Quality of Life in Survivors of a Primary Bone Tumour: A Systematic Review

Purpose. We conducted a systematic search of published literature, to assess (i) quality of life (QoL) for survivors of a bone tumour compared with the normal population; (ii) QoL implications following amputation, successful or failed limb salvage; (iii) adaptation of young children to amputation compared with older children or adolescents

Layering, freezing and re-entrant melting of hard spheres in soft confinement

Confinement can have a dramatic effect on the behavior of all sorts of particulate systems and it therefore is an important phenomenon in many different areas of physics and technology. Here, we investigate the role played by the softness of the confining potential. Using grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations, we determine the phase diagram of three-dimensional hard spheres that in one dimension are constrained to a plane by a harmonic potential. The phase behavior depends strongly on the density and on the stiffness of the harmonic confinement. Whilst we find the familiar sequence of confined hexagonal and square-symmetric packings, we do not observe any of the usual intervening ordered phases. Instead, the system phase separates under strong confinement, or forms a layered re-entrant liquid phase under weaker confinement. It is plausible that this behavior is due to the larger positional freedom in a soft confining potential and to the contribution that the confinement energy makes to the total free energy. The fact that specific structures can be induced or suppressed by simply changing the confinement conditions (e.g. in a dielectrophoretic trap) is important for applications that involve self-assembled structures of colloidal particles.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Motivos para hacer ejercicio

El propósito de esta investigación es ilustrar parte de las diversas razones por las cuales las personas hacen ejercicio físico, particularmente en su edad adulta, sobre todo por lo que se refiere a temas que puede ser interesante subrayar en futuras campañas. La muestra consistió en 2 grupos: el primero con 165 sujetos del personal no académico de la Universidad de Exeter, y el segundo con 58 mujeres que asistían a clases de gimnasia en un centro deportivo local. Los dos grupos contestaron a un cuestionario diseñado para medir varios aspectos de niveles de actividad física, importancia percibida de las diferentes razones para hacer ejercicio, y autopuntuación relativa al nivel de actividad y algunos detalles personales. Los resultados de este estudio han mostrado que hay diferencias entre hombres y mujeres, no tanto en la suma de ejercicio total que hacen, sino más bien, en términos de sus razones para hacer ese ejercicio, y también en cuanto a sus autopuntuaciones en relación con los niveles de actividad física. Los otros resultados principales están referidos a las diferencias entre aquellos que asisten o que no asisten a deportes organizados o a clases de ejercicio físico en términos de sus razones para hacer ejercicio. Los resultados apuntan en general a la deseabilidad de una aproximación multifactorial a la educación sanitaria dirigida a promocionar una participación en niveles más altos de ejercicio por parte de la población adulta.The purpose of this research is to illustrate part of the variety of reasons for people engaging in physical exercise, particularly in middle adulthood, so as to point to themes that may be worth emphasing in future campaigns. The sample consisted of two groups: the first one consisted of 165 subjects from non-academic staff of the University of Exeter, and the second one consisted of 58 women attending exercise classes at a local sports centre. 8oth of two groups answered a questionnaire designed to measure various aspects of physical activity levels, perceived importance of different reasons for exercise, self-ratings related to activity level and some personal details. The findings of this study have shown that there are differences between men and women, not so much in the amount of exercise they took, but in terms of their reasons for doing so, and their self-ratings in relation to levels of physical activity. The other main findings of note relate to the differences between those attending or not attending organised sports or exercise in terms of their reasons for taking exercise. The results therefore point to the desirability of a multifaceted approach to health education aimed at promoting higher levels of exercise participation among the adult population