Study protocol: home-based telehealth stroke care: a randomized trial for veterans.

BACKGROUND: Stroke is one of the most disabling and costly impairments of adulthood in the United States. Stroke patients clearly benefit from intensive inpatient care, but due to the high cost, there is considerable interest in implementing interventions to reduce hospital lengths of stay. Early discharge rehabilitation programs require coordinated, well-organized home-based rehabilitation, yet lack of sufficient information about the home setting impedes successful rehabilitation. This trial examines a multifaceted telerehabilitation (TR) intervention that uses telehealth technology to simultaneously evaluate the home environment, assess the patient's mobility skills, initiate rehabilitative treatment, prescribe exercises tailored for stroke patients and provide periodic goal oriented reassessment, feedback and encouragement. METHODS: We describe an ongoing Phase II, 2-arm, 3-site randomized controlled trial (RCT) that determines primarily the effect of TR on physical function and secondarily the effect on disability, falls-related self-efficacy, and patient satisfaction. Fifty participants with a diagnosis of ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke will be randomly assigned to one of two groups: (a) TR; or (b) Usual Care. The TR intervention uses a combination of three videotaped visits and five telephone calls, an in-home messaging device, and additional telephonic contact as needed over a 3-month study period, to provide a progressive rehabilitative intervention with a treatment goal of safe functional mobility of the individual within an accessible home environment. Dependent variables will be measured at baseline, 3-, and 6-months and analyzed with a linear mixed-effects model across all time points. DISCUSSION: For patients recovering from stroke, the use of TR to provide home assessments and follow-up training in prescribed equipment has the potential to effectively supplement existing home health services, assist transition to home and increase efficiency. This may be particularly relevant when patients live in remote locations, as is the case for many veterans. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinical Trials.gov Identifier: NCT00384748.

Monte Carlo Analysis and Physics Characterization of a Novel Nanoparticle Detector for Medical and Micro-dosimetry Applications

The outcomes for both (i) radiation therapy and (ii) preclinical small animal radio- biology studies are dependent on the delivery of a known quantity of radiation to a specific and intentional location. Adverse effects can result from these procedures if the dose to the target is too high or low, and can also result from an incorrect spatial distribution in which nearby normal healthy tissue can be undesirably damaged by poor radiation delivery techniques. Thus, in mice and humans alike, the spatial dose distributions from radiation sources should be well characterized in terms of the absolute dose quantity, and with pin-point accuracy. When dealing with the steep spatial dose gradients consequential to either (i) high dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy or (ii) within the small organs and tissue inhomogeneities of mice, obtaining accurate and highly precise dose results can be very challenging, considering commercially available radiation detection tools, such as ion chambers, are often too large for in-vivo use.

In this dissertation two tools are developed and applied for both clinical and preclinical radiation measurement. The first tool is a novel radiation detector for acquiring physical measurements, fabricated from an inorganic nano-crystalline scintillator that has been fixed on an optical fiber terminus. This dosimeter allows for the measurement of point doses to sub-millimeter resolution, and has the ability to be placed in-vivo in humans and small animals. Real-time data is displayed to the user to provide instant quality assurance and dose-rate information. The second tool utilizes an open source Monte Carlo particle transport code, and was applied for small animal dosimetry studies to calculate organ doses and recommend new techniques of dose prescription in mice, as well as to characterize dose to the murine bone marrow compartment with micron-scale resolution.

Hardware design changes were implemented to reduce the overall fiber diameter to <0.9 mm for the nano-crystalline scintillator based fiber optic detector (NanoFOD) system. Lower limits of device sensitivity were found to be approximately 0.05 cGy/s. Herein, this detector was demonstrated to perform quality assurance of clinical 192Ir HDR brachytherapy procedures, providing comparable dose measurements as thermo-luminescent dosimeters and accuracy within 20% of the treatment planning software (TPS) for 27 treatments conducted, with an inter-quartile range ratio to the TPS dose value of (1.02-0.94=0.08). After removing contaminant signals (Cerenkov and diode background), calibration of the detector enabled accurate dose measurements for vaginal applicator brachytherapy procedures. For 192Ir use, energy response changed by a factor of 2.25 over the SDD values of 3 to 9 cm; however a cap made of 0.2 mm thickness silver reduced energy dependence to a factor of 1.25 over the same SDD range, but had the consequence of reducing overall sensitivity by 33%.

