Design of a Transradial Myoelectric Prosthesis

Due to the rapid growth of children and the high cost of myoelectric technology, children are not given the same opportunities to use myoelectric prosthetics as adults. The Muscle Activated Prosthesis (MAP) team is developing an affordable, transradial, myoelectric prosthetic for a thirteen-year-old girl. The MAP team is designing a myoelectric prosthetic that will cost under $1,000, over 90% less than custom myoelectric devices on the market. This device has an EMG sensor, a microprocessor, a printed circuit board (PCB), linear actuator motors, and a battery organized within a 3D-printed transradial prosthesis to open and close the hand grip when the EMG detects electrical signals via muscle contractions in the client’s flexor carpi radialis. Currently, the team has fully assembled a prosthetic prototype and will obtain feedback from the partner, Ability Prosthetics, and the client to deliver a final prototype. This poster details the recent mechanical and electrical design optimizations, grip strength testing, and integration of mechanical and electrical components to build the current functioning prosthesis.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/engr2021/1009/thumbnail.jp

A Rapid Assessment of the Availability and Use of Obstetric Care in Nigerian Healthcare Facilities

Background: As part of efforts to reduce maternal deaths in Nigeria, pregnant women are being encouraged to give birth in healthcare facilities. However, little is known about whether or not available healthcare facilities can cope with an increasing demand for obstetric care. We thus carried out this survey as a rapid and tactical assessment of facility quality. We visited 121 healthcare facilities, and used the opportunity to interview over 700 women seeking care at these facilities. Findings Most of the primary healthcare facilities we visited were unable to provide all basic Emergency Obstetric Care (bEmOC) services. In general, they lack clinical staff needed to dispense maternal and neonatal care services, ambulances and uninterrupted electricity supply whenever there were obstetric emergencies. Secondary healthcare facilities fared better, but, like their primary counterparts, lack neonatal care infrastructure. Among patients, most lived within 30 minutes of the visited facilities and still reported some difficulty getting there. Of those who had had two or more childbirths, the conditional probability of a delivery occurring in a healthcare facility was 0.91 if the previous delivery occurred in a healthcare facility, and 0.24 if it occurred at home. The crude risk of an adverse neonatal outcome did not significantly vary by delivery site or birth attendant, and the occurrence of such an outcome during an in-facility delivery may influence the mother to have her next delivery outside. Such an outcome during a home delivery may not prompt a subsequent in-facility delivery. Conclusions: In conclusion, reducing maternal deaths in Nigeria will require attention to both increasing the number of facilities with high-quality EmOC capability and also assuring Nigerian women have access to these facilities regardless of where they live

Bacteriophage-encoded depolymerases: their diversity and biotechnological applications

Bacteriophages (phages), natural enemies of bacteria, can encode enzymes able to degrade polymeric substances. These substances can be found in the bacterial cell surface, such as polysaccharides, or are produced by bacteria when they are living in biofilm communities, the most common bacterial lifestyle. Consequently, phages with depolymerase activity have a facilitated access to the host receptors, by degrading the capsular polysaccharides, and are believed to have a better performance against bacterial biofilms, since the degradation of extracellular polymeric substances by depolymerases might facilitate the access of phages to the cells within different biofilm layers. Since the diversity of phage depolymerases is not yet fully explored, this is the first review gathering information about all the depolymerases encoded by fully sequenced phages. Overall, in this study, 160 putative depolymerases, including sialidases, levanases, xylosidases, dextranases, hyaluronidases, peptidases as well as pectate/pectin lyases, were found in 143 phages (43 Myoviridae, 47 Siphoviridae, 37 Podoviridae, and 16 unclassified) infecting 24 genera of bacteria. We further provide information about the main applications of phage depolymerases, which can comprise areas as diverse as medical, chemical, or food-processing industry.DPP acknowledges the financial support from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through the grant SFRH/BD/76440/2011. SS is an FCT investigator (IF/01413/2013). The authors also thank FCT for the Strategic Project of the UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, FCT and European Union funds (FEDER/COMPETE) for the project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER027462)

Characterization of the alginate biosynthetic gene cluster in Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae

Alginate, a copolymer of D-mannuronic acid and L-guluronic acid, is produced by a variety of pseudomonads, including Pseudomonas syringae. Alginate biosynthesis has been most extensively studied in P. aeruginosa, and a number of structural and regulatory genes from this species have been cloned and characterized. In the present study, an alginate-defective (Alg2) mutant of P. syringae pv. syringae FF5 was shown to contain a Tn5 insertion in algL, a gene encoding alginate lyase. A cosmid clone designated pSK2 restored alginate production to the algL mutant and was shown to contain homologs of algD, alg8, alg44, algG, algX (alg60), algL, algF, and algA. The order and arrangement of the structural gene cluster were virtually identical to those previously described for P. aeruginosa. Complementation analyses, however, indicated that the structural gene clusters in P. aeruginosa and P. syringae were not functionally interchangeable when expressed from their native promoters. A region upstream of the algD gene in P. syringae pv. syringae was shown to activate the transcription of a promoterless glucuronidase (uidA) gene and indicated that transcription initiated upstream of algD as described for P. aeruginosa. Transcription of the algD promoter from P. syringae FF5 was significantly higher at 32°C than at 18 or 26°C and was stimulated when copper sulfate or sodium chloride was added to the medium. Alginate gene expression was also stimulated by the addition of the nonionic solute sorbitol, indicating that osmolarity is a signal for algD expression in P. syringae FF5.Peer reviewedPlant Patholog

Design description of the Advanced Toroidal Facility

The Advanced Toroidal Facility (ATF) is a large torsatron being designed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to replace the Impurity Study Experiment (ISX-B) tokamak. ATF will have a major radius of 2.1 m and an average plasma minor radius of 0.3 m. Major components of the device include the coil sets, structure, and vacuum vessel. The coil sets are designed for broad operating envelopes, including the capability to drive up to 100 kA of plasma current, to produce helical axis configurations, and to operate continuously at one-half the baseline currents. The ATF structure consists of a 40-mm-thick stainless steel toroidal shell encasing the helical coil set. The shell is constructed from 24 identical upper and lower segments, with 12 pairs of intermediate panels to provide access to the helical field (HF) coil joints. The lower portion of the shell also serves as an assembly fixture for the HF coil set. The vacuum vessel is a highly contoured 6-mm-thick stainless steel shell closely fitting the bore and sidewalls of the HF coil winding to provide maximum volume for the plasma. Forty-eight large ports allow good access for diagnostics and neutral beam injection