Effectiveness and Limitations of Unsupervised Home-Based Balance Rehabilitation with Nintendo Wii in People with Multiple Sclerosis

Balance training represents a critical part of the rehabilitation process of individuals living with multiple sclerosis (MS) since impaired postural control is a distinctive symptom of the disease. In recent years, the use of the Nintendo Wii system has become widespread among rehabilitation specialists for this purpose, but few studies have verified the effectiveness of such an approach using quantitative measures of balance. In this study, we analyzed the postural sway features of a cohort of twenty-seven individuals with MS before and after 5 weeks of unsupervised home-based balance training with the Wii system. Center of pressure (COP) time-series were recorded using a pressure platform and processed to calculate sway area, COP path length, displacements, and velocities in mediolateral (ML) and anteroposterior (AP) directions. Although the results show a significant reduction in sway area, COP displacements, and velocity, such improvements are essentially restricted to the ML direction, as the Wii platform appears to properly stimulate the postural control system in the frontal plane but not in the sagittal one. Available Wii games, although somewhat beneficial, appear not fully suitable for rehabilitation in MS owing to scarce flexibility and adaptability to MS needs and thus specific software should be developed

The Crystal and Molecular Structure of 3-(Pyridyl-2\u27)- imidazo-[1,i-a] Pyridine

The crystal structure of 3:.(pyridyl-2\u27)-imidazo-[l,5-a] pyridine has been determined using three-dimensional MoK a diffractometer data. The crystal data at 293 (1) K are as follows: C12H0Na, Mr= = 195.23, orthorhombic, P212121 (No. 19), a = 0.5107(1), b = 1.3076(2}, c = 1.4343(3) nm, V = 0.9578 nm3, Dm = 1.37(5), Dx = 1.354 Mg · m-3, Z = 4. The structure has been solved with direct methods and refined by full-matrix least-squares techniques to R and Rw values of 0.085 and 0.080, respectively, for 641 contributing reflexions. The crystal structure consists of discrete molecules. Most of the bond lengths and angles are within normal ranges for aromatic heterocyclic systems. The dihedral angle between the pyridine and imidazo- pyridine parts of the molecule is 3.8°; thus the molecule is planar to within 7 pm owing to two weak C-H .. . N interactions

La roulure du châtaignier (Castanea sativa Mill.)

Cet article résume une série d observations et de mesures qui montrent que le terme de «roulure» recouvre plusieurs phénomènes de nature différente : A- Le châtaignier est un arbre très sensible aux traumatismes dus à l abattage, au feu, à l action des animaux. B- : Certains châtaigniers ont une cohésion mécanique radiale particulièrement faible qui les prédispose à l apparition de roulure. C- : Le déclenchement de roulures à l abattage et à l étuvage est directement lié à la présence d un «potentiel interne de déformation» dont la valeur semble dépendre de la sylviculture. D- : Lors du séchage de pièces de grandes dimensions, la présence d hétérogénéité interne forte d humidité, de retraits ou de perméabilité sont des facteurs favorisant l apparition de fissures

Symmetry of Gait in Underweight, Normal and Overweight Children and Adolescents

Abnormal excess or lack of body mass can influence gait patterns, but in some cases such differences are subtle and not easy to detect, even with quantitative techniques for movement analysis. In these situations, the study of trunk accelerations may represent an effective way to detecting gait anomalies in terms of symmetry through the calculation of Harmonic Ratio (HR), a parameter obtained by processing trunk accelerations in the frequency domain. In the present study we used this technique to assess the existence of differences in HR during gait in a cohort of 75 healthy children and early adolescents (aged 7-14 years) stratified into 3 equally-sized age and gender-matched groups (Underweight: UW; Normal Weight: NW; Overweight: OW). The accelerometric signal, acquired using a single wearable inertial sensor, was processed to calculate stride length, speed, cadence and HR in antero-posterior, vertical and medio-lateral directions. No differences in spatio-temporal parameters were found among groups, while the HR in the medio-lateral direction was found significantly lower in UW children, while OW exhibited the highest values. On the basis of the results obtained, HR appears capable of discriminating gait symmetry in children with different body mass even when conventional gait parameters are unchanged

Individual Readiness for Change in the Context of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems Implementation

The present study takes a bottom-up approach and investigates the organizational implications of ERP systems implementation in organizations. We adopt a likely point of view of employees and study the ERP integration process along 3 dimensions: people, processes, and information. In this manner we discover the ERP-specific sources of resistance that could affect negatively the deployment of the software. Then, we argue that a general set of beliefs shapes employees readiness to change to ERP use and provides the foundation for resistance or for adoptive behavior. We define the concept of readiness for change in the context of ERP and introduce a readiness for change assessment approach. Then, we test empirically the study hypotheses upon which the research model was build. The results obtained offer insights into factors that can improve the effectiveness of ERP implementation strategies and underline the importance of change management for the success of such projects

Inequality in learning outcomes: Unveiling educational deprivation through complex network analysis

Understanding which factors are determinant to guarantee the human right to education entails the study of a large number of non-linear relationships among multiple agents and their impact on the properties of the entire system. Complex network analysis of large-scale assessment results provides a set of unique advantages over classical tools for facing the challenge of measuring inequality gaps in learning outcomes and recognizing those factors associated with educational deprivation, combining the richness of qualitative analysis with quantitative inferences. This study establishes two milestones in educational research using a census high-quality data from a Latin American country. The first one is to provide a direct method to recognize the structure of inequality and the relationship between social determinants as ethnicity, socioeconomic status of students, rurality of the area and type of school funding and educational deprivation. The second one focus in unveil and hierarchize educational and non-educational factors associated with the conditional distribution of learning outcomes. This contribution provides new tools to current theoretical framework for discovering non-trivial relationships in educational phenomena, helping policymakers to address the challenge of ensuring inclusive and equitable education for those historically marginalized population groups.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The ‘community’ in community case management of childhood illnesses in Malawi

: Malawi has achieved a remarkable feat in reducing its under-5 mortality in time to meet its MDG 4 target despite high levels of poverty, low female literacy rates, recurrent economic crises, a severe shortage of human resources for health, and poor health infrastructure. The country’s community-based delivery platform (largely headed by Health Surveillance Assistants, or HSAs) has been well established since the 1960s, although their tasks and responsibilities have evolved from surveillance to health promotion and prevention, and more recently to include curative services. However, the role of and the form that community involvement takes in community-based service delivery in Malawi is unclear

Author Correction: A detailed map of Higgs boson interactions by the ATLAS experiment ten years after the discovery

In the version of this article initially published, the ATLAS Collaboration author names, affiliations and acknowledgements were omitted and have now been included in the HTML and PDF versions of the article