The major limitation of many studies on declining industries is the presumption that industrial decline is associated with the final stage of the industry life cycle. These studies often define the sample of their study as those firms where their dominant products are subjected to technological obsolescence and are experiencing a persistent decline in the demand of their products. Conversely, the current study identified factors that the cause of the shrinking in demand of the UK industries was not generally obsolete technology. The decline of UK industries was partly due to severe low cost import penetration that stimulated the shift in demand from the UK manufacturers to the cheaper imported products from the over-seas low cost manufacturers.

his study investigated the lower limb biomechanics during downhill and uphill running in habitual forefoot strike and habitual rearfoot strike runners. Fifteen habitual forefoot strike and fifteen habitual rearfoot strike recreational male runners ran at 3 m/s ± 5% during level, uphill and downhill overground running on a ramp mounted at 6° and 9°. Results showed that hill running had similar impacts on joint angles in rearfoot strike and forefoot strike runners, causing a decrease in hip flexion at initial contact during downhill running, an increase in knee flexion angle at initial contact during uphill running and a decrease in peak hip flexion angle. In addition to differences in ankle joint angle due to landing pattern difference between rearfoot strike and forefoot strike runners, forefoot strike runners had a more flexed hip angle during downhill running. Forefoot strike runners had an absent impact peak in all running conditions, while the impact peaks only decreased during the uphill conditions in rearfoot strike runners. Active peaks decreased during the downhill conditions in forefoot strike runners while active loading rates increased during downhill conditions in rearfoot strike runners. Compared to the level condition, parallel braking peaks were larger during downhill conditions and parallel propulsive peaks were larger during uphill conditions. Peak hip flexion moment was significantly greater while peak knee flexion moment was significantly lower in both groups during the downhill 9° condition. Forefoot strike runners had larger peak plantar flexion moments and peak ankle power absorption compared to rearfoot strike runners during all conditions. Forefoot strike runners had decreased peak power absorption at the knee joint during downhill and level running conditions. Combined with previous biomechanics studies, our findings of no impact peak in forefoot strike runners suggests that this landing pattern may have potential in reducing overuse running injuries. Forefoot strike running reduces loading at the knee joint and can be used as an effective strategy to reduce stress at the knee joint experienced with rearfoot strike running.

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Background: Given that individuals with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) report a change that is not yet measurable with standard neuropsychological assessment measures, they are thought to be the earliest along the cognitive continuum between healthy aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The current study used a neuroimaging approach to examine differences in brain function and structure between individuals with SCD and healthy controls (HC). Method: 3T resting state functional MRI and high resolution anatomical images were retrieved from 23 individuals with SCD (mean age = 72.9 years, SD = 5.4, 12 females) and 23 HC (mean age = 74.3 years, SD = 5.0, 12 females) from the screening time point from the AD Neuroimaging Initiative database. All data were processed using the FMRIB Software Library. Seed-based analyses of the default mode network (DMN) were used to compare differences in brain function between SCD and HC groups (Z > 2.3; cluster significance: p < 0.05, corrected). Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used to examine differences in grey matter volume between the SCD and HC groups. Results: The SCD and HC groups were not significantly different in age or education level. Results revealed significantly greater activity in the DMN including the bilateral precuneus cortex, bilateral thalamus, and right hippocampal regions in individuals with SCD relative to controls. Conversely, those with SCD showed decreased activation in the bilateral frontal pole, caudate, angular gyrus, lingual gyrus, right superior frontal gyrus, right occipital pole, right superior temporal gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus in the posterior division, left precuneus cortex, left precentral gyrus, left occipital fusiform gyrus, left temporal pole, and left cerebellum compared to HC. Finally, VBM results did not show significant differences in grey matter volume between the groups. Conclusion: Findings revealed changes in brain function but not structure between individuals with SCD and HC. Overall, this study represents a crucial step in characterizing individuals with SCD, a group recognized to be at increased risk for AD. It is imperative to identify biomarkers prior to significant decline on clinical assessment, so that disease-delaying interventions may be delivered at the earliest possible time point. / Graduate / 2020-08-15

A strategy was proposed to the rule for paralyzed patients. One goal of the design is to reduce or avoid the occurrence of decubitus ulcer. The other goal is to reduce the decline of muscle strength of patient. The contents of the study include collection and system analysis. The issue is know how the burdens of muscles are affected by the locations and postures that sickbed supporting the body. To attack this issue, a simplified body model, which is consisted of 11 rigid bodies, is proposed. An analysis method, which adopts the optimization approach, is suggested to calculate the ¡§ relaxed burdens of muscles ¡¨. Apply the mathematical model of the optimization to acquire an analysis method of the relaxed burdens of muscles, modeling the concern of the support loading and burdens of muscles. According to the analysis answer of the mathematical model verified that a patient lay on the bed by the horizontal postures and variation postures, the best support locations resulted in the relaxed burdens of muscles and strengthen muscles. So, the rule of the logical thinking to reduce or avoid the occurrence of decubitus ulcer and the decline of muscle strength.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) progression and hypotheses of the cognitive reserve theory were investigated by testing for a relation between educational attainment and rate of decline in patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment, possible AD, probable AD, and other progressive neurodegenerative dementias. Patient data (n = 726) were acquired from a clinical database at the Minneapolis VAMC GRECC Memory Loss Clinic. Analyses using mixed effect regression models found education was significantly related to an accelerated rate of decline in global cognition (MMSE: -0.022, SE = 0.007, p = .003) and a steeper linear rate of decline in functional ability (Cognitive Performance Test: -0.034, SE = 0.011, p = .005). Cox proportional hazard models found little evidence to support an association between educational attainment and relative mortality risk. These results are consistent with previous findings and predictions of the cognitive reserve theory.

Analysts increasingly have used probabilistic approaches to evaluate the uncertainty in reserves estimates based on a decline curve analysis. This is because the results represent statistical analysis of historical data that usually possess significant amounts of noise. Probabilistic approaches usually provide a distribution of reserves estimates with three confidence levels (P10, P50 and P90) and a corresponding 80% confidence interval. The question arises: how reliable is this 80% confidence interval? In other words, in a large set of analyses, is the true value of reserves contained within this interval 80% of the time? Our investigation indicates that it is common in practice for true values of reserves to lie outside the 80% confidence interval much more than 20% of the time using traditional statistical analyses. This indicates that uncertainty is being underestimated, often significantly. Thus, the challenge in probabilistic reserves estimation using a decline curve analysis is not only how to appropriately characterize probabilistic properties of complex production data sets, but also how to determine and then improve the reliability of the uncertainty quantifications. This thesis presents an improved methodology for probabilistic quantification of reserves estimates using a decline curve analysis and practical application of the methodology to actual individual well decline curves. The application of our proposed new method to 100 oil and gas wells demonstrates that it provides much wider 80% confidence intervals, which contain the true values approximately 80% of the time. In addition, the method yields more accurate P50 values than previously published methods. Thus, the new methodology provides more reliable probabilistic reserves estimation, which has important impacts on economic risk analysis and reservoir management.

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