Providing the right stuff: feeding children with chronic renal failure

The progressive loss of renal function in children with chronic renal failure (CRF) has a negative influence on their nutritional status and statural growth. Supportive therapies with 1-25 dihydroxy-vitamin D3, recombinant erythropoietin and growth hormone have significantly improved the biochemical and clinical features but the success of these therapies is largely related to an appropriate diet, with adequate protein/caloric intakes. Children more than adults have minimal protein requirements to avoid malnutrition and growth impairment FAO/WHO and RDA recommendations save as guidelines for a correct diet in children with CRF. Following these allowances leads to a "normoproteic" diet, with a protein intake which is often half the unrestricted one in Western European countries, but which is still likely to be not enough to protect against renal deterioration. Indeed the European Study Group for Nutritional Treatment of CRF in children failed to show a significant effect of diet on the mean decline of glomerular filtration rate over two years.     

Cervical pain and proprioceptive sensitivity

With the intent of estimating the proprioceptive sensitivity of the cervical rachis, the Authors subjected 17 healthy volunteers and 20 patients suffering from various cervical disorders to a clinical head positioning test, which was previously experimented upon by several french Authors was modified under certain aspects by our equipe. The test, consists in flexion and extension of the head after maximal rotations to the left and right, then repositioning the head at the starting point "0" which corresponds to the crossing point of two orthogonal axis of a target. The positions are marked on the target by a laser beam situated on the helmet worn by the subject undergoing testing. The results obtained corresponding to the errors committed regarding point "0", permit us to confirm the reliability of the test and significant definitions between the control group and the patients suffering from cervical disorders.     

Localization of prothymosin alpha in the nucleus

Age differences in processing resources seem salient to age-related declines in secondary (or "recent") memory. Community-dwelling adults (N = 90, ages 30-80) completed 4 memory tests: Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R) Logical Memory (LM), Cowboy Story (CS), WMS-R Visual Reproductions (VR), and Extended Complex Figure Test (ECFT; Fastenau, in press). Two space-capacity measures (WMS-R Digit Span and Visual Memory Span) and 4 processing speed measures (cancellation and mental-tracking tasks) assessed processing resources. A statistical control procedure was used to isolate retrieval efficiency and measures contributions of age and processing resources to retrieval. A negative relationship between age and retrieval efficiency emerged on all measures (p < .05). The age effect was reduced 60% on LM and CS when processing resources were controlled, eliminated for VR, and unchanged on ECFT. It is possible that visual-spatial retrieval requires fewer processing resources than does verbal retrieval.     

Definition of inseparably fused ventricular myocardium in thoracopagus: fetal echocardiographic utility and pathologic refinement

Correlative echocardiographic and pathological findings in a thoracopagus with conjoined hearts are reported. One twin had tricuspid atresia with discordant atrioventricular connections and concordant ventriculoarterial connections. The morphologic right ventricle was hypoplastic and there was a large muscular ventricular septal defect. The other twin had hypoplasia of the mitral valve anulus and left ventricle with double-outlet right ventricle and pulmonary valve atresia. The tricuspid valve was severely insufficient in part because of a large orifice and redundant, elongated leaflets with abnormal chordal attachments. The left ventricles of these two twins shared a perforated common "free wall" with at least two large defects allowing mixing of the circulations at that level. Not all anatomic details were established conclusively by fetal echocardiography; however, sufficient diagnostic information was obtained to support a decision not to aggressively resuscitate these twins after elective cesarean delivery at 31 weeks' gestation.     

Identification of the female-produced sex pheromone of the scarab beetle,Hoplia equina

Hoplia equina LeConte (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae) is a beetle pest of cranberry beds in Massachusetts. Larvae feed on the roots of the cranberry plant, reducing yield as well as vine density. The female sex pheromone was identified as 2-tetradecanone. There were eight compounds found in the airborne volatiles collected from females that elicited antennal responses from males. Of the eight compounds tested (nonanal, decanal, dodecanal, 2-dodecanone, 2-tridecanone, 2-tetradecanone, 2-pentadecanone, and 2-hexadecanone), 2-tetradecanone was the only one that attracted male beetles in the field. Combining any of the other seven antennally active compounds with 2-tetradecanone did not increase male capture.     

Analysis of the indoor GPS system as feedback for the robotic alignment of fuselages using laser radar measurements as comparison

The alignment of aircraft fuselages in the aerospace sector is currently done either manually or by complex, expensive automated systems. The manual process introduces a significant production delay and the automated systems are purpose-built and have limited flexibility, apart from its financial drawback. This work proposes a low-cost, high-flexibility system and, as part of it, evaluates the performance of a Rotary-Laser Automatic Theodolite (R-LAT) as a feedback source for the adaptive robot control of an anthropomorphic manipulator. In the proposed solution the robot carries a fuselage barrel and aligns it with respect to a second barrel. A high accuracy, frequency-modulated laser equipment is used to generate the reference system for the procedure. The measurements of the R-LAT are then verified with the frequency-modulated laser equipment in order to determine the linear and angular alignment tolerances achieved by the robot/R-LAT closed loop in a predefined work envelope. A throughout, step-by-step analysis of the measuring procedure is carried out to allow the recognition of error sources and thus the determination of an optimized method. These results identify the operation boundaries of the R-LAT within the process and yield its best configuration for the intended purpose. Using the EN ISO 9283 robot evaluation standard, the closed loop system was found to attain the nominal position with an average accuracy of 0.38 mm and 0.01°, contrasting with an average accuracy of 4.53 mm and 0.21° when the robot was operating in an open loop configuration.     

Mechanistic procedure for parameter determination of multiplicative decomposition based constitutive models

By exploiting the Clausius–Planck local energy dissipation inequality, a large strain, three-dimensional constitutive model has been developed for the monotonic and cyclic response prediction of various asphaltic materials. The model consists of a Zener non-linear, visco-elastic component acting in series with a stress dependent viscous component. A novel computational scheme has been developed for solution of the coupled system of equations expressing the interdependent response of these two in series components. An explicit, mechanistic, parameter determination procedure is presented for the laboratory determination of all necessary model parameters. Examples of model parameter determination and utilisation for prediction of the response of a recycled asphalt mix and a stone mastic asphalt mix are presented.     

Integration for the next generation: embedding force control into industrial robots

In this paper, the interaction control schemes suitable for implementation on industrial robot units are presented. In particular, the focus is on impedance control and parallel control, which are conceived to manage the interaction with a more or less compliant environment without requiring an accurate model thereof. All the considered schemes are based on an inner motion control loop, which can be the usual independent joint control of PID type or an advanced model-based motion control law with superior tracking performance. The inner motion control loop is in charge of tracking the reference trajectory computed by the outer interaction control loop. Special emphasis is given to controlling 6-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) interaction tasks involving the end-effector position and orientation when a contact force and moment are applied.