Community ecology was traditionally an integrative science devoted to studying interactions between species and their abiotic environments in order to predict species' geographic distributions and ...abundances. Yet for philosophical and methodological reasons, it has become divided into two enterprises: one devoted to local experimentation on species interactions to predict community dynamics; the other devoted to statistical analyses of abiotic and biotic information to describe geographic distribution. Our goal here is to instigate thinking about ways to reconnect the two enterprises and thereby return to a tradition to do integrative science. We focus specifically on the community ecology of predators and prey, which is ripe for integration. This is because there is active, simultaneous interest in experimentally resolving the nature and strength of predator–prey interactions as well as explaining patterns across landscapes and seascapes. We begin by describing a conceptual theory rooted in classical analyses of non-spatial food web modules used to predict species interactions. We show how such modules can be extended to consideration of spatial context using the concept of habitat domain. Habitat domain describes the spatial extent of habitat space that predators and prey use while foraging, which differs from home range, the spatial extent used by an animal to meet all of its daily needs. This conceptual theory can be used to predict how different spatial relations of predators and prey could lead to different emergent multiple predator–prey interactions such as whether predator consumptive or non-consumptive effects should dominate, and whether intraguild predation, predator interference or predator complementarity are expected. We then review the literature on studies of large predator–prey interactions that make conclusions about the nature of multiple predator–prey interactions. This analysis reveals that while many studies provide sufficient information about predator or prey spatial locations, and thus meet necessary conditions of the habitat domain conceptual theory for drawing conclusions about the nature of the predator–prey interactions, several studies do not. We therefore elaborate how modern technology and statistical approaches for animal movement analysis could be used to test the conceptual theory, using experimental or quasi-experimental analyses at landscape scales.
Motion Capture and whole-body interaction technologies have been experimentally proven to contribute to the enhancement of dance learning and to the investigation of bodily knowledge, innovating at ...the same time the practice of dance. Designing and implementing a dance interactive learning system with the aim to achieve effective, enjoyable, and meaningful educational experiences is, however, a highly demanding interdisciplinary and complex problem. In this work, we examine the interactive dance training systems that are described in the recent bibliography, proposing a framework of the most important design parameters, which we present along with particular examples of implementations. We discuss the way that the different phases of a common workflow are designed and implemented in these systems, examining aspects such as the visualization of feedback to the learner, the movement qualities involved, the technological approaches used, as well as the general context of use and learning approaches. Our aim is to identify common patterns and areas that require further research and development toward creating more effective and meaningful digital dance learning tools.
The volume of occlusal adjustment of digital occlusal devices designed with different digital occlusal articulators is unknown.
The purpose of this clinical study was to evaluate and compare the ...clinical efficacy and the volume of occlusal adjustment of digital occlusal devices designed using an average value digital articulator and the jaw movement analyzer (JMA).
Thirty participants were randomly divided into 2 groups, an average value group and a JMA group, with 15 participants in each group. The centric relation position of the participants was determined by an experienced investigator with the aid of a leaf gauge. An intraoral scanner (TRIOS 3) was used to obtain digital scans of the maxillary and mandibular dentition and the maxillomandibular relationship record in the centric relation position. Personalized articulator parameters of participants in the JMA group were obtained by using a JMA (JMAnalyser). Different articulator parameters were used to fabricate an occlusal device in a denture design software program (exocad DentalCAD). The surface of the occlusal device was coated with a dental optical spray and then scanned using a laboratory scanner (Kavo LS3). The process was repeated after the occlusal device was adjusted. The files of the 2 scans were imported into a reverse engineering software program, and the root mean square (RMS) values were obtained by best fit alignment and 3-dimensional comparison. The Shapiro-Wilk normality test and homogeneity of variance test were performed, and t tests were used to evaluate differences in the RMS values between the groups (α=.05).
The experimental data were generally normal distributed (P>.05). No statistically significant difference was found between the RMS values of the Average and the JMA groups (P>.05).
No significant difference in the volume of occlusal adjustment was found when using occlusal devices made using the digital average articulator or the JMA, suggesting that either method can be used to program articulators for the fabrication of occlusal devices.
