A proposed new classification system for whiplash associated disorders - implications for assessment and management

The development of chronic symptoms following whiplash injury is common and contributes substantially to costs associated with this condition. The currently used Quebec Task Force classification system of whiplash associated disorders is primarily based on the severity of signs and symptoms following injury and its usefulness has been questioned. Recent evidence is emerging that demonstrates differences in physical and psychological impairments between individuals who recover from the injury and those who develop persistent pain and disability. Motor dysfunction, local cervical mechanical hyperalgesia and psychological distress are present soon after injury in all whiplash injured persons irrespective of recovery. In contrast those individuals who develop persistent moderate/severe pain and disability show a more complex picture, characterized by additional impairments of widespread sensory hypersensitivity indicative of underlying disturbances in central pain processing as well as acute posttraumatic stress reaction, with these changes present from soon after injury. Based on this heterogeneity a new classification system is proposed that takes into account measurable disturbances in motor, sensory and psychological dysfunction. The implications for the management of this condition are discussed. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A coupled knowledge-based expert system for design of liquid-retaining structures

This paper describes a coupled knowledge-based system (KBS) for the design of liquid-retaining structures, which can handle both the symbolic knowledge processing based on engineering heuristics in the preliminary synthesis stage and the extensive numerical crunching involved in the detailed analysis stage. The prototype system is developed by employing blackboard architecture and a commercial shell VISUAL RULE STUDIO. Its present scope covers design of three types of liquid-retaining structures, namely, a rectangular shape with one compartment, a rectangular shape with two compartments and a circular shape. Through custom-built interactive graphical user interfaces, the user is directed throughout the design process, which includes preliminary design, load specification, model generation, finite element analysis, code compliance checking and member sizing optimization. It is also integrated with various relational databases that provide the system with sectional properties, moment and shear coefficients and final member details. This system can act as a consultant to assist novice designers in the design of liquid-retaining structures with increase in efficiency and optimization of design output and automated record keeping. The design of a typical example of the liquid-retaining structure is also illustrated. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.

Hydrogen storage of magnesium-based nanocomposites system

Hydrogen storage in traditional metallic hydrides can deliver about 1.5 to 2.0 wt pct hydrogen but magnesium hydrides can achieve more than 7 wt pct. However, these systems suffer from high temperature release drawback and chemical instability problems. Recently, big improvements of reducing temperature and increasing kinetics of hydrogenation have been made in nanostructured Mg-based composites. This paper aims to provide an overview of the science and engineering of Mg materials and their nanosized composites with nanostructured carbon for hydrogen storage. The needs in research including preparation of the materials, processing and characterisation and basic mechanisms will be explored. The preliminary experimental results indicated a promising future for chemically stable hydrogen storage using carbon nanotubes modified metal hydrides under lower temperatures.

ICICLE: A semantic-based retrieval system for WWW images

In this paper, we present ICICLE (Image ChainNet and Incremental Clustering Engine), a prototype system that we have developed to efficiently and effectively retrieve WWW images based on image semantics. ICICLE has two distinguishing features. First, it employs a novel image representation model called Weight ChainNet to capture the semantics of the image content. A new formula, called list space model, for computing semantic similarities is also introduced. Second, to speed up retrieval, ICICLE employs an incremental clustering mechanism, ICC (Incremental Clustering on ChainNet), to cluster images with similar semantics into the same partition. Each cluster has a summary representative and all clusters' representatives are further summarized into a balanced and full binary tree structure. We conducted an extensive performance study to evaluate ICICLE. Compared with some recently proposed methods, our results show that ICICLE provides better recall and precision. Our clustering technique ICC facilitates speedy retrieval of images without sacrificing recall and precision significantly.

An Internet-based telerehabilitation system for the assessment of motor speech disorders: A pilot study

Purpose: This pilot study explored the feasibility and effectiveness of an Internet-based telerehabilitation application for the assessment of motor speech disorders in adults with acquired neurological impairment. Method: Using a counterbalanced, repeated measures research design, 2 speech-language pathologists assessed 19 speakers with dysarthria on a battery of perceptual assessments. The assessments included a 19-item version of the Frenchay Dysarthria Assessment (FDA; P. Enderby, 1983), the Assessment of Intelligibility of Dysarthric Speech (K. M. Yorkston & D. R. Beukelman, 1981), perceptual analysis of a speech sample, and an overall rating of severity of the dysarthria. One assessment was conducted in the traditional face-to-face manner, whereas the other assessment was conducted using an online, custom-built telerehabilitation application. This application enabled real-time videoconferencing at 128 kb/s and the transfer of store-and-forward audio and video data between the speaker and speech-language pathologist sites. The assessment methods were compared using the J.M.Bland and D.G.Altman (1986, 1999) limits-of-agreement method and percentage level of agreement between the 2 methods. Results: Measurements of severity of dysarthria, percentage intelligibility in sentences, and most perceptual ratings made in the telerehabilitation environment were found to fall within the clinically acceptable criteria. However, several ratings on the FDA were not comparable between the environments, and explanations for these results were explored. Conclusions: The online assessment of motor speech disorders using an Internet-based telerehabilitation system is feasible. This study suggests that with additional refinement of the technology and assessment protocols, reliable assessment of motor speech disorders over the Internet is possible. Future research methods are outlined.

