6,215 research outputs found
The 2D/3D dynamics of wall-bounded low-Rm magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence
No full textWith this experimental study, we give evidence that the dynamics of low-Rm MHD turbulence depends on the diffusion length l_z, which corresponds to the distance over which the Lorentz force is able to diffuse momentum before it is balanced by inertia
Age in Medieval Plagues and Pandemics: Dances of Death or Pearson's Bridge of Life?
No full textAbstract
Death has long obsessed humanity. In times of plague and pandemic even more so. Medieval man saw four horsemen of the apocalypse, and of them, Death by disease was gathering the greatest harvest. How randomly did he gather? And how random is the death toll in later pandemics?James Hanley and Elizabeth Turner look at Karl Pearson's visualisations of mortality
Systematic review: the management of chronic diarrhoea due to bile acid malabsorption
No full textBackground: Bile acid malabsorption (BAM) is a common, yet under-recognised, cause of chronic diarrhoea, with limited guidance available on the appropriate management of patients with BAM.
Aim: To summarise the evidence supporting different treatments available for patients with bile acid malabsorption, noting their impact on clinical outcomes, tolerability and associated side effects.
Methods: A literature search was conducted through PubMed, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Scopus. Relevant articles studied patients who had been diagnosed with BAM and were clinically assessed before and after therapy.
Results: A total of 30 relevant publications (1241 adult patients) were identified, which investigated the clinical response to drugs, including colestyramine, colestipol, colesevelam, aluminium hydroxide and obeticholic acid. The most commonly used diagnostic test of bile acid malabsorption was the SeHCAT test (24 studies). Colestyramine treatment was by far the most studied of these agents, and was successful in 70% of 801 patients (range: 63–100%).
Conclusions: Colestyramine and colestipol are generally effective treatments of gastrointestinal symptoms from BAM, but may be poorly tolerated and reduce the bioavailability of co-administered agents. Alternative therapies (including colesevelam and aluminium hydroxide) as well as dietary intervention may also have a role, and the promising results of the first proof-of-concept study of obeticholic acid suggest that its novel approach may have an exciting future in the treatment of this condition. Future trials should employ accurate diagnostic testing and be conducted over longer periods so that the long-term benefits and tolerability of these different approaches can be evaluated
Multidisciplinary Postgraduate Education in AT: Challenges and Opportunities
No full textThere is a growing recognition that a multidisciplinary approach to Assistive Technology provision is required in order to produce effective rehabilitation services. While Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology professionals may work with the same patients, their approaches can be very different. Professionals may therefore need training to help them move towards a more integrated and collaborative approach. This paper will explore the opportunities that multidisciplinary postgraduate courses in Assistive Technology may bring and identify possible challenges to its success. Features of a newly developed Masters in Assistive Technology at Kings College, London will be used to illustrate these opportunities and challenge
Involving Older Users in Engineering Research: Report of a Project Relating to Mobility in the Home.
No full textMeasuring the impact of assistive technologies on quality of life: Can rehabilitation professionals rise to the challenge?
