221 research outputs found
Assessment of Portuguese firefighters’ lifestyle: results from an online survey
Firefighters are an occupational group exposed to multiple agents, such as heat, fatigue, noise and chemical substances. Exposure to these agents can have a severe impact on their health. In addition, lifestyle behaviors may also affect their health and well-being. As such, the aim of this study was to assess health-related lifestyle behaviors in Portuguese firefighters. Data was obtained via an online survey using an adapted version of the FANTASTIC Lifestyle Assessment Inventory that included questions on relationships with family and friends, physical activity, nutrition, tobacco and alcohol consumption, sleep and stress, career and shifts. The access link to the survey was disseminated through collaboration with the National School of Firefighters. Data was collected between April 24th and May 27th 2021. From the 861 participating firefighters, the majority were men and had less than 40 years old. Around half were married and were firefighters for more than ten years. The majority referred to have people to talk about important things and to give and receive affection. Regarding physical activity the majority did not practice physical activity in the professional context. Only a quarter reported to have healthy eating habits and the majority reported the consumption of high-calorie foods and to be exceeding their ideal weight. More than a third reported smoking and around 16% reported driving motor vehicles after consuming alcohol. Around 40% reported to consume more than 3 caffeine drinks per day. Around a tenth reported to almost never have good quality sleep and only around 78% reported to have difficulties sleeping. About 43% didn’t have capacity to manage stress in their day to day life and about 57% were not able to relax in their free time. Around 40% reported not being happy with their work and a third reported to do periodic medical exams.This work was developed within the project “Leadership
process and firefighters occupational health: Development
of an intervention program” funded by Foundation for
Science and Technology (PCIF/SSO/0054/2018).N/
The deconfining phase transition in full QCD with two dynamical flavors
We investigate the deconfining phase transition in SU(3) pure gauge theory
and in full QCD with two flavors of staggered fermions. The phase transition is
detected by measuring the free energy in presence of an abelian monopole
background field. In the pure gauge case our finite size scaling analysis is in
agreement with the well known presence of a weak first order phase transition.
In the case of 2 flavors full QCD we find, using the standard pure gauge and
staggered fermion actions, that the phase transition is consistent with weak
first order, contrary to the expectation of a crossover for not too large quark
masses and in agreement with results obtained by the Pisa group.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables (minor typos corrected, references
updated, accepted for publication on JHEP
Localization for Random Unitary Operators
We consider unitary analogs of dimensional Anderson models on
defined by the product where is a deterministic
unitary and is a diagonal matrix of i.i.d. random phases. The
operator is an absolutely continuous band matrix which depends on a
parameter controlling the size of its off-diagonal elements. We prove that the
spectrum of is pure point almost surely for all values of the
parameter of . We provide similar results for unitary operators defined on
together with an application to orthogonal polynomials on the unit
circle. We get almost sure localization for polynomials characterized by
Verblunski coefficients of constant modulus and correlated random phases
The AVA Multi-View Dataset for Gait Recognition
In this paper, we introduce a new multi-view dataset for
gait recognition. The dataset was recorded in an indoor scenario, using
six convergent cameras setup to produce multi-view videos, where each
video depicts a walking human. Each sequence contains at least 3 complete
gait cycles. The dataset contains videos of 20 walking persons with
a large variety of body size, who walk along straight and curved paths.
The multi-view videos have been processed to produce foreground silhouettes.
To validate our dataset, we have extended some appearance-based
2D gait recognition methods to work with 3D data, obtaining very encouraging
results. The dataset, as well as camera calibration information,
is freely available for research purpose
Evolution of occupational asthma: Does cessation of exposure really improve prognosis?
SummaryAimTo assess the evolution of occupational asthma (OA) depending on whether the patient avoids or continues with exposure to the offending agent.MethodsStudy in patients diagnosed with OA using a specific inhalation challenge. Patients underwent the following examinations on the same day: clinical interview, physical examination, forced spirometry, methacholine test and determination of total IgE. Clinical improvement, deterioration or no change were defined according to the changes seen on the GINA severity scale at the time of diagnosis.ResultsOf the 73 patients finally included, 55 had totally ended exposure and 18 continued to be exposed at work. Clinical improvement was observed in 47% of those who had terminated exposure and in 22% of those who remained exposed; clinical deterioration was observed in 14% and 17% respectively (p = 0.805). Logistical regression analysis, including the type of agent and the persistence or avoidance of exposure among the variables, did not show any predictive factors of clinical evolution. Similarly, the changes in FEV1 and in bronchial hyperresponsiveness were not associated with the avoidance or continuation of exposure to the causative agent.ConclusionsAvoiding exposure to the causative agent in patients with OA does not seem to improve prognosis in this disease. Despite these findings, there is insufficient evidence to recommend a change in current management guidelines
Simulations of neutron background in a time projection chamber relevant to dark matter searches
Presented here are results of simulations of neutron background performed for
a time projection chamber acting as a particle dark matter detector in an
underground laboratory. The investigated background includes neutrons from rock
and detector components, generated via spontaneous fission and (alpha, n)
reactions, as well as those due to cosmic-ray muons. Neutrons were propagated
to the sensitive volume of the detector and the nuclear recoil spectra were
calculated. Methods of neutron background suppression were also examined and
limitations to the sensitivity of a gaseous dark matter detector are discussed.
