Pedometer Accuracy in Lower Limb Amputees: A Pilot Study

To date there have been no studies examining the accuracy of the pedometer on lower limb amputees. PURPOSE: To measure the accuracy of pedometers in lower limb amputees. METHODS: Four participants (Table 1) had their height and weights measured and were then fitted with a Velcro Walk4Life™ pedometer belt (Walk4Life Inc, Plainfield, IL) around the waistline at the hip. They were then fitted with two pedometers: a SW-701 Digiwalker™ (NEW-LIFESTYLES, Inc., Lee\u27s Summit, MO) spring-levered pedometer on the anterior mid-line of the right hip and a New-Lifestyles® NL-800 (NEW-LIFESTYLES, Inc., Lee\u27s Summit, MO) piezoelectric pedometer just laterally to the SW-701. They then engaged in three walking trials, two on the treadmill at a slower and faster tolerable walking speed for three minutes each, and one over ground for 200m at a self-selected pace. At the end of each trial pedometer counts and actual step counts from a hand tally were recorded. Pedometer error was calculated as [((pedometer steps-actual steps)/actual steps) * 100]. RESULTS: Error was highest in the SW during the slowest walking speeds (14.5 % and 14.6% lower than actual counts in two participants) and was lowest in the NL at the higher walking speeds (3.7% and no error in two participants) during the treadmill trials. Ground walking trials produced least error in all subjects (~1.5%). Subject four was not able to walk at speeds above 2. 5 mph and thus walked on the treadmill at 1.0 and 1.5 mph. Participant two was not able to walk on the treadmill at 3 mph and rain kept participant four from performing the ground-walking trial. CONCLUSION: This pilot study suggests the potential of the pedometer in accurately counting steps in lower limb amputees. There is clearly some discrepancy in those who cannot walk at faster speeds, as indicated by subject four. Research is continuing to examine if right or left amputation, above or below knee amputation, and if prosthetic type affects the pedometer accuracy

One More Talk About Multiplexing

Author Institution: Mission Support and Test Services, LLCSlides presented at the 2018 Photonic Doppler Velocimetry (PDV) Users Workshop, Drury Plaza Hotel, Santa Fe, New Mexico, May 16-18, 2018

Building Block Approach to Systems

Author Institution: Mission Support and Test Services, LLCSlides presented at the 2018 Photonic Doppler Velocimetry (PDV) Users Workshop, Drury Plaza Hotel, Santa Fe, New Mexico, May 16-18, 2018

Higgs compositeness in Sp(2N) gauge theories — The pure gauge model

As a first step in the study of Sp(2N) composite Higgs models, we obtained aset of novel numerical results for the pure gauge Sp(4) lattice theory in 3+1 space-timedimensions. Results for the continuum extrapolations of the string tension and the glueballmass spectrum are presented and their values are compared with the same quantitiesin neighbouring SU(N) models

Higgs compositeness in Sp(2N) gauge theories – Determining the low-energy constants with lattice calculations

As a first step towards a quantitative understanding of the SU(4)/Sp(4) compositeHiggs model through lattice calculations, we discuss the low energy eective fieldtheory resulting from the SU(4) ! Sp(4) global symmetry breaking pattern. We thenconsider an Sp(4) gauge theory with two Dirac fermion flavours in the fundamental representationon a lattice, which provides a concrete example of the microscopic realisationof the SU(4)/Sp(4) composite Higgs model. For this system, we outline a programmeof numerical simulations aiming at the determination of the low-energy constants of theeective field theory and we test the method on the quenched theory. We also report earlyresults from dynamical simulations, focussing on the phase structure of the lattice theoryand a calculation of the lowest-lying meson spectrum at coarse lattice spacing

Genomic and SNP Analyses Demonstrate a Distant Separation of the Hospital and Community-Associated Clades of Enterococcus faecium

