The Relationship of the Facial Nerve to the Condylar Process: A Cadaveric Study with Implications for Open Reduction Internal Fixation

Introduction. The mandibular condyle is the most common site of mandibular fracture. Surgical treatment of condylar fractures by open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) demands direct visualization of the fracture. This project aimed to investigate the anatomic relationship of the tragus to the facial nerve and condylar process. Materials and Methods. Twelve fresh hemicadavers heads were used. An extended retromandibular/preauricular approach was utilized, with the incision being based parallel to the posterior edge of the ramus. Measurements were obtained from the tragus to the facial nerve and condylar process. Results. The temporozygomatic division of the facial nerve was encountered during each approach, crossing the mandible at the condylar neck. The mean tissue depth separating the facial nerve from the condylar neck was 5.5 mm (range: 3.5 mm–7 mm, SD 1.2 mm). The upper division of the facial nerve crossed the posterior border of the condylar process on average 2.31 cm (SD 0.10 cm) anterior to the tragus. Conclusions. This study suggests that the temporozygomatic division of the facial nerve will be encountered in most approaches to the condylar process. As visualization of the relationship of the facial nerve to condyle is often limited, recognition that, on average, 5.5 mm of tissue separates condylar process from nerve should help reduce the incidence of facial nerve injury during this procedure

From the web of data to a world of action

This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web 8.4 (2010): 10.1016/j.websem.2010.04.007This paper takes as its premise that the web is a place of action, not just information, and that the purpose of global data is to serve human needs. The paper presents several component technologies, which together work towards a vision where many small micro-applications can be threaded together using automated assistance to enable a unified and rich interaction. These technologies include data detector technology to enable any text to become a start point of semantic interaction; annotations for web-based services so that they can link data to potential actions; spreading activation over personal ontologies, to allow modelling of context; algorithms for automatically inferring 'typing' of web-form input data based on previous user inputs; and early work on inferring task structures from action traces. Some of these have already been integrated within an experimental web-based (extended) bookmarking tool, Snip!t, and a prototype desktop application On Time, and the paper discusses how the components could be more fully, yet more openly, linked in terms of both architecture and interaction. As well as contributing to the goal of an action and activity-focused web, the work also exposes a number of broader issues, theoretical, practical, social and economic, for the Semantic Web.Parts of this work were supported by the Information Society Technologies (IST) Program of the European Commission as part of the DELOS Network of Excellence on Digital Libraries (Contract G038- 507618). Thanks also to Emanuele Tracanna, Marco Piva, and Raffaele Giuliano for their work on On Time

The On-TIME User InterfaceInformation Systems: People, Organizations, Institutions, and Technologies

This demonstration concerns the visual user interface of the On-TIME system, a task-centered information management system, whose aim is to actively participate to and support the user tasks. The design of a user friendly interface is one of the key challenges that needs to be addressed for the success of On-TIME. Being On-TIME based on the use of a so-called Personal Ontology to provide a semantic account to user’s personal data, the interface has to allow the user to easily browse the ontology. On the other hand, it has to address the management of tasks. This requires to both suggest tasks that the user might be willing to perform, and to support her while executing tasks. We present a typical user scenario in order to illustrate a possible interaction with the On-TIME interface, and discuss some preliminary user evaluation

Pullulan-ionic liquid-based supercapacitor: A novel, smart combination of components for an easy-to-dispose device

Strategies that simultaneously target energy/power performance, sustainable manufacturing processes, valorization of green raw materials, and easy recycling of supercapacitors are urgently needed. Today, efforts have to be devoted not only to improve system performance but also to address the sustainability of materials and devices manufacturing and recyclability. Specifically, pullulan is herein proposed as a novel bio-degradable binder and separator for green supercapacitors. It is processed by electrospinning from aqueous solutions, therefore overcoming issues related to conventional membrane processing by organic solvents. Furthermore, combining the water-soluble, biodegradable pullulan with a hydrophobic ionic liquid electrolyte brings about a novel approach for end-of-life management of devices. The use of pullulan is demonstrated in a supercapacitor with carbon electrodes obtained from pepper-seeds waste and 1-Ethyl-3-methylimidazoliumbis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide as the electrolyte. The supercapacitor delivers up to 5 kW kg 121 specific power and 27.8 Wh kg 121 specific energy at 3.2 V, that well compare with conventional electrical double-layer capacitor performance with the added value of being eco-friendly and cheap

Functional separators for the batteries of the future

Lithium/sulfur batteries are one of the most promising technologies for the next-generation batteries. However, this technology suffers from several problems mainly related to the instability of metallic lithium and to the polysulfides (PS) shuttle. An approach to address such issues is the design of new separators or the modification of existing commercial ones. The use of hybrid membranes is here proposed to improve the performance of Li metal anode and sulfur cathode. Composite separators are obtained by electrospinning or drop-casting a polymer solution of polyvinylidenefluoride (PVdF) containing graphene oxide (GO) on a polyolefin commercial Celgard 2300 separator. This is the first time that a thin layer of electrospun PVdF/GO composite is applied to a polyolefin separator for the use in Li metal-based batteries. We demonstrate that electrospinning is an effective method to obtain a thin polymer layer of PVdF/GO. The electrospun layer improves the wettability of the separator; it is beneficial to the growth of \u201csoft\u201d dendrite on Li anode and has a positive effect on the PS shuttle process. The casted layer featuring a higher GO content is also effective in increasing the separator wettability, although with a minor effect on Li interphase

From the web of data to a world of action

This paper takes as its premise that the web is a place of action, not just information, and that the purpose of global data is to serve human needs. The paper presents several component technologies, which together work towards a vision where many small micro-applications can be threaded together using automated assistance to enable a unified and rich interaction. These technologies include data detector technology to enable any text to become a start point of semantic interaction; annotations for web-based services so that they can link data to potential actions; spreading activation over personal ontologies, to allow modelling of context; algorithms for automatically inferring 'typing' of web-form input data based on previous user inputs; and early work on inferring task structures from action traces. Some of these have already been integrated within an experimental web-based (extended) bookmarking tool, Snip!t, and a prototype desktop application On Time, and the paper discusses how the components could be more fully, yet more openly, linked in terms of both architecture and interaction. As well as contributing to the goal of an action and activity-focused web, the work also exposes a number of broader issues, theoretical, practical, social and economic, for the Semantic Web. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved