Postural Control in Preschool Children with Developmental Coordination Disorder, in Sitting Position During a Functional Task

The developmental coordination disorder is a motor disorder that affects 5 to 6% of children at school-age. The postural control deficit is one of the most prevalent problems affecting 73 to 87% of these children. The present research aims to analyze and compare postural control in probable (p-DCD) and at- risk of developmental coordination disorder children and in typical children in a sitting position during a functional task. p-DCD children were tendentially less recurrent, less periodic, simpler and more regular. These children oscillated more and faster in conditions with visual information; with a visual focus they had more stability and oscillated less and slowler campared to the baseline; without visual information they reduced their oscillations and velocity and become less recurrent, periodic, stable and simpler, possibly freenzing more degrees of freedom in order to respond to absence of external information. p-DCD seem to be more dependent on external stimulus like visual information to auto organize their own balance. The greater the task’s complexity, the lesser and slower their oscillations were but also more recurrent and periodic. Despite oscillating, more and faster in all conditions and being tendentially more recurrent and periodic, in risk children revealed a behaviour pattern similar to typical in both variables. p-DCD, at-risk and typical children reveal the same manner of action without visual information, less and slower oscillations. Most likely, the problem with p-DCD is not in motor control, but on perception-action cycles’ effectivness; and, where stimulation must be focused.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Testing a Model of Suicidality in Community Adolescents: A Brief Report

We tested a theory-based model of suicidality in adolescents that included the variables: self-criticism, dependency, anger-temperament, depression and anger-in. A sample of 263 adolescents, 107 boys and 156 girls, aged between 15 and 19 years (M=16.8 , SD=1.26), from two high schools in the district of Évora, Portugal, responded to a socio-demographic questionnaire, to the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire for Adolescents (Blatt et al.), the Center for the Epidemiologic Studies of Depression Scale (Radloff), the State -Trait Anger Expression Inventory (Spielberger) and the Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire – Revised (Osman et al.). The model tested by Structural Equation Modeling fits the data well. Self-criticism, dependency and anger-emperament demonstrated indirect relationships with suicidality and depression presented a direct relationship with suicidality and tended to relate indirectly with suicidality through anger-in

Structure of the granitic pegmatite field of the Northern coast of Portugal—inner pegmatite structures and mineralogical fabrics

On the coastline of Northern Portugal, metamorphic formations and pegmatites were the subject of structural analysis with the main goal of understanding Variscan kinematics and related pegmatite intrusion. This study also aims to discriminate, select and characterize relevant aspects of the structure and the paragenesis of pegmatites, well exposed as a result of coastal erosion, justifying its inclusion in the geological heritage of the Northern coast of Portugal. The pegmatite bodies show distinctive internal and external structures that are attributable to different modes of emplacement and subsequent deformation. The pegmatitic implantation in the areas of Moledo and Afife occurs in an intragneissic and perigranitic environment, for the first area, and perigneissic and perigranitic environment, for the second. In Pedras Ruivas predominates the implantation into an exo-gneissic to exo-granitic domain. The Moledo veins show evidence of multiphase open/filling, revealing positions, shapes, attitudes, sizes and internal structures that change as a function of the host lithology and host structure, but mainly due to the dilation and the cycles number of local telescoping. The structural analysis of the pegmatite bodies allows the deduction of a local fulcrum of expansion that hypothetically overlaps a hidden stock of parental granite. In Afife and Pedras Ruivas, some pegmatitic lenses are specialized and mineralized in Li, Cs and Ta, with spodumene and tantalite ± cassiterite. Spodumene occurs as giant crystals, centimetric to pluri-decimetric in length, which mark very clearly the structures of in situ or in flow crystallization inside the pegmatites (primary structures) and also the secondary structures resulting from deformation. The geometric analysis of fabrics helps the individualization of well-defined stages of progressive evolution of the deformation of the pegmatites, allowing its correlation with major D2–D3 episodes of regional Variscan deformation

Extensions of Picard 2-Stacks and the cohomology groups Ext^i of length 3 complexes

