Assigning real-time tasks on heterogeneous multiprocessors with two unrelated types of processors

A preliminary version of this paper appeared in Proceedings of the 31st IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2010, pp. 239–248.

Os preços de transferência e o âmbito de intervenção do auditor: abordagem e enquadramento

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentado ao Instituto de Contabilidade e Administração do obtenção do grau de Mestre em Auditoria Auditoria, sob orientação de Adalmiro Álvaro Malheiro de Castro Andrade

In-shoe plantar pressures and ground reaction forces during overweight adults' overground walking

Purpose: Because walking is highly recommended for prevention and treatment of obesity and some of its biomechanical aspects are not clearly understood for overweight people, we compared the absolute and normalized ground reaction forces (GRF), plantar pressures, and temporal parameters of normal-weight and overweight participants during overground walking. Method: A force plate and an in-shoe pressure system were used to record GRF, plantar pressures (foot divided in 10 regions), and temporal parameters of 17 overweight adults and 17 gender-matched normal-weight adults while walking. Results: With high effect sizes, the overweight participants showed higher absolute medial-lateral and vertical GRF and pressure peaks in the central rearfoot, lateral midfoot, and lateral and central forefoot. However, analyzing normalized (scaled to body weight) data, the overweight participants showed lower vertical and anterior-posterior GRF and lower pressure peaks in the medial rearfoot and hallux, but the lateral forefoot peaks continued to be greater compared with normal-weight participants. Time of occurrence of medial-lateral GRF and pressure peaks in the midfoot occurred later in overweight individuals. Conclusions: The overweight participants adapted their gait pattern to minimize the consequences of the higher vertical and propulsive GRF in their musculoskeletal system. However, they were not able to improve their balance as indicated by medial-lateral GRF. The overweight participants showed higher absolute pressure peaks in 4 out of 10 foot regions. Furthermore, the normalized data suggest that the lateral forefoot in overweight adults was loaded more than the proportion of their extra weight, while the hallux and medial rearfoot were seemingly protected.

From Mind to Body: Is Mental Practice Effective on Strength Gains? A Meta-Analysis

Mental practice is an internal reproduction of a motor act (whose intention is to promote learning and improving motor skills). Some studies have shown that other cognitive strategies also increase the strength and muscular resistance in healthy people by the enhancement of the performance during dynamic tasks. Mental training sessions may be primordial to improving muscle strength in different subjects. The aim of this study was to systematically review and meta-analiyze studies that assessed whether mental practice is effective in improving muscular strength. We conducted an electronic-computed search in Pub-Med/Medline and ISI Web of Knowledge, Scielo and manual searchs, searching papers written in English between 1991 and 2014. There were 44 studies in Pub-Med/Medline, 631 in ISI Web of Knowledge, 11 in Scielo and 3 in manual searchs databases. After exclusion of studies for duplicate, unrelated to the topic by title and summary, different samples and methodologies, a meta-analysis of 4 studies was carried out to identify the dose-response relationship. We did not find evidence that mental practice is effective in increasing strength in healthy individuals. There is no evidence that mental practice alone can be effective to induce strength gains or to optimize the training effects.