Pointing movement visually controlled through a video display: adaptation to scale change

This study concerns the adaptation of motor system when the production of movement was visually controlled through a video display. The subjects had to perform a pointing movement in two visual-feedback conditions: they could see the displacement of their hand or only the final location of the hand on the videoscreen. By changing the zoom of the camera, the amplitude of the movement perceived on the screen was increased, decreased or held equal to the actual movement. Results showed that the movement adapted quickly to the apparent distance changes. In the full visual-feedback condition, the adaptation was smaller in magnitude than in the partial visual-feedback condition. Even though the actual movement was always the same, the subjects thought they carried out different movements. Therefore, the subjects did not use kinematic information provided by the kinaesthetic system but essentially visual information furnished by the video-screen. Taken together, these results show that adaptation to scale changes does not allow the achievement of the perception of a single working space but seems rather specific to each scale.     

Virtual topologies for multicasting with multiple originators in WDM networks

In this paper, we consider the problem of multicasting with multiple originators in WDM optical networks. In this problem, we are given a set S of source nodes and a set D of destination nodes in a network. All source nodes are capable of providing data to any destination node. Our objective is to find a virtual topology in the WDM network which satisfies given constraints on available resources and is optimal with respect to minimizing the maximum hop distance. Although the corresponding decision problem is NP-complete in general, we give polynomial time algorithms for the cases of unidirectional paths and rings.     

Visual context and the control of movements through video display

The aim of this experiment was to test the influence of target context on adaptation to scale perturbations introduced by a video display. Participants performed pointing movements without direct vision of their moving hand, although they could see their movements on a video display. Their perceived movements could be reduced, enlarged. or displayed at their actual size. Three target contexts were compared: dark surround, illuminated frame, and familiar object. Movements were executed with or without vision of hand displacement. Results showed that target context enhanced an allocentric coding of the movement, which improved movement execution. However, the effect of target context changed whether or not the displacement of the hand was available. Overall, the results suggest that target context allowed the extraction of dynamic information about movements, which is used to program and control movements. This suggests that target context could be used efficiently to improve spatial accuracy and speed in teleoperation learning. Potential applications include the reduction of difficulties encountered during teleoperation learning through the introduction of visual context.     

Retrospective Study of Metastatic Melanoma and Renal Cell Carcinoma to the Brain with Multivariate Analysis of Prognostic Pre-Treatment Clinical Factors

Patients with brain metastasis from renal cell carcinoma (RCC) or melanoma have historically had very poor prognoses of less than one year. Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) can be an effective treatment for patients with these tumors. This study analyzes the effect of pretreatment prognostic factors on overall survival (OS) for RCC and melanoma patients with metastasis to the brain treated with SRS. A total of 122 patients with brain metastases from either RCC or melanoma were grouped by age at brain metastasis diagnosis, whether they received whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT) in addition to SRS, or they underwent surgical resection, Karnofsky Performance Score (KPS), number of brain metastases, and primary tumor. Median survival times for melanoma patients and RCC patients were 8.20 ± 3.06 and 12.70 ± 2.63 months, respectively. Patients with >5 metastases had a significantly shorter median survival time (6.60 ± 2.45 months) than the reference group (1 metastasis, 10.70 ± 13.40 months, p = 0.024). Patients with KPS ≤ 60 experienced significantly shorter survival than the reference group (KPS = 90–100), with median survival times of 5.80 ± 2.46 months (p < 0.001) and 45.20 ± 43.52 months, respectively. We found a median overall survival time of 12.7 and 8.2 months for RCC and melanoma, respectively. Our study determined that a higher number of brain metastases (>5) and lower KPS were statistically significant predictors of a lower OS prognosis.