Turning qualitative into quantitative evidence: a well-used method made explicit

Many historians reject quantitative methods as inappropriate to understanding past societies. This article argues that no sharp distinction between qualitative and quantitative concepts can be drawn, as almost any concept used to describe a past society is implicitly quantitative. Many recent advances in understanding have been achieved by deriving quantitative evidence from qualitative evidence, using the two dialectically, and indexing them against other quantitative findings from the same population. We show that this triangulation method can be extended to many apparently qualitative sources. Despite its successes, the potential of turning qualitative into quantitative evidence has only just begun to be exploited

The SMILING project : prevention of falls by a mechatronic training device

Ageing is characterized by functional changes that can create gait and balance disturbances, which are the main risk factors of falling. Elderly people at risk of falling can be considered to be suffering from an involuntary motor behaviour that restricts their participation in society. One method to overcome such a situation is to activate a new learning process to train for real life tasks, which represents innovation. The SMILING system is intended to challenge the elderly to solve new problems in real time by inducing variable environments that need active response and problem solving. Variable environments induced by perturbations will weaken stiff motor behaviour(s), induce flexibility and thus enable effective training and improve mobility in real life environments. The SMILING solution provides a changeable yet safe environment that needs active response and problem solving by the user. It consists of a wearable non-invasive computer-controlled system that applies chaotic perturbations to the lower extremities during walking through small alterations of the height and slope of weight-bearing surfaces. The complete system consists of 3 modules: i) a complete walking analysis system; ii) a pair of motorised training shoes; iii) a user friendly portable control unit

Pre- and postbariatric subtypes and their predictive value for health-related outcomes measured three years after surgery

Background: Although bariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for severe obesity, a subgroup of patients shows insufficient postbariatric outcomes. Differences may at least in part result from heterogeneous patient profiles regarding reactive and regulative temperament, emotion dysregulation, and disinhibited eating. This study aims to subtype patients based on these aspects before and two years after bariatric surgery and tests the predictive value of identified subtypes for health-related outcomes three years after surgery

Custom moulded plastic spinal orthoses

Abstract A review of fifty patients with wide ranging clinical conditions who had been fitted with one-piece moulded plastic spinal orthoses was carried out to determine prescription criteria for these orthoses. The review showed that patients with scoliosis (idiopathic and paralytic), kyphoscoliosis, as well as a selected number of patients with low back pain derive benefit. Patients with kyphosis and localized vertebral body disease are unlikely to gain benefit since they commonly cannot tolerate the excessive skin pressures which occur as a consequence of the corrective and distractive forces applied by the devices. Introduction Spinal orthoses are one of the most commonly prescribed types of orthoses delivered in the United Kingdom. A review of prescription practices in Dundee during one year showed that a total of 520 spinal orthoses had been prescribed and subsequently fabricated representing 17 per cent of the total orthotic supply for a district with a population of 180,000 people. Ninety one per cent of these orthoses were fabric supports but the remainder were rigid devices. These devices have traditionally been fabricated from metal and leather but in recent years it has been the practice in Dundee to make increased use of moulded plastic jackets (McDougall and Condie, 1982)

Looking backward: From Euler to Riemann

We survey the main ideas in the early history of the subjects on which Riemann worked and that led to some of his most important discoveries. The subjects discussed include the theory of functions of a complex variable, elliptic and Abelian integrals, the hypergeometric series, the zeta function, topology, differential geometry, integration, and the notion of space. We shall see that among Riemann's predecessors in all these fields, one name occupies a prominent place, this is Leonhard Euler. The final version of this paper will appear in the book \emph{From Riemann to differential geometry and relativity} (L. Ji, A. Papadopoulos and S. Yamada, ed.) Berlin: Springer, 2017

Fitness efficacy of vibratory exercise compared to walking in postmenopausal women

In this study, we compared the efficacy of 8 months of low-frequency vibration and a walk-based program in health-related fitness. Twenty-seven postmenopausal women were randomly assigned into two groups: whole-body vibration (WBV) group (n = 18) performed three times/week a static exercise on a vibration platform (6 sets of 1-min with 1 min of rest, with a 12.6 Hz of frequency and an amplitude of 3 mm); walk-based program (WP) group (n = 18) performed three times/week a 60-min of walk activity at 70-75% of maximal heart rate. A health-related battery of tests was applied. Maximal unilateral concentric and eccentric isokinetic torque of the knee extensors was recorded by an isokinetic dynamometer. Physical fitness was measured using the following tests: vertical jump test, chair rise test and maximal walking speed test over 4 m. Maximal unilateral isokinetic strength was measured in the knee extensors in concentric actions at 60 and 300 degrees /s, and eccentric action at 60 degrees /s. After 8 months, the WP improved the time spent to walk 4 m (20%) and to perform the chair rise test (12%) compared to the WBV group (P = 0.006, 0.002, respectively). In contrast, the comparison of the changes in vertical jump showed the higher effectiveness of the vibratory exercise in 7% (P = 0.025). None of exercise programs showed change on isokinetic measurements. These results indicate that both programs differed in the main achievements and could be complementary to prevent lower limbs muscle strength decrease as we age [ISRCTN76235671]

Neutrophils in cancer: neutral no more

Neutrophils are indispensable antagonists of microbial infection and facilitators of wound healing. In the cancer setting, a newfound appreciation for neutrophils has come into view. The traditionally held belief that neutrophils are inert bystanders is being challenged by the recent literature. Emerging evidence indicates that tumours manipulate neutrophils, sometimes early in their differentiation process, to create diverse phenotypic and functional polarization states able to alter tumour behaviour. In this Review, we discuss the involvement of neutrophils in cancer initiation and progression, and their potential as clinical biomarkers and therapeutic targets

Psychology as a natural science in the eighteenth century

Psychology considered as a natural science began as Aristotelian "physics" or "natural philosophy" of the soul. C. Wolff placed psychology under metaphysics, coordinate with cosmology. Scottish thinkers placed it within moral philosophy, but distinguished its "physical" laws from properly moral laws (for guiding conduct). Several Germans sought to establish an autonomous empirical psychology as a branch of natural science. British and French visual theorists developed mathematically precise theories of size and distance perception; they created instruments to test these theories and to measure visual phenomena such as the duration of visual impressions. These investigators typically were dualists who included mental phenomena within nature