Hemiplegia in Men: A Case Study

Hemiplegia, or paralysis of one side of the body, is caused by injury or illness (for example, a stroke), and leads to other disabilities. People with hemiplegia are limited physically in their daily activities. This limitation affects their social well-being and thus can lead to depression. This paper provides a comprehensive literature review on hemiplegia in men. A single case study of a man with hemiplegia living in Hong Kong is also presented here. A critical discussion of the signs and symptoms of “male-type” depression and humanising attitudes towards men with hemiplegia follows. Critical areas in rehabilitation, social support, and developing partnerships are also highlighted. This paper intends to facilitate better understanding by health and social care providers of the needs of men with hemiplegia. Implications for clinical practice and research are likewise addressed. Further studies using multiple case studies are recommended to ensure a comprehensive understanding of hemiplegia in men

A three-dimensional multidimensional gas-kinetic scheme for the Navier-Stokes equations under gravitational fields

This paper extends the gas-kinetic scheme for one-dimensional inviscid shallow water equations (J. Comput. Phys. 178 (2002), pp. 533-562) to multidimensional gas dynamic equations under gravitational fields. Four important issues in the construction of a well-balanced scheme for gas dynamic equations are addressed. First, the inclusion of the gravitational source term into the flux function is necessary. Second, to achieve second-order accuracy of a well-balanced scheme, the Chapman-Enskog expansion of the Boltzmann equation with the inclusion of the external force term is used. Third, to avoid artificial heating in an isolated system under a gravitational field, the source term treatment inside each cell has to be evaluated consistently with the flux evaluation at the cell interface. Fourth, the multidimensional approach with the inclusion of tangential gradients in two-dimensional and three-dimensional cases becomes important in order to maintain the accuracy of the scheme. Many numerical examples are used to validate the above issues, which include the comparison between the solutions from the current scheme and the Strang splitting method. The methodology developed in this paper can also be applied to other systems, such as semi-conductor device simulations under electric fields.Comment: The name of first author was misspelled as C.T.Tian in the published paper. 35 pages,9 figure

Special issue on Structural Health Monitoring of Civil Structures

Ching-Tai Ng, Tommy H.T. Cha

Understanding General Activity Motivation for Persons with Stroke—A Reversal Theory Perspective

Introduction: Motivation is the barrier identified for clients with stroke to reintegrate community living. Reversal Therapy may help to understand the pattern of bipolar variations of motivational factors. This study analyzed the general activity motivation of clients with stroke and their relationship with community participation and mental wellbeing. Methodology: Sampling of 115 subjects including 30 stroke clients and 85 normal subjects. Measurements included the validated Chinese version of General Activity Motivation Measure (GAMM), Community Integration Questionnaire (CIQ) & Short Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (SWEMWBS). Results: In GAMM, the normal group scores (Mean 50.09 SD 5.79) higher then clients with stroke (Mean 46.09; SD 8.00) (p < 0.05). GAMM correlated positively with CIQ and SWEMWBS (p < 0.05). Four factors identified under GAMM namely Means-end, Relationship, Rules and Transactions that identified with Reversal Theory. Reversals between poles of each domain evidenced between two groups. “Acquiring new experiences” was strong predictor for community integration. Conclusion: Reversal Theory is useful to explain motivational changes among clients with stroke. To develop chances of “new experiences”, “feel accomplishment every day”, “get out of house regularly” and “to do the things that they can enjoy” at “their own pace” are the motivators for reintegrate into community living

Non-linear corrections to inflationary power spectrum

We study non-linear contributions to the power spectrum of the curvature perturbation on super-horizon scales, produced during slow-roll inflation driven by a canonical single scalar field. We find that on large scales the linear power spectrum completely dominates and leading non-linear corrections remain totally negligible, indicating that we can safely rely on linear perturbation theory to study inflationary power spectrum. We also briefly comment on the infrared and ultraviolet behaviour of the non-linear corrections.Comment: (v1) 14 pages, 2 figures; (v2) references added and discussions expanded, including a new version of Figure 2, to appear in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physic

High-Energy Symmetry of Bosonic Open String Theory in the Light-like Linear Dilaton Background

High-energy limits of fixed-angle tree-level stringy scattering amplitudes in the light-like linear dilaton background are calculated. Treating the time component of the gradient of light-like dilaton field (V_0) as a moduli parameter, we show that: (1) there exists a new fixed-point (V_0/E \to \infty) in the moduli space of the bosonic open string theory, where a new high-energy symmetry among scattering amplitudes can be identified, (2) this new symmetry can be interpreted as a deformation of the flat-space high-energy symmetry, as proposed by D. Gross. Hence, our results give a concrete illustration about the relation between high-energy stringy symmetry and the background independent formulation of string theory.Comment: 42pages, 3figures, 5tables, typos corrected, commments and reference added

Amplification of evanescent waves in a lossy left-handed material slab

We carry out finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations, with a specially-designed boundary condition, on pure evanescent waves interacting with a lossy left-handed material (LHM) slab. Our results provide the first full-wave numerical evidence for the amplification of evanescent waves inside a LHM slab of finite absorption. The amplification is due to the interactions between the evanescent waves and the coupled surface polaritons at the two surfaces of the LHM slab and the physical process can be described by a simple model.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Optical response of metal nanoparticle chains

We study the optical responses of metal nanoparticle chains. Multiple scattering calculations are used to study the extinction cross sections of silver nanosphere chains of finite length embedded in a glass matrix. The transmission and reflection coefficients of periodic 2D arrays of silver nanospheres are also calculated to understand the interaction between nanoparticle chains. The results are in agreement with recent experiments. The splitting of plasmon-resonance modes for different polarizations of the incident light are explored. Results on the effect of disorder are also presented.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure

Integration of molecular biology tools for identifying promoters and genes abundantly expressed in flowers of Oncidium Gower Ramsey

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Orchids comprise one of the largest families of flowering plants and generate commercially important flowers. However, model plants, such as <it>Arabidopsis thaliana </it>do not contain all plant genes, and agronomic and horticulturally important genera and species must be individually studied.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Several molecular biology tools were used to isolate flower-specific gene promoters from <it>Oncidium </it>'Gower Ramsey' (<it>Onc</it>. GR). A cDNA library of reproductive tissues was used to construct a microarray in order to compare gene expression in flowers and leaves. Five genes were highly expressed in flower tissues, and the subcellular locations of the corresponding proteins were identified using lip transient transformation with fluorescent protein-fusion constructs. BAC clones of the 5 genes, together with 7 previously published flower- and reproductive growth-specific genes in <it>Onc</it>. GR, were identified for cloning of their promoter regions. Interestingly, 3 of the 5 novel flower-abundant genes were putative trypsin inhibitor (<it>TI</it>) genes (<it>OnTI1</it>, <it>OnTI2 </it>and <it>OnTI3</it>), which were tandemly duplicated in the same BAC clone. Their promoters were identified using transient GUS reporter gene transformation and stable <it>A. thaliana </it>transformation analyses.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>By combining cDNA microarray, BAC library, and bombardment assay techniques, we successfully identified flower-directed orchid genes and promoters.</p