Relació de la flexibilitat i la força en la prevenció de lesions

El futbol és un esport amb una elevada incidència de lesions. L’estudi pretén comprovar si l’augment de la flexibilitat i la força de les extremitats inferiors redueix aquesta incidència. S’ha dut a terme una recerca sobre les parts del sistema musculesqueletic més afectades per les lesions i els mecanismes corresponents en l’esport del futbol. L’equip juvenil “D” de l’A.E.C.Manlleu ha estat la població de l’estudi. S’ha dividit l’equip en un grup control i un grup d’intervenció, en el qual s’ha dut a terme un entrenament específic durant 3 mesos per tal d’augmentar la flexibilitat i la força de les extremitats inferiors i del tronc. A través de la realització del test Sit & Reach i de l’1RM en sentadeta s’ha comprovat si aquest augment ha estat efectiu i la relació amb el nombre de lesions.

Patient with hepatocellular carcinoma related to prior acute arsenic intoxication and occult HBV: epidemiological, clinical and therapeutic results after 14 years of follow-up

Little is known about the long-term survivors of acute arsenic intoxication. We present here a clinical case report of a man with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection who developed hepatocellular carcinoma four years after acute arsenic poisoning. HBsAg was detected in serum in 1990 when he voluntarily donated blood. In 1991, the patient suffered from severe psychological depression that led him to attempt suicide by massive ingestion of an arsenic-containing rodenticide. He survived with polyneuropathy and paralysis of the lower limbs, and has been wheelchair-bound since then. During participation in a follow-up study conducted among HBV carriers, abdominal ultrasound detected a two-centimeter liver mass consistent with hepatocellular carcinoma. The tumor was confirmed by computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance image (MRI). Because of his significant comorbidity, the patient received palliative treatment with transarterial lipiodol chemoembolization (TACE) on three occasions (1996, 1997 and 1999). At his most recent visit in May 2005, the patient was asymptomatic, liver enzymes were normal and the tumor was in remission on ultrasound.

Pilomatrixoma. Review of 205 cases

Aims: To determine the incidence and clinical features of patients diagnosed with pilomatrixoma. Patients and Method: A retrospective analysis was made of 205 cases of pilomatrixoma diagnosed according to clinical and histological criteria, with an evaluation of the incidence, patient age at presentation, gender, lesion location and size, single or multiple presentation, differential diagnosis, histopathological and clinical findings and relapses. Results: Pilomatrixoma was seen to account for 1.04% of all benign skin lesions. It tended to present in pediatric patients- almost 50% corresponding to individuals under 20 years of age- with a slight male predilection (107/98). Approximately 75% of all cases presented as single lesions measuring less than 15 mm in diameter. Multiple presentations were seen in 2.43% of cases. The most frequent locations were the head and orofacial zones (particularly the parotid region), with over 50% of all cases, followed by the upper (23.9%) and lower limbs (12.7%). Only one relapse was documented following simple lesion excision. Conclusions: The frequency of pilomatrixomas was 1.04% of all benign skin lesions- the lesions being predominantly located in the maxillofacial area. Due to the benign features of this disorder, simple removal of the lesion is considered to be the treatment of choice, and is associated with a very low relapse rate.

Relació entre la funcionalitat i l’estat de seguretat amb un mateix i en l’acció motriu després de la readaptació a la lesió de LCA

Els jugadors de futbol sotmesos a una reconstrucció de LCA es veuen afectats per dos vessants. La primera és a nivell funcional de l’articulació del genoll, entenent aquesta com la capacitat que presenta el genoll a suportar pes, generar força, realitzar moviments i mantenir-se estable durant la practica esportiva (Mattacola et. al., 2002). La segona és a nivell psicològic en seguretat amb un mateix i en seguretat a l’acció motriu (Brewer et. al., 1993). Aquesta recerca presenta un estudi sobre la funcionalitat i l’estat psicològic de deu jugadors de futbol amateur un cop ja han estat rehabilitats i readaptats a la practica esportiva. L’objectiu de l’estudi és conèixer la relació entre les respostes funcionals i subjectives. El procés s’ha dividit en tres fases, la primera ha estat la selecció del grup i realització del qüestionari de creació pròpia QSCFEG 2014 (que permet extreure el nivell de seguretat en l’acció motriu i el nivell de seguretat amb un mateix), la segona fase ha consistit en passar les quatre proves del HOP Test i mesurar els perímetres i l’amplitud de moviment de les extremitats inferiors (per mesurar l’índex de simetria de les extremitat inferior i veure el nivell funcional) i la última la recopilació de dades, anàlisi dels resultats i extracció de conclusions. A l’analitzar el grup s’ha comprovat que tots els subjectes presenten un nivell funcional superior al paràmetre mínim, que segon Barber et. al (1990) és del 85%. Tot i això, la gran majoria presenten mancances a nivell psicològic, ja que han demostrat una puntuació baixa en relació als mínims establerts als nivells de seguretat motriu (40 punts mínim) i seguretat amb un mateix (20 punts mínim).

Price level convergence, purchasing power parity and multiple structural breaks: an application to US cities

This article provides a fresh methodological and empirical approach for assessing price level convergence and its relation to purchasing power parity (PPP) using annual price data for seventeen US cities. We suggest a new procedure that can handle a wide range of PPP concepts in the presence of multiple structural breaks using all possible pairs of real exchange rates. To deal with cross-sectional dependence, we use both cross-sectional demeaned data and a parametric bootstrap approach. In general, we find more evidence for stationarity when the parity restriction is not imposed, while imposing parity restriction provides leads toward the rejection of the panel stationar- ity. Our results can be embedded on the view of the Balassa-Samuelson approach, but where the slope of the time trend is allowed to change in the long-run. The median half-life point estimate are found to be lower than the consensus view regardless of the parity restriction.

Interplay of spectral efficiency, power and doppler spectrum for reference-signal-assisted wireless communication

Expressions relating spectral efficiency, power, and Doppler spectrum, are derived for Rayleigh-faded wireless channels with Gaussian signal transmission. No side information on the state of the channel is assumed at the receiver. Rather, periodic reference signals are postulated in accordance with the functioning of most wireless systems. The analysis relies on a well-established lower bound, generally tight and asymptotically exact at low SNR. In contrast with most previous studies, which relied on block-fading channel models, a continuous-fading model is adopted. This embeds the Doppler spectrum directly in the derived expressions, imbuing them with practical significance. Closed-form relationships are obtained for the popular Clarke-Jakes spectrum and informative expansions, valid for arbitrary spectra, are found for the low- and high-power regimes. While the paper focuses on scalar channels, the extension to multiantenna settings is also discussed.

Is there a connection between the tax administration and the political power?

This paper offers empirical evidence from Spain of a connection between the tax administration and the political power. Firstly, the regional tax administration is not immune to the budgetary situation of regional government, and tends to exert a greater (or lesser) effort in tax collection the greater (or lower) the (expected) public deficit. At the same time, the system of unconditional grants from the central layer of government provokes an ¿income effect¿ which disincentivises the efforts of the tax administration. Secondly, these efforts also decrease when the margin to lose a parliamentary seat in an electoral district is cut, although the importance of this disincentive decreases according to the parliamentary strength of the incumbent

Is there a connection between the tax administration and the political power?

This paper offers empirical evidence from Spain of a connection between the tax administration and the political power. Firstly, the regional tax administration is not immune to the budgetary situation of regional government, and tends to exert a greater (or lesser) effort in tax collection the greater (or lower) the (expected) public deficit. At the same time, the system of unconditional grants from the central layer of government provokes an ¿income effect¿ which disincentivises the efforts of the tax administration. Secondly, these efforts also decrease when the margin to lose a parliamentary seat in an electoral district is cut, although the importance of this disincentive decreases according to the parliamentary strength of the incumbent

Surface characterization techniques for determining the root-mean-square roughness and power spectral densities of optical components

Surface topography and light scattering were measured on 15 samples ranging from those having smooth surfaces to others with ground surfaces. The measurement techniques included an atomic force microscope, mechanical and optical profilers, confocal laser scanning microscope, angle-resolved scattering, and total scattering. The samples included polished and ground fused silica, silicon carbide, sapphire, electroplated gold, and diamond-turned brass. The measurement instruments and techniques had different surface spatial wavelength band limits, so the measured roughnesses were not directly comparable. Two-dimensional power spectral density (PSD) functions were calculated from the digitized measurement data, and we obtained rms roughnesses by integrating areas under the PSD curves between fixed upper and lower band limits. In this way, roughnesses measured with different instruments and techniques could be directly compared. Although smaller differences between measurement techniques remained in the calculated roughnesses, these could be explained mostly by surface topographical features such as isolated particles that affected the instruments in different ways.