Hand and wrist configurations in patients with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

The association between hand and wrist configurations was investigated in this study. The hand and wrist dimensions of sixty patients with carpal tunnel syndrome and sixty healthy control subjects were measured using specific anatomical landmarks. The palm width was significantly greater in the patient group. There was no significant difference in the hand length between the two groups. Both the wrist width and wrist depth were significantly greater in the patient group. The hand ratio and the wrist ratio were significantly smaller in the patient group indicating that the latter had squarer hands and wrists than the control group respectively. This suggests that the anatomy of the hand and wrist may predispose to carpal tunnel syndrome.peer-reviewe

The Lost Movements of Ernst Toch’s Gesprochene Musik

Gesprochene Musik, by Ernst Toch (1887–1964), is a forgotten milestone in the history of electronic music.1 A three–movement suite consisting of spoken music for choir, it is one of the few paradigmatic representatives of the genre of Gramophonmusik, which made use of prerecorded gramophone discs in a concert setting. The work was premiered in 1930 at a Berlin festival devoted to new music, in a concert featuring original works for gramophone playback by two rising stars of the German contemporary music scene, Toch and Paul Hindemith. The pieces were performed only once, yet through the intervention of a young John Cage, the score of the third movement of Gesprochene Musik, the “Geographical Fugue,” appeared in Henry Cowell’s journal, New Music, five years later. Although Cage published the piece in the context of a collection of music written expressly for gramophone, his version led the “Geographical Fugue” to receive a new lease of life as a purely acoustic choral showpiece performed live, which would, ironically, become Toch’s most famous work

Bone Density and Muscle Development Problems in Female Lightweight Rowers Trying to Make-Weight

The purpose of this study was to determine whether high intensity exercise, combined with restriction of diet, is counter-productive to the normal health and development of the competitor. The study investigated the effects of high intensity exercise on body composition (fat, muscle and bone); bone density; and physical performance (aerobic capacity, rowing performance, quadricep strength, power and fatiguability) in twelve lightweight female rowers (age range 17- 25yrs), training for the State and National lightweight championships. Six of the rowers completed the testing, which consisted of test1 (pre-training) and test2 (post-training) after a 12 weeks training regime. Skinfold measurements were lower and significantly different (p \u3c 0.05) from pre-training values. Bodyweight results were also significantly lower (p \u3c 0.05), however, the mean bodyweight was still above the regulation weight of 59kgs. Mean bone mineral density for female lightweight rowers (n=9, mean age 20.5 yrs) was significantly greater than (p \u3c 0.05) (independent t-Test) established norms for 19yr olds (n=20). Physical performance data (Max VO2, Muscular force, power and fatiguability) were not significantly different from pre-training values. However, normalised data for peak torque (right leg) at 120 and 180 deg/secs were significantly different (p \u3c 0.05). The dry (land based) performance test was significantly different (p \u3c 0.001), which indicated that all individual performance results were improving. These data do not suggest that Lightweight rowers experience any health or development problems while involved in high intensity training whilst diet restricting. However, it is recommended that further study be continued until the National titles when the regulation weight limit of 59kgs will be achieved

Demographic Crisis in Japan: Why Japan Might Open Its Doors to Foreign Home Health-Care Aides

Japan is currently facing a two-fold demographic crisis: its birthrate is rapidly falling and its population is rapidly aging. Despite the present recession, Japan is confronting a significant shortage of workers in the health-care field. There may not be enough home health-care aides to meet the needs of all of the elderly who are eligible for visits under Japan\u27s new long-term care insurance program. The Ministry of Justice has recently proposed allowing more foreigners to work in Japan. The proposal encourages the admission of immigrants to work as home helpers, an occupation that is considered unskilled. This proposal marks a major departure from Japan\u27s long-established official ban on unskilled foreign workers, and it has sparked controversy about whether Japan should open itself to increasing numbers of foreign residents. This Comment describes Japanese elder care, explores potential foreign and domestic solutions to the shortage of home health-care workers, and concludes that Japan is likely to admit unskilled immigrants to fill labor shortages related to elder care

The left intraparietal sulcus modulates the selection of low salient stimuli

Neuropsychological and functional imaging studies have suggested a general right hemisphere advantage for processing global visual information and a left hemisphere advantage for processing local information. In contrast, a recent transcranial magnetic stimulation study [Mevorach, C., Humphreys, G. W., & Shalev, L. Opposite biases in salience-based selection for the left and right posterior parietal cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 9, 740-742, 2006b] demonstrated that functional lateralization of selection in the parietal cortices on the basis of the relative salience of stimuli might provide an alternative explanation for previous results. In the present study, we applied a whole-brain analysis of the functional magnetic resonance signal when participants responded to either the local or the global levels of hierarchical figures. The task (respond to local or global) was crossed with the saliency of the target level (local salient, global salient) to provide, for the first time, a direct contrast between brain activation related to the stimulus level and that related to relative saliency. We found evidence for lateralization of salience-based selection but not for selection based on the level of processing. Activation along the left intraparietal sulcus (IPS) was found when a low saliency stimulus had to be selected irrespective of its level. A control task showed that this was not simply an effect of task difficulty. The data suggest a specific role for regions along the left IPS in salience-based selection, supporting the argument that previous reports of lateralized responses to local and global stimuli were contaminated by effects of saliency

Exploring the links between colours and tastes/flavours

The colour and other visual appearance properties of food and drink constitute a key factor determining consumer acceptance and choice behaviour. Not only do consumers associate specific colours with particular tastes and flavours, but adding or changing the colour of food and drink can also dramatically affect taste/flavour perception. Surprisingly, even the colour of cups, cutlery, plates, packages, and the colour of the environment itself, have also been shown to influence multisensory flavour perception. The taste/flavour associations that we hold with colour are context-dependent, and are often based on statistical learning (though emotional mediation may also play a role). However, to date, neither the computational principles constraining these ubiquitous crossmodal effects nor the neural mechanisms underpinning the various crossmodal associations (or correspondences) that have been documented between colours and tastes/flavours have yet been established. It is currently unclear to what extent such colour-taste/flavour correspondences ought to be explained in terms of semantic congruency (i.e., statistical learning), and/or emotional mediation. Bayesian causal inference has become an increasingly important tool in helping researchers to understand (and predict) the multisensory interactions between the spatial senses of vision, audition, and touch. However, a network modelling approach may be of value moving forward. As made clear by this review, there are substantial challenges, both theoretical and practical, that will need to be overcome by those wanting to apply computational approaches both to understanding the integration of the chemical senses in the case of multisensory flavour perception, and to understanding the influence of colour thereon

Government and self-government in in the information society

Research on the information society and the policies and strategies for its creation has tended to discuss them rationally as the national, and occasionally international or regional, responses to changes in the competitive environment. The predominant notion of the information society in various levels of governance has only rarely been critically examined. The paper provides a Foucauldian analysis of the constitution of the information society as a political and policy imperative at the level of the European Union and the multiple effects it had for its member states. Drawing on ideas on governmentality and regimes of truth, I argue that the European Commission continually shaped the rationality and identity of the information society it heralded, by managing to set itself as the legitimate locus of policy for the information society. In revealing the dominant discursive truths about the European information society, the research discusses how the truth claims about the construction of a particular version of the information society and the legitimate loci of its government shaped the degrees of freedom of the Greek policy makers through a range of disciplining and selfdisciplining practices

Studi Empiris Atas Kualitas Audit

This study aims to determine whether the competence, independence, time budget pressure, and ethicalimpact on audit quality. Research with the theme of quality audit becomes important in two points: first,as a way of seeing reality in compliance auditor to audit standards and the second, while maintaining usertrust. Audit quality on the one hand can increase the reliability of the information, on the other hand isinfluenced by many factors such as the competence, independence, time budget pressure, and ethics. Thisstudy uses the KAP auditor as respondents, by considering two important things: first, in Jakarta and thesecond, the category of non big four, as a way of presenting variation among the existing research. Totalrespondents 106 auditors were selected purposively and proportionally from 17 KAP. The data isprocessed using multiple linear regressions after classical assumption test and instrument questionnairetest. The results showed all four of the above factors have a significant effect on audit quality.Suggestions of this study extend some aspects of the research