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Design of an Intermediate Layer to Enhance Operator Awareness and Safety in Telesurgical Systems

This paper presents a novel control architecture for enhanced operator awareness and improved safety in telesurgical systems. We introduce an intermediate layer between the master and slave sides which allows us to modify the slave motion for safety and the force feedback for operator awareness. The intermediate layer is then designed with a performance objective for the specific task at hand. The

Human foetal brain tissue as quality control when developing stem cells towards cell replacement therapy for neurological diseases.

Human foetal brain tissue has been used in experimental and clinical trials to develop cell replacement therapy in neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease. These pioneering clinical studies have shown proof of principle that cell replacement therapy can be effective and is worthwhile to develop as a therapeutic strategy for repairing the damaged brain. Howe

Posterior laryngitis: a study of persisting symptoms and health-related quality of life.

Posterior laryngitis is a common cause of chronic cough, hoarseness, voice fatigue and throat pain. The aim of the present study was to examine how patients with posterior laryngitis have been examined, treated and followed up, and to assess their present health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Patients treated for posterior laryngitis at consultation at the ear-, nose- and throat clinic during 20

The Structure and Culture of Post-Communist Civil Society in Latvia

This article provides an account of post-communist civil society in Latvia. Based on original survey data, the structure of civil society is analysed on both individual and organisational levels and cultural aspects are examined. The weakness of post-communist civil society found in much previous research is confirmed when measured on the individual level and in relation to some organisational asp

Corrosion rate measurements in steel sheet pile walls in a marine environment

Corrosion of steel structures in the marine environment is a major problem. The deterioration of this kind of structures is costly and difficult to predict both when designing new structures and when estimating the remaining service life time for existing structures. The aim of this investigation was to find indicative values for the corrosion rate of steel sheet piles on the Swedish west coast. S

Hypoxic induction of vascular endothelial growth factor regulates murine hematopoietic stem cell function in the low-oxygenic niche.

Hypoxia is emerging as an important characteristic of the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) niche, but the molecular mechanisms contributing to quiescence, self-renewal, and survival remain elusive. Vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) is a key regulator of angiogenesis and hematopoiesis. Its expression is commonly regulated by hypoxia-inducible factors (HIF) that are functionally induced in l

China's wetlands conservation: achievements in the Eleventh 5-Year Plan (2006-2010) and challenges in the Twelfth 5-Year Plan (2011-2015)

China's natural wetlands occupy 3.77% of the land and provide 54.9% of China's ecosystem services. Healthy natural wetland ecosystems play an important role in the sustainable development of China, which was realized by the Chinese government in the early 1970s. In the past 5 years, China has made great efforts in wetlands conservation, which is signified by the funding of billions of dollars to r

Novel COMP Neoepitopes Identified in Synovial Fluids from Patients with Joint Diseases using Affinity Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry.

To identify patients at risk for progressive joint damage there is a need for early diagnostic tools to detect molecular events leading to cartilage destruction. Isolation and characterization of distinct cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) fragments derived from cartilage and released into synovial fluid will allow discrimination between different pathological conditions and monitoring of

Hybrid discrete dislocation models for fatigue crack growth

A framework for accurately modeling fatigue crack growth in ductile crystalline solids is necessarily multiscale The creation of new free surface occurs at the atomistic scale, where the material's cohesive strength is controlled by the local chemistry On the other hand, significant dissipation during fatigue crack growth takes place at a size scale that can be modeled appropriately by conventiona

"I want a baby, don't stop me from being a mother." An ethnographic study on fertility technology in the medical gray zones.

The increasing demand for human egg cells has led to reproductive tourism and a transnational egg trade. The activity flourishes due to poverty and criminality, as well as medical needs (infertility) and cultural needs (the dream of parenthood). Other factors are fundamental concepts, such as the view of the body as an object of utility and value. This article aims to go behind the normative discu

Microfluidic Diffusion Analysis of the Sizes and Interactions of Proteins under Native Solution Conditions.

Characterizing the sizes and interactions of macromolecules under native conditions is a challenging problem in many areas of molecular sciences, which fundamentally arises from the polydisperse nature of biomolecular mixtures. Here, we describe a microfluidic platform for diffusional sizing based on monitoring micron-scale mass transport simultaneously in space and time. We show that the global a

Evaluation of the relationship between capillary and venous plasma glucose concentrations obtained by the HemoCue Glucose 201+ system during an oral glucose tolerance test

Abstract In 55 women with previous gestational diabetes mellitus, simultaneous capillary and venous plasma glucose concentrations were measured at 0, 30 and 120 min during a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). The aims of the study were to examine the relationship between capillary and venous glucose measurements, and to establish equations for the conversion of capillary and venous glucose c

Jet coherence in QCD media: the antenna radiation spectrum

We study the radiation of a highly energetic partonic antenna in a colored state traversing a dense QCD medium. Resumming multiple scatterings of all involved constituents with the medium we derive the general gluon spectrum which encompasses both longitudinal color coherence between scattering centers in the medium, responsible for the well known Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal (LPM) effect, and transv

Chemical ecology of obligate pollination mutualisms: testing the 'private channel' hypothesis in the Breynia-Epicephala association.

New Phytologist (2010) Summary *Obligate mutualisms involving actively pollinating seed predators are among the most remarkable insect-plant relationships known, yet almost nothing is known about the chemistry of pollinator attraction in these systems. The extreme species specificity observed in these mutualisms may be maintained by specific chemical compounds through 'private channels'. Here, we

Nanoscale imaging of local few-femtosecond near-field dynamics within a single plasmonic nanoantenna.

The local enhancement of few-cycle laser pulses by plasmonic nanostructures opens up for spatiotemporal control of optical interactions on a nanometer and few-femtosecond scale. However, spatially resolved characterization of few-cycle plasmon dynamics poses a major challenge due to the extreme length and time scales involved. In this letter, we experimentally demonstrate local variations in the d

An overview of the Amazonian Aerosol Characterization Experiment 2008 (AMAZE-08)

The Amazon Basin provides an excellent environment for studying the sources, transformations, and properties of natural aerosol particles and the resulting links between biological processes and climate. With this framework in mind, the Amazonian Aerosol Characterization Experiment (AMAZE-08), carried out from 7 February to 14 March 2008 during the wet season in the central Amazon Basin, sought to