► Dimensionality reduction (DR) techniques are adapted for functional movement datasets. ► Affective Movements are represented by functional features using basis function expansion. ► Functional DR ...is used to obtain low-dimensional embeddings for the affective movements. ► Variants of functional DR are compared using leave-one-out cross validation and 1NN classifier. ► Functional supervised PCA with Gaussian kernels achieves the best classification performance.
This paper investigates the use of statistical dimensionality reduction (DR) techniques for discriminative low dimensional embedding to enable affective movement recognition. Human movements are defined by a collection of sequential observations (time-series features) representing body joint angle or joint Cartesian trajectories. In this work, these sequential observations are modelled as temporal functions using B-spline basis function expansion, and dimensionality reduction techniques are adapted to enable application to the functional observations. The DR techniques adapted here are: Fischer discriminant analysis (FDA), supervised principal component analysis (PCA), and Isomap. These functional DR techniques along with functional PCA are applied on affective human movement datasets and their performance is evaluated using leave-one-out cross validation with a one-nearest neighbour classifier in the corresponding low-dimensional subspaces. The results show that functional supervised PCA outperforms the other DR techniques examined in terms of classification accuracy and time resource requirements.
Purpose
The purpose of the current prospective study was to assess the changes over time in patients tested at 6 months and 9 months after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) with a ...return to sport (RTS) test battery. It was hypothesized that more patients passed RTS criteria at 9 months compared to 6 months.
Methods
Sixty-two ACLR patients performed a test battery at an average of 6.5 ± 0.7 and 9.5 ± 0.9 months after ACLR. All patients underwent a standardized rehabilitation protocol. The test battery consisted of the following tests: a jump-landing task assessed with the Landing Error Scoring System (LESS), three single-leg hop tasks (single-leg hop test, triple-leg hop test, side hop test), isokinetic quadriceps and hamstring strength at 60, 180 and 300°/s and two questionnaires (IKDC and ACL–RSI). Cut off criteria were set as Limb Symmetry Index (LSI) > 90% (for isokinetic strength and for single-leg hop tasks), LESS < 5, IKDC score within 15th percentage of healthy subjects and ACL–RSI > 56 respectively.
Results
At 6 months, two patients (3.2%) passed all criteria. At 9 months, seven patients (11.3%) passed all criteria. Patients improved in all RTS criteria over time except for the IKDC score. Twenty-nine patients (46.8%) did not pass the strength criterion at 60°/s at 9 months after ACLR.
Conclusions
The percentages of patients passing all RTS criteria were low at both 6 and 9 months after ACLR. Quadriceps strength revealed persistent deficits and the lack of improvement in the IKDC score questionnaires shows insufficient self-reported knee function for RTS.
Level of evidence
III.
Human mobility is important for understanding the evolution of size and structure of urban areas, the spatial distribution of facilities, and the provision of transportation services. Until recently, ...exploring human mobility in detail was challenging because data collection methods consisted of cumbersome manual travel surveys, space-time diaries, or interviews. The development of location-aware sensors has significantly altered the possibilities for acquiring detailed data on human movements. Although this has spurred many methodological developments in identifying human movement patterns, many of these methods operate solely from the analytical perspective and ignore the environmental context within which the movement takes place. In this paper we attempt to widen this view and present an integrated approach to the analysis of human mobility using a combination of volunteered GPS trajectories and contextual spatial information. We propose a new framework for the identification of dynamic (travel modes) and static (significant places) behaviour using trajectory segmentation, data mining, and spatio-temporal analysis. We are interested in examining if and how travel modes depend on the residential location, age, or gender of the tracked individuals. Further, we explore theorised 'third places', which are spaces beyond main locations (home/work) where individuals spend time to socialise. Can these places be identified from GPS traces? We evaluate our framework using a collection of trajectories from 205 volunteers linked to contextual spatial information on the types of places visited and the transport routes they use. The result of this study is a contextually enriched data set that supports new possibilities for modelling human movement behaviour.
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