For preclinical measurements, dose accuracy of the NanoFOD was within 1.3% of MOSFET measured dose values in a cylindrical mouse phantom at 225 kV for x-ray irradiation at angles of 0, 90, 180, and 270˝. The NanoFOD exhibited small changes in angular sensitivity, with a coefficient of variation (COV) of 3.6% at 120 kV and 1% at 225 kV. When the NanoFOD was placed alongside a MOSFET in the liver of a sacrificed mouse and treatment was delivered at 225 kV with 0.3 mm Cu filter, the dose difference was only 1.09% with use of the 4x4 cm collimator, and -0.03% with no collimation. Additionally, the NanoFOD utilized a scintillator of 11 µm thickness to measure small x-ray fields for microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) applications, and achieved 2.7% dose accuracy of the microbeam peak in comparison to radiochromic film. Modest differences between the full-width at half maximum measured lateral dimension of the MRT system were observed between the NanoFOD (420 µm) and radiochromic film (320 µm), but these differences have been explained mostly as an artifact due to the geometry used and volumetric effects in the scintillator material. Characterization of the energy dependence for the yttrium-oxide based scintillator material was performed in the range of 40-320 kV (2 mm Al filtration), and the maximum device sensitivity was achieved at 100 kV. Tissue maximum ratio data measurements were carried out on a small animal x-ray irradiator system at 320 kV and demonstrated an average difference of 0.9% as compared to a MOSFET dosimeter in the range of 2.5 to 33 cm depth in tissue equivalent plastic blocks. Irradiation of the NanoFOD fiber and scintillator material on a 137Cs gamma irradiator to 1600 Gy did not produce any measurable change in light output, suggesting that the NanoFOD system may be re-used without the need for replacement or recalibration over its lifetime.

For small animal irradiator systems, researchers can deliver a given dose to a target organ by controlling exposure time. Currently, researchers calculate this exposure time by dividing the total dose that they wish to deliver by a single provided dose rate value. This method is independent of the target organ. Studies conducted here used Monte Carlo particle transport codes to justify a new method of dose prescription in mice, that considers organ specific doses. Monte Carlo simulations were performed in the Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission (GATE) toolkit using a MOBY mouse whole-body phantom. The non-homogeneous phantom was comprised of 256x256x800 voxels of size 0.145x0.145x0.145 mm3. Differences of up to 20-30% in dose to soft-tissue target organs was demonstrated, and methods for alleviating these errors were suggested during whole body radiation of mice by utilizing organ specific and x-ray tube filter specific dose rates for all irradiations.

Monte Carlo analysis was used on 1 µm resolution CT images of a mouse femur and a mouse vertebra to calculate the dose gradients within the bone marrow (BM) compartment of mice based on different radiation beam qualities relevant to x-ray and isotope type irradiators. Results and findings indicated that soft x-ray beams (160 kV at 0.62 mm Cu HVL and 320 kV at 1 mm Cu HVL) lead to substantially higher dose to BM within close proximity to mineral bone (within about 60 µm) as compared to hard x-ray beams (320 kV at 4 mm Cu HVL) and isotope based gamma irradiators (137Cs). The average dose increases to the BM in the vertebra for these four aforementioned radiation beam qualities were found to be 31%, 17%, 8%, and 1%, respectively. Both in-vitro and in-vivo experimental studies confirmed these simulation results, demonstrating that the 320 kV, 1 mm Cu HVL beam caused statistically significant increased killing to the BM cells at 6 Gy dose levels in comparison to both the 320 kV, 4 mm Cu HVL and the 662 keV, 137Cs beams.

