Interview of Gilberto DiLuca, Romano Sardi, and Otello Pandolfine

Robinson interviews DiLuca, Sardi, and Pandolfine on their experiences in the mission field in Italy. The interview was conducted in Searcy, AR

Patrimonial volatility and new conceptualizations of urban soil value in intermediate cities

las lógicas tradicionales que influyen en la fijación del valor del suelo urbano se han visto modificadas, en los últimos tiempos, por las múltiples dinámicas que ocurren en las ciudades intermedias. El crecimiento de la población y la expansión territorial de estas ciudades, y los cambios en las concepciones del sector inmobiliario, las propuestas de los desarrolladores y los componentes perceptivos de la demanda conforman un mercado heterogéneo e imperfecto. A la teoría tradicional de valor del suelo se suman aquellas vinculadas con aspectos hedónicos que otorgan valor simbólico de acuerdo a un entramado complejo de aspectos psicosociales y económicos. En la fijación de precios se conjugan la disposición a pagar por parte de los consumidores y la valoración que se hace de las características particulares del inmueble, así como el estatus socioeconómico y las bondades del entorno geográfico-paisajístico en el que se ubica.The traditional systems of logic which have an impact on the value established for the urban soil have undergone change lately, due to the many dynamics taking place in intermediate cities. These cities' population growth and territorial expansion, as well as the changes in the way the real estate sector is conceived, the developers' proposals and the demand' perceptive components all make up an imperfect, heterogeneous market. Added to the traditional soil value theory are those theories related to the hedonistic aspects that grant symbolic value according to a complex psychosocial and economic structure. When fixing prices, consumers' payment disposition and the assessment of certain characteristics of the property, as well as the socio-economic status and the beauties of the geographical-scenic surroundings in which it is located are all combined.Departamento de Geografí

Extraction of Traditional COP-Based Features from COM Sway in Postural Stability Evaluation.

Postural control during quiet standing is traditionally evaluated by analyzing CoP sway measured by using a force platform. However, recent proliferation of motion tracking systems made available an estimate of the CoM location. Traditional CoP-based measures presented in literature provide information about age-related changes in postural stability and fall risk. We investigated, on an age-matched group of subjects, the relationship between classical CoP-based measures computed on sway path and statistical mechanics parameters on diffusion plot, with those extracted from CoM time-series. Our purpose is to understand which of these parameters, computed from CoM sway, can discriminate postural abnormalities, in order to use a video tracking system to evaluate balance in addition to motor capabilities.

Affordable, automatic quantitative fall risk assessment based on clinical balance scales and Kinect data

The problem of a correct fall risk assessment is becoming more and more critical with the ageing of the population. In spite of the available approaches allowing a quantitative analysis of the human movement control system’s performance, the clinical assessment and diagnostic approach to fall risk assessment still relies mostly on non-quantitative exams, such as clinical scales. This work documents our current effort to develop a novel method to assess balance control abilities through a system implementing an automatic evaluation of exercises drawn from balance assessment scales. Our aim is to overcome the classical limits characterizing these scales i.e. limited granularity and inter-/intra-examiner reliability, to obtain objective scores and more detailed information allowing to predict fall risk. We used Microsoft Kinect to record subjects' movements while performing challenging exercises drawn from clinical balance scales. We then computed a set of parameters quantifying the execution of the exercises and fed them to a supervised classifier to perform a classification based on the clinical score. We obtained a good accuracy (~82%) and especially a high sensitivity (~83%)

Front Genet

The budding yeast is certainly the prime industrial microorganism and is related to many biotechnological applications including food fermentations, biofuel production, green chemistry, and drug production. A noteworthy characteristic of this species is the existence of subgroups well adapted to specific processes with some individuals showing optimal technological traits. In the last 20 years, many studies have established a link between quantitative traits and single-nucleotide polymorphisms found in hundreds of genes. These natural variations constitute a pool of QTNs (quantitative trait nucleotides) that modulate yeast traits of economic interest for industry. By selecting a subset of genes functionally validated, a total of 284 QTNs were inventoried. Their distribution across pan and core genome and their frequency within the 1,011 genomes were analyzed. We found that 150 of the 284 QTNs have a frequency lower than 5%, meaning that these variants would be undetectable by genome-wide association studies (GWAS). This analysis also suggests that most of the functional variants are private to a subpopulation, possibly due to their adaptive role to specific industrial environment. In this review, we provide a literature survey of their phenotypic impact and discuss the opportunities and the limits of their use for industrial strain selection