Computers have led to the remarkable popularity of mathematically-generated fractal patterns. Fractals have also assumed a rapidly expanding role as an art form. Due to their growing impact on cultures around the world and their prevalence in nature, fractals constitute a central feature of our daily visual experiences throughout our lives. This intimate association raises a crucial question - ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Prolonged fatigue is common among employees, but the relationship between prolonged fatigue and job-related psychosocial factors is seldom studied. This study aimed (1) to assess the individual relations of physical condition, psychological condition, and job-related psychosocial factors to prolonged fatigue among employees, and (2) to clarify the associations between ...

This study compared the efficacy of multisystemic therapy (MST) and individual therapy (IT) in the outpatient treatment of adolescent sexual offenders. Sixteen adolescent sexual offenders were randomly assigned to either MST or IT conditions. Youths in the MST and IT conditions received an average of 37 hours and 45 hours of treatment, respectively. Recidivism data were collected on all subject...

OBJECTIVES Older adults more often complain about sleep disturbances compared with younger adults. However, it is not clear whether there is still a decline of sleep quality after age 60 and whether changes in sleep quality in old age are mere reflections of impaired physical health or whether they represent a normative age-dependent development. METHOD Subjective sleep quality and perceived ...

The term 'mood' in its scientific usage refers to relatively enduring affective states that arise when negative or positive experience in one context or time period alters the individual's threshold for responding to potentially negative or positive events in subsequent contexts or time periods. The capacity for mood appears to be phylogenetically widespread and the mechanisms underlying it are...

AIM This paper reports a study to determine changes in the physical fitness (knee and ankle muscle strength, balance, flexibility, and mobility), fall avoidance efficacy, and fall episodes of institutionalized older adults after participating in a 12-week Sun-style Tai Chi exercise programme. BACKGROUND Fall prevention has a high priority in health promotion for older people because a fall is...

OBJECTIVES The aim of the study was to investigate the direct and indirect - mediated by job burnout - effects of job demands on mental and physical health problems. The Job Demands-Resources model was the theoretical framework of the study. Three job demands were taken into account - interpersonal conflicts at work, organizational constraints and workload. Indicators of mental and physical hea...

Asset managers are faced with the necessity to reduce total life-cycle costs of their facilities as well as to improve their physical condition and long-term performance while considering the relative consequences of their failure. This paper presents a systematic decision-making approach for asset maintenance management that combines a stochastic Markovian performance prediction model with a m...

Trivers and Willard hypothesized that vertebrates adaptively vary the sex ratio of their offspring in response to the mother's physical condition [Trivers, R. L. & Willard, D. (1973) Science 179, 90-92]. This hypothesis has produced considerable debate within evolutionary biology. Here we use meta-analysis techniques to evaluate claims that nonhuman primate females facultatively adjust the sex ...

OBJECTIVE Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc), a chronic disabling disease associated to physical and psychological impairment, is often left behind in clinical practice and research. This is due to the use of tools that are not complete or mainly designed for the physical condition only. We tested EQ-5D, a valid, simple and brief questionnaire for H...