Temporal management using relative time in knowledge-based process control

In this paper, a knowledge-based approach is proposed for the management of temporal information in process control. A common-sense theory of temporal constraints over processes/events, allowing relative temporal knowledge, is employed here as the temporal basis for the system. This theory supports duration reasoning and consistency checking, and accepts relative temporal knowledge which is in a form normally used by human operators. An architecture for process control is proposed which centres on an historical database consisting of events and processes, together with the qualitative temporal relationships between their occurrences. The dynamics of the system is expressed by means of three types of rule: database updating rules, process control rules, and data deletion rules. An example is provided in the form of a life scheduler, to illustrate the database and the rule sets. The example demonstrates the transitions of the database over time, and identifies the procedure in terms of a state transition model for the application. The dividing instant problem for logical inference is discussed with reference to this process control example, and it is shown how the temporal theory employed can be used to deal with the problem.

Ontological considerations of time, meta-predicates and temporal propositions

A natural approach to representing and reasoning about temporal propositions (i.e., statements with time-dependent truth-values) is to associate them with time elements. In the literature, there are three choices regarding the primitive for the ontology of time: (1) instantaneous points, (2) durative intervals and (3) both points and intervals. Problems may arise when one conflates different views of temporal structure and questions whether some certain types of temporal propositions can be validly and meaningfully associated with different time elements. In this paper, we shall summarize an ontological glossary with respect to time elements, and diversify a wider range of meta-predicates for ascribing temporal propositions to time elements. Based on these, we shall also devise a versatile categorization of temporal propositions, which can subsume those representative categories proposed in the literature, including that of Vendler, of McDermott, of Allen, of Shoham, of Galton and of Terenziani and Torasso. It is demonstrated that the new categorization of propositions, together with the proposed range of meta-predicates, provides the expressive power for modeling some typical temporal terms/phenomena, such as starting-instant, stopping-instant, dividing-instant, instigation, termination and intermingling etc.

Investigating the impact of occupant response time on computer simulations of the WTC North Tower evacuation

This work explores the impact of response time distributions on high-rise building evacuation. The analysis utilises response times extracted from printed accounts and interviews of evacuees from the WTC North Tower evacuation of 11 September 2001. Evacuation simulations produced using these “real” response time distributions are compared with simulations produced using instant and engineering response time distributions. Results suggest that while typical engineering approximations to the response time distribution may produce reasonable evacuation times for up to 90% of the building population, using this approach may underestimate total evacuation times by as much as 61%. These observations are applicable to situations involving large high-rise buildings in which travel times are generally expected to be greater than response times

Visualization of polyphonic voices inter-animation in CSCL chats

Trausan-Matu, S., & Dascalu, M. (2015). Visualization of Polyphonic Voices Inter-animation in CSCL Chats. Revista Romana de Interactiune Om-Calculator, 8(4), 305–322.

Towards the Industrial Production of Omega-3 Long Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids from a Genetically Modified Diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum.

The marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum can accumulate up to 30% of the omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (LC-PUFA) eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and, as such, is considered a good source for the industrial production of EPA. However, P. tricornutum does not naturally accumulate significant levels of the more valuable omega-3 LC-PUFA docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Previously, we have engineered P. tricornutum to accumulate elevated levels of DHA and docosapentaenoic acid (DPA) by overexpressing heterologous genes encoding enzyme activities of the LC-PUFA biosynthetic pathway. Here, the transgenic strain Pt_Elo5 has been investigated for the scalable production of EPA and DHA. Studies have been performed at the laboratory scale on the cultures growing in up to 1 L flasks a 3.5 L bubble column, a 550 L closed photobioreactor and a 1250 L raceway pond with artificial illumination. Detailed studies were carried out on the effect of different media, carbon sources and illumination on omega-3 LC-PUFAs production by transgenic strain Pt_Elo5 and wild type P. tricornutum grown in 3.5 L bubble columns. The highest content of DHA (7.5% of total fatty acids, TFA) in transgenic strain was achieved in cultures grown in seawater salts, Instant Ocean (IO), supplemented with F/2 nutrients (F2N) under continuous light. After identifying the optimal conditions for omega-3 LC-PUFA accumulation in the small-scale experiments we compared EPA and DHA levels of the transgenic strain grown in a larger fence-style tubular photobioreactor and a raceway pond. We observed a significant production of DHA over EPA, generating an EPA/DPA/DHA profile of 8.7%/4.5%/12.3% of TFA in cells grown in a photobioreactor, equivalent to 6.4 μg/mg dry weight DHA in a mid-exponentially growing algal culture. Omega-3 LC-PUFAs production in a raceway pond at ambient temperature but supplemented with artificial illumination (110 μmol photons m-2s-1) on a 16:8h light:dark cycle, in natural seawater and F/2 nutrients was 24.8% EPA and 10.3% DHA. Transgenic strain grown in RP produced the highest levels of EPA (12.8%) incorporated in neutral lipids. However, the highest partitioning of DHA in neutral lipids was observed in cultures grown in PBR (7.1%). Our results clearly demonstrate the potential for the development of the transgenic Pt_Elo5 as a platform for the commercial production of EPA and DHA.

