3,031 research outputs found

    Determinants of Climbing Performance: When Finger Flexor Strength and Endurance Count

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    Marcolin, G, Faggian, S, Muschietti, M, Matteraglia, L, and Paoli, A. Determinants of climbing performance: when finger flexor strength and endurance count. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000-000, 2020-Aim of the study was: (a) to compare finger flexor strength and endurance among climbers and nonclimbers; (b) to predict climbers' level of ability using climbing-specific strength tests and prolonged fatigue protocols. 17 advanced climbers (ADV), 17 intermediate climbers (INT), and 15 nonclimbers (NOCLIMB) performed a maximal finger grip test on a climbing-specific device, a maximal handgrip test, 20 intermittent isometric maximal contractions (E1), a suspension test on a bar till exhaustion, and again 20 intermittent isometric maximal contractions (E2). Strength values were normalized to body weight (%BW). The handgrip test failed to discriminate ADV from INT. Maximal finger flexor strength differed among ADV (59.90 ± 9.42 %BW), INT (46.75 ± 8.40 %BW) and NOCLIMB (36.40 ± 6.51 %BW) (p < 0.0001; ηp: 0.586). ADV showed the best suspension time (58.55 ± 14.87 seconds) followed by INT (32.55 ± 16.87 seconds) and NOCLIMB (17.20 ± 14.30 seconds) (p < 0.0001; ηp: 0.563). ADV showed the best endurance performance in both E1 and E2. The highest correlations with climbers' ability scores were obtained with sport-specific tests (maximal finger strength, r = 0.60, p < 0.0001; bar suspension, r = 0.69, p < 0.0001) and at the highest level of fatigue (E2, r = 0.74, p < 0.0001). Strength and endurance gain more importance in determining climbers' ability if assessed with finger specific tests and after prolonged fatigue

    Which skills for the digital era?

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    As a matter of fact, digital transformation has a great impact both on labour markets and jobs (both quantity and quality) as well as on the skills that workers need . The presentation outlines how such a change affects the skills demanded on the market.as a matter of fact, digital transformation has a great impact both on labour markets and jobs (both quantity and quality) as well as on the skills that workers need . the presentation outlines how such a change affects the skills demanded on the market. which skills for the digital era? robert grundke luca marcolin the lin bao nguyen mariagrazia squicciarin

    An assessment of the impact of possible CAP reform scenarios on Romanian agriculture

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    Using a simplified model, with key-variable the prices of two different possible scenarios of CAP reform after 2013 (moderate and radical), this paper present a comparison between the price effects of implementation of each reform scenario at 2015 horizon on Romanian agriculture. This short analysis shows that, under the presented hypotheses, the net welfare effect, due to the price changes, for the selected products, is positive in both reform scenarios, yet greater in the case of the radical reform. Integrated in the large context of Romanian development, it seems that the influence of CAP reform upon agriculture and rural areas will be most likely a gradual one: an interpenetration between the two scenarios is foreseeable, starting with the moderate reform that will dominate the period around 2013, the reform measures acquiring a more radical character afterwards.CAP reform, Romania, welfare effects, Agricultural and Food Policy,

    3D geometry-based automatic landmark localization in presence of facial occlusions

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    This study proposes a novel automatic method for facial landmark localization relying on geometrical properties of 3D facial surface working both on complete faces displaying different emotions and in presence of occlusions. In particular, 12 descriptors coming from Differential Geometry including the coefficients of the fundamental forms, Gaussian, mean, principal curvatures, shape index and curvedness are extracted as facial features and their local geometric properties are exploited to localize 13 soft-tissue landmarks from eye and nose areas. The method is deterministic and is backboned by a thresholding technique designed by studying the behaviour of each geometrical descriptor in correspondence to the locus of each landmark. Occlusions are managed by a detection algorithm based ongeometrical properties which allows to proceed with the landmark localizationavoiding the coveredareas.Experimentationswerecarriedouton3132facesoftheBosphorusdatabaseand of a 230-sized internal database, including expressive and occluded ones (mouth, eye, and eyeglasses occlusions), obtaining 4.75 mm mean localization error

    Rich, Sturmian, and trapezoidal words

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    In this paper we explore various interconnections between rich words, Sturmian words, and trapezoidal words. Rich words, first introduced by the second and third authors together with J. Justin and S. Widmer, constitute a new class of finite and infinite words characterized by having the maximal number of palindromic factors. Every finite Sturmian word is rich, but not conversely. Trapezoidal words were first introduced by the first author in studying the behavior of the subword complexity of finite Sturmian words. Unfortunately this property does not characterize finite Sturmian words. In this note we show that the only trapezoidal palindromes are Sturmian. More generally we show that Sturmian palindromes can be characterized either in terms of their subword complexity (the trapezoidal property) or in terms of their palindromic complexity. We also obtain a similar characterization of rich palindromes in terms of a relation between palindromic complexity and subword complexity

    Automatic 3D foetal face model extraction from ultrasonography through histogram processing

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    Ultrasound is by far the most adopted method for safe screening and diagnosis in the prenatal phase, thanks to its non-harmful nature with respect to radiation-based imaging techniques. The main drawback of ultrasound imaging is its sensitivity to scattering noise, which makes automatic tissues segmentation a tricky task, limiting the possible range of applications. An algorithm for automatically extracting the facial surface is presented here. The method provides a comprehensive segmentation process and does not require any human intervention or training procedures, leading from the output of the scanner directly to the 3D mesh describing the face. The proposed segmentation technique is based on a two-step statistical process that relies on both volumetric histogram processing and 2D segmentation. The completely unattended nature of such a procedure makes it possible to rapidly populate a large database of 3D point clouds describing healthy and unhealthy faces, enhancing the diagnosis of rare syndromes through statistical analyses

    Characterization Results for the Poset Based Representation of Topological Relations - I: Introduction and Models

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    @article{DBLP:journals/informaticaSI/ForlizziN99, author = {Luca Forlizzi and Enrico Nardelli}, title = {Characterization Results for the Poset Based Representation of Topological Relations - I: Introduction and Models.}, journal = {Informatica (Slovenia)}, volume = {23}, number = {2}, year = {1999}, bibsource = {DBLP, http://dblp.uni-trier.de}

    Characterization Results for the Poset Based Representation of Topological Relations - II: Intersection and Union

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    @article{DBLP:journals/informaticaSI/ForlizziN00, author = {Luca Forlizzi and Enrico Nardelli}, title = {Characterization Results for the Poset Based Representation of Topological Relations - II: Intersection and Union.}, journal = {Informatica (Slovenia)}, volume = {24}, number = {1}, year = {2000}, bibsource = {DBLP, http://dblp.uni-trier.de}
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