The influence of gait cadence on the ground reaction forces and plantar pressures during load carriage of young adults

Biomechanical gait parameters—ground reaction forces (GRFs) and plantar pressures—during load carriage of young adults were compared at a low gait cadence and a high gait cadence. Differences between load carriage and normal walking during both gait cadences were also assessed. A force plate and an in-shoe plantar pressure system were used to assess 60 adults while they were walking either normally (unloaded condition) or wearing a backpack (loaded condition) at low (70 steps per minute) and high gait cadences (120 steps per minute). GRF and plantar pressure peaks were scaled to body weight (or body weight plus backpack weight). With medium to high effect sizes we found greater anterior-posterior and vertical GRFs and greater plantar pressure peaks in the rearfoot, forefoot and hallux when the participants walked carrying a backpack at high gait cadences compared to walking at low gait cadences. Differences between loaded and unloaded conditions in both gait cadences were also observed.

A influência da marcha com tripé nos parâmetros metabólicos em jovens e idosos

Introdução: Os parâmetros metabólicos durante a marcha normal e a sua regulação são importantes devido ao metabolismo oxidativo ser o principal meio através do qual o organismo humano gera energia para realizar as atividades do quotidiano. Nem sempre a marcha é realizada de forma independente e necessita do apoio de auxiliares de marcha, como o tripé, que tem por função ampliar a base de sustentação e melhorar o equilíbrio. Objetivo: Analisar a influência de utilização de um tripé na marcha, na despesa energética em jovens e idosos saudáveis Métodos: Realizou-se um estudo observacional transversal numa amostra de 21 voluntários, com idade entre 18 a 25 anos e mais ou igual a 60 anos. Realizaram-se as avaliações com o Cosmed K4b2 (Cosmed, Rome, Italy), sendo através do mesmo que os dados foram recolhidos. Foi utilizado o teste de Friedman, com P <0,05. Resultados: Os resultados obtidos para o gasto energético nos jovens foram inferiores aos valores obtidos pelos idosos. Relativamente ao metabolismo energético o substrato energético utilizado pelos jovens foi o proteico e o lipídico pelos idosos. Entre sexos foram os homens quem tiveram um maior gasto energético. Conclusão: O uso do tripé durante a marcha não influencia o gasto energético em adultos jovens e/ou idosos saudáveis.

Prevalência de factores de risco de doença cardiovascular em estudantes da Escola Superior das Tecnologias da Saúde do Porto

Realizou-se um estudo observacional descritivo transversal, com 138 indivíduos seleccionados aleatoriamente em estudantes da ESTSP, de forma a aferir a prevalência de factores de risco de doenças cardiovasculares como a presença de história familiar de doença e factores de risco cardiovascular, hábitos tabágicos, consumo excessivo de álcool, excesso de peso e obesidade, níveis de actividade física baixa, níveis excessivos de stress, ansiedade e depressão, consumo nutricional inadequado, hipertensão, dislipidemia e diabetes nos mesmos. Na amostra em estudo verificou-se maior prevalência de factores de risco relativos à presença de antecedentes familiares (63,0%) e consumo de nutrientes inadequado (100%).

VirtualECare: group decision supported by idea generation and argumentation

In the last years there has been a considerable increase in the number of people in need of intensive care, especially among the elderly, a phenomenon that is related to population ageing (Brown 2003). However, this is not exclusive of the elderly, as diseases as obesity, diabetes, and blood pressure have been increasing among young adults (Ford and Capewell 2007). As a new fact, it has to be dealt with by the healthcare sector, and particularly by the public one. Thus, the importance of finding new and cost effective ways for healthcare delivery are of particular importance, especially when the patients are not to be detached from their environments (WHO 2004). Following this line of thinking, a VirtualECare Multiagent System is presented in section 2, being our efforts centered on its Group Decision modules (Costa, Neves et al. 2007) (Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh 2001).On the other hand, there has been a growing interest in combining the technological advances in the information society - computing, telecommunications and knowledge – in order to create new methodologies for problem solving, namely those that convey on Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS), based on agent perception. Indeed, the new economy, along with increased competition in today’s complex business environments, takes the companies to seek complementarities, in order to increase competitiveness and reduce risks. Under these scenarios, planning takes a major role in a company life cycle. However, effective planning depends on the generation and analysis of ideas (innovative or not) and, as a result, the idea generation and management processes are crucial. Our objective is to apply the GDSS referred to above to a new area. We believe that the use of GDSS in the healthcare arena will allow professionals to achieve better results in the analysis of one’s Electronically Clinical Profile (ECP). This attainment is vital, regarding the incoming to the market of new drugs and medical practices, which compete in the use of limited resources.

