Adapting participatory and agile software methods to participatory rural development

This paper presents observations from a project that combines participatory rural development methods with participatory design techniques to support a farmers’ co-operative in Madhya Pradesh, India</p

Reducing gastrointestinal anastomotic leak rates: Review of challenges and solutions

Various techniques and interventions have been developed in an effort to obviate gastrointestinal anastomotic leaks. This review is intended to delineate potential modifications that can be made to reduce the risk of anastomotic leaks following gastrointestinal surgery. It may also serve to aid in identifying patients who are at increased risk of anastomotic leak. Modifiable risk factors for leak discussed include malnutrition, smoking, steroid use, bowel preparation, chemotherapy, duration of surgery, use of pressors, intravenous fluid administration, blood transfusion, and surgical anastomotic technique. Based upon literature review, operative techniques should include minimizing operative time, reducing ischemia, and utilizing stapled anastomoses. Buttressing of anastomoses with omentum has proven utility for esophageal surgery. Further recommendations include 5-7 days of immune-modifying nutritional supplementation for malnourished patients, discontinuation of smoking in the perioperative period, limiting steroid use, utilization of oral antibiotic preparation for colorectal surgery, avoidance of early operations (,4 weeks) following chemotherapy, limiting pressor use, and the utilization of goal-directed fluid management. © 2016 Phillips

Diversity of Safety Arguments in the Validation of a Sounding Rocket Destruction System

This work describes an approach for the validation of a software system responsible for the destruction of the sounding rocket VS-40X. The process of validation uses three different techniques ranging from the automatic state exploration to the laborious failure analysis. The purpose of the exercise was to obtain diverse arguments in the provision of evidence that the safety properties of the sounding rocket destruction system are always maintained. The software system is modeled using a co-operative architecture, which contains abstractions for modeling and analyzing the interactions between components. The safety analysis is performed using model checking, a technique that exhaustedly explores the state space to determine whether the system satisfies a safety property. The combination of co-operative architectures and model checking has shown effective when modeling and analyzing the interactive behavior between components. However, caution must be taken over the (false) confidence that can be obtained when employing solely model checking for the safety analysis. In order to compensate this deficiency we have to seek diverse sources of evidence to build trustworthy arguments about the safety of the system. The model checking was substantiated using laborious deductive and inductive analysis techniques

Scintigraphic assessment of bone status at one year following hip resurfacing : comparison of two surgical approaches using SPECT-CT scan

Objectives: To study the vascularity and bone metabolism of the femoral head/neck following hip resurfacing arthroplasty, and to use these results to compare the posterior and the trochanteric-flip approaches. Methods: In our previous work, we reported changes to intra-operative blood flow during hip resurfacing arthroplasty comparing two surgical approaches. In this study, we report the vascularity and the metabolic bone function in the proximal femur in these same patients at one year after the surgery. Vascularity and bone function was assessed using scintigraphic techniques. Of the 13 patients who agreed to take part, eight had their arthroplasty through a posterior approach and five through a trochanteric-flip approach. Results: One year after surgery, we found no difference in the vascularity (vascular phase) and metabolic bone function (delayed phase) at the junction of the femoral head/neck between the two groups of patients. Higher radiopharmaceutical uptake was found in the region of the greater trochanter in the trochanteric-flip group, related to the healing osteotomy. Conclusions: Our findings using scintigraphic techniques suggest that the greater intra-operative reduction in blood flow to the junction of the femoral head/neck, which is seen with the posterior approach compared with trochanteric flip, does not result in any difference in vascularity or metabolic bone function one year after surgery

Operative and Nonoperative Management of Blunt Liver Injuries

Purpose of Review The purpose of this review is to discuss the indications for operative and nonoperative management in patients with blunt liver injuries. Recent Findings Over the past several years, research has begun to show that nonoperative management in blunt liver injuries is feasible and has favorable outcomes over immediate operations in patients who are hemodynamically stable. This includes high-grade injuries who were previously taken to the operating room, in the absence of peritoneal signs or instability, for washout and packing. This trend in management is likely multifactorial and includes improved quality of critical care medicine, advances in imaging to accurately define the injury and trend changes, and other interventional techniques such as embolization, percutaneous drainage and endoscopy. The mainstay of treatment for hemodynamically unstable patients remains operative. Summary This article will provide current recommendations for operative and nonoperative management strategies in patients with blunt liver injuries, taking into account initial clinical picture and resources available

Deformation-based Augmented Reality for Hepatic Surgery

International audienceIn this paper we introduce a method for augmenting the laparoscopic view during hepatic tumor resection. Using augmented reality techniques, vessels, tumors and cutting planes computed from pre-operative data can be overlaid onto the laparoscopic video. Compared to current techniques, which are limited to a rigid registration of the pre-operative liver anatomy with the intra-operative image, we propose a real-time, physics-based, non-rigid registration. The main strength of our approach is that the deformable model can also be used to regularize the data extracted from the computer vision algorithms. We show preliminary results on a video sequence which clearly highlights the interest of using physics-based model for elastic registration

Correlation of pre-operative cancer imaging techniques with post-operative gross and microscopic pathology images

In this paper, different algorithms for volume reconstruction from tomographic cross-sectional pathology slices are described and tested. A tissue-mimicking phantom made with a mixture of agar and aluminium oxide was sliced at different thickness as per pathological standard guidelines. Phantom model was also virtually sliced and reconstructed in software. Results showed that shape-based spline interpolation method was the most precise, but generated a volume underestimation of 0.5%

Statistical mechanics and stability of a model eco-system

We study a model ecosystem by means of dynamical techniques from disordered systems theory. The model describes a set of species subject to competitive interactions through a background of resources, which they feed upon. Additionally direct competitive or co-operative interaction between species may occur through a random coupling matrix. We compute the order parameters of the system in a fixed point regime, and identify the onset of instability and compute the phase diagram. We focus on the effects of variability of resources, direct interaction between species, co-operation pressure and dilution on the stability and the diversity of the ecosystem. It is shown that resources can be exploited optimally only in absence of co-operation pressure or direct interaction between species.Comment: 23 pages, 13 figures; text of paper modified, discussion extended, references adde

Correlation of pre-operative cancer imaging techniques with post-operative gross and microscopic pathology images

In this paper, different algorithms for volume reconstruction from tomographic cross-sectional pathology slices are described and tested. A tissue-mimicking phantom made with a mixture of agar and aluminium oxide was sliced at different thickness as per pathological standard guidelines. Phantom model was also virtually sliced and reconstructed in software. Results showed that shape-based spline interpolation method was the most precise, but generated a volume underestimation of 0.5%