No full textAssistive Technology is an umbrella term for any device or system that allows an individual to perform a task they would otherwise be unable to do or increases the ease and safety with which the task can be performed. Assistive technologies include wheelchairs, communication aids, computers and aids to daily living such as reachers. This chapter uses the example of assistive technology as a case study that reflects the conceptual and methodological evolution of quality of life research in other areas of medicine.In the 1980’s and 1990’s advocates of assistive technology frequently claimed that it could improve patient quality of life. But what they actually meant by quality of life varied considerably. Claims surrounding quality of life were frequently linked to notions of increased independence, productivity or social participation. For example, in 1984 Kornblugh talked about the role assistive technologies could play for older people and predicted that they:” will want more than a decent place to live and enough to eat; they will want more independence, continued productivity and be less tolerant of custodial care. In other words, they will want an enhanced quality of life in their twilight years.”1While outlining the importance of developing more and better assistive technologies in order to improve the quality of life for disabled and elderly people, Cooper (1995; p.83) argued: “With the development and appropriate application of proper assistive technology, persons with disabilities can lead more active and productive lives. The ultimate goal is to develop and appropriately apply proper assistive technologies to ameliorate problems faced by persons with disabilities and to allow them to participate fully in every aspect of society.” 2Around the mid 1990’s rehabilitation professionals began to acknowledge that they needed to consider outcomes that would adequately and appropriately measure the impact of assistive technologies on quality of life. This acknowledgement was linked to concerns about why some patients abandoned assistive technologies. It was important to explore why individuals decided to accept or reject different types of assistive technologies and this work was critical to improving the effectiveness of AT interventions and enhancing individuals’ quality of life.3In attempting to explore the impact of assistive technologies on quality of life, rehabilitation professionals have used a number of instruments from general health-related quality of life instruments, participation oriented instruments to specially designed assistive technology specific measures. We will consider these three approaches in turn
On-line Education in Assistive Technology: Challenges and Opportunities
No full textSelected scientific papers in this book provide excellent insight in the current state-of-the-act in the field of assistive technology. Chapters on universal design in the information society, rehabilitation robotics, human machine interface, augmentative and alternative communication, assistive technology in education and training, restoration and enhancement of function, and outcome measurements in the field of assistive technology offer the most update information in the field of assistive technology. EU policy in the field of Information society technology and Quality of life for persons with disabilities and older people is presented as well
Sindromul Turner la copil: protocol clinic naţional PCN-171
No full textIMSP Institutul Mamei şi Copilului,
Universitatea de Stat de Medicină şi Farmacie „Nicolae Testemiţanu”Protocolul naţional a fost elaborat de către grupul de lucru al Ministerului Sănătăţii al Republicii
Moldova (MS RM), constituit din specialiştii IMSP Institutul Mamei şi Copilului și Universitatea de
Stat de Medicină și Farmacie „Nicolae Testemițanu”. Protocolul de faţă a fost fondat în conformitate cu
ghidurile internaţionale actuale privind „Sindromul Turner la copil” şi va servi drept matrice pentru
elaborarea protocoalelor instituţionale. La recomandarea MS RM pentru monitorizarea protocoalelor
instituţionale pot fi folosite formulare suplimentare, care nu sunt incluse în protocolul clinic naţional
Triangular Constellations in Flows
No full textParticles advected on the surface of a fluid can exhibit fractal clustering. The local structure of a fractal set is described by its dimension , which is the exponent of a power-law relating the mass in a ball to its radius : . It is desirable to characterise the {\em shapes} of constellations of points sampling a fractal measure, as well as their masses. The simplest example is the distribution of shapes of triangles formed by triplets of points, which we investigate for fractals generated by chaotic dynamical systems. The most significant parameter describing the triangle shape is the ratio of its area to the radius of gyration squared. We show that the probability density of has a phase transition: is independent of and approximately uniform below a critical flow compressibility , which we estimate. For the distribution appears to be described by two power laws: when , and when
Exact two-dimensionalization of low-magnetic-Reynolds-number flows subject to a strong magnetic field
No full textWe investigate the behavior of flows, including turbulent flows, driven by a horizontal body-force and subject to a vertical magnetic field, with the following question in mind: for very strong applied magnetic field, is the flow mostly two-dimensional, with remaining weak three-dimensional fluctuations, or does it become exactly 2D, with no dependence along the vertical? We restrict attention to low-magnetic-Reynolds number (Rm) flow. Because liquid metals have low magnetic Prandtl number, such low- flows can have a kinetic Reynolds number as large as one million and therefore be strongly turbulent. We first focus on the quasi-static approximation, i.e. the asymptotic limit of vanishing magnetic Reynolds number Rm << 1: we prove that the flow becomes exactly 2D asymptotically in time, regardless of the initial condition and provided the interaction parameter N is larger than a threshold value. We call this property absolute two-dimensionalization: the attractor of the system is necessarily a (possibly turbulent) 2D flow. We then consider the full-magnetohydrodynamic equations and we prove that, for low enough Rm and large enough N, the flow becomes exactly two-dimensional in the long-time limit provided the initial vertically-dependent perturbations are infinitesimal. We call this phenomenon linear two-dimensionalization: the (possibly turbulent) 2D flow is an attractor of the dynamics, but it is not necessarily the only attractor of the system. Some 3D attractors may also exist and be attained for strong enough initial 3D perturbations. These results shed some light on the existence of a dissipative anomaly for magnetohydrodynamic flows subject to a strong external magnetic field
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