Detectives with pimples: how teen noir is crossing the frontiers of the traditional noir films

In the last ten years, teen noir movies and series — such as Donnie Darko (2001), Brick (2005), or Veronica Mars (2004-2007) — have become increasingly popular among audiences, both in the USA and in Europe, and aroused the curiosity of critics. These teen noir adventures present darker themes and technical features that distinguish them from numerous productions aiming at young adults. Their narrative and aesthetic characteristics reinvent and subvert the tradition of classic noir movies of the forties and fifties, thus generating a sense of novelty. In this article, I focus my attention on Veronica Mars, a famous teen noir series, created by Rob Thomas, to examine: a) the teen noir themes; b) the new profile and role of the private investigator; c) the empowerment of girls/young women; d) razor-sharp dialogues; e) intertextual references to old- school noir movies. In order to do so, resort to the research of specialists in the field of neo noir, such as Mark Conrad, Foster Hirsch, or Roz Kaveney. My main goal is to prove that a new (sub)genre is slowly emerging and revivifying teen cinema.

VirtualECare: group support in collaborative networks organizations for digital homecare

Collaborative Work plays an important role in today’s organizations, especially in areas where decisions must be made. However, any decision that involves a collective or group of decision makers is, by itself complex, but is becoming recurrent in recent years. In this work we present the VirtualECare project, an intelligent multi-agent system able to monitor, interact and serve its customers, which are, normally, in need of care services. In last year’s there has been a substantially increase on the number of people needed of intensive care, especially among the elderly, a phenomenon that is related to population ageing. However, this is becoming not exclusive of the elderly, as diseases like obesity, diabetes and blood pressure have been increasing among young adults. This is a new reality that needs to be dealt by the health sector, particularly by the public one. Given this scenarios, the importance of finding new and cost effective ways for health care delivery are of particular importance, especially when we believe they should not to be removed from their natural “habitat”. Following this line of thinking, the VirtualECare project will be presented, like similar ones that preceded it. Recently we have also assisted to a growing interest in combining the advances in information society - computing, telecommunications and presentation – in order to create Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS). Indeed, the new economy, along with increased competition in today’s complex business environments, takes the companies to seek complementarities in order to increase competitiveness and reduce risks. Under these scenarios, planning takes a major role in a company life. However, effective planning depends on the generation and analysis of ideas (innovative or not) and, as a result, the idea generation and management processes are crucial. Our objective is to apply the above presented GDSS to a new area. We believe that the use of GDSS in the healthcare arena will allow professionals to achieve better results in the analysis of one’s Electronically Clinical Profile (ECP). This achievement is vital, regarding the explosion of knowledge and skills, together with the need to use limited resources and get better results.

Influence of environmental temperature and humidity on the acute ventilatory response to exercise in asthmatic adolescents

