. Claims about the potential of self-driving mobility range from economic and social benefits to environmental improvements. A significant ambiguity however remains concerning how they will be deployed and how the technological innovation will affect mobility aims and related transport and infrastructure systems. So far, the vast majority of studies on AVs have focused on the technology aspect of this transition lacking contributions that address this from a broader socio-technical perspective. With the accelerated adoption of new technologies, Sustainability Transitions has come to prominence as a research area that seeks to understand and guide socio-technical transitions toward sustainable trajectories. Socio-technical transitions theoretical framework has been used to understand historical transitions in the majority of empirical applications. The ability to apply the same framework to ongoing transitions and to guide these towards sustainable outcomes remains unsubstantiated. To address this gap this thesis examines the foundations of multi-level perspective (MLP) – a socio-technical transitions analytical framework – and develops an analytical framework (SRPM – System Rules Pathways Mechanisms) that is appropriate for the study of ongoing transitions. The refocused framework incorporates critical realism to focus analysis on causation and causal mechanisms. It is used to analyse the ongoing socio-technical transition to self-driving cars in the UK through a four-step analytical process. The study is framed as a case-based process mechanism study. The four steps are: i) contextualisation of the ongoing transition to AVs in the UK as a socio-technical transition based on the MLP theoretical framework; ii) identification of internal and external structural relations within the transition through the notion of rules and the morphogenetic cycle; iii) aligning observed processes with transition pathways to theorise about the trajectories of the transition; iv) identification of causal mechanisms in the observed processes through identification of demi-regularities through data analysis of grey literature and theorisation about mechanisms through the development of mechanism sketches and schemata. The thesis makes two contributions to knowledge: i) methodological and ii) empirical. The methodological contribution is the development of the SRPM analytical framework to study an ongoing socio-technical transition, and the empirical contribution is the application of this framework to the study of the ongoing transition to driverless cars in the UK

    Stretch hyperreflexia in children with cerebral palsy:Assessment - Contextualization - Modulation

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    Cerebral palsy (CP) is a neurological disorder and the most frequent cause of motor impairment in children in Europe. Around 85% of children with CP experience stretch hyperreflexia, also known as “spasticity”. Stretch hyperreflexia is an excessive response to muscle stretch, leading to increased joint resistance. The joint hyper-resistance causes limitations in activities such as walking. Multiple methods have been developed to measure stretch hyperreflexia, but evidence supporting the use of these methods for diagnostics and treatment evaluation in children with CP is insufficient. Furthermore, most methods are designed to assess stretch reflexes in passive conditions, which might not translate to the limitations encountered due to stretch reflexes during activities. Furthermore, while a broad range of stretch hyperreflexia treatments is available, many are invasive, non-specific, or temporary and might have adverse side effects. Training methods to reduce stretch reflexes using biofeedback are promising non-invasive methods with potential long-term sustained effects. Still, clinical feasibility needs to be improved before implementation in clinical rehabilitation of children with CP. This thesis aimed to develop methods to assess stretch hyperreflexia of the calf muscles during passive conditions, as well as in the context of walking. Additionally, this thesis aimed to develop clinically feasible methods to modulate stretch hyperreflexia in the calf muscle of children with CP. The outcomes are described in eight different studies presented in this thesis. All in all, the work presented in this thesis shows that sagittal plane clinical gait analysis can be performed using the human body model and can be complemented with ultrasound imaging of the calf muscle. Motorized methods to assess stretch hyperreflexia in passive conditions might be useful for evaluation in adults after SCI/Stroke. Still, limitations regarding feasibility and validity limit clinical application for children with CP. Furthermore, this thesis provides additional evidence that the deviating muscle activation patterns during walking, particularly the increased activation around initial contact, are caused by stretch hyper-reflexes in children with CP. The deviating muscle activation patterns, with increased activation during early stance and reduced activation around push-off, can be modulated within one session by several children with CP. Therefore, the next step is to develop a training program to modulate the activation pattern and potentially decrease stretch hyper-reflexes in children with CP to improve the gait patter

    3D Information Technologies in Cultural Heritage Preservation and Popularisation

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    This Special Issue of the journal Applied Sciences presents recent advances and developments in the use of digital 3D technologies to protect and preserve cultural heritage. While most of the articles focus on aspects of 3D scanning, modeling, and presenting in VR of cultural heritage objects from buildings to small artifacts and clothing, part of the issue is devoted to 3D sound utilization in the cultural heritage field

    3-я Міжнародна конференція зі сталого майбутнього: екологічні, технологічні, соціальні та економічні аспекти (ICSF 2022) 24-27 травня 2022 року, м. Кривий Ріг, Україна

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    Матеріали 3-ої Міжнародної конференції зі сталого майбутнього: екологічні, технологічні, соціальні та економічні аспекти (ICSF 2022) 24-27 травня 2022 року, м. Кривий Ріг, Україна.Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Sustainable Futures: Environmental, Technological, Social and Economic Matters (ICSF 2022) 24-27 May 2022, Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine

    The role of the gut and the gastrointestinal microbiome in Parkinson’s disease

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    INTRODUCTION: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a disabling and progressive neurodegenerative disorder that is increasing in prevalence with the aging and urbanisation of the global population. The mechanisms underlying PD pathogenesis and progression are incompletely understood. Improved clinical recognition of early and prodromal non-motor symptoms (NMS), namely gastrointestinal (GI) dysfunction, has focused research over the last two decades on the roles of the gut. More recently, the influences of the microbiota-gut-brain-axis (MGBA) in the development and progression of PD have become an intensive area of research. Studies have demonstrated an association between the GM and a variety of PD-related characteristics, identifying important impacts on levodopa metabolism by certain microbiota. Importantly, the effect of device-assisted therapies (DATs) on the GM and the robustness of microbiota compositional differences between PD patients and household controls (HCs) has not been well defined. The aims of this thesis were to 1) investigate GI dysfunction and nutritional patterns in PD, 2) determine if the GM is a biomarker of PD, and 3) investigate the temporal stability of the GM in PD patients receiving standard therapies and those initiating DATs. METHODS: 103 PD patients and 81 HCs were recruited and participants with PD were considered in two sub-cohorts; 1) PD patients initiating DAT; either Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) (n=10), or levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel (LCIG) (n=11), who had GM sampling from stool at -2, 0, 2 and 4 weeks around initiation of DAT and baseline, 6 and 12 months following DAT initiation, 2) 82 PD patients receiving standard PD therapies, who had GM sampling from stool at baseline, 6 and 12 months. Validated PD questionnaire metadata ascertaining motor characteristics and NMS, as well as nutritional data in the form of a Food Frequency Questionnaire, were collected for all participants at baseline, 6 and 12 months. Total DNA was isolated from stool before sequencing the V3-V4 region of 16S rRNA. Relative bacterial abundances, diversity measures, compositional differences and clinical-microbiome associations were determined, as well as developing predictive modelling to identify PD patients and assess disease progression. RESULTS: PD patients reported more prevalent and severe GI dysfunction, especially constipation, which was almost three-times more common compared to HC subjects, (78.6% vs 28.4%, p<0.001). PD patients had a higher intake of total carbohydrates (279 g/day vs 232 g/day; p=0.034), which was largely attributable to an increased daily sugar intake (153 g/day vs 119 g/day; p=0.003), particularly of free sugars (61 g/day vs 41 g/day; p=0.001). Significant GM compositional differences across several taxonomic levels were apparent between PD patients and HCs and associated with a number of PD motor and NMS features, as well as certain therapies. Predictive models to distinguish PD from HCs were developed considering global GM profiles, achieving an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.71, which was improved by addition of data on carbohydrate intake (AUC 0.74). Longitudinal analysis demonstrated persistent underrepresentation of known short-chain fatty acid producing bacteria in PD patients, particularly those concerned with butyrate production; Butyricicoccus, Fusicatenibacter, Lachnospiraceae ND3007 group and Erysipelotrichaceae UCG−003. Taxa differences observed over the short-term (four week) sampling period around DAT (DBS and LCIG) initiation, were not sustained at 6 and 12 months. Despite this, persistent longer-term overrepresentation of Prevotella was observed after DBS initiation, and a trend was found that was suggestive of overrepresentation of Roseburia after LCIG initiation. These results suggest that there may be variable shorter and longer-term DBS and LCIG influences on the GM, which are complex and multifactorial. PD progression analysis did not identify distinct persisting GM compositional differences between faster and slower progressing patients, although predictive modelling was strengthened by the consideration of nutritional data, specifically protein intake, and improved the predictive capacity for PD progression. CONCLUSION: This thesis demonstrates that there are numerous clinically significant associations between the gut, GM and PD. GI dysfunction is common, and carbohydrate nutritional intake appears to be different from the general population in PD. Persistent alterations of GM composition in PD compared to HCs were found. These findings provide support for the existence of disturbances of gut homeostatic pathways, which may disrupt intestinal barrier permeability and lead to gut leakiness, in the pathogenesis of PD. This thesis also highlights the potential to use the GM in the identification of PD and the characterisation of disease progression

    HERITAGE 2022. International Conference on Vernacular Heritage: Culture, People and Sustainability

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    Vernacular architecture, tangible and intangible heritage of great importance to European and global culture, represents the response of a society culturally linked to its territory, in terms of climate and landscape. Its construction features are born from the practical experience of the inhabitants, making use of local materials, taking into consideration geographical conditions and cultural, social and constructive traditions, based on the conditions of the surrounding nature and habitat. Above all, it plays an essential role in contemporary society as it is able to teach us important principles and lessons for a respectful sustainable architecture. Vernacular Heritage: Culture, People and Sustainability will be a valuable source of information for academics and professionals in the fields of Environmental Science, Civil Engineering, Construction and Building Engineering and ArchitectureMileto, C.; Vegas López-Manzanares, F.; Cristini, V.; García Soriano, L. (2022). HERITAGE 2022. International Conference on Vernacular Heritage: Culture, People and Sustainability. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/HERITAGE2022.2022.15942EDITORIA

    2022-2023 Course Catalog

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    An annual catalog of courses and course descriptions offered at the University of Montana.https://scholarworks.umt.edu/coursecatalogs_asc/1117/thumbnail.jp
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