Ten Do It Better, Do They? An Empirical Analysis of an Old Football Myth In this paper we investigate how the expulsion of a player influences the outcome of a football match. Common sense implies a negative impact for the affected team. However, an old football myth suggests that such an expulsion might also be beneficial since it increases the team spirit as well as the efforts of the affecte...

Scenarios have proven useful to elicit, validate and document requirements but cannot be used in isolation. Our concern in this paper is to integrate scenario-based techniques in existing methods. We propose a set of operators to support such an integration. This set is classified in two sub-sets: the one dealing with the integration of the product models of the two initial methods and the one ...

Nowadays standard technologies play important roles in enhancing sharability, reusability and interoperability of learning contents. However, there is a lack of pedagogical justification of the contents implemented with the standards. This paper discusses the standard-compliance of our ontology-based modeling framework and how the framework gives theoretical justification to standardcompliant l...

BACKGROUND: Ludloff osteotomy fixation with compression screws has been widely used in the treatment of Hallux Valgus deformities [1, 2]. Generally six weeks of non-weight-bearing is required postoperatively to allow bone union. Besides the significant inconvenience due to non-weight-bearing, noncompliance may induce malunion, nonunion and loss of correction, indicating screw fixation is not st...

Power supply for medical implantable devices (i.e. pacemaker) always challenges not only the surgery but also the battery technology. Here, we report a strategy for energy harvesting from the heart motion by using ultra-flexible piezoelectric device based on lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramics that has most excellent piezoelectricity in commercial materials, without any burden or damage to h...

This paper introduces a robotic technology-based supporting device, the robot mask, to enhance facial expressiveness and support physiotherapy for facial paralysed persons. The wearable device, which consists of shape memory alloy (SMA)-based linear actuators, functions by pulling the facial skin towards anatomically selected directions. Since facial expressions are silent, SMA was selected ove...

due to the nature of the sediment data, selection of appropriate methods for processing the data before entering them to the artificial intelligence models can enhance the reliability of simulations results. in this study, the effects of sediment data processing procedures on ann and anfis models outputs in 7 dez basin stations were evaluated. accordingly, three scenarios were considered: in th...

The construction of surgery simulators will be a key tool in the development and diffusion of minimally invasive surgery. Nowadays, most simulators are oriented to training surgeons in only one surgery technique. Most of them only permit the modelling of tissues with only one kind of deformable model. In this paper, we present our generic surgery simulator for minimally invasive surgery. In thi...

BACKGROUND Most biomechanical studies for evaluation of the structural properties of meniscal repairs have been performed in tensile loading scenarios perpendicular to the circumferential meniscal fibers. However, meniscal repair constructs are also exposed to shear forces parallel to the circumferential meniscal fibers during healing, particularly in the midportion of the meniscus. HYPOTHESI...