78 research outputs found
ENTRAPMENT NEUROPATHIES OF THE UPPER EXTREMITIES AND NEW TRENDS IN PHYSIOTHERAPY
Purpose. The purpose of this work was to highlight the importance of targeted physiotherapy in the treatment of nerve entrapment syndrome in the upper limb using the latest physiotherapeutic techniques.Material and methods. In this work, 56 patients are presented as diagnosed with nerve entrapment syndrome in the upper limb. 45 of them are women and 21 are men, ranging in age from 26–72 years old with an average age of 49 years. We evaluated the pain condition, pain intensity, and also functional deficits before and after rehabilitation treatment over a duration of four weeks.Conclusion. As a result of targeted therapy towards nerve entrapment syndrome in the upper limb, the functional condition of the majority of our patients has improved and their pain was reduced.The expected mechanism of this kind of physiotherapy is to improve blood circulation in the affected area, adjust the biomechanical forces that affect joint structures, improve the functional condition, and prevent a relapse of the disease from occurring.Keywords. Entrapment neuropathies, upper extremities, pain, physiotherapy
Cloud-based robots and intelligent space teleoperation tools
Despite an idea of robotic system teleoperation is a relatively old concept, here we present its enhancements heading to an interconnection of teleoperation and collecting relevant information from the environment where robots act. This environment should be an intelligent space featured with various devices and sensors, which allows to obtain, preprocess and stores data in the cloud. Those data should provide relevant information for teleoperator or directly for robots, which act autonomously. For this purpose, we developed cloud-based tools, named Telescope v2. It is a platform-independent system for remote monitoring and controlling various systems. In this paper, we introduce this system, its abilities, and compare it with its network-based ancestor, Telescope v1. We analyze measurements of latency and response time when our new system is used for teleoperation in different places equipped with various Internet bandwidths
Stability and convergence in discrete convex monotone dynamical systems
We study the stable behaviour of discrete dynamical systems where the map is
convex and monotone with respect to the standard positive cone. The notion of
tangential stability for fixed points and periodic points is introduced, which
is weaker than Lyapunov stability. Among others we show that the set of
tangentially stable fixed points is isomorphic to a convex inf-semilattice, and
a criterion is given for the existence of a unique tangentially stable fixed
point. We also show that periods of tangentially stable periodic points are
orders of permutations on letters, where is the dimension of the
underlying space, and a sufficient condition for global convergence to periodic
orbits is presented.Comment: 36 pages, 1 fugur
Land Cover and Land Use Change-Driven Dynamics of Soil Organic Carbon in North-East Slovakian Croplands and Grasslands Between 1970 and 2013
Soil organic carbon (SOC) in agricultural land forms part of the global terrestrial carbon cycle and it
affects atmospheric carbon dioxide balance. SOC is sensitive to local agricultural management practices
that sum up into regional SOC storage dynamics. Understanding regional carbon emission and sequestration
trends is, therefore, important in formulating and implementing climate change adaptation and
mitigation policies. In this study, the estimation of SOC stock and regional storage dynamics in the Ondavská
Vrchovina region (North-Eastern Slovakia) cropland and grassland topsoil between 1970 and 2013
was performed with the RothC model and gridded spatial data on weather, initial SOC stock and historical
land cover and land use changes. Initial SOC stock in the 0.3-m topsoil layer was estimated at 38.4 t
ha−1 in 1970. The 2013 simulated value was 49.2 t ha−1, and the 1993–2013 simulated SOC stock values
were within the measured data range. The total SOC storage in the study area, cropland and grassland
areas, was 4.21 Mt in 1970 and 5.16 Mt in 2013, and this 0.95 Mt net SOC gain was attributed to interconversions
of cropland and grassland areas between 1970 and 2013, which caused different organic carbon
inputs to the soil during the simulation period with a strong effect on SOC stock temporal dynamics
Effect of saliva from horse fly Hybomitra bimaculata on kinetic properties of Na,K-ATPase: possible role in regulation of relaxation
The possible involvement of salivary gland extract (SGE) from horse flies in modifying hyperpolarization and relaxation via alterations in functional properties of sarcolemmal Na,K-ATPase in the host tissue was tested in vitro by application of various amounts of SGE from Hybomitra bimaculata
Distributed optimization with arbitrary local solvers
With the growth of data and necessity for distributed optimization methods,
solvers that work well on a single machine must be re-designed to leverage
distributed computation. Recent work in this area has been limited by focusing
heavily on developing highly specific methods for the distributed environment.
These special-purpose methods are often unable to fully leverage the
competitive performance of their well-tuned and customized single machine
counterparts. Further, they are unable to easily integrate improvements that
continue to be made to single machine methods. To this end, we present a
framework for distributed optimization that both allows the flexibility of
arbitrary solvers to be used on each (single) machine locally, and yet
maintains competitive performance against other state-of-the-art
special-purpose distributed methods. We give strong primal-dual convergence
rate guarantees for our framework that hold for arbitrary local solvers. We
demonstrate the impact of local solver selection both theoretically and in an
extensive experimental comparison. Finally, we provide thorough implementation
details for our framework, highlighting areas for practical performance gains
Comparative Genomic Analysis of six Glossina Genomes, Vectors of African Trypanosomes
Background: Tsetse flies (Glossina sp.) are the vectors of human and animal trypanosomiasis throughout subSaharan Africa. Tsetse flies are distinguished from other Diptera by unique adaptations, including lactation and the birthing of live young (obligate viviparity), a vertebrate blood-specific diet by both sexes, and obligate bacterial symbiosis. This work describes the comparative analysis of six Glossina genomes representing three sub-genera: Morsitans (G. morsitans morsitans, G. pallidipes, G. austeni), Palpalis (G. palpalis, G. fuscipes), and Fusca (G. brevipalpis) which represent different habitats, host preferences, and vectorial capacity. Results: Genomic analyses validate established evolutionary relationships and sub-genera. Syntenic analysis of Glossina relative to Drosophila melanogaster shows reduced structural conservation across the sex-linked X chromosome. Sex-linked scaffolds show increased rates of female-specific gene expression and lower evolutionary rates relative to autosome associated genes. Tsetse-specific genes are enriched in protease, odorant-binding, and helicase activities. Lactation-associated genes are conserved across all Glossina species while male seminal proteins are rapidly evolving. Olfactory and gustatory genes are reduced across the genus relative to other insects. Visionassociated Rhodopsin genes show conservation of motion detection/tracking functions and variance in the Rhodopsin detecting colors in the blue wavelength ranges. Conclusions: Expanded genomic discoveries reveal the genetics underlying Glossina biology and provide a rich body of knowledge for basic science and disease control. They also provide insight into the evolutionary biology underlying novel adaptations and are relevant to applied aspects of vector control such as trap design and discovery of novel pest and disease control strategies
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