And-or parallel prolog: a recomputation based approach

We argüe that in order to exploit both Independent And- and Or-parallelism in Prolog programs there is advantage in recomputing some of the independent goals, as opposed to all their solutions being reused. We present an abstract model, called the Composition-Tree, for representing and-or parallelism in Prolog Programs. The Composition-tree closely mirrors sequential Prolog execution by recomputing some independent goals rather than fully re-using them. We also outline two environment representation techniques for And-Or parallel execution of full Prolog based on the Composition-tree model abstraction. We argüe that these techniques have advantages over earlier proposals for exploiting and-or parallelism in Prolog.

Thermal body patterns for healthy Brazilian adults (male and female)

The aim of this study was to establish the skin temperature (Tsk) thermal profile for the Brazilian population and to compare the differences between female and male Brazilian adults. A total of 117 female and 103 male were examined with a thermographic camera. The Tsk of 24 body regions of interest (ROI) were recorded and analyzed. Male Tsk results were compared to female and 10 ROI were evaluated with respect to the opposite side of the body (right vs. left) to identify the existence of significant contralateral Tsk differences (?Tsk). When compared right to left, the largest contralateral ?Tsk was 0.3 °C. The female vs. male analysis yielded significant differences (p menor que0.05) in 13 of the 24 ROI. Thigh regions, both ventral and dorsal, had the highest ?Tsk by sex (? 1.0 °C). Tsk percentile below P5 or P10 and over P9o or P95 may be used to characterize hypothermia and hyperthermia states, respectively. Thermal patterns and Tsk tables 2 were established for Brazilian adult men and women for each ROI. There is a low Tsk variation between sides of the body and gender differences were only significant for some ROIs.

Time required to stabilize thermographic images at rest

Thermography for scientific research and practical purposes requires a series of procedures to obtain images that should be standardized; one of the most important is the time required for acclimatization in the controlled environment. Thus, the objective of this study was to identify the appropriate acclimatization time in rest to reach a thermal balance on young people skin. Forty-four subjects participated in the study, 18 men (22.3 ± 3.1 years) and 26 women (21.7 ± 2.5 years). Thermographic images were collected using a thermal imager (Fluke ®), totaling 44 images over a period of 20 minutes. The skin temperature (TSK) was measured at the point of examination which included the 0 minute, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20. The body regions of interest (ROI) analyzed included the hands, forearms, arms, thighs, legs, chest and abdomen. We used the Friedman test with post hoc Dunn?s in order to establish the time at rest required to obtain a TSK balance and the Mann-Whitney test was used to compare age, BMI, body fat percentage and temperature variations between men and women, considering always a significance level of pmenor que0.05. Results showed that women had significantly higher temperature variations than men (pmenor que0.01) along the time. In men, only the body region of the abdomen obtained a significant variance (pmenor que0.05) on the analyzed period, both in the anterior and posterior part. In women, the anterior abdomen and thighs, and the posterior part of the hands, forearms and abdomen showed significant differences (pmenor que0.05). Based on our results, it can be concluded that the time in rest condition required reaching a TSK balance in young men and women is variable, but for whole body analysis it is recommended at least 10 minutes for both sexes.

Measuring skin temperature before, during and after exercise: a comparison of thermocouples and infrared thermography

Measuring skin temperature (TSK) provides important information about the complex thermal control system and could be interesting when carrying out studies about thermoregulation. The most common method to record TSK involves thermocouples at specific locations; however, the use of infrared thermal imaging (IRT) has increased. The two methods use different physical processes to measure TSK, and each has advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, the objective of this study was to compare the mean skin temperature (MTSK) measurements using thermocouples and IRT in three different situations: pre-exercise, exercise and post-exercise. Analysis of the residual scores in Bland-Altman plots showed poor agreement between the MTSK obtained using thermocouples and those using IRT. The averaged error was -0.75 °C during pre-exercise, 1.22 °C during exercise and -1.16 °C during post-exercise, and the reliability between the methods was low in the pre- (ICC = 0.75 [0.12 to 0.93]), during (ICC = 0.49 [-0.80 to 0.85]) and post-exercise (ICC = 0.35 [-1.22 to 0.81] conditions. Thus, there is poor correlation between the values of MTSK measured by thermocouples and IRT pre-exercise, exercise and post-exercise, and low reliability between the two forms of measurement.