The aim of this paper is to define and study the 3-category of extensions of Picard 2-stacks over a site S and to furnish a geometrical description of the cohomology groups Ext^i of length 3 complexes of abelian sheaves. More precisely, our main Theorem furnishes (1) a parametrization of the equivalence classes of objects, 1-arrows, 2-arrows, and 3-arrows of the 3-category of extensions of Picard 2-stacks by the cohomology groups Ext^i, and (2) a geometrical description of the cohomology groups Ext^i of length 3 complexes of abelian sheaves via extensions of Picard 2-stacks. To this end, we use the triequivalence between the 3-category of Picard 2-stacks and the tricategory T^[-2,0](S) of length 3 complexes of abelian sheaves over S introduced by the second author in arXiv:0906.2393, and we define the notion of extension in this tricategory T^[-2,0](S), getting a pure algebraic analogue of the 3-category of extensions of Picard 2-stacks. The calculus of fractions that we use to define extensions in the tricategory T^[-2,0](S) plays a central role in the proof of our Main Theorem.Comment: 2 New Appendix: in the first Appendix we compute a long exact sequence involving the homotopy groups of an extension of Picard 2-stacks, and in the second Appendix we sketch the proof that the fibered sum of Picard 2-stacks satisfies the universal propert

The military coup in Mali, 22 March 2012, reflections on the demise of democracy and the importance of civil-military relations

The coup in Bamako, on 22 March 2012 both gave lie to the apparent stability of Mali as a democratic country and resulted in the taking of power of an assortment of armed combatants in the North of the country, which resulted in armed intervention by France. This article is about the coup itself that created the power vacuum allowing the insurrection to grow and ultimately take power in the North. The authors have developed a framework for analyzing civil-military relations they believe is more useful than other available frameworks in understanding the role of the military in politics

Chemokines: key players in innate and adaptive immunity.

Healthy individuals initiate an immediate immune response to microbes by using a set of germline-encoded receptors that recognize common molecular patterns found on the surface of pathogens that are distinct from self-antigens. This innate immune response is the first line of defense against microorganisms in vertebrates, and constitutes the only immune response in plants and invertebrates. The innate immune system includes cellular components, as well as a host of soluble products (antimicrobial peptides, complement fragments, cytokines, and chemokines). The adaptive immune response, which provides long-lasting protection, takes days to develop and requires somatic mutations leading to the development of antigen-specific T cell receptors (cell-mediated immunity) and immunoglobulins (humoral immunity). Members of the chemokine superfamily are crucially involved in both innate and adaptive responses. We review the biological actions of the chemokine superfamily, focusing on several functions that are relevant for both immune responses, such as cell recruitment, microbicidal activity, cell activation, polarization of CD4+ T cells, and effects on structural cells. In particular, we will illustrate the central role that chemokines play in host defense, best demonstrated by the tremendous number of chemokine and chemokine receptor homologs found in microbial genomes, which deflect the immune response of the host

Comparison of markets for organic food in six EU states.

This report was presented at the UK Organic Research 2002 Conference. Recent research confirms that the decision to convert is now highly influenced by financial incentives arising from EU regulations but the exact mix of incentives depends on prevailing government policies and access to premium markets so that the organic sector in most countries is now referred to as either government-led or market-driven. The objective of the paper is to compare development of the sector along these two polarities but set within the context of "common elements of interest" within new agrifood methodologies: time, space, power, and meaning (Cooke, Uranga and Etxebarria 1998; Morgan and Murdoch 2000). The paper presents preliminary findings relating to six EU States: UK, Ireland, Austria, Denmark, Portugal and Italy, and through the application of "worlds of production" to market outlets and suggests discourses that define these outlets. The analysis aims to inform the further study of farmer marketing decisions and practices

Endothelial dysfunction in adolescents and young adults with nonalcoholic liver disease

Nonalcoholic liver disease is a global public health problem that increases cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in these patients. This paper discusses endothelial dysfunction among patients (adolescents and young adults) with nonalcoholic liver disease. On the one hand, evidence suggests that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality in patients with advanced nonalcoholic liver disease and that nonalcoholic fatty liver is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease independent of the presence of cardiovascular risk factors and metabolic syndrome components. On the other hand, nonalcoholic liver disease, especially the non-inflammatory form of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, may not only be a marker of cardiovascular damage but also a factor involved in its pathogenesis. Such patients are candidates not only for the treatment of liver disease but also for the early treatment of cardiovascular risk factors because many of them, especially those with severe nonalcoholic liver disease, will develop major cardiovascular events and may eventually die of cardiovascular disease before the advanced liver disease occurs

A comparative study of anxiety and depressive symptoms and perceived stress, between Aromanian and Romanian populations in Dobrogea

AbstractAromanians, their origin, their language or various aspects of socio-economic and spiritual life, represented over time, a constant concern for specialists in various fields. It is estimate that the attitudes, values and behaviors related to the health have also a socio-cultural component. Socioeconomic status, gender, age and residential environment are contributing factors to assess their differential health status and also contributing factors in the ethiopathogenesis of many psychosomatic diseases. In the present study, we took into account the influence of these factors in assessing anxiety, depression and perceived stress to Aromanian versus Romanian population from Dobrogea