Postural analysis of eight university student wheelchair users when performing written exercises in their classroom: a case study in Santiago de Cali, Colombia

In students with physical disabilities, the more energy and time required and invested into finding a good posture, the longer the learning process takes. For this reason, the objective of this study was to characterize the posture in the act of writing of wheelchair users in a classroom. Eight students, (three women) aged 18-40, of some of the main universities of the city of Santiago de Cali participated. An observational field study filming of approximately 10 minutes was done while they took notes in their classes. Posture of the head, trunk, and upper extremities was analyzed with respect to its axis and the type of movement in each joint. The postures were classified depending on the location of support surface finding five different postures in the eight students. In these five postures some biomechanical risk factors, usually present in wheelchair users, are increased when they are associated with those postures. Those associated risk factors are: possible disc spine deformation, muscular stress and causing of pressure ulcer. In conclusion, in four of these five postures a poor interaction among person, task and work desk was observed. Therefore, seven of the eight students in this study were found to have a posture that could be considered risky.     

Ergonomic analysis of workplaces in the iron casting industrial pole in Claudio, Minas Gerais--Brazil

Brazil is currently recognized as the 10th largest producer of castings, and the city of Cláudio, MG is known worldwide as the "Greatest foundry and metallurgical pole in Latin America", with more than 80 companies. However, this large number of enterprises and increasing investments in product development has demanded an increase in manpower and working hours of workers in the sector, proportionally increasing the incidence of occupational related health problems like RSI (repetitive strain injury), WMSDs (work-related musculoskeletal disorders) and industrial accidents. This article aims to characterize the industry from previously conducted case studies to relate the main causes of occupational diseases and outline possible interventions through design, showing how this tool can contribute to improve the working environment, workplace, tools and equipment through ergonomics adjustments.     

Usability of car stereo

Automotive sound systems vary widely in terms of functions and way of use between different brands and models what can bring difficulties and lack of consistency to the user. This study aimed to analyze the usability of car stereo commonly found in the market. Four products were analyzed by task analysis and after use reports and the results indicate serious usability issues with respect to the form of operation, organization, clarity and quality of information, visibility and readability, among others.     

Space-time generation of high intensity patterns using growth-interaction processes

We describe a novel spatial-temporal algorithm for generating packing structures of disks and spheres, which not only incorporates all the attractive features of existing algorithms but is also more flexible in defining spatial interactions and other control parameters. The advantage of this approach lies in the ability of marks to exploit to best advantage the space available to them by changing their size in response to the interaction pressure of their neighbours. Allowing particles to move in response to such pressure results in high-intensity packing. Indeed, since particles may temporarily overlap, even under hard-packing scenarios, they possess a greater potential for rearranging themselves, and thereby creating even higher packing intensities than exist under other strategies. Non-overlapping pattern structures are achieved simply by allowing the process to ‘burn-out’ at the end of its development period. A variety of different growth-interaction regimes are explored, both symmetric and asymmetric, and the convergence issues that they raise are examined. We conjecture that not only may this algorithm be easily generalised to cover a large variety of situations across a wide range of disciplines, but that appropriately targeted generalisations may well include established packing algorithms as special cases.     

Resampling schemes with low resampling intensity and their applications in testing hypotheses

The paper explores statistical features of different resampling schemes under low resampling intensity. The original sample is considered in a very general framework of triangular arrays, without independence or equally distributed assumptions, although improvements under such conditions are also provided. We show that low resampling schemes have very interesting and flexible properties, providing new insights into the performance of widely used resampling methods, including subsampling, two-sample unbalanced permutation statistics or wild bootstrap. It is shown that, under regularity assumptions, resampling tests with critical values derived by the appertaining low resampling procedures are asymptotically valid and there is no loss of power compared with the power function of an ideal (but unfeasible) parametric family of tests. Moreover we show that in several contexts, including regression models, they may act as a filter for the normal part of a limit distribution, turning down the influence of outliers.     

How disability affects absenteeism: An empirical analysis for six European countries

Using data from the European Community Household Panel for six European countries (Austria, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain) for the period 1995–2001, this article investigates how disability affects workers' absenteeism. The results show that workers with disabilities are absent more often than workers without disabilities. This finding is obtained after controlling for individuals' self‐reported health, visits to doctors and nights spent in hospital. The severity of disability is also a relevant factor in higher absenteeism. The total effect of disability on absenteeism amounts to a marginal increase of six to 26 days per year (depending on the country).     

Going for broke. From desire for illusion and the illusion of desire / De perdidos,al río. Del deseo a la ilusión y la ilusión del deseo

The illusion of control refers to an excessively high expectation of success considering the likelihood of it actually happening. This expectation seems to be modulated by idiosyncratic variables, such as the desire for control. This study aims first to provide evidence regarding the validity of the Spanish Desire for Control Scale and secondly to study the ‘going for broke’ phenomenon. Participants included 92 university students from different colleges, 59 females and 33 males. The results first show that there is enough evidence to validate the Spanish version of the scale and to support its application. Secondly they show that in cases where there is a perception of having nothing left to lose, people risk everything they have, causing a reversal in the outcome pattern in a normal situation.     

The Impacts of Cash Transfers on Subjective Wellbeing and Poverty: The Case of Colombia

Cash transfer programs have been the main social policy in the fight against poverty and inequality in Latin-American countries. This paper analyzes the impacts of the program Más Familias en Acción on the perception of poverty and subjective wellbeing in Colombia. The analyses are based on data from the Encuesta Nacional de Calidad de Vida between 2008 and 2016. Two empirical strategies were compared to account for the lack of randomness in groups of beneficiary and non-beneficiary families: (i) non-experimental designs (linear and nonlinear models with cross-sectional and pooled data); (ii) quasi-experimental designs (Propensity Score Matching and Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjustment). The results were robust to the different empirical strategies and emphasized that: (i) transfers increase the perception of food insecurity and subjective poverty; (ii) conditionalities involve positive impacts on different indicators of subjective wellbeing, especially health and education; (iii) general impacts on the perceptions of life are nonsignificant, as a result of divergent impacts on the dimensions of the subjective wellbeing of families.     

Colonization,coloniality and bio-power: biopolitics in Queensland,Australia

This essay illustrates how a Foucauldian theory of power could re-examine postcolonial, coloniality or colonization contexts, as opposed to the current structuralist and hierarchal theories of understanding power that colonization studies, such as coloniality/modernity or postcolonial studies, use to theorize colonization and race. I argue that a structuralist and hierarchal conceptualization of power relations in understanding colonization and its relationship with racism can be problematic, and that the Foucauldian heterarchical (non-hierarchal) understanding of power relations instead draws a more complete picture of the operation of colonization. In order to demonstrate this claim, I firstly briefly explain how colonization has been mainly theorized through postcolonial and coloniality studies. Then I introduce the relevance of Michel Foucault’s work in the problem of colonization, focusing on his theories of racism and the idea of biopolitics. Then I illustrate how a heterarchical theory of biopolitical power was used against Indigenous Australians in Queensland via the implementation of the Queensland Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act of 1897. Lastly, I offer some preliminary notes for conceptualizing the global assemblage of the ‘State of Exception’ in the context of colonial Queensland, Australia.     

Effectiveness of water-based exercise in people living with Parkinson’s disease: a systematic review

This systematic review summarizes the relatively scant literature concerning the effectiveness of water-based exercise (WBE) interventions in people with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, PEDro, Scopus, and SportDiscus were searched from the earliest available date to December 2011. Studies had to meet the following selection criteria: (1) the target population was patients with PD; (2) the effects of a WBE intervention (as the primary intervention) were tested; (3) the abstract of the research was available in English. Selected studies were subject to unmasked quality assessment by applying a methodological scoring with a possible maximum score of 15 points. Twelve studies met the inclusion criteria, although only three of them achieved a methodological quality score above 10 points. Collectively, the data showed that WBE has some beneficial short-term effects on the impact that PD has on the patients (mainly on their motor symptoms and on their functional mobility), as well as on their quality of life. This review provides evidence that WBE is safe for patients with PD, but there is a lack of hard evidence regarding its beneficial effects. Further randomized and controlled trials with larger sample sizes are required.