Proximal femoral focal deficiency : a case report

Proximal Femoral Focal Deficiency (PFFD) is a rare and complex congenital anomaly (1:50,000-200,000 population) that results in varying degrees of femoral hypoplasia with limb shortening and pelvic abnormalities. It may be present bilaterally in association with other malformations/deficiencies of the lower limbs, and the upper limbs may also be involved. Other anomalies may also be present such as cleft palate, congenital heart defects, and spinal anomalies. The aetiology is unknown. We present a case of PFFD who was born locally.peer-reviewe

Exploring Existing 3d Reconstruction Tools for the Generation of 3d City Models at Various Lod From a Single Data Source

Abstract. The use of three-dimensional (3D) city models has increased in a wide range of applications beyond visualisation. However, generation and maintenance of 3D data comes at a high cost, time, and workload. The purpose of the generalisation where coarser versions are obtained from a source data is of great interest for National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies (NMCA), which would benefit obtaining multiple 3D versions of an area from a single source. The main aim of the exploration presented in this paper is to study the potential of downsizing point clouds as an approach to generate 3D city models at multiple levels of detail from a single source and evaluate the steps required to ensure the output is fit for real world applications from an NMCA context. While interesting results are obtained when testing with sample data, no software managed to semi-automatically reconstruct 3D model for buildings of rather complicated geometry

Can registration procedures of pharmaceuticals inadvertently contribute to off-label prescribing in children?

Background: In Malta, off-label prescribing of medicines in children stands at 45%, mainly because of failure by prescribers to follow the dosing recommendations in the product literature. In addition, registration procedures of pharmaceuticals may inadvertently contribute to this high incidence of off-label prescribing. Methods: A literature review was conducted to identify regulatory provisions relating to the registration of medicines in Malta that could give rise to off-label use. Furthermore, the product literature of the 2 classes of medicines most commonly prescribed in children, antibiotics and respiratory medicines, were reviewed. This was done in order to gauge whether the different registration routes implemented in Malta to market these medicines could give rise to off-label use. Results: The national registration procedure relating to Article 126a of Directive 2001/83/EC and, to a lesser extent, line extensions, parallel importation, and the provision detailed in Article 11 of Directive 2001/83/EC were found to lead to discrepancies and potentially misleading inclusions in the product literature. These, in turn, may well contribute to off-label use of medicines in children. Conclusions: Off-label prescribing does not necessarily mean that efficacy and safety data are unavailable. Variances in the product literature of medicines having the same active ingredients but imported from different countries may cause divergent prescribing practices, leading to inadvertent off-label use. The various stakeholders, including member states such as Malta, should devise strategies to harmonize the most recent labeling information in order to support the safe and effective use of pediatric medicines, thereby decreasing off-label usepeer-reviewe

Diagnosis and outcome of oesophageal Crohn's disease

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Crohn's disease (CD) can involve any part of the gastrointestinal tract. We aimed to characterize clinical, endoscopic, histologic features and treatment outcomes of CD patients with oesophageal involvement. METHODS: We collected cases through a retrospective multicentre European Crohn's and Colitis Organisation CONFER [COllaborative Network For Exceptionally Rare case reports] project. Clinical data were recorded in a standardized case report form. RESULTS: A total of 40 patients were reported [22 males, mean (±SD, range) age at oesophageal CD diagnosis: 25 (±13.3, 10-71) years and mean time of follow-up: 67 (±68.1, 3-240) months]. Oesophageal involvement was established at CD diagnosis in 26 patients (65%) and during follow-up in 14. CD was exclusively located in the oesophagus in 2 patients. Thirteen patients (32.2%) were asymptomatic at oesophageal disease diagnosis. Oesophageal strictures were present in 5 patients and fistulizing oesophageal disease in one. Eight patients exhibited granulomas on biopsies. Proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) were administered in 37 patients (92.5%). Three patients underwent endoscopic dilation for symptomatic strictures and none oesophageal-related surgery. Diagnosis in pre-established CD resulted in treatment modifications in 9/14 patients. Clinical remission of oesophageal disease was seen in 33/40 patients (82.5%) after a mean time of 7 (±5.6, 1-18) months. Follow-up endoscopy was performed in 29/40 patients and 26/29 (89.7%) achieved mucosal healing. CONCLUSION: In this case series the endoscopic and histologic characteristics of isolated oesophageal CD were similar to those reported in other sites of involvement. Treatment was primarily conservative, with PPIs administered in the majority of patients and modifications in pre-existing IBD-related therapy occurring in two thirds of them. Clinical and endoscopic remission was achieved in more than 80% of the patients.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How can new technologies help us with earthquake reconnaissance?

