Электронное учебное пособие «Информационные технологии в экономике»

Целью работы является разработка электронного учебного пособия по дисциплине «Информационные технологии в экономике» для студентов направления подготовки 38.03.01 Экономика профиля «Экономика предприятий и организаций». Для достижения поставленной цели был проведен анализ различных источников, посвященных применению информационных технологий в экономике, разработаны структура и интерфейс электронного пособия, отобран и структурирован теоретический материал, разработаны лабораторные работы, медиа материалы и средства контроля, учебное пособие реализовано в электронном виде и проведена его апробаци

A rare association of crossed fused renal ectopia

BACKGROUND: Thrombocytopenia and absent radius syndrome (TAR) is a rare genetic disorder. It is an autosomal recessive disorder characterised by radial aplasia and thrombocytopenia that may have additional anomalies. We report a case of TAR syndrome with crossed fused renal ectopia. This anomaly has not been previously reported in association with TAR syndrome. CASE PRESENTATION: A 24 years old female with Thrombocytopenia and absent radius syndrome admitted with pelvic fracture was investigated for recurrent urinary tract infections. Abdominal ultrasonography could not visualise the kidney on right side. Further extensive investigations in the form of intravenous urography (IVU), Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and renal isotope scans revealed a crossed fused renal ectopia. CONCLUSION: This report describes the new finding of a crossed fused renal ectopia associated with TAR syndrome that has not been reported before in the literature. Ectopic kidneys have increased susceptibility to develop complications like urinary infections, urolithiasis, and abdominal mass. There is a reported case of TAR syndrome with renal anomaly that developed Wilm's tumor. Finding of crossed fused renal ectopia warrants complete urologic investigation to rule out surgically correctable pathology in the urinary tract

Motion direction, speed and orientation in binocular matching

The spatial differences between the images seen by the two eyes, called binocular disparities, can be used to recover the volumetric (three-dimensional) aspects of a scene. The computation of disparity depends upon the correct identi®cation of corresponding features in the two images. Understanding what image features are used by the brain to solve this matching problem is one of the main issues in stereoscopic vision. Many cortical neurons in visual areas V1 (ref. 2), MT (refs 3, 4) and MST (refs 5, 6) that are tuned to binocular disparity are also tuned to orientation, motion direction and speed. Although psychophysical work has shown that motion direction can facilitate binocular matching, the psychophysical literature on the role of orientation is mixed^8,9 , and it has been argued that speed differences are ineffective in aiding correspondence^7. Here we use a different psychophysical paradigm to show that the visual system uses similarities in orientation, motion direction and speed to achieve binocular correspondence. These results indicate that cells that multiplex orientation, motion direction, speed and binocular disparity may help to solve the binocular matching problem

Size and shape constancy in consumer virtual reality

With the increase in popularity of consumer virtual reality headsets, for research and other applications, it is important to understand the accuracy of 3D perception in VR. We investigated the perceptual accuracy of near-field virtual distances using a size and shape constancy task, in two commercially available devices. Participants wore either the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift and adjusted the size of a virtual stimulus to match the geometric qualities (size and depth) of a physical stimulus they were able to refer to haptically. The judgments participants made allowed for an indirect measure of their perception of the egocentric, virtual distance to the stimuli. The data show under-constancy and are consistent with research from carefully calibrated psychophysical techniques. There was no difference in the degree of constancy found in the two headsets. We conclude that consumer virtual reality headsets provide a sufficiently high degree of accuracy in distance perception, to allow them to be used confidently in future experimental vision science, and other research applications in psychology

Effect of plyometric training on handspring vault performance and functional power in youth female gymnasts

