AIMS To establish whether the structural parameters provided by the Heidelberg retina tomograph (HRT) and the laser diagnostics glaucoma scanning system (GDx) can be used to reflect functional damage in the visual field. METHODS 62 patients with primary open angle glaucoma underwent examination with the HRT, GDx, and Humphrey field analyser. The relations between the topographic parameters, r...

BACKGROUND The objectives of this study were to use the Rasch model to 1) assess the psychometric properties of a physical environmental audit instrument and 2) to develop indices of interrelated environmental attributes that summarize environmental supportiveness for walking. METHODS A set of items were derived representing two conceptual physical environmental constructs: 1) functional/safe...

The aim of the present work was to assess the influence of organic amendment applications compared to mineral fertilization on soil microbial activity and functional diversity. The field experiment was set up on a soil classified as an Eutric Cambisol developed from loess (South-East Poland). Two doses of both dairy sewage sludge (20 Mg·ha(-1) and 26 Mg·ha(-1)) and of mineral fertilizers contai...

OBJECTIVE To estimate in a cross sectional analysis the degree of colinearity among the disease activity measures more commonly used in juvenile chronic arthritis (JCA). METHODS This study assessed in a single clinical evaluation three subjective variables, three measures of functional capacity, eight articular indices, and two laboratory indicators of systemic inflammation in 55 consecutive ...

[Purpose] The present study aimed to examine the correlation between rounded shoulder posture, neck disability indices and the degree of forward head posture. [Subjects and Methods] Subjects aged 19-24 years were selected for this study, and the craniovertebral angle was used to measure the degree of forward head posture in the standing and seated positions. Vernier calipers were used to measur...

BACKGROUND We sought to investigate the influence of the extent of myocardial injury on left ventricular (LV) systolic and diastolic function in patients after reperfused acute myocardial infarction (AMI). METHODS Thirty-eight reperfused AMI patients underwent cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging after percutaneous coronary revascularization. The extent of myocardial edema and scarring we...

Functional diversity is considered a key link between ecosystem functions and biodiversity, forms the basis for making community conservation strategies. Here, we chose subtropical forest in China as research object, which unique that other regions of world at same latitude have almost no vegetation cover. We measured 17 functional traits 100 plant species calculated seven different indices, ba...

Functional diversity (FD), the of organism attributes that relates to their interactions with abiotic and biotic environment, has been increasingly used for last two decades in ecology, biogeography conservation. Yet, FD many facets estimations are not standardized nor embedded a single tool. mFD (multifaceted functional diversity) is an R package uses matrices species assemblages trait values ...