The Use of Physiotherapy among Patients with Subacromial Impingement Syndrome:Impact of Sex, Socio-Demographic and Clinical Factors

Physiotherapy with exercises is generally recommended in the treatment of patients with subacromial impingement syndrome (SIS).We aimed to investigate the use of physiotherapy in patients with SIS in Danish hospital settings as part of initial non-surgical treatment and after SIS-related surgery and to evaluate to which extent sex, socio-demographic and clinical factors predict the use of physiotherapy.Using national health registers, we identified 57,311 patients who had a first hospital contact with a diagnosis of ICD-10, groups M75.1-75.9, 1 July 2007 to 30 June 2011. Records of physiotherapy were extracted within 52 weeks after first contact (or until surgery), and for surgically treated patients within 26 weeks after surgery. Predictors of the use of physiotherapy after first contact and after surgery were analysed as time-to-event.Within 52 weeks after first contact, 43% of the patients had physiotherapy and 30% underwent surgery. Within 26 weeks after surgery, 80% had a record of physiotherapy. After first contact and after surgery, exercise was part of physiotherapy in 65% and 84% of the patients, respectively. A public hospital contact, physiotherapy before hospital contact, administrative region, female sex, a diagnosis of other or unspecified disorders (M75.8-M75.9), and surgical procedure predicted higher use of physiotherapy. Low education level predicted slightly lower use of physiotherapy after first contact, but not after surgery.In patients with SIS in Danish hospital settings, physiotherapy was more often used after surgery than as part of initial non-surgical treatment. The use of physiotherapy was less common among men than women, whereas unequal use of physiotherapy in relation to education level was not noticeable. The use of physiotherapy with exercises in initial non-surgical treatment was relatively limited

Work related shoulder disorders: quantitative exposure-response relations with reference to arm posture

To determine quantitative exposure-response relations between work with highly elevated arms and supraspinatus tendinitis, shoulder pain with disability, and shoulder pain without disability

Health Care Delivery Practices in Huntington's Disease Specialty Clinics : An International Survey

The CHDI Foundation, Inc. funds Enroll-HD and the activities of the Enroll-HD Care Improvement Committee, including the present survey. We would like to acknowledge the Enroll-HD and REGISTRY administrative staff that assisted in the recruitment of sites and sites that completed the survey.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Beam - Column Connections Subjected to Static and Dynamic Loading

Bolted beam-column connections are commonly used in office buildings and off-shore platforms in Norway. The use of pre-fabricated components in frame structures is popular due to the cost effective and quick erection of buildings, where engineered members can be manufactured with great accuracy in a controlled environment.In recent years, an increased awareness has been on the reliability of these connections in an extreme event, such as the loss of a load bearing column in a terrorist attack.A lack of study on bolted connections has been revealed, and a number of experimental programs have been initiated.The ability to transfer the forces through the joint is key to maintain the structural integrity and prevent a progressive collapse in a column removal scenario. In addition, sudden dynamic loading may cause a shift in the response behavior which is not captured by common design methods, which is often based on static conditions.Therefore, a test program was initiated to investigate the behavior of a bolted connection under rapid, non-cyclic loading in a column removal scenario. Full-scale experimental tests of a beam-column assembly were conducted under quasi-static and dynamic loading conditions.Simplified methods given in European design standards (Eurocode) as well as advanced numerical analyses were performed and compared directly to the experimental findings. The goal was to reveal possible implications on design of joints to extreme loads to improve the safety of structures.The experimental tests revealed that the assembly failed in flexure, typical for moment connections. This was true for both quasi-static and dynamic loading conditions, and was predicted by the simplified design method and the numerical model. However, an overly safe estimate of the capacity was obtained by Eurocode's design method.Furthermore, rapid loading caused a shift in the response characteristics. The relative impact of shear forces was increased due to inertial resistance in the dynamic simulation. Therefore, further investigations into what type of load regime will cause a change from flexural to shear failure has been proposed for further work

On Reduction of Critical Velocity in a Model of Superfluid Bose-gas with Boundary Interactions

The existence of superfluidity in a 3D Bose-gas can depend on boundary interactions with channel walls. We study a simple model where the dilute moving Bose-gas interacts with the walls via hard-core repulsion. Special boundary excitations are introduced, and their excitation spectrum is calculated within a semiclassical approximation. It turns out that the state of the moving Bose-gas is unstable with respect to the creation of these boundary excitations in the system gas + walls, i.e. the critical velocity vanishes in the semiclassical (Bogoliubov) approximation. We discuss how a condensate wave function, the boundary excitation spectrum and, hence, the value of the critical velocity can change in more realistic models, in which ``smooth'' attractive interaction between the gas and walls is taken into account. Such a surface mode could exist in ``soft matter'' containers with flexible walls.Comment: 9 pages (RevTeX), two figures (.ps) incorporated by epsf. submitted to Phys. Lett.