Math-Towers: Promoting and supporting online collaborative mathematical exploration

Math-Towers (www.math-towers.ca) is a collaborative mathematics environment for pupils in grades 7 to 9. Using a fantasy adventure game context students are presented with a mathematical challenge, given online tools for working on the problem,and provided with a messaging system by which they may exchange ideas and partial solutions. This paper presents the philosophy behind the design of Math-Towers and work with students that indicates the extent to which we have been successful in meeting our aims. The technical and social problems encountered and revisions made to address these are also described.

Double potential step chronoamperometry at microdisk electrodes: simulating the case of unequal diffusion coefficients

An efficient approach to the simulation of the double potential step chronoamperometry at a microdisk electrode based on an exponentially expanding time grid and conformal mapping of the space is presented. The dimensionless second potential step flux data are included as a function of the first potential step duration and the ratio of the diffusion coefficients of the reacting species allowing instant analysis of the experimental double potential step chronoamperograms without a need for simulation. The values of the diffusion coefficients are determined for several test systems and found to be in good agreement with existing literature data. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tails of animal attraction: Incorporating the feline into the family

Increased urbanization and female employment have led to the cat overtaking the dog as the companion animal of preference. However, thisarticle looks beyond lifestyle changes as reasons for the popularity of the cat. The article explores the emotional consumer-socialization processinvolving the incorporation of the cat into the family. Subjective personal introspection (SPI) and supporting vignettes of female humans in theirfamilies (all of which were high-involvement owners) explore the hows and whys of feline incorporation. The study identifies several categories ofincorporation. The findings suggest that this complex process involves many factors — namely, consumer socialization, intergenerationalinfluence, brand loyalty, commitment, near-instant loyalty, immediacy, distress, anthropomorphism, and nostalgia. These factors underpin theintimacy and care the human–feline relationship expresses. The ability for humans and cats to bond in a way that fosters emotional intimacy canbe considered one of the purest forms of relationships.© 2007 Published by Elsevier Inc.

Effect of positron-atom interactions on the annihilation gamma spectra of molecules

Calculations of ?-spectra for positron annihilation on a selection of molecules, including methane and its fluoro-substitutes, ethane, propane, butane and benzene are presented. The annihilation ?-spectra characterise the momentum distribution of the electron-positron pair at the instant of annihilation. The contribution to the ?-spectra from individual molecular orbitals is obtained from electron momentum densities calculated using modern computational quantum chemistry density functional theory tools. The calculation, in its simplest form, effectively treats the low-energy (thermalised, room-temperature) positron as a plane wave and gives annihilation ?-spectra that are about 40% broader than experiment, although the main chemical trends are reproduced. We show that this effective 'narrowing' of the experimental spectra is due to the action of the molecular potential on the positron, chiefly, due to the positron repulsion from the nuclei. It leads to a suppression of the contribution of small positron-nuclear separations where the electron momentum is large. To investigate the effect of the nuclear repulsion, as well as that of short-range electron-positron and positron-molecule correlations, a linear combination of atomic orbital description of the molecular orbitals is employed. It facilitates the incorporation of correction factors which can be calculated from atomic many-body theory and account for the repulsion and correlations. Their inclusion in the calculation gives -spectrum linewidths that are in much better agreement with experiment. Furthermore, it is shown that the effective distortion of the electron momentum density, when it is observed through positron annihilation -spectra, can be approximated by a relatively simple scaling factor. © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.