This study aimed to determine the effect of plyometric training (PT) when added to habitual gymnastic training (HT) on handspring vault (HV) performance variables. Twenty youth female competitive gymnasts (Age: 12.5 ± 1.67 y) volunteered to participate and were randomly assigned to two independent groups. The experimental plyometric training group (PTG) undertook a six-week plyometric program, involving two additional 45 min PT sessions a week, alongside their HT, while the control group (CG) performed regular HT only. Videography was used (120 Hz) in the sagittal plane to record both groups performing three HVs for both the baseline and post-intervention trials. Furthermore, participants completed a countermovement jump test (CMJ) to assess the effect of PT on functional power. Through the use of Quintic biomechanics software, significant improvements (P < 0.05) were found for the PTG for run-up velocity, take-off velocity, hurdle to board distance, board contact time, table contact time and post-flight time and CMJ height. However, there were no significant improvements on pre-flight time, shoulder angle or hip angle on the vault for the PTG. The CG demonstrated no improvement for all HV measures. A sport-specific PT intervention improved handspring vault performance measures and functional power when added to the habitual training of youth female gymnasts. The additional two hours plyometric training seemingly improved the power generating capacity of movement-specific musculature, which consequently improved aspects of vaulting performance. Future research is required to examine the whether the improvements are as a consequence of the additional volume of sprinting and jumping activities, as a result of the specific PT method or a combination of these factors

Two eyes in action

Do relative binocular disparities guide our movements in depth? In order to find out we asked subjects to move a 'cursor' to a target within a simulated horizontal plane at eye height. They did so by moving a computer mouse. We determined how quickly subjects responded to the target jumping in depth. We found that it took subjects about 200 ms to respond to changes in binocular disparity. Subjects responded just as quickly if the cursor was temporarily only visible to one eye near the time that the target jumped in depth, and less vigorously, though just as quickly, if the cursor jumped rather than the target, so the fastest binocular responses cannot be based directly on the relative retinal disparity between the target and the cursor. Subjects reacted faster to changes in the target's height in the visual field than to changes in binocular disparity, but did not react faster to changes in image size. These results suggest that binocular vision mainly improves people's everyday movements by giving them a better sense of the distances of relevant objects, rather than by relative retinal disparities being used to directly guide the movement. We propose that relative disparities only guide parts of very slow movements that require extreme precision. © Springer-Verlag 2005

Gaze-grasp coordination in obstacle avoidance: differences between binocular and monocular viewing

Most adults can skillfully avoid potential obstacles when acting in everyday cluttered scenes. We examined how gaze and hand movements are normally coordinated for obstacle avoidance and whether these are altered when binocular depth information is unavailable. Visual fixations and hand movement kinematics were simultaneously recorded, while 13 right-handed subjects reached-to-precision grasp a cylindrical household object presented alone or with a potential obstacle (wine glass) located to its left (thumb's grasp side), right or just behind it (both closer to the finger's grasp side) using binocular or monocular vision. Gaze and hand movement strategies differed significantly by view and obstacle location. With binocular vision, initial fixations were near the target's centre of mass (COM) around the time of hand movement onset, but usually shifted to end just above the thumb's grasp site at initial object contact, this mainly being made by the thumb, consistent with selecting this digit for guiding the grasp. This strategy was associated with faster binocular hand movements and improved end-point grip precision across all trials than with monocular viewing, during which subjects usually continued to fixate the target closer to its COM despite a similar prevalence of thumb-first contacts. While subjects looked directly at the obstacle at each location on a minority of trials and their overall fixations on the target were somewhat biased towards the grasp side nearest to it, these gaze behaviours were particularly marked on monocular vision-obstacle behind trials which also commonly ended in finger-first contact. Subjects avoided colliding with the wine glass under both views when on the right (finger side) of the workspace by producing slower and straighter reaches, with this and the behind obstacle location also resulting in 'safer' (i.e. narrower) peak grip apertures and longer deceleration times than when the goal object was alone or the obstacle was on its thumb side. But monocular reach paths were more variable and deceleration times were selectively prolonged on finger-side and behind obstacle trials, with this latter condition further resulting in selectively increased grip closure times and corrections. Binocular vision thus provided added advantages for collision avoidance, known to require intact dorsal cortical stream processing mechanisms, particularly when the target of the grasp and potential obstacle to it were fairly closely separated in depth. Different accounts of the altered monocular gaze behaviour converged on the conclusion that additional perceptual and/or attentional resources are likely engaged compared to when continuous binocular depth information is available. Implications for people lacking binocular stereopsis are briefly considered

Spatial Stereoresolution for Depth Corrugations May Be Set in Primary Visual Cortex

Stereo “3D” depth perception requires the visual system to extract binocular disparities between the two eyes' images. Several current models of this process, based on the known physiology of primary visual cortex (V1), do this by computing a piecewise-frontoparallel local cross-correlation between the left and right eye's images. The size of the “window” within which detectors examine the local cross-correlation corresponds to the receptive field size of V1 neurons. This basic model has successfully captured many aspects of human depth perception. In particular, it accounts for the low human stereoresolution for sinusoidal depth corrugations, suggesting that the limit on stereoresolution may be set in primary visual cortex. An important feature of the model, reflecting a key property of V1 neurons, is that the initial disparity encoding is performed by detectors tuned to locally uniform patches of disparity. Such detectors respond better to square-wave depth corrugations, since these are locally flat, than to sinusoidal corrugations which are slanted almost everywhere. Consequently, for any given window size, current models predict better performance for square-wave disparity corrugations than for sine-wave corrugations at high amplitudes. We have recently shown that this prediction is not borne out: humans perform no better with square-wave than with sine-wave corrugations, even at high amplitudes. The failure of this prediction raised the question of whether stereoresolution may actually be set at later stages of cortical processing, perhaps involving neurons tuned to disparity slant or curvature. Here we extend the local cross-correlation model to include existing physiological and psychophysical evidence indicating that larger disparities are detected by neurons with larger receptive fields (a size/disparity correlation). We show that this simple modification succeeds in reconciling the model with human results, confirming that stereoresolution for disparity gratings may indeed be limited by the size of receptive fields in primary visual cortex

Acute medical unit comprehensive geriatric assessment intervention study (AMIGOS)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many older people presenting to Acute Medical Units (AMU) are discharged after only a short stay (< 72 hours), yet many re-present to hospital or die within 1 year. Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment may improve patient outcomes for this group.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>Participants</p> <p>Patients aged > 70 years and scoring positive on a risk screening tool ('Identification of Seniors At Risk') who are discharged within 72 hours of attending an AMU with a medical crisis, recruited prior to discharge. Sample size is 400. Carers of participants will also be recruited.</p> <p>Intervention</p> <p>Assessment on the AMU and further out-patient management by a specialist physician in geriatric medicine. Assessment and further management will follow the principles of Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment, providing advice and support to primary care services.</p> <p>Design</p> <p>Multi-centre, individual patient randomised controlled trial comparing intervention with usual care.</p> <p>Outcome measurement</p> <p>Follow up is by postal questionnaire 90 days after randomisation, and data will be entered into the study database by a researcher blind to allocation. The primary outcome is the number of days spent at home (for those admitted from home), or days spent in the same care home (if admitted from a care home). Secondary outcomes include mortality, institutionalisation, health and social care resource use, and scaled outcome measures, including quality of life, disability, mental well-being. Carer strain and well being will also be measured at 90 days.</p> <p>Analyses</p> <p>Comparisons of outcomes and costs, and a cost utility analysis between the intervention and control groups will be carried out.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>ISRCTN: <a href="http://www.controlled-trials.com/ISRCTN21800480">ISRCTN21800480</a></p

Interactions Between Policy Effects, Population Characteristics and the Tax-Benefit System: An Illustration Using Child Poverty and Child Related Policies in Romania and the Czech Republic

We investigate the impact of the Romanian and Czech family policy systems on the poverty risk of families with children. We focus on separating out the effects of policy design itself and size of benefits from the interaction between policies and population characteristics. We find that interactions between population characteristics, the wider tax benefit system and child related policies are pervasive and large. Both population characteristics and the wider tax-benefit environment can dramatically alter the antipoverty effect of a given set of policies