There are few effective therapies to achieve functional recovery from motor-related disabilities affecting the upper limb after stroke. This feasibility study tested whether a powered exoskeleton ...driven by a brain-computer interface (BCI), using neural activity from the unaffected cortical hemisphere, could affect motor recovery in chronic hemiparetic stroke survivors. This novel system was designed and configured for a home-based setting to test the feasibility of BCI-driven neurorehabilitation in outpatient environments.
Ten chronic hemiparetic stroke survivors with moderate-to-severe upper-limb motor impairment (mean Action Research Arm Test=13.4) used a powered exoskeleton that opened and closed the affected hand using spectral power from electroencephalographic signals from the unaffected hemisphere associated with imagined hand movements of the paretic limb. Patients used the system at home for 12 weeks. Motor function was evaluated before, during, and after the treatment.
Across patients, our BCI-driven approach resulted in a statistically significant average increase of 6.2 points in the Action Research Arm Test. This behavioral improvement significantly correlated with improvements in BCI control. Secondary outcomes of grasp strength, Motricity Index, and the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure also significantly improved.
The findings demonstrate the therapeutic potential of a BCI-driven neurorehabilitation approach using the unaffected hemisphere in this uncontrolled sample of chronic stroke survivors. They also demonstrate that BCI-driven neurorehabilitation can be effectively delivered in the home environment, thus increasing the probability of future clinical translation.
URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT02552368.
While high-income countries have made significant strides since the 1970s in improving air quality, air pollution continues to rise in many developing countries and the world as a whole. A ...significant share of the pollution burden in developing countries can be attributed to production for export to consumers in high-income nations. However, it remains a challenge to quantify individual actors' share of responsibility for pollution, and to involve parties other than primary emitters in cleanup efforts. Here we present a new spatially explicit modeling approach to link SO2, NOx, and PM10 severe emissions hotspots to final consumers via global supply chains. These maps show developed countries reducing their emissions domestically but driving new pollution hotspots in developing countries. This is also the first time a spatially explicit footprint inventory has been established. Linking consumers and supply chains to emissions hotspots creates opportunities for other parties to participate alongside primary emitters and local regulators in pollution abatement efforts.
Thermal stress is an important factor in many industrial situations, athletic events and military scenarios. It can seriously affect the productivity and the health of the individual and diminish ...tolerance to other environmental hazards. However, the assessment of the thermal stress and the translation of the stress in terms of physiological and psychological strain is complex. For over a century attempts have been made to construct an index, which will describe heat stress satisfactorily. The many indices that have been suggested can be categorized into one of three groups: "rational indices", "empirical indices", or "direct indices". The first 2 groups are sophisticated indices, which integrate environmental and physiological variables; they are difficult to calculate and are not feasible for daily use. The latter group comprises of simple indices, which are based on the measurement of basic environmental variables. In this group 2 indices are in use for over four decades: the "wet-bulb globe temperature" (WBGT) index and the "discomfort index" (DI). The following review summarizes the current knowledge on thermal indices and their correlates to thermal sensation and comfort. With the present knowledge it is suggested to adopt the DI as a universal heat stress index.
Carbon footprints of 13 000 cities Moran, Daniel; Kanemoto, Keiichiro; Jiborn, Magnus ...
Environmental research letters,
06/2018, Letnik:
13, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
While it is understood that cities generate the majority of carbon emissions, for most cities, towns, and rural areas around the world no carbon footprint (CF) has been estimated. The Gridded Global ...Model of City Footprints (GGMCF) presented here downscales national CFs into a 250 m gridded model using data on population, purchasing power, and existing subnational CF studies from the US, China, EU, and Japan. Studies have shown that CFs are highly concentrated by income, with the top decile of earners driving 30%-45% of emissions. Even allowing for significant modeling uncertainties, we find that emissions are similarly concentrated in a small number of cities. The highest emitting 100 urban areas (defined as contiguous population clusters) account for 18% of the global carbon footprint. While many of the cities with the highest footprints are in countries with high carbon footprints, nearly one quarter of the top cities (41 of the top 200) are in countries with relatively low emissions. In these cities population and affluence combine to drive footprints at a scale similar to those of cities in high-income countries. We conclude that concerted action by a limited number of local governments can have a disproportionate impact on global emissions.
The commemoration of the bicentennial of the independence of Latin America has meant and important renewal in the historiography. Political and cultural history and its links with conceptual history ...have provided us with novel interpretations. Within these perspectives this research aims to analyze the political uses of the concept of people during the war of independence in the Spanish-American press. The objetive is to understand in a related way the use and complexity of the concept of people in the Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile and, Lima press from the revolution of May,1810 in Buenos Aires, the Upper Peru war, the Chilean Independence, and San Martin's Protectorate in Peru (1821-1822). In these varied contexts, the concept of people had different meanings that sought the political legitimacy of the exercise of power among the various political and social actors: for example, a meaning between disqualifying and denigrating as vulgar, populace, lower class, and, on the other hand, a sense alluding to educated or distinguished people of society, different from the mob. In other words, we are witnessing the politicization of the concept according to the contexts, interests, and, the vicissitudes of the war of independence.