Results indicate that neutrons should not limit sensitivity to WIMP-nucleon
interactions down to a level of (1 - 3) x 10^{-8} pb in a 10 kg detector.Comment: 27 pages (total, including 3 tables and 11 figures). Accepted for
publication in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research - Section
Keypoint descriptor fusion with Dempster-Shafer Theory
Keypoint matching is the task of accurately nding the location of a scene point in two images. Many keypoint
descriptors have been proposed in the literature aiming at providing robustness against scale, translation and rotation
transformations, each having advantages and disadvantages. This paper proposes a novel approach to fuse the
information from multiple keypoint descriptors using Dempster-Shafer Theory of evidence [1], which has proven particularly
e cient in combining sources of information providing incomplete, imprecise, biased, and con
ictive knowledge.
The matching results of each descriptor are transformed into an evidence distribution on which a con dence factor is
computed making use of its entropy. Then, the evidence distributions are fused using Dempster-Shafer Theory (DST),
considering its con dence. As result of the fusion, a new evidence distribution that improves the result of the best
descriptor is obtained. Our method has been tested with SIFT, SURF, ORB, BRISK and FREAK descriptors using
all possible combinations of them. Results on the Oxford keypoint dataset [2] shows that the proposed approach
obtains an improvement of up to 10% compared to the best one (FREAK)
Observational diagnostics of gas in protoplanetary disks
Protoplanetary disks are composed primarily of gas (99% of the mass).
Nevertheless, relatively few observational constraints exist for the gas in
disks. In this review, I discuss several observational diagnostics in the UV,
optical, near-IR, mid-IR, and (sub)-mm wavelengths that have been employed to
study the gas in the disks of young stellar objects. I concentrate in
diagnostics that probe the inner 20 AU of the disk, the region where planets
are expected to form. I discuss the potential and limitations of each gas
tracer and present prospects for future research.Comment: Review written for the proceedings of the conference "Origin and
Evolution of Planets 2008", Ascona, Switzerland, June 29 - July 4, 2008. Date
manuscript: October 2008. 17 Pages, 6 graphics, 134 reference
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) as a disease of early aging: Evidence from the EpiChron Cohort
Background Aging is an important risk factor for most chronic diseases. Patients with COPD develop more comorbidities than non-COPD subjects. We hypothesized that the development of comorbidities characteristically affecting the elderly occur at an earlier age in subjects with the diagnosis of COPD. Methods and findings We included all subjects carrying the diagnosis of COPD (n = 27, 617), and a similar number of age and sex matched individuals without the diagnosis, extracted from the 727, 241 records of individuals 40 years and older included in the EpiChron Cohort (Aragon, Spain). We compared the cumulative number of comorbidities, their prevalence and the mortality risk between both groups. Using network analysis, we explored the connectivity between comorbidities and the most influential comorbidities in both groups. We divided the groups into 5 incremental age categories and compared their comorbidity networks. We then selected those comorbidities known to affect primarily the elderly and compared their prevalence across the 5 age groups. In addition, we replicated the analysis in the smokers'' subgroup to correct for the confounding effect of cigarette smoking. Subjects with COPD had more comorbidities and died at a younger age compared to controls. Comparison of both cohorts across 5 incremental age groups showed that the number of comorbidities, the prevalence of diseases characteristic of aging and network''s density for the COPD group aged 56-65 were similar to those of non-COPD 15 to 20 years older. The findings persisted after adjusting for smoking. Conclusion Multimorbidity increases with age but in patients carrying the diagnosis of COPD, these comorbidities are seen at an earlier age
Brain aging and Parkinson's disease: new therapeutic approaches using drugs delivery systems
ABSTRACT
The etiology and pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is unknown, aging being the
strongest risk factor for brain degeneration. Understanding PD pathogenesis and how
aging increases the risk of disease would aid the development of therapies able to slow
or prevent the progression of this neurodegenerative disorder. In this review we provide
an overview of the most promising therapeutic targets and strategies to delay the loss of
dopaminergic neurons observed both in PD and aging. Among them, handling alphasynuclein
toxicity, enhancing proteasome and lysosome clearance, ameliorating
mitochondrial disruptions and modifying the glial environment are so far the most
promising candidates. These new and conventional drugs may present problems related
to their labile nature and to the difficulties in reaching the brain. Thus, we highlight the
latest types of drug delivery system (DDS)-based strategies for PD treatment, including
DDS for local and systemic drug delivery. Finally, the ongoing challenges for the
discovery of new targets and the opportunities for DDS-based therapies to improve and
efficacious PD therapy will be discussed
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