The OpenPMU Platform for Open Source Phasor Measurements

OpenPMU is an open platform for the development of phasor measurement unit (PMU) technology. A need has been identified for an open-source alternative to commercial PMU devices tailored to the needs of the university researcher and for enabling the development of new synchrophasor instruments from this foundation. OpenPMU achieves this through open-source hardware design specifications and software source code, allowing duplicates of the OpenPMU to be fabricated under open-source licenses. This paper presents the OpenPMU device based on the Labview development environment. The device is performance tested according to the IEEE C37.118.1 standard. Compatibility with the IEEE C37.118.2 messaging format is achieved through middleware which is readily adaptable to other PMU projects or applications. Improvements have been made to the original design to increase its flexibility. A new modularized architecture for the OpenPMU is presented using an open messaging format which the authors propose is adopted as a platform for PMU research.

Automated object identification and position estimation for airport lighting quality assessment

The development of an automated system for the quality assessment of aerodrome ground lighting (AGL), in accordance with associated standards and recommendations, is presented. The system is composed of an image sensor, placed inside the cockpit of an aircraft to record images of the AGL during a normal descent to an aerodrome. A model-based methodology is used to ascertain the optimum match between a template of the AGL and the actual image data in order to calculate the position and orientation of the camera at the instant the image was acquired. The camera position and orientation data are used along with the pixel grey level for each imaged luminaire, to estimate a value for the luminous intensity of a given luminaire. This can then be compared with the expected brightness for that luminaire to ensure it is operating to the required standards. As such, a metric for the quality of the AGL pattern is determined. Experiments on real image data is presented to demonstrate the application and effectiveness of the system.

Comparison of tack of pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) at different temperatures

Pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) have applications in the fields of packaging, joining, wound care, and personal care. Depending on the application of the PSA, different performance tests are carried out when new products are developed or the quality of the existing products is checked. Tack is the property of an adhesive that enables it to form instant bond on the surface under light pressure. The tack of a PSA strongly depends on the way the bond is created. Parameters such as the bonded area, contact time and the nature of tack materials all affect the tack force measured. In the development of any PSA, it is desirable to correlate the performance related properties such as tack and peel strength to the rheological behaviour. Finding these correlations would make it possible to evaluate the performance of a PSA using its rheological characteristics. In this investigation we have studied the influence of rheological behaviour of three different PSAs on their tackiness. The three different PSAs used in this study are a low molecular weight rosin ester, high molecular weight rosin ester, and dicyclopentadiene. Various rheological properties such as viscosity, phase angle, and elastic and viscous moduli are measured versus the frequency and temperature. Also the tack properties at various removal speeds and temperatures are evaluated. Analysis of the results indicates different performances of the three PSAs which could be related to their rheological properties, especially the phase angle, at different frequencies and temperatures. The PSA with high molecular weight rosin ester is more sensitive to temperature changes and showed drastic changes in tackiness from high temperature to low temperature. On the other hand, rosin ester with low molecular weight is less sensitive to temperature changes. © 2010 VSP.

Man-up Against Suicide

Male suicide rates are high in Western countries including the US and Canada. Underpinned by men’s resistance to health help-seeking and challenges diagnosing mental illness including male depression, suicide ends the lives of many men amid inflicting pain and grief on the family and friends who are left behind. Fuelled by the discordant relationship between men’s low rates of depression and high rates of suicide we embarked on a unique and novel photovoice study title Man-Up Against Suicide. Specifically, men who have contemplated suicide in the past, and individuals (men and women) who have lost a male partner, family member or friend to suicide were invited to take photographs representing their experiences with men’s suicide with the ultimate goal of messaging ‘at risk’ men that there are alternatives to taking one’s life. Participants subsequently completed semi-structured individual interviews narrating the photographs and providing captions to accompany their selected images. In this presentation we share the preliminary study findings along with some participant photographs and narratives as a means to discussing; 1) men’s experiences of suicidal behaviours and their management strategies; and, 2) how men’s and women’s experiences of losing a male to suicide can de-stigmatize men’s mental illness and raise public awareness about male suicide.