The effect of age on the heart rate variability of healthy subjects

In this work we study the characteristics of heart rate variability (HRV) as a function of age and gender. Our analysis covers a wider age range than that studied so far. It includes results previously reported in the literature and reveals behaviours not reported before. We can establish basic scale relationships in different HRV measurements. The mean value of the RR intervals shows a power-law behaviour independent of gender. Magnitudes such as the standard deviation or pNN50 show abrupt changes at around the age of 12 years, and above that age they show gender dependence, which mainly affects short-time (or high frequency) scales. We present a unified analysis for the calculation of the non-linear α and β parameters. Both parameters depend on age; they increase in the extremes of life and reach a minimum at around one year of age. These gender-independent changes occur at low frequencies and in scale ranges that depend on age. The results obtained in this work are discussed in terms of the effects of basal metabolic rate, hormonal regulation, and neuronal activity on heart rate variability. This work finally discusses how these findings influence the interpretation of HRV measurements from records of different lengths.

JOINT ESTIMATION OF ROAD ROUGHNESS FROM CROWD-SOURCED BICYCLE ACCELERATION MEASUREMENTS

In contrast to cars, route choices for cycling are barely influenced by the respective traffic situation, but to a large extent by the routes’ comfort. Especially in urban settings with several alternatives, segments with many or long stops at traffic lights and badly maintained roads are avoided due to a low comfort and cyclists vary from the shortest route. This fact is only indirectly considered in common navigation applications.This work aims to integrate surface roughness measurements collected from diverse bicycles to a joint scale via a least-squares adjustment. Data was collected using smartphones, which were mounted to bike hand bars and measured positions and vertical accelerations on user’s trips. As this way sensed roughness also depends on the bike setting and type, the resulting values would be different for different users. Thus, this paper presents a novel approach to harmonize observations from differing sensitive setups. The basic concept idea of bundle block adjustment is adapted to calibrate a basic scale model and in parallel adjust the observations of surface roughness to a common scale.This way a crowd-sourced roughness map can be generated. Such a map can be used to enrich bike focused routing services and thus encourage cycling in daily live. In addition, it can also be used to derive hints for infrastructure servicing.

Fundamental Scale of Evaluation of Productivity of Irrigated Gray-Meadow Soils which are Appointed for Growing Melon Crops

In the following article, the basic scale for assessing the fertility of irrigated gray-meadow soils planted with melons is based on the mechanical composition of the soil. The mechanical composition of the soil correlation coefficient between the yields of melons and gourds was 0.88 for watermelon, 0.89 for melon and 0.88 for pumpkin. Accordingly, light sandy soils for ground watermelon and squash were rated as productive with a score of 100 points, heavy sandy soils with a score of 85 points for watermelon and 75 points for pumpkin. For the melon crop, medium sandy soil was rated at 100 points, heavy sandy soil at 90 points, and light sandy soil at 75 points.

Construction and validation of the Basic Scale of Entrepreneurial Competencies for the Secondary Education level. A study conducted in Spain

Introduction The impact of entrepreneurship training on the levels of compulsory education has been weak until now. Complementarily to the demand of greater effectiveness in entrepreneurship education, it is a priority to make scientifically verified instruments available to provide useful information about the achievement of the competences needed for the development of entrepreneurial capacities. Our research is focused on the design and assessment of entrepreneurship competency, tackling one the dimension concerning business skills or competences. Specifically, the aim of the study consists in the development, validation and reliability of an instrument, intended for secondary education, created with the purpose of detecting the strictly indispensable entrepreneurial competencies in the basic training of the business profile, the Basic Scale of Entrepreneurial Competencies (BSEC). Methods The research was developed in three phases via qualitative and quantitative methods. In the development phase the items were generated and the dimensions and components of entrepreneurship competency were identified. Also, the content and face validity were carried out, where experts (n = 48) and students (n = 24) took part. In the recruitment phase a multi-stage sampling stratified by conglomerates was performed, obtaining a sample of 1440 students, aged between 11 and 17 years old (M = 14.6, SD = 1.597) and a composition by sex of 679 girls and 761 boys. Construct validity was evaluated in the assessment stage through factor analysis (EFA and CFA). Later, the reliability was studied via the Cronbach´s α coefficient and the stability and reproducibility over time with the test-restest technique. Finally, the convergent and divergent validity were evaluated through the average variance extracted (AVE), the composite reliability (CR) and the square root of the AVE. Results 44 items were developed in the phase of generating items. After carrying out the validity of the content, there were 14 items with acceptable values in the Content Validity Ratio (CVR.89) and in the Content Validity Index (CVI.92). During the validation of the scale, the results of the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a first-order trifactorial structure and a second-order factor. The scale’s stability was appropriate, having an ICC = .92. The convergent validity results with Composite Reliability (CR) scores > 0.7 and the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) >. 0.50, along with the square root values of the AVE greater than the correlations between the other constructs show us important evidence of the validity of the Scale. The structure of the BSEC is made up of 13 items and three domains: Operations and Marketing Competencies (OMC), Competencies in Socio-Business and Legal Organization (CSBLO) and Economic-Financial Competencies (EFC). Conclusions The results of the research reflect its validity and reliability. This Scale has an evident usefulness for the training and assessment of entrepreneurship competence. Specifically, it is efficient for the valuation of entrepreneurial competencies in adolescent students in the stage prior to their incorporation into the work environment or their integration into the itineraries leading to higher education levels.