Recent studies have pointed to the existence of two subpopulations of Enterococcus faecium, one containing primarily commensal/community-associated (CA) strains and one that contains most clinical or hospital-associated (HA) strains, including those classified by multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) as belonging to the CC17 group. The HA subpopulation more frequently has IS16, pathogenicity island(s), and plasmids or genes associated with antibiotic resistance, colonization, and/or virulence. Supporting the two clades concept, we previously found a 3–10% difference between four genes from HA-clade strains vs. CA-clade strains, including 5% difference between pbp5-R of ampicillin-resistant, HA strains and pbp5-S of ampicillin-sensitive, CA strains. To further investigate the core genome of these subpopulations, we studied 100 genes from 21 E. faecium genome sequences; our analyses of concatenated sequences, SNPs, and individual genes all identified two distinct groups. With the concatenated sequence, HA-clade strains differed by 0–1% from one another while CA clade strains differed from each other by 0–1.1%, with 3.5–4.2% difference between the two clades. While many strains had a few genes that grouped in one clade with most of their genes in the other clade, one strain had 28% of its genes in the CA clade and 72% in the HA clade, consistent with the predicted role of recombination in the evolution of E. faecium. Using estimates for Escherichia coli, molecular clock calculations using sSNP analysis indicate that these two clades may have diverged ≥1 million years ago or, using the higher mutation rate for Bacillus anthracis, ∼300,000 years ago. These data confirm the existence of two clades of E. faecium and show that the differences between the HA and CA clades occur at the core genomic level and long preceded the modern antibiotic era

Imaging of acute appendicitis in children: EU versus US ... or US versus CT? A European perspective

There is substantial evidence that imaging may reduce the negative appendectomy rate, also in children. However, controversy exists about the preferred method: US or CT, and the choice appears to be determined by the side of the Atlantic Ocean. This review brings forth several arguments in favour of U

Young Stellar Clusters Containing Massive Young Stellar Objects in the VVV Survey

This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article published in The Astronomical Journal. IOP Publishing is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The Version of Record is available online at: at doi: https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-6256/152/3/74. © 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. IOPScience PublishingThe purpose of this research is to study the connection of global properties of eight young stellar clusters projected in the Vista Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) ESO Large Public Survey disk area and their young stellar object population. The analysis in based on the combination of spectroscopic parallax-based reddening and distance determinations with main sequence and pre-main sequence ishochrone fitting to determine the basic parameters (reddening, age, distance) of the sample clusters. The lower mass limit estimations show that all clusters are low or intermediate mass (between 110 and 1800 Mo), the slope Gamma of the obtained present-day mass functions of the clusters is close to the Kroupa initial mass function. On the other hand, the young stellar objects in the surrounding cluster's fields are classified by low resolution spectra, spectral energy distribution fit with theoretical predictions, and variability, taking advantage of multi-epoch VVV observations. All spectroscopically confirmed young stellar objects (except one) are found to be massive (more than 8 Mo). Using VVV and GLIMPSE color-color cuts we have selected a large number of new young stellar object candidates, which are checked for variability and 57% are found to show at least low-amplitude variations. In few cases it was possible to distinguish between YSO and AGB classification on the basis of the light curves.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

New Emigration and Portuguese Society: Transnationalism and Return

This chapter addresses the theme of transnationalism and return in recent Portuguese emigration, namely the flows that occurred after the turn of the century. It starts with a brief theoretical overview on those topics, which constitute two relatively neglected characteristics of Portuguese emigration. Next, based on a survey carried out in 2014–2015 to more than 6000 recent emigrants, it reveals some of the links that they maintain with their home country, as well as their plans for the future, which include settlement in the destination country, return and re-emigration. Lastly, it examines data on returning emigrants – especially those that returned between 2001 and 2011 – extracted from the 2011 Census. The evidence reveals a significant number of returns, including individuals at both working and retirement ages and at all skill levels, thus exposing the unexpected complexity of movements. The results are based on the research project “Back to the future: new emigration and links with Portuguese society” (REMIGR), which aimed to ascertain the extent and characteristics of the new emigration wave. The project included an overview of emigration and return to and from all regions of the world, as well as case studies in UK, France, Luxembourg, Angola, Mozambique and Brazil.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio