Spinocerebellar Ataxia

This book is about spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA), which is among the most challenging pathologies in the neurological landscape. It covers basic concepts, functional classification, and new approaches to medical and non-medical treatment including rehabilitation/palliative care approaches. The volume also describes a wide spectrum of generalities and particularities about various forms of clinical and genetic presentations of ACS that have life-threatening characteristics and long-standing presentation with tremendous variability in presentation and clinical severity. In addition, the book presents important aspects of cerebellar anatomy, nutrition impact, genetic subtypes, and functional classification of medical and non-medical interventions related to stem cells, rehabilitation, and palliative care

PICES Advisory Report on the decline of Fraser River sockeye salmon Oncorhynchus nerka (Steller, 1743) in relation to marine ecology

In the spring of 2010, the Government of Canada invited PICES to participate in a Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River by considering how marine ecology may have affected their abundance. A major objective that was achieved in this report was to assemble, within an eight week period, as comprehensive a summary as was possible of what is known about Fraser River sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) in the ocean. While much of this effort involved summarizing information published in data/technical reports and the primary literature, where necessary, original data have been re-examined and new analyses conducted to fulfill the terms of the Statement of Work. The compilation provides a background of knowledge against which to judge what can be known regarding the two major questions posed by the Cohen Commission to PICES: -Can the decline in Fraser River sockeye in 2009 be explained by the conditions the fish experienced in the marine environment? -Is there any evidence for declines in marine productivity or changes in Fraser River sockeye distribution that can be associated with the 15-year gradual decrease in Fraser River sockeye productivity

Proceedings from the 1992 national conference

Presented at Irrigation and water resources in the 1990's: proceedings from the 1992 national conference held on October 5-7, 1992 in Phoenix, Arizona.Includes bibliographical references.Sponsored by U.S. Committee on Irrigation and Drainage.Interdisciplinary teams for assessing the performance of irrigated agriculture systems -- Putah South Canal remote acoustic water level monitoring and flow measurement -- Decentralized constant-volume control of irrigation canals -- Field manufacture and application of reinforced plastic canal and pipe linings -- Improving channel maintenance methods for Egypt's irrigation systems -- Routing flood water through an irrigation delivery system -- Experience with flexible schedules and automation on pilot projects -- Canal linings used by the Bureau of Reclamation with emphasis on rehabilitation -- The California Farm Water Coalition: telling thirsty Californians why agriculture needs water -- Institutional framework and challenges in management of agricultural water use in South Florida -- Technology transfer lessons from a U.S. water district -- Management of water conservation through irrigation system modernization and rehabilitation -- Artificial recharge of groundwater -- Long-term storage through indirect recharge -- Mitigating agricultural impacts on groundwater through desalination -- Agriculture's impact on water resources in Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania -- How probiotic fertilizers improve irrigation efficiency, buffer salts, and reduce nitrate infiltration into groundwater -- Drought, supply shortages and E.S.A.: can the farmer survive? -- Avoiding pitfalls in canal automation -- AZSCHED computer software for irrigation scheduling -- Determination of irrigated crops consumptive water use by remote sensing and GIS techniques for river basins -- GIS and conjunctive use for irrigated agriculture -- Mapping technology in the '90's for GIS applications to irrigation and drainage

Smart Technology for Telerehabilitation: A Smart Device Inertial-sensing Method for Gait Analysis

The aim of this work was to develop and validate an iPod Touch (4th generation) as a potential ambulatory monitoring system for clinical and non-clinical gait analysis. This thesis comprises four interrelated studies, the first overviews the current available literature on wearable accelerometry-based technology (AT) able to assess mobility-related functional activities in subjects with neurological conditions in home and community settings. The second study focuses on the detection of time-accurate and robust gait features from a single inertial measurement unit (IMU) on the lower back, establishing a reference framework in the process. The third study presents a simple step length algorithm for straight-line walking and the fourth and final study addresses the accuracy of an iPod’s inertial-sensing capabilities, more specifically, the validity of an inertial-sensing method (integrated in an iPod) to obtain time-accurate vertical lower trunk displacement measures. The systematic review revealed that present research primarily focuses on the development of accurate methods able to identify and distinguish different functional activities. While these are important aims, much of the conducted work remains in laboratory environments, with relatively little research moving from the “bench to the bedside.” This review only identified a few studies that explored AT’s potential outside of laboratory settings, indicating that clinical and real-world research significantly lags behind its engineering counterpart. In addition, AT methods are largely based on machine-learning algorithms that rely on a feature selection process. However, extracted features depend on the signal output being measured, which is seldom described. It is, therefore, difficult to determine the accuracy of AT methods without characterizing gait signals first. Furthermore, much variability exists among approaches (including the numbers of body-fixed sensors and sensor locations) to obtain useful data to analyze human movement. From an end-user’s perspective, reducing the amount of sensors to one instrument that is attached to a single location on the body would greatly simplify the design and use of the system. With this in mind, the accuracy of formerly identified or gait events from a single IMU attached to the lower trunk was explored. The study’s analysis of the trunk’s vertical and anterior-posterior acceleration pattern (and of their integrands) demonstrates, that a combination of both signals may provide more nuanced information regarding a person’s gait cycle, ultimately permitting more clinically relevant gait features to be extracted. Going one step further, a modified step length algorithm based on a pendulum model of the swing leg was proposed. By incorporating the trunk’s anterior-posterior displacement, more accurate predictions of mean step length can be made in healthy subjects at self-selected walking speeds. Experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm estimates step length with errors less than 3% (mean error of 0.80 ± 2.01cm). The performance of this algorithm, however, still needs to be verified for those suffering from gait disturbances. Having established a referential framework for the extraction of temporal gait parameters as well as an algorithm for step length estimations from one instrument attached to the lower trunk, the fourth and final study explored the inertial-sensing capabilities of an iPod Touch. With the help of Dr. Ian Sheret and Oxford Brookes’ spin-off company ‘Wildknowledge’, a smart application for the iPod Touch was developed. The study results demonstrate that the proposed inertial-sensing method can reliably derive lower trunk vertical displacement (intraclass correlations ranging from .80 to .96) with similar agreement measurement levels to those gathered by a conventional inertial sensor (small systematic error of 2.2mm and a typical error of 3mm). By incorporating the aforementioned methods, an iPod Touch can potentially serve as a novel ambulatory monitor system capable of assessing gait in clinical and non-clinical environments

Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering

computer software maintenance; computer software selection and evaluation; formal logic; formal methods; formal specification; programming languages; semantics; software engineering; specifications; verificatio

NASA Tech Briefs, November 1993

Topics covered: Advanced Manufacturing; Electronic Components and Circuits; Electronic Systems; Physical Sciences; Materials; Computer Programs; Mechanics; Machinery; Fabrication Technology; Mathematics and Information Sciences; Life Sciences