An analysis of the images attached to referral messages in an e-mail based telemedicine system for developing countries

Little is known about the quality of the images transmitted in email telemedicine systems. The present study was designed to survey the quality of images transmitted in the Swinfen Charitable Trust email referral system. Telemedicine cases were examined for a 3 month period in 2002 and a 3 month period in 2006. The number of cases with images attached increased from 8 (38%) to 37 (53%). There were four types of images (clinical photographs, microscope pictures, notes and X-ray images) and the proportion of radiology images increased from 27 to 48%. The cases in 2002 came from four different hospitals and were associated with seven different clinical specialties. In 2006, the cases came from 19 different hospitals and 20 different specialties. The 46 cases (from both study periods) had a total of 159 attached images. The quality of the images was assessed by awarding each image a score in four categories: focus, anatomical perspective, composition and lighting. The images were scored on a five-point scale (1 = very poor to 5 =very good) by a qualified medical photographer. In comparing image quality between the two study periods, there was some evidence that the quality had reduced, although the average size of the attached images had increased. The median score for all images in 2002 was 16 (interquartile range 14-19) and the median score in 2006 was 15 (13-16). The difference was significant (P < 0.001, Mann-Whitney test).

Successes and failures in assessing acquired language disorders using an Internet-based telerehabilitation system

We have used a telerehabilitation system (eREHAB) to remotely assess acquired language disorders via the Internet. The system was used to establish a 128 kbit/s videoconference between two sites and allowed a remote language assessment to be conducted using the standardized Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE). The system had the capacity to display text and images, and could play pre-recorded instructions to the participant via various built-in tools. A touch screen allowed tasks involving picture identification to be completed easily. Eighteen participants with a diagnosis of an acquired language disorder were simultaneously assessed using the eREHAB system, and in the traditional face-to-face manner by two speech pathologists. There was very high agreement between the two assessors, with weighted kappa scores of 0.8–1.0 for 88% of the sub-tests of the BDAE. There was also high agreement (80–100%) and high kappa scores (0.67–0.90) between assessors on the six rating scales relating to language characteristics. The agreement between the two assessors for the diagnosis of the type of aphasia was 83%. Limitations of the system related mainly to problems inherent in IP videoconferencing. The inability to maintain the preferred speed of 128 kbit/s for the duration of the videoconference and the resultant increase in video and audio breakup and latency affected the clinician’s ability to administer the BDAE with the same ease and accuracy as in face-to-face administration. These difficulties were exacerbated when participants presented with a moderate to severe language disorder, auditory comprehension deficits or significant hearing loss. Despite these limitations, a valid assessment of language disorder was found to be feasible via this telerehabilitation application.

Biomechanical consequences of impairment: A taxonomically valid basis for classification in a unified disability athletics system

Developing a unified classification system to replace four of the systems currently used in disability athletics (i.e., track and field) has been widely advocated. The diverse impairments to be included in a unified system require severed assessment methods, results of which cannot be meaningfully compared. Therefore, the taxonomic basis of current classification systems is invalid in a unified system. Biomechanical analysis establishes that force, a vector described in terms of magnitude and direction, is a key determinant of success in all athletic disciplines. It is posited that all impairments to be included in a unified system may be classified as either force magnitude impairments (FMI) or force control impairments (FCI). This framework would provide a valid taxonomic basis for a unified system, creating the opportunity to decrease the number of classes and enhance the viability of disability athletics.

Development of a web-service-agents-based family wealth management system

The roiling financial markets, constantly changing tax law and increasing complexity of planning transaction increase the demand of aggregated family wealth management (FWM) services. However, current trend of developing such advisory systems is mainly focusing on financial or investment side. In addition, these existing systems lack of flexibility and are hard to be integrated with other organizational information systems, such as CRM systems. In this paper, a novel architecture of Web-service-agents-based FWM systems has been proposed. Multiple intelligent agents are wrapped as Web services and can communicate with each other via Web service protocols. On the one hand, these agents can collaborate with each other and provide comprehensive FWM advices. On the other hand, each service can work independently to achieve its own tasks. A prototype system for supporting financial advice is also presented to demonstrate the advances of the proposed Webservice- agents-based FWM system architecture.

RSA-Grid: A grid computing based framework for power system reliability and security analysis

Grid computing is an emerging technology for providing the high performance computing capability and collaboration mechanism for solving the collaborated and complex problems while using the existing resources. In this paper, a grid computing based framework is proposed for the probabilistic based power system reliability and security analysis. The suggested name of this computing grid is Reliability and Security Grid (RSA-Grid). Then the architecture of this grid is presented. A prototype system has been built for further development of grid-based services for power systems reliability and security assessment based on probabilistic techniques, which require high performance computing and large amount of memory. Preliminary results based on prototype of this grid show that RSA-Grid can provide the comprehensive assessment results for real power systems efficiently and economically.