BACKGROUND The age-related deterioration of physiological capacities such as muscle strength and balance is associated with increased dependence. Understanding the contribution of physical fitness components to functional performance facilitates the development of adequate exercise interventions aiming at preservation of function and independence of older people. The aim of the study was to inv...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurobiological disorder characterized by tics, which are repetitive, stereotypical, involuntary movements and vocalizations. Although the causes of TS are not completely understood, previous studies indicated that many children with TS not only experience comorbid conditions such as a lack of concentration, hyperactivity, impulsive behavior, and obsessive-compulsive...

OBJECTIVE To examine the independent and combined associations of the components of physical fitness with academic performance among youths. STUDY DESIGN This cross-sectional study included a total of 2038 youths (989 girls) aged 6-18 years. Cardiorespiratory capacity was measured using the 20-m shuttle run test. Motor ability was assessed with the 4×10-m shuttle run test of speed of movement...

BACKGROUND Motor performance is an important factor for health. Already in childhood, motor performance is associated with, e.g., obesity and risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. It is widely believed that the motor performance of children has declined over recent years. However, this belief is lacking clear evidence. The objective of this study was to examine trends in motor performance o...

The aims of this cross-sectional study were to examine the developmental characteristics (biological maturation and body size) associated with gross motor coordination problems in 5193 Peruvian children (2787 girls) aged 6-14 years from different geographical locations, and to investigate how the probability that children suffer with gross motor coordination problems varies with physical fitnes...

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of “Kashi practices” on the improvement of psycho-motor skills in people with Down syndrome. Methods: In this research, 28 men with Down syndrome between 21 and 43 years of age (mean age 25.917±3.889) were randomly assigned to either a control (n=14) or an experimental group (n=14). All persons in the experimenta...

Fitness technologies are a new social phenomenon, which consists in the regular use of various types organized health-improving motor activity and moderate amount exercise by students during physical education classes or independently with aim restoring mental capacity, preserving health improving quality life. Modern programs on fitness educational process institutions higher aimed at increasi...

Physical fitness is considered as a process of directed development physical qualities, contributing to the formation necessary range motor skills and abilities. The study students’ was conducted by gender. testing carried out according guidelines developed Ministry Education Republic Belarus. qualities showed that maximum increases indicators being studied do not always coincide with rates pub...

This paper is concerned with designing self-driven fitness functions for Embedded Evolutionary Robotics. The proposed approach considers the entropy of the sensori-motor stream generated by the robot controller. This entropy is computed using unsupervised learning; its maximization, achieved by an on-board evolutionary algorithm, implements a “curiosity instinct”, favouring controllers visiting...

We present experiments in which a group of autonomous mobile robots learn to perform fundamental sensor-motor tasks through a collaborative learning process. Behavioural strategies (i.e. motor responses to sensory stimuli) are encoded by means of genetic strings stored on the individual robots, and adapted through a genetic algorithm executed by the entire robot collective: robots communicate t...