Earthquake reconnaissance missions have been very successful in identifying the specific causes of failure for individual buildings and the deficiencies in building codes or local construction practices that have led to these; however, their ability to capture robust statistics on patterns of failure is usually beyond their scope. Furthermore, the success of these endeavours in establishing poor construction designs and practices, means that if we are to continue to learn new lessons we will need to gain fresh insights using new data streams. Recent technological advances have the ability to enable us to both increase the amount of data collected and to improve on the precision of these measurements. Furthermore, social media has the potential to provide entirely new data streams and to significantly add value to collected data by harnessing an army of data manipulators and interpreters. Howto do this in a reliable way however, is the subject of much debate. In this paper, we explore the potential for a number of trialled and potential technologies to collect better and new information in earthquake reconnaissance, including virtual damage surveying - where results from damage surveys completed in the field, are compared to omnidirectional images collected during the mission and interpreted by a virtual surveyor based in the UK, data collected through aerial images taken by UAVs and 3D models created from a series of drone or other images. Finally, we describe the potential of social media such as Twitter to collect data streams on damage and other impacts. Examples of impact data such as road closures, landslips and infrastructure service failures collected for flooding and landslide will be presented to show the potential of this technology for earthquakes

Investigating Interoperability Capabilities Between IFC and Citygml LOD 4 – Retaining Semantic Information

Applications of 3D City Models range from assessing the potential output of solar panels across a city to determining the best location for 5G mobile phone masts. While in the past these models were not readily available, the rapid increase of available data from sources such as Open Data (e.g. OpenStreetMap), National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies and increasingly Building Information Models facilitates the implementation of increasingly detailed 3D Models. However, these sources also generate integration challenges relating to heterogeneity, storage and efficient management and visualization. CityGML and IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) are two standards that serve different application domains (GIS and BIM) and are commonly used to store and share 3D information. The ability to convert data from IFC to CityGML in a consistent manner could generate 3D City Models able to represent an entire city, but that also include detailed geometric and semantic information regarding its elements. However, CityGML and IFC present major differences in their schemas, rendering interoperability a challenging task, particularly when details of a building’s internal structure are considered (Level of Detail 4 in CityGML). The aim of this paper is to investigate interoperability options between the aforementioned standards, by converting IFC models to CityGML LoD 4 Models. The CityGML Models are then semantically enriched and the proposed methodology is assessed in terms of model’s geometric validity and capability to preserve semantics

EuroSDR GeoBIM project a study in Europe on how to use the potentials of BIM and GEO data in practice

In both the Geo and BIM domains, it is widely acknowledged that the integration of geo-data and BIM-data is beneficial and a crucial step in facing the multi-disciplinary challenges of our built environment. The result of this integration - broadly termed as GeoBIM - has a range of potential uses from district study to road safety. However, from the data perspective, this integration raises the question of how to integrate very detailed design and construction data from the BIM domain with contextual geospatial data (both 2D and 3D) that model a very diverse range of aspects of the wider built and natural environment. This paper reports work carried out during the second phase of the EuroSDR GeoBIM project, which sets out to understand the general status of GeoBIM across Europe with particular focus from a National Mapping and Cadastral Agency perspective. The first phase of the project reviewed the current status of GeoBIM in participating countries and identified the need for specific detailed use cases to overcome both the lack of awareness and the lack of understanding of the potential of GeoBIM. We present both an update on the current status of GeoBIM, and additional details of one of the selected use cases relating to planning/development permits. For the latter, we have been able to develop a detailed workflow highlighting specific data exchange points within the process to issue a development permit, allowing a more in-depth identification of both the roles and data needs at each stage

Testing the Impact of 2D Generalisation on 3D Models – Exploring Analysis Options With an Off-the-shelf Software Package

Popularity and diverse use of 3D city models has increased exponentially in the past few years, providing a more realistic impression and understanding of cities. Often, 3D city models are created by elevating the buildings from a detailed 2D topographic base map and subsequently used in studies such as solar panel allocation, infrastructure remodelling, antenna installations or even tourist guide applications. However, the large amount of resulting data slows down rendering and visualisation of the 3D models, and can also impact the performance of any analysis. Generalisation enables a reduction in the amount of data – however the addition of the third dimension makes this process more complex, and the loss of detail resulting from the process will inevitably have an impact on the result of any subsequent analysis. While a few 3D generalization algorithms do exist in a research context, these are not available commercially. However, GIS users can create the generalised 3D models by simplifying and aggregating the 2D dataset first and then extruding it to the third dimension. This approach offers a rapid generalization process to create a dataset to underpin the impact of using generalised data for analysis. Specifically, in this study, the line of sight from a tall building and the sun shadow that it creates are calculated and compared, in both original and generalised datasets. The results obtained after the generalisation process are significant: both the number of polygons and the number of nodes are minimized by around 83% and the volume of 3D buildings is reduced by 14.87%. As expected, the spatial analyses processing times are also reduced. The study demonstrates the impact of generalisation on analytical results – which is particularly relevant in situations where detailed data is not available and will help to guide the development of future 3D generalisation algorithms. It also highlights some issues with the overall maturity of 3D analysis tools, which could be one factor limiting uptake of 3D GIS

3D Generalisation of Building Components – An Initial Proof of Concept

A varied range of applications make use of 3D models nowadays, for instance in urban planning, energy demand studies, solar irradiation, or noise estimation. Acquisition, maintenance, and production of 3D spatial data is costly and laborious, especially at a national level, a great challenge for National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies (NMCAs) – such as Ordnance Survey (OS) for Great Britain. Generalisation is designed to address this challenge, where new datasets are created from a single source by the selection of the desired information and reduction of the amount of detail and data volume. Extensive literature exists in the context of 2D generalisation and automated algorithms exist to remove unwanted detail, however, adding a third dimension complicates the process significantly. Here, a methodology to address this issue is proposed, where the façades of a 3D building are decomposed, rotated, and translated from 3D environment to 2D. Existing automated 2D generalisation operators are applied to building elements and once generalised, they are rotated back to 3D. The outer shell of the resulting generalised 3D building is reconstructed with the independently generalised façade. The results demonstrate a potential flexible, component-based method for 3D generalisation, that could benefit NMCAs