STUDY OF WORKING – WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN SOUTH ASIA: CASE OF PAKISTAN

Women are the integral part of all societies no society can progress without the active participation of women. The involvement of women in decision making process is very important in every field of life. Like many other developing countries Pakistan has also patriarchal social set up where women take decisions under the dominance of their father, husband. Objective of the study was find out the factors influencing the decision-making power of women in family matters’ sample of 120 married universities teachers was selected from the three selected universities of Quetta city. Chi square analysis is used to see the influence of age and personal income on women decision making power. The result reveals that there is significant association between different basic scale and right to take decision as a wife(p<0.020) or as a mother (p<0.026), Married university teachers believe in husband seniority in age (r =0.111; p<0.002) with their decision-making power. Furthermore, they achieve socio economic status (p=<0.049) due to their personal income and their income play supportive role (p =<0.014) in decision making process. 75% respondents free to spend their income on household expenditure(p=<0.026) but have less authority over property related decisions. Overall women education, age, occupation and income has a significant effect on household decision making.

Reconstruction of Seasonal Net Erosion in a Mediterranean Landscape (Alento River Basin, Southern Italy) over the Past Five Decades

In the low Mediterranean basin, late spring and autumn rainfall events have the potential to increase discharge and transport substantial amounts of sediment soil (that is, the net soil erosion from a watershed). For the Alento River Basin (ARB), located in the low Tyrrhenian coast of Italy, we estimated changes of net erosion as dependent on the seasonality of antecedent soil moisture and its control on rainfall-runoff and erosivity. Based on rainfall and runoff erosivity sub-models, we developed a simplified model to evaluate basin-wide sediment yields on a monthly basis by upscaling point rainfall input. For the period 1951–2018, the reconstruction of a time series of monthly net erosion data indicated a decreasing trend of the sediment yield after 1991. Revegetation and land abandonment that occurred in the last decades can explain such a decrease of net erosion, which occurred even when rainfall erosivity increased. This response, obtained at the basic scale, does not exclude that rapidly developing mesoscale convective systems, typically responsible for the heaviest and most destructive rainfall events in the ARB, can affect small catchments, which are the most vulnerable systems to storm-driven flash floods and soil erosion hazards during soil tilling in spring and at beginning of autumn.

Bearing condition degradation assessment based on basic scale entropy and Gath-Geva fuzzy clustering

A method based on basic scale entropy and Gath-Geva fuzzy clustering is proposed in order to solve the issue of bearing degradation condition recognition. The evolution rule of basic scale entropy for bearing in performance degradation process is analyzed first, and the monotonicity and sensitivity of basic scale entropy are emphasized. Considering the continuity of the bearing degradation condition at the time scale, three-dimensional degradation eigenvectors are constructed including basic scale entropy, root mean square, and degradation time, and then, Gath-Geva fuzzy clustering method is used to divide different conditions in performance degradation process, thus realizing performance degradation recognition for bearing. Bearing whole lifetime data from IEEE PHM 2012 is adopted in application and discussion, and fuzzy c-means clustering and Gustafson–Kessel clustering algorithms are analyzed for comparison. The results show that the proposed basic scale entropy-Gath-Geva method has better clustering effect and higher time aggregation than the other two algorithms and is able to provide an effective way for mechanical equipment performance degradation recognition.