Males still have limb asymmetries in multijoint movement tasks more than 2 years following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction

More than 2 years after undergoing anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction, women still present bilateral asymmetries during multijoint movement tasks. Given the well-known ACL-injury gender bias, the goal of this study was to investigate whether males also present such asymmetries more than 2 years after undergoing ACL reconstruction. This study involved 12 participants submitted to ACL reconstruction in the ACL group and 17 healthy participants in the control group. The mean postoperative period was 37 months. The participants executed bilateral countermovement jumps and load squat tasks. The kinematics and ground reaction forces on each lower limb and pelvis were recorded, and used to compute bilateral peak vertical ground reaction forces, peak knee and hip joint powers in the sagittal plane, and the ratio between these powers. For the jump task, the groups had the same performance in the jump height, but for the ACL group the peak knee joint power on the operated side was 13% lower than on the non-operated side (p = 0.02). For the squat task, the hip-knee joint power ratio on the operated side of the ACL group was 31% greater than on the non-operated side (p = 0.02). The ACL group presented a deficit in the operated knee that had its energy generation over time (joint power) partially substituted by the hip joint power of the same side. The fact that, even after more than 2 years following the ACL reconstruction and returning to regular activity, the ACL group still had neuromuscular asymmetries suggests a need for improvement in the ACL reconstruction surgery procedures and/or rehabilitation protocols.

Volumetric reconstruction of the mean flow around circular cylinders fitted with strakes

The volumetric reconstruction technique presented in this paper employs a two-camera stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (SPIV) system in order to reconstruct the mean flow behind a fixed cylinder fitted with helical strakes, which are commonly used to suppress vortex-induced vibrations (VIV). The technique is based on the measurement of velocity fields at equivalent adjacent planes that results in pseudo volumetric fields. The main advantage over proper volumetric techniques is the avoidance of additional equipment and complexity. The averaged velocity fields behind the straked cylinders and the geometrical periodicity of the three-start configuration are used to further simplify the reconstruction process. Two straked cylindrical models with the same pitch (p = 10d) and two different heights (h = 0.1 and 0.2d) are tested. The reconstructed flow shows that the strakes introduce in the wake flow a well-defined wavelength of one-third of the pitch. Measurements of hydrodynamic forces, fluctuating velocity, vortex formation length, and vortex shedding frequency show the interdependence of the wake parameters. The vortex formation length is increased by the strakes, which is an important effect for the suppression of vortex-induced vibrations. The results presented complement previous investigations concerning the effectiveness of strakes as VIV suppressors and provide a basis of comparison to numerical simulations.

AUTOMATIC CORONARY WALL SEGMENTATION IN INTRAVASCULAR ULTRASOUND IMAGES USING BINARY MORPHOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) image segmentation can provide more detailed vessel and plaque information, resulting in better diagnostics, evaluation and therapy planning. A novel automatic segmentation proposal is described herein; the method relies on a binary morphological object reconstruction to segment the coronary wall in IVUS images. First, a preprocessing followed by a feature extraction block are performed, allowing for the desired information to be extracted. Afterward, binary versions of the desired objects are reconstructed, and their contours are extracted to segment the image. The effectiveness is demonstrated by segmenting 1300 images, in which the outcomes had a strong correlation to their corresponding gold standard. Moreover, the results were also corroborated statistically by having as high as 92.72% and 91.9% of true positive area fraction for the lumen and media adventitia border, respectively. In addition, this approach can be adapted easily and applied to other related modalities, such as intravascular optical coherence tomography and intravascular magnetic resonance imaging. (E-mail: matheuscardosomg@hotmail.com) (C) 2011 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology.

Strongyloides venezuelensis: The antigenic identity of eight strains for the immunodiagnosis of human strongyloidiasis

The antigens of eight strains of Strongyloides venezuelensis were identified by means of the indirect immunofluorescence antibody (IFAT), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and immunoblot (IB) tests. Infective larvae (L3) from these strains were obtained from Rattus norvegicus feces cultures. For IFAT, sections of U were used while the ELISA and IB, tests were conducted with alkaline extract. Ninety serum samples were tested: 30 from patients with S. stercoralis, 30 from patients with other parasitic diseases, and 30 from healthy subjects (free of parasites). Average sensitivity and specificity among all eight strains, both for IFAT and ELISA, were, respectively, 93% and 100%. In the IB, anti-S. stercoralis IgG recognized a single antigenic fraction with 45 kDa. Serum samples from patients with S. stercoralis revealed antigens from different strains of S. venezuelensis, indicating antigenic identity for possible use in the synthesis of recombinant antigen that could be useful in immunodiagnosis and vaccine against this parasite. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