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the respiratory airways affecting people of all ages, and constitutes a serious public health problem worldwide (6). Such a chronic inflammation is invariably associated with injury and repair of the bronchial epithelium known as remodelling (11). Inflammation, remodelling, and altered neural control of the airways are responsible for both recurrent exacerbations of asthma and increasingly permanent airflow obstruction (11, 29, 34). Excessive airway narrowing is caused by altered smooth muscle behaviour, in close interaction with swelling of the airway walls, parenchyma retractile forces, and enhanced intraluminal secretions (29, 38). All these functional and structural changes are associated with the characteristic symptoms of asthma – cough, chest tightness, and wheezing –and have a significant impact on patients’ daily lives, on their families and also on society (1, 24, 29). Recent epidemiological studies show an increase in the prevalence of asthma, mainly in industrial countries (12, 25, 37). The reasons for this increase may depend on host factors (e.g., genetic disposition) or on environmental factors like air pollution or contact with allergens (6, 22, 29). Physical exercise is probably the most common trigger for brief episodes of symptoms, and is assumed to induce airflow limitations in most asthmatic children and young adults (16, 24, 29, 33). Exercise-induced asthma (EIA) is defined as an intermittent narrowing of the airways, generally associated with respiratory symptoms (chest tightness, cough, wheezing and dyspnoea), occurring after 3 to 10 minutes of vigorous exercise with a maximal severity during 5 to 15 minutes after the end of the exercise (9, 14, 16, 24, 33). The definitive diagnosis of EIA is confirmed by the measurement of pre- and post-exercise expiratory flows documenting either a 15% fall in the forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), or a ≥15 to 20% fall in peak expiratory flow (PEF) (9, 24, 29). Some types of physical exercise have been associated with the occurrence of bronchial symptoms and asthma (5, 15, 17). For instance, demanding activities such as basketball or soccer could cause more severe attacks than less vigorous ones such as baseball or jogging (33). The mechanisms of exercise-induced airflow limitations seem to be related to changes in the respiratory mucosa induced by hyperventilation (9, 29). The heat loss from the airways during exercise, and possibly its post-exercise rewarming may contribute to the exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB) (27). Additionally, the concomitant dehydration from the respiratory mucosa during exercise leads to an increased interstitial osmolarity, which may also contribute to bronchoconstriction (4, 36). So, the risk of EIB in asthmatically predisposed subjects seems to be higher with greater ventilation rates and the cooler and drier the inspired air is (23). The incidence of EIA in physically demanding coldweather sports like competitive figure skating and ice hockey has been found to occur in up to 30 to 35% of the participants (32). In contrast, swimming is often recommended to asthmatic individuals, because it improves the functionality of respiratory muscles and, moreover, it seems to have a concomitant beneficial effect on the prevalence of asthma exacerbations (14, 26), supporting the idea that the risk of EIB would be smaller in warm and humid environments. This topic, however, remains controversial since the chlorified water of swimming pools has been suspected as a potential trigger factor for some asthmatic patients (7, 8, 20, 21). In fact, the higher asthma incidence observed in industrialised countries has recently been linked to the exposition to chloride (7, 8, 30). Although clinical and epidemiological data suggest an influence of humidity and temperature of the inspired air on the bronchial response of asthmatic subjects during exercise, some of those studies did not accurately control the intensity of the exercise (2, 13), raising speculation of whether the experienced exercise overload was comparable for all subjects. Additionally, most of the studies did not include a control group (2, 10, 19, 39), which may lead to doubts about whether asthma per se has conditioned the observed results. Moreover, since the main targeted age group of these studies has been adults (10, 19, 39), any extrapolation to childhood/adolescence might be questionable regarding the different lung maturation. Considering the higher incidence of asthma in youngsters (30) and the fact that only the works of Amirav and coworkers (2, 3) have focused on this age group, a scarcity of scientific data can be identified. Additionally, since the main environmental trigger factors, i.e., temperature and humidity, were tested separately (10, 28, 39) it would be useful to analyse these two variables simultaneously because of their synergic effect on water and heat loss by the airways (31, 33). It also appears important to estimate the airway responsiveness to exercise within moderate environmental ranges of temperature and humidity, trying to avoid extreme temperatures and humidity conditions used by others (2, 3). So, the aim of this study was to analyse the influence of moderate changes in air temperature and humidity simultaneously on the acute ventilatory response to exercise in asthmatic children. To overcome the above referred to methodological limitations, we used a 15 minute progressive exercise trial on a cycle ergometer at 3 different workload intensities, and we collected data related to heart rate, respiratory quotient, minute ventilation and oxygen uptake in order to ensure that physiological exercise repercussions were the same in both environments. The tests were done in a “normal” climatic environment (in a gymnasium) and in a hot and humid environment (swimming pool); for the latter, direct chloride exposition was avoided.

