Annual Survey of Virginia Law: Workers\u27 Compensation

This article addresses the most significant developments in the law of workers\u27 compensation since September 1997. The areas discussed consist of the following: (1) injury by accident claims; (2) occupational disease claims; (3) benefits and coverage under the Workers\u27 Compensation Act; (4) panels of physicians; and (5) 1998 legislative changes affecting workers\u27 compensation. Emphasis has been placed on the most important developments in this area of law with respect to decisions of the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Virginia Court of Appeals, as well as new legislation

Does Ivabradine Improve Quality of Life in Cardiovascular Disease Patients?

Objective: The objective of this review is to determine whether ivabradine therapy can improve the quality of life in cardiovascular disease patients. Study Design: The studies included in this review are one randomized control study and two double blind randomized control studies from 2008, 2010, and 2012. Data Source: The three studies in this review were obtained by performing a PubMed search using the keywords “ivabradine” and random control trial.” All articles were published in English and in peer-reviewed journals. Outcomes Measured: The three studies ascertained whether there was a decrease in hospitalization events within coronary artery disease and heart failure patients, if there was a subjective increase in the quality of life in heart failure patients, and whether there was an improvement in NYHA heart failure classification after ivabradine treatment. Results: Patients with a resting heart rate of 70 beats per minute or greater who were treated with ivabradine demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in hospital admissions for myocardial infarctions (HR=0.64; 95% CI 0.49–0.84; p=0.001). This is a 36% reduction in myocardial infarctions. Heart failure patients treated with ivabradine were found to have a significantly lower risk of suffering a hospitalization event for worsening heart failure than the placebo group (HR=0.75; 95% CI 0.65-0.87; p Conclusions: Based on the systematic reviews of the three randomized controlled trials, one can conclusively say that Corlanor (ivabradine) can improve the quality of life in cardiovascular disease patients. All three studies demonstrated statistically significant changes compared to control/placebo groups. These studies also demonstrate that ivabradine is efficacious and is well tolerated in terms of being safe for human use

Annual Survey of Virginia Law: Workers\u27 Compensation

This article addresses recent developments in the law ofworkers\u27 compensation, as reflected in decisions of the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Virginia Court of Appeals, and through new legislation. Areas discussed include (1) injury by accident claims; (2) occupational disease claims; (3) benefits and coverage under the Workers\u27 Compensation Act; and (4) 1999 legislative changes affecting workers\u27 compensation

Annual Survey of Virginia Law: Workers\u27 Compensation

There have been significant developments in the law of workers\u27 compensation since 1995, when the Annual Survey of Virginia Law last included this topic. The past two years have seen many changes in Virginia workers\u27 compensation through legislation by the General Assembly and by Virginia appellate court decisions. This article focuses on some of the most significant developments with respect to (I) occupational disease claims, (II) injury by accident claims, (III) benefits and coverage under the Workers\u27 Compensation Act, (IV) third party claims, (V) the termination of wage benefits, and (VI) new legislation affecting workers\u27 compensation

Conflicts and triage

To represent diverse interests successfully, a strategy for dealing with conflicts is needed. We discuss an approach to maximizing the interests of the greatest number of individuals, present and future

Innovative, yes: But is it rewilding?

Baker & Winkler’s extremely stimulating proposal clearly illustrates conflicting priorities in biodiversity conservation and management that are exacerbated when human cultural resources and animal welfare are a part of the solution. We suggest that the discussion can benefit from an even more explicit unpacking of the conflicting values associated with the proposal

A Self-Exciting Controller for High-Speed Vertical Running

Traditional legged runners and climbers have relied heavily on gait generators in the form of internal clocks or reference trajectories. In contrast, here we present physical experiments with a fast, dynamical, vertical wall climbing robot accompanying a stability proof for the controller that generates it without any need for an additional internal clock or reference signal. Specifically, we show that this “self-exciting” controller does indeed generate an “almost” globally asymptotically stable limit cycle: the attractor basin is as large as topologically possible and includes all the state space excluding a set with empty interior. We offer an empirical comparison of the resulting climbing behavior to that achieved by a more conventional clock-generated gait trajectory tracker. The new, self-exciting gait generator exhibits a marked improvement in vertical climbing speed, in fact setting a new benchmark in dynamic climbing by achieving a vertical speed of 1.5 body lengths per second. For more information: Kod*La

Sprawl Angle in Simplified Models of Vertical Climbing: Implications for Robots and Roaches

Empirical data taken from fast climbing sprawled posture animals reveals the presence of strong lateral forces with significant pendulous swaying of the mass center trajectory in a manner captured by a recently proposed dynamical template. In this simulation study we explore the potential benefits of pendulous dynamical climbing in animals and in robots by examining the stability and power advantages of variously more and less sprawled limb morphologies when driven by conventional motors in contrast with animal-like muscles. For open loop models of gait generation inspired by the neural-deprived regimes of high stride-frequency animal climbing, our results corroborate earlier hypotheses that sprawled posture may be required for stability. For quadratic-in- velocity power output actuation models typical of commercially available electromechanical actuators, our results suggest the new hypothesis that sprawled posture may confer significant energetic advantage. In notable contrast, muscle-powered climbers do not experience an energetic benefit from sprawled posture due to their sufficiently distinct actuator characteristics and operating regimes. These results suggest that the potentially significant benefits of sprawled posture climbing may be distinctly different depending upon the details of the climber\u27s sensorimotor endowment. They offer a cautionary instance against mere copying of biology by engineers or rote study of physical models by biologists through this reminder of how even simple questions addressed by simple models can yield nuanced answers that only begin to hint at the complexity of biological designs and behaviors

Motor Sizing for Legged Robots Using Dynamic Task Specification

We explore an approach to incorporating task and motor thermal dynamics in the selection of actuators for legged robots, using both analytical and simulation methods. We develop a motor model with a thermal component and apply it to a vertical climbing task; in the process, we optimally choose gear ratio and therefore eliminate it as a design parameter. This approach permits an analytical proof that continuous operation yields superior thermal performance to intermittent operation. We compare the results of motor sizing using our proposed method with more conventional techniques such as using the continuously permissible current specification. Our simulations are run across a database of commercially available motors, and we envision that our results might be of immediate use to robot designers for motor as well as gearbox selection

Bis(2-thien­yl)acetyl­ene

The planar [maximum deviation 0.0066 (4) Å] symmetrical mol­ecule of the title compound, C10H6S2, lies across a crystallographic inversion centre. The thio­phene rings are rotationally disordered about the acetyl­ene bond, with the two pseudo inversion-related S atoms in 0.80:0.20 occupancy sites. The C C bond distance is 1.195 (9) Å