(FAB12_2_019) National identity at Arakawa & Gins’ Site of Reversible Destiny—Yoro, Japan

This paper examines the manipulation of forms of the traditional Japanese stroll garden at Site of Reversible Destiny, a tourist park designed by the New Yorkbased collaborators Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins. Landscape and its representations are central to the construction of national identity in Japan since the cultural distinctiveness of the Japanese people has been argued to rest on their unique relationship to nature and the country’s idiosyncratic geography. The stroll garden of the larger estates and palaces of the Edo period (1615–1867) developed out of earlier temple gardens and most public parks in contemporary Japan are in the grounds of these historic sites or reproduce their forms.

Perceptions of a media campaign: The role of social identity and the changing intergroup context

This study examined the effects of political identity and the changing intergroup context on communication perceptions during an election campaign. Perceptions of media bias and of campaign impact on self and others were assessed before and after the election. The responses of politically aligned voters reflected their membership in a dominant or subordinate group preelection and in a losing or winning group postelection. Dominant group members were initially less biased in their views of the campaign and its impact but sought to blame their party's loss on media bias and on the gullibility of political out-group members and voters in general. Subordinate group members initially showed strong in-group-serving biases but were less critical of the media and the electorate after their party had won. Results highlight the dynamic, intergroup, nature of media perceptions.

Refining the risk-benefit equation for thrombolysis: How to identity the low risk patient before administering thrombolytic therapy

In view of the relative risk of intracranial haemorrhage and major bleeding with thrombolytic therapy, it is important ro identify as early as possible the low risk patient who may not have a net clinical benefit from thrombolysis in the setting of acute myocardial infarction. An analysis of 5434 hospital-treated patients with myocardial infarction in the Perth MONICA study showed that age below 60 and absence of previous infarction or diabetes, shock, pulmonary oedema, cardiac arrest and Q-wave or left bundle branch block on the initial ECG identified a large group of patients with a 28 day mortality of only 1%, and one year mortality of only 2%. Identification of baseline risk in this way helps refine the risk-benefit equation for thrombolytic therapy, and may help avoid unnecessary use of thrombolysis in those unlikely to benefit.

Social identity and perceptions of media persuasion: Are we always less influenced than others?

People typically perceive negative media content (e.g., violence) to have more impact on others than on themselves (a third-person effect). To examine the perceived effects of positive content (e.g., public-service advertisements) and the moderating role of social identities, we examined students' perceptions of the impact of AIDS advertisements on self, students (in- group), nonstudents (out-group), and people in general. Perceived self-other differences varied with the salience of student identity. Low identifiers displayed the typical third-person effect, whereas high identifiers were more willing to acknowledge impact on themselves and the student in-group. Further, when influence was normatively accept able within the in-group, high identifiers perceived self and students (us) as more influenced than nonstudents (them). The theoretical and practical implications of this reversal in third-person perceptions are discussed.

Social identity and self-categorization processes in organizational contexts

Although aspects of social identity theory are familiar to organizational psychologists, its elaboration, through self-categorization theory, of how social categorization and prototype-based depersonalization actually produce social identity effects is less well known. We describe these processes, relate self-categorization theory to social identity theory, describe new theoretical developments in detail, and show how these developments can address a: range of organizational phenomena. We discuss cohesion and deviance, leadership, subgroup and sociodemographic structure, and mergers and acquisitions.

Subgroup relations: A comparison of mutual intergroup differentiation and common ingroup identity models of prejudice reduction

Two studies examined relations between groups (humanities and math-science students) that implicitly or explicitly share a common superordinate category (university student). In Experiment 1, 178 participants performed a noninteractive decision-making task during which category salience was manipulated in a 2 (superordinate category salience) x 2 (subordinate category salience) between-groups design. Consistent with the mutual intergroup differentiation model, participants for whom both categories were salient exhibited the lowest levels of bias, whereas bias was strongest when the superordinate category alone was made salient. This pattern of results was replicated in Experiment 2 (N = 135). In addition, Experiment 2 demonstrated that members of subgroups that are nested within a superordinate category are more sensitive to how the superordinate category is represented than are members of subgroups that extend beyond the boundaries of the superordinate category.