Treatment of cardiomyopathy with PAP therapy in a patient with severe obstructive sleep apnea.

Obstructive sleep apnea is common in patients with heart failure. This case illustrates that treatment with PAP therapy can improve cardiac function in patients with both conditions. CPAP-emergent central apnea, as seen in this patient, has multiple etiologies. It is commonly seen in patients with severe sleep apnea, usually resolves over time, and does not need treatment with adaptive servoventilation

Australian Loan Council: Arrangements and Experience with Bailouts

In most countries, public borrowing by subnational governments is subjected to somerestrictions imposed by the national governments. In a recent study of 53 selectedcountries, researchers at the International Monetary Fund found that all but six countriesimposed such restrictions. 1 Public borrowing by subnational governments was altogetherprohibited in 16 countries, while 19 countries did not allow subnational governments toborrow overseas. The controls in the remaining countries vary in detail and have beenclassified by the authors of the IMF study into the broad categories of administrativecontrols, rule-based controls and cooperative controls.

The Original Theory of Constitutionalism

The U.S. Constitution embodies a conception of democratic sovereignty that has been substantially forgotten and obscured in today’s commentary. Recovering this original idea of constitution-making shows that today’s originalism is, ironically, unfaithful to its origins in an idea of self-rule that prized both the initial ratification of fundamental law and the political community’s ongoing power to reaffirm or change it. This does not mean, however, that living constitutionalism better fits the original conception of democratic self-rule. Rather, because the Constitution itself makes amendment practically impossible, it all but shuts down the very form of democratic sovereignty that authorizes it. No interpretive strategy succeeds in overcoming the dilemma of a constitution that at once embodies and prohibits democratic sovereignty

Inequality Rediscovered

Widespread recognition that economic inequality has been growing for forty years in most of the developed world, and in fact has tended to grow across most of the history of modern economies, shows that the period 1945-1973, when inequality of wealth and income shrank, was a marked anomaly in historical experience. At the time, however, the anomalous period of equality seemed to vindicate a long history of optimism about economic life: that growth would overcome meaningful scarcity and usher in an egalitarian and humanistic period that could almost qualify as post-economic. This has not been the experience of the last four decades. In this intellectual history of the anomalous period, we trace the main lines of that optimism and its undoing

Transient dynamics of nonlinear magneto-optical rotation in the presence of transverse magnetic field

Nonlinear magneto-optical rotation is studied under non-equilibrium conditions. The polarization rotation of linearly polarized light traversing a rubidium vapor cell is observed versus the time-dependent (swept) longitudinal magnetic field in the presence of static transverse magnetic fields. Presence of the transverse fields modifies the character of the observed signals. In particular, for weaker transverse fields, field sweep leads two-harmonic oscillation of the polarization rotation while crossing zero. Unlike the steady-state, it was found that two-frequency oscillations observed in the transient signals, are independent of the transverse-field direction. For stronger transverse fields, the oscillations deteriorate eventually reaching a situation when no-oscillating dynamic signal, with distinct minimum close to zero field, is observed. Experimental results are supported with theoretical analysis based on the density-matrix formalism. The analysis confirms all the features of experimental results while providing an provide intuitive explanation of the observed behavior based on angular-momentum probability surfaces used for density-matrix visualization

Tactile whole-field imaging sensor on photoelasticity

The paper describes a whole-field imaging sensor developed on the principles of photoelasticity. The sensor produces colored fringe patterns when load is applied on the contacting surface. These fringes can be analyzed using conventional photoelastic techniques, however, as the loading in the present case is not conventional some new strategies need to be devised to analyze the load imprint. The loading is unconventional in the sense that low modulus photoelastic material is deformed under vertical load in the direction of light travel to induce the photoelastic effect. The paper discusses the efficacy of both RGB calibration and phase shifting techniques in sensing applications. The characteristics of fringe patterns obtained under vertical and shear loads have been studied and the results obtained under these conditions are discussed with their limitations specifically when this is applied for sensing applications. Finally a case study has been conducted to analyze a foot image and conclusions drawn from this have been presented. Copyright © 2007 by ASME

Photoelastic stress analysis under unconventional loading

This paper presents use of conventional photoelastic techniques under unconventional loading situations to evaluate their efficacy in sensing applications. The loading is unconventional in the sense that low modulus photoelastic material is deformed under vertical load in the direction of light travel to induce the photoelastic effect. This is atypical of conventional methods where loading is across the light travel. Both RGB calibration and phase shining techniques have been used to study the characteristics of fringe patterns obtained under vertical and shear loads. The results obtained under these conditions are discussed with their limitations specially when this is applied for sensing applications. Finally a case study has been conducted to analyze the foot image and conclusions drawn from this have been presented. Copyright © 2007 by ASME

Load estimation from photoelastic fringe patterns under combined normal and shear forces

Recently there has been some spurt of interests to use photoelastic materials for sensing applications. This has been successfully applied for designing a number of signal-based sensors, however, there have been limited efforts to design image-based sensors on photoelasticity which can have wider applications in term of actual loading and visualisation. The main difficulty in achieving this is the infinite loading conditions that may generate same image on the material surface. This, however, can be useful for known loading situations as this can provide dynamic and actual conditions of loading in real time. This is particularly useful for separating components of forces in and out of the loading plane. One such application is the separation of normal and shear forces acting on the plantar surface of foot of diabetic patients for predicting ulceration. In our earlier work we have used neural networks to extract normal force information from the fringe patterns using image intensity. This paper considers geometric and various other statistical parameters in addition to the image intensity to extract normal as well as shear force information from the fringe pattern in a controlled experimental environment. The results of neural network output with the above parameters and their combinations are compared and discussed. The aim is to generalise the technique for a range of loading conditions that can be exploited for whole-field load visualisation and sensing applications in biomedical field