conclusions the lack of difference between adma levels in patients with pa and eh suggests that endothelial dysfunction is more likely related to hypertension per se than to the specific etiology of elevated blood pressure. results patients with pa had significantly higher concentrations of adma than healthy controls (0.488 ± 0.085 vs. 0.433 ± 0.053 μmol/l, p = 0.027). no difference was found i...

The aim of this study was to determine the response of cyclists to manipulations of cadence and power output in terms of force application and plantar pressure distribution. Two groups of cyclists, 17 recreational and 12 competitive, rode at three nominal cadences (60, 80, 100 rev x min(-1)) and four power outputs (100, 200, 300, 400 W) while simultaneous force and in-shoe pressure data were co...

ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Section VIII Division 1 [1] is one of the most commonly used pressure vessel codes in the world. The Division 1 rules were originally written before the age of computers; they were intended to be solved by simple hand calculations. This simplification led to rules with a high safety margin and a conservative technical basis. In 2007, ASME published a complet...

Efficiency in team sports depends on the strength of the team’s weakest link. Sport practice and a plethora of studies showed that athletes’ performance often deteriorates during competition (Gaudreau & Blondin, 2004; Wilson, Raglin, & Pritchard, 2002). Regardless of whether they are good athletes, many of them are bad competitors. The main reason for this is poor psychological preparation or i...

This paper describes a study of a simple open learner model that can be optionally released to peers in named or anonymous form, to facilitate collaborative and competitive learning in a situation where the learner model contents contributed to students' assessment. Results suggest that, under the right conditions, students may start working sooner; discussion amongst students can be increased;...

Most developed countries exhibit high rates of R&D performed in industry, but the situation is considerable different in medium income countries such as Portugal. Despite the lower levels of R&D, Portuguese firms have increased their competitiveness, and the country has been able to show remarkable levels of economic performance. This paper provides a framework to analyze the way in which R&D i...

Mining local structure is important in data analysis. Gaussian mixture is able to describe local structure through the covariance matrices, but when used on highdimensional data, fitly specifying such a large number of d(d + 1)=2 free elements in each covariance matrix is difficult. In this paper, by constraining the covariance matrix in decomposed orthonormal form, we propose a Local PCA algor...

Competition between investment banks for lead underwriter mandates in IPOs is fierce, but having committed to a particular bank, the power of the issuer is greatly reduced. Although information revelation theories justify giving the underwriters influence over pricing and allocation, this creates the potential for conflicts of interest. In this clinical paper we analyse an interesting innovatio...

evelopments, changes in consumer behaviour and the emergence of o decades, incumbent postal operators in Europe had to face new ortunities. The incumbents reacted with diversification into new both the horizontal and vertical integration by means of alliancs , the competitive landscape of the European postal market has etric market development enabled the early moving competitors to on incumben...