Changes in temperature and precipitation extremes in the IPCC ensemble of global coupled model simulations

Temperature and precipitation extremes and their potential future changes are evaluated in an ensemble of global coupled climate models participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) diagnostic exercise for the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). Climate extremes are expressed in terms of 20-yr return values of annual extremes of near-surface temperature and 24-h precipitation amounts. The simulated changes in extremes are documented for years 2046–65 and 2081–2100 relative to 1981–2000 in experiments with the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) B1, A1B, and A2 emission scenarios. Overall, the climate models simulate present-day warm extremes reasonably well on the global scale, as compared to estimates from reanalyses. The model discrepancies in simulating cold extremes are generally larger than those for warm extremes, especially in sea ice–covered areas. Simulated present-day precipita-tion extremes are plausible in the extratropics, but uncertainties in extreme precipitation in the Tropics are very large, both in the models and the available observationally based datasets. Changes in warm extremes generally follow changes in the mean summertime temperature. Cold ex-tremes warm faster than warm extremes by about 30%–40%, globally averaged. The excessive warming of cold extremes is generally confined to regions where snow and sea ice retreat with global warming. With th

A Nonlinear Model Predictive Controller for flexible satellite attitude control

Raskere manøvrering av jordobservasjonssatellitter reduserer tidsbruk og øker tiden tilgjengelig for observasjoner. Formålet med denne oppgaven er å studere hvorvidt det er mulig å benyutte ulineær modellbasert prediktiv kontroll (NMPC) for å manøvrere satellitter med fleksibel dynamikk. Oppgaven undersøker også desaturering av reaksjonshjul under manøvere og unngåelse av reaksjonshjulhastigheter som forårsaker vibrasjoner. Ytelsen til kontrollsystemet evalueres med hensyn til dets evne til å utføre manøvere uten å forårsake langvarige vibrasjoner, samt beregningskompleksitet. Den fleksible dynamikken modelleres med Lagrange's ligninger. Som prediksjonsmodell i NMPC brukes en virtuell harmonisk oscillator og tilhørende utvidet Kalman-filter. Oppgaven viser at kontrollsystemet fungerer godt med riktig tilpasning til den aktuelle fleksible dynamikken. En tilnærming ved hjelp av ulineær modellbasert prediktiv kontroll har potensial til å forbedre manøvreringen av jordobservasjonssatellitter.Improved agility for Earth Observation satellites reduces the time spent on maneuvers, increasing the time available for observations. The aim of this thesis is to study the feasibility of utilizing Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) for agile rest-to-rest satellite slews with consideration of flexible dynamics. Concerns related to the choice of Reaction Wheels (RWs) as actuators are also considered, including desaturation while slewing and avoidance of RW speeds that excite appendage vibrations. The performance of the control scheme is evaluated with regard to its ability to perform agile slews without exciting long-lasting vibrations and, to some extent, computational complexity. The flexible dynamics of the satellite are modeled using the Assumed Modes Method with Lagrange’s equations. As NMPC prediction model, we utilize a single virtual state harmonic oscillator and corresponding Extended Kalman Filter. The thesis shows that the implemented control scheme performs well if it is appropriately tailored to the flexible dynamics at hand. The Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) control scheme has the potential to increase the agility of flexible satellites

Global changes in extreme daily temperature since 1950

Copyright 2008 by the American Geophysical UnionExtreme value analysis of observed daily temperature anomalies from a new quasi-global data set indicates that extreme daily maximum and minimum temperatures (>98.5 or <1.5 percentile) have warmed for most regions since 1950. Changes in extreme anomalous daily temperatures are determined by fitting extreme value distributions with time-varying parameters. Changes in the distribution of anomaly exceedances above a high threshold are found to be statistically significant at the 10% level for most land areas when compared with a time-invariant distribution and with the unforced natural variability produced by a coupled climate model. The largest positive trends in the location parameter of the extreme distribution are found in Canada and Eurasia where daily maximum temperatures have typically warmed by 1 to 3 degrees C since 1950. The total area exhibiting positive trends is significantly greater than can be attributed to unforced natural variability. For most regions, positive trend magnitudes are larger and cover a greater area for daily minimum temperatures than for maximum temperatures. The comparatively small areas of cooling are found to be consistent with unforced natural climate variability. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is found to have a significant influence on extreme winter daily temperatures for many areas, with a negative NAO of one standard deviation reducing expected extreme winter daily temperatures by similar to 2 degrees C over Eurasia but increasing temperatures over northeastern North America