A history of low back pain affects pelvis and trunk coordination during a sustained manual materials handling task

Purpose:The purpose of this study was to compare the coordination between the trunk and the pelvis during a sustained asymmetric repetitive lifting task between a group with a history of low back pain(LBP;HBP) and a group with no history of LBP(NBP).Methods:Volunteers lifted a 11-kg box from ankle height in front to a shelf 45° off-center at waist height,and lowered it to the start position at12 cycles/min for 10 min.Lifting side was alternated during the trial.Continuous relative phase was used to calculate coordination between the pelvis and trunk rotation at the beginning(Min 1),middle(Min 5),and end of the bout(Min 9).Results:While there were no main effects for group,a significant interaction between time and group indicated that,in the frontal plane,the NBP group coordination was more anti-phase toward the end of the bout,with no such differences for the HBP group.Analysis of sagittal-axial(bend and twist) coordination revealed the HBP group coordination was more in-phase at the end of the bout over the entire cycle and for the lifting phase alone,with no such differences for the NBP group.Conclusion:Differences between groups demonstrate residual consequences of LBP in an occupational scenario,even though the HBP group was pain-free for >6 months prior to data collection.More in-phase coordination in the HBP group may represent a coordination pattern analogous to'guarded gait' which has been observed in other studies,and may lend insight as to why these individuals are at increased risk for re-injury.

Estimation of Relative Ecological Value of Returning Farmland to Forest & Mountain Enclosure for Grazing Prohibition——A case study in Yongxing Township of Jingyuan County,Gansu Province

[Objective]Returning farmland to forest and mountain enclosure for grazing prohibition ecological effect and economy rationality were explored.[Methods]A case study of returning farmland to forest and barren hills grazing prohibition in Yongxing Township of Jingyuan County was used to discuss and estimate the relative ecological function and relative ecological value.[Results]1）The ecological value of the forest of returning farmland was far more than the sum of the ecological value of farm crops and the agricultural output,and also more than the national subsidy standard.So the state policy of returning farmland to forests is not only favorable to local eco-environment restoration,but also reasonable in economic development.2）The ecological value of mountain enclosure for grazing prohibition was less than the opportunity cost of prohibiting grazing,also less than the national subsidy standard.The sum of the relative ecological value of prohibiting grazing and the state subsidies was more than the opportunity cost of prohibiting grazing.However,the ecological value of new vegetation through returning farmland to forest project was greater than the China＇s average ecological value of grassland.[Conclusion]The relative ecological value can be used to solve the problems in the equivalent conversion among various ecological indexes and between ecological indexes and economic indexes.

Quality analysis of crustal tilt and strain observations in China's earthquakes in 2014

This work analyzes the quality of crustal tilt and strain observations during 2014, which were acquired from 269 sets of ground tiltmeters and 212 sets of strainmeters. In terms of data quality, the water tube tiltmeters presented the highest rate of excellent quality,approximately 91%, and the pendulum tiltmeters and ground strainmeters yielded rates of81% and 78%, respectively. This means that a total of 380 sets of instruments produced high-quality observational data suitable for scientific investigations and analyses.

Detecting visually salient scene areas and deriving their relative spatial relations from continuous street-view panoramas

A salient scene is an area within an image that contains visual elements that stand out from surrounding areas.They are important for distinguishing landmarks in first-person-view(FPV)applications and determining spatial relations in images.The relative spatial relation between salient scenes acts as a visual guide that is easily accepted and understood by users in FPV applications.However,current digitally navigable maps and location-based services fall short of providing information on visual spatial relations for users.This shortcoming has a critical influence on the popularity and innovation of FPV applications.This paper addresses the issue by proposing a method for detecting visually salient scene areas(SSAs)and deriving their relative spatial relationships from continuous panoramas.This method includes three critical steps.First,an SSA detection approach is introduced by fusing region-based saliency derived from super-pixel segmentation and the frequency-tuned saliency model.The method focuses on a segmented landmark area in a panorama.Secondly,a street-view-oriented SSA generation method is introduced by matching and merging the visual SSAs from continuous panoramas.Thirdly,a continuous geotagged panorama-based referencing approach is introduced to derive the relative spatial relationships of SSAs from continuous panoramas.This information includes the relative azimuth,elevation angle,and the relative distance.Experiment results show that the error for the SSA relative azimuth angle is approximately±6°(with an average error of 2.67°),and the SSA relative elevation angle is approximately±4°(with an average error of 1.32°)when using Baidu street-view panoramas.These results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.The method proposed in this study can facilitate the development of FPV applications such as augmented reality(AR)and pedestrian navigation using proper spatial relation.

Existence of Solutions of Generalized Quasi-Variational Relation Problems by the Inductive Relations and Some Applications

By the inductive relations,this paper first obtains some existence theorems of solutions for generalized quasi-variational relation problems,which are different from other papers.As applications,some existence theorems of solutions for generalized quasi-equilibrium problems and NS-equilibria for noncooperative games under uncertainty are obtained.

A Relation Matrix Approach to Labelling Temporal Relations in Scheduling

In this paper,we present a relation matrix description of temporal relations.Based on this modela new algorithm for labelling temporal relations is proposed.Under certain conditions the algorithm iscompleted and has a polynomial complexity.In general cases it is still an efficient algorithm comparedto some known algorithms.

Applications of balanced pairs

Let(X, Y) be a balanced pair in an abelian category. We first introduce the notion of cotorsion pairs relative to(X, Y), and then give some equivalent characterizations when a relative cotorsion pair is hereditary or perfect. We prove that if the X-resolution dimension of Y(resp. Y-coresolution dimension of X)is finite, then the bounded homotopy category of Y(resp. X) is contained in that of X(resp. Y). As a consequence, we get that the right X-singularity category coincides with the left Y-singularity category if the X-resolution dimension of Y and the Y-coresolution dimension of X are finite.

A prospective comparison cohort study between baseline serum uric acid level and coronary artery disease in first-degree relatives and non-first-degree relatives of type 2 diabetes males

Objective To investigate the relationship between baseline serum uric acid and the severity of coronary artery disease(CAD)in the first-degree relatives or nonfirst-degree relatives of men with type 2 diabetes.Methods Three hundred and eighty-one men with negative coronary angiography for the first time were divided into diabetes and non-diabetes groups and followed-up for