Global climate change has resulted in an increase in the number and intensity of environmental heat waves, both in areas traditionally associated with hot temperatures and in areas where heat waves ...did not previously occur. For military communities around the world, these changes pose progressively increasing risks of heat-related illnesses and interference with training sessions. This is a significant and persistent "noncombat threat" to both training and operational activities of military personnel. In addition to these important health and safety concerns, there are broader implications in terms of the ability of worldwide security forces to effectively do their job (particularly in areas that historically already have high ambient temperatures). In the present review, we attempt to quantify the impact of climate change on various aspects of military training and performance. We also summarize ongoing research efforts designed to minimize and/or prevent heat injuries and illness. In terms of future approaches, we propose the need to "think outside the box" for a more effective training/schedule paradigm. One approach may be to investigate potential impacts of a reversal of sleep-wake cycles during basic training during the hot months of the year, to minimize the usual increase in heat-related injuries, and to enhance the capacity for physical training and combat performance. Regardless of which approaches are taken, a central feature of successful present and future interventions will be that they are rigorously tested using integrative physiological approaches.
While the problem of climate change is being perceived as increasingly urgent, decision-makers struggle to agree on the distribution of responsibility across countries. In particular, representatives ...from countries hosting emissions-intensive exporting industries have argued that the importers of emissions-intensive goods should bear the responsibility, and ensuing penalties. Indeed, international trade and carbon leakage appear to play an increasingly important role in the carbon emissions debate. However, definitions of quantities describing the embodiment of carbon emissions in internationally traded products, and their measurement, have to be sufficiently robust before being able to underpin global policy. In this paper we critically examine a number of emissions accounting concepts, examine whether the ensuing carbon balances are compatible with monetary trade balances, discuss their different interpretations, and highlight implications for policy. In particular, we compare the emissions embodied in bilateral trade (EEBT) method which considers total trade flows with domestic emission intensities, with the multi-regional input-output (MRIO) method which considers trade only into final consumption with global emission intensities. If consumption-based emissions of different countries were to be compared, we would suggest an MRIO approach because of the global emissions coverage inherent in this method. If trade-adjusted emission inventories were to be compared, we would suggest an EEBT approach due to the consistency with a monetary trade balance.
Sustainable development represents a commitment to advancing human well-being, with the added constraint that this development needs to take place within the ecological limits of the biosphere. ...Progress in both these dimensions of sustainable development can be assessed: we use the UN Human Development Index (HDI) as an indicator of development and the Ecological Footprint as an indicator of human demand on the biosphere. We argue that an HDI of no less than 0.8 and a per capita Ecological Footprint less than the globally available biocapacity per person represent minimum requirements for sustainable development that is globally replicable. Despite growing global adoption of sustainable development as an explicit policy goal, we find that in the year 2003 only one of the 93 countries surveyed met both of these minimum requirements. We also find an overall trend in high-income countries over the past twenty five years that improvements to HDI come with disproportionately larger increases in Ecological Footprint, showing a movement away from sustainability. Some lower-income countries, however, have achieved higher levels of development without a corresponding increase in per capita demand on ecosystem resources.
Abstract
Objective
Drowning is one of the leading causes of death among children and youth worldwide. This study aims to examine differences in the rates of drowning (fatal and non-fatal drowning) ...among children and youth in Israel stratified by age, sex, sector, place of drowning, and the drowning outcome. In addition, we compared the results of studies reported in other countries in specific age groups based on statistics of about 100,000 drowning cases.
Method
A statistical analysis of 474 drownings between 2008 and 2018 was conducted. All cases refer to youngsters aged 7–17 in the State of Israel. Statistical analysis was performed on data obtained from the Beterem – Safe Kids Israel organization and from the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Disparities between groups within the examined population were analyzed based on gender, sector (Jewish versus non-Jewish), and drowning site.
Results
Of the 474 drownings that occurred during 2008–2018, 38.4% ended in death. 79% of the cases occurred in pools. The Arab minority sector (21.1% of the general population) accounted for 25.1% of all drownings, males accounted for 70.5% of the drowning cases, and the age group with the most drownings (48.5%) was that of 15–17 years. The Jewish population was involved in more than 75% of drownings in places designated for bathing and in more than 83% of all disaster scenarios, whereas the Arab minority was involved in more than 61% of drownings in places not designated for bathing.
Conclusions
The results are comparable to those of other studies worldwide. Boys drown twice as much as girls, mainly in the age group of 15–17. This may be explained by overconfidence in boys and a tendency to overestimate their actual swimming abilities. Most drownings occur in pools. Drowning among the Jewish population occurs mainly in designated bathing sites.
Practical applications
The findings can and, in fact, must be used to inform and educate the younger generation as to the potential dangers involving bathing in designated bathing sites.
The EU Carbon-CAP project assembled a comprehensive portfolio of consumer initiatives in order to assess the potential total impact of consumer options on national carbon footprints. Existing ...evaluations of behavioural change have focused primarily on direct energy reductions, typically in households and buildings. However, changes in consumer demand have deeper impacts via their upstream supply chains. The consumer behaviour options considered in the portfolio focus on green household initiatives. Combining existing micro-level studies with a multiregional input-output economic model, we estimated the potential efficacy and uptake of each behaviour across the European Union (EU). The results suggest that adopting these consumer options could reduce carbon footprints by approximately 25%. While 75% of this is delivered as reductions in emissions within Europe, one-quarter of the effect is delivered as a reduced imported carbon footprint, due to changes in the composition of imports.
Key policy insights
Consumer initiatives can have a big effect on embodied carbon imports, in addition to domestic impacts
We connect a portfolio of ∼90 green behaviour changes to a global supply chain database to model impacts holistically
We estimate that with reasonable levels of adoption green consumer actions can reduce the EU CO2 footprint by 25%
A quarter of this effect is delivered in the form of reduced embodied emissions in imports
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