Efeito agudo do exercício físico na rigidez arterial

Este estudo pretendeu reproduzir uma tarefa da vida diária (marcha com transporte de peso nos membros superiores) realizada de forma rotineira e até aconselhada no contexto da prevenção e reabilitação de patologia cardiovascular, desta forma, teve como objectivo avaliar o efeito agudo de uma sessão de exercício aeróbio associado a exercício isométrico na rigidez arterial em indivíduos jovens. Foram recrutados 14 indivíduos do sexo masculino com média de idade de 30,3±3,6 anos. Foram realizadas duas sessões de exercício com uma semana de intervalo. Em ambas as sessões de exercício, os sujeitos caminharam num tapete rolante a uma velocidade de 5,0 km/h por um período de dez minutos, sendo que, numa das sessões, determinada aleatoriamente, carregaram o equivalente a 10% do seu peso corporal distribuído igualmente pelos dois membros superiores em dois garrafões de água. Avaliou-se em repouso e imediatamente após o exercício, a pressão arterial periférica, a frequência cardíaca e a rigidez arterial. A análise da rigidez arterial foi efectuada na artéria radial do membro superior direito com um sistema transdutor automático de pressão. Os parâmetros reportados neste estudo são a frequência cardíaca, a pressão arterial sistólica e diastólica, a pressão arterial média, a pressão central (aórtica) sistólica, a pressão de pulso central, a pressão de aumentação e o índice de aumentação a 75 bmp (Aix@75). Em repouso, não se verificaram diferenças significativas entre as duas sessões de exercício nos parâmetros avaliados. O principal resultado do presente estudo indica que a rigidez arterial aumenta de forma aguda com a realização de caminhada (exercício aeróbio) apenas quando esta é acompanhada do transporte nos membros superiores de uma carga externa (exercício isométrico) [Aix@75: -5.5(8.4) para -1.36(8.17)%, p<0.05]. Relativamente ao protocolo exclusivamente aeróbio não se verificaram diferenças significativas na rigidez arterial [Aix@75: -4.2(9.1) para -4.69(7.93)%, p>0.05]. Em conclusão, os resultados do presente estudo indicam que a rigidez arterial, em indivíduos jovens e aparentemente saudáveis, aumenta de forma significativa apenas quando o exercício aeróbio é acompanhado de exercício isométrico de membros superiores com transporte de carga adicional.

A influência da idade nos parâmetros metabólicos durante a marcha com andarilho

Introdução: Estruturalmente, a marcha é modificada de acordo com as características de cada individuo, sua natureza morfológica, tipo de atividade, idade e a presença de determinadas doenças, entre outros fatores. Devidas as alterações fisiológicas de envelhecimento, o custo energético da marcha normal por si só é superior nos idosos comparativamente com os jovens. Objetivo: Analisar a influência do uso de andarilho com rodas e fixo nos parâmetros metabólicos de indivíduos com mais de 60 anos e em jovens. Metodologia: realizou-se um estudo analítico transversal numa amostra de 21 voluntários, sendo 11adultos jovens (idade compreendida entre 18 e 25 anos) e 10 são adultos com idade superior a 60 anos. Utilizou-se o sistema K4b2 COSMED de forma a recolher os dados relativos ao consumo energético, quociente respiratório e volume de CO2 produzido. Os participantes realizaram os diferentes tipos de marcha (marcha normal, a três pontos com andarilho fixo, a três pontos modificada com andarilho fixo, a três pontos com andarilho com rodas e a três pontos modificada com andarilho com rodas) durante 10 minutos num percurso rectilíneo de 20 metros. Para a análise estatística recorreu-se ao software IBM SPSS Statistics v20 com um nível de significância de 0,05. Resultados: observou-se que á exceção da marcha normal em todos os outros tipos de marcha com andarilho, os participantes com mais de 60 anos, apresentam valores significativamente superiores aos dos jovens, nomeadamente nas marchas com andarilho fixo, a 3 pontos e a 3 pontos modificada e com andarilho de rodas, na marcha a 3ponto modificada. Verificaram-se diferenças apenas no grupo dos jovens, pois a marcha normal apresentou valores significativamente maiores que as restantes. Conclusão: A idade influenciou os parâmetros metabólicos da marcha normal e com andarilhos fixo e móvel apresentando os idosos um maior gasto energético, bem como os METS utilizados.

Efeito país de origem e etnocentrismo: caso dos vinhos espumantes italianos

Dissertação de Mestrado Mestrado em Empreendedorismo e Internacionalização Orientada por Mestre Anabela Ribeiro

Determinantes à receptividade ao bluetooth marketing pelo consumidor português

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Marketing Digital, sob orientação do Mestre Paulo Gonçalves e da Doutora Madalena Vilas Boas Esta versão não contém as críticas e sugestões dos elementos do júri