Effects of the first quarantine in seated time of the Portuguese population

Background Seating for long periods is associated with several health conditions and increases the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer. With the COVID-19 pandemic, confinement was declared to avoid transmission. This measure affected people mobility who couldn’t leave their homes. Though the present study aims to analyze the impact of this measure on the average seated time of the Portuguese population. Methods The study was based on an online survey, approved by the IPC ethics committee, that inquired about the meantime people were seated in a weekday before and during confinement. 536 Portuguese mean aged 42.2 years (±14.8) completed the survey. The valid responses were obtained from the 18th of March till the 30th of April 2020. The data of the average seated time in the two periods before (T0) and during (T1) the quarantine was analyzed through the Wilcoxon test. Results The table displays the average value (X) and the standard derivation (SD) of the seated time in a weekday (STWD), from our study. The statistics analysis (P) between T0 and T1 are present in the same table. Conclusions The STWD showed significant differences between both periods (P < 0.001). The average time in a sited position of this population had an increase greater than 2 hours during the quarantine.

Knowledge and Practice of Exclusive Breastfeeding Among Mothers of Children Under One Years in Boudha

Breast milk is the best nutrition for babies to achieve proper, growth and development and is said to be the first immunization, but in content of Nepal only one in two child less than age of six months is exclusively breastfed. So this study helped to find the knowledge and their practice regarding exclusive breastfeeding in women living Boudha area. Methodology: This is quantitative study, done by simple random sampling method. Data collection was done by interviewing 194 mothers in community by using structure questionnaire. The data was entered in SPSS v.22, after cleaning and coding, data were analyzed using chi-square statistical test as well as basic descriptive statistics. Results: This study was conducted among mothers of children under 1 year. Total responded were 194 with mean age and standard derivation of 26, 4.01. The minimum age of 16 years and maximum age of 36 years. Majority of the respondents are literate. Most of the respondents 48.5% are house wife, 44.3% monthly earning is below Rs 25000. All the respondents 100% do breast fed their babies. Good numbers of respondents 96.4% have high knowledge on breastfeeding. There is association between knowledge and practice (P value 0.06) and association between education and knowledge (P value 0.00) as well as there is association between occupation and knowledge (P value 0.047). Moreover, the current study found that there is no association between education and practice. Conclusion: Present study shows that knowledge of exclusive breastfeeding among mothers living in Boudha are good compare to practice. There should be awareness program needed to address to improve their practice also.

Empirical Mode Decomposition-Derived Entropy Features Are Beneficial to Distinguish Elderly People with a Falling History on a Force Plate Signal

Fall risk prediction is an important issue for the elderly. A center of pressure signal, derived from a force plate, is useful for the estimation of body calibration. However, it is still difficult to distinguish elderly people’s fall history by using a force plate signal. In this study, older adults with and without a history of falls were recruited to stand still for 60 s on a force plate. Forces in the x, y and z directions (Fx, Fy, and Fz) and center of pressure in the anteroposterior (COPx) and mediolateral directions (COPy) were derived. There were 49 subjects in the non-fall group, with an average age of 71.67 (standard derivation: 6.56). There were also 27 subjects in the fall group, with an average age of 70.66 (standard derivation: 6.38). Five signal series—forces in x, y, z (Fx, Fy, Fz), COPX, and COPy directions—were used. These five signals were further decomposed with empirical mode decomposition (EMD) with seven intrinsic mode functions. Time domain features (mean, standard derivation and coefficient of variations) and entropy features (approximate entropy and sample entropy) of the original signals and EMD-derived signals were extracted. Results showed that features extracted from the raw COP data did not differ significantly between the fall and non-fall groups. There were 10 features extracted using EMD, with significant differences observed among fall and non-fall groups. These included four features from COPx and two features from COPy, Fx and Fz.

Single-cell-resolved Measurement of Enzyme Activity at a Tissue using Drop-on-demand Microkits

Drop-on-demand microkits with a diameter of ~ 20 μm are realized to measure the activity of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) at a brain slice with a single-cell resolution. The relative standard derivation...

STRUCTURE DETECTION WITH SECOND ORDER RIESZ TRANSFORMS

A frequently applied indicator of tubular structures is based on the eigenvalues of the Hessian matrix of the original image convolved with a Gaussian, whose standard derivation depends on the size of the tubes. Hence the tube size must either be known in advance or a whole scale of standard deviations has to be tested resulting in higher computational costs – a serious obstacle for data with varying tube thickness.In this paper, we propose to modify the structure indicator by replacing the derivatives of the Gaussian smoothed function by the Riesz transform. We show by various numerical examples that the resulting structure indicator is scale independent. Smoothing with a Gaussian is just necessary to cope with the noise in the image, but is not related to the size of the tubular structures. We apply the novel structure indicator for the fiber orientation analysis of fibrous materials and for the segmentation of leather. The latter one was a special challenging application since all scales are present in the microstructure of leather.

Analogs of the Green and Puig correspondences for twisted group algebras

In the modular representation theory of finite groups, we show that the standard derivation of the Green correspondence lifts to a derivation of a Green correspondence for twisted group algebras (Theorem 1.3). Then, from these results we derive a lift of the Puig correspondences for twisted group algebras (Theorem 1.6).Clearly twisted group algebras arise naturally in finite group modular representation theory. We conclude with some suggestions for applications in this mathematical area.

EVALUATION OF MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES OF CRAFT DEVELOPMENT CENTRES: A CASE STUDY OF RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA

The study evaluated craft development centres’ programmes and manpower development in Rivers State, Nigeria. The research sample consisted of 80 students and 25 instructors and was randomly sampled. Two research questions and two hypotheses were posed, formulated and tested respectively. A twenty items structured questionnaire was developed for the study. T-test, standard derivation and mean were used to analyze the data collected. Based on the findings, some recommendations were made towards the enhancement of craft development centres in Rivers State, Nigeria. Key words: craft development centre, development, evaluation, manpower development, Rivers State, Nigeria.

The equatorial counterpart of the quasi-geostrophic model

A uniformly valid balanced model that represents the quasi-geostrophic model's counterpart in the equatorial region is derived. The quasi-geostrophic model itself fails in the equatorial region because it is only valid where the dominant balance is geostrophic, i.e. where the Rossby number is small. The smallness of the Rossby number is assumed in the quasi-geostrophic model's standard derivation and therefore this derivation cannot be repeated for the equatorial region. An alternative derivation of the quasi-geostrophic model that is independent of the Rossby number was presented by Leith in 1980, using the geometric framework of nonlinear normal mode initialization. Its independence of the Rossby number allows it to be repeated for the equatorial region, leading to an equatorial balanced model that thus represents the equatorial counterpart of the quasi-geostrophic model. As such it also coincides with the quasi-geostrophic model sufficiently far away from the equator. Its dispersion relation can be expressed in an explicit analytic form and, compared to that of other balanced models of similar simplicity, approximates that of the shallow water equations strikingly well.