Interstitial laser therapy of benign prostatic hyperplasia

The objective of interstitial laser coagulation (ILC) of benign prostatic enlargement is to achieve a marked volume reduction and to decrease bladder outlet obstruction and lower urinary tract symptoms with minimal morbidity. Coagulation necrosis is generated well inside the adenoma by means of specifically designed laser applicators combined with either a Nd:YAG laser or a diode laser. Because the laser applicators can be inserted as deeply and as often as necessary, it is possible to coagulate any amount of tissue at any desired location while preserving adjacent structures such as the urethra. Postprocedural, the intraprostatic lesions result in secondary atrophy and regression of the prostate lobes, rather than sloughing of necrotic tissue. Several single-armed and randomized studies indicated the effectiveness of interstitial laser coagulation of BPH-syndrome. Marked improvements in AUA score, peak flow rate, residual urine volume and prostate volume were reported. Pressure-flow studies demonstrated a sufficient decrease of the intravesical/detrusor pressure, urethral opening pressure and urethral resistance. Long-term results demonstrating sustained success for up to 3 years were reported on a series of 394 patients. ILC is suitable to debulk even large prostates and to treat highly obstructive patients. Therefore, ILC can be seen as a true alternative to TURF with certain advantages, such as almost no serious morbidity and with certain disadvantages, such as the need for postoperative catheterization. However, ILC can be done under local anesthesia and does not require hospitalization

IZBOR DOBAVLJAČA I VIŠEKRITERIJALNA ANALIZA : Diplomski rad

U ovom je radu prikazan kvantitativni model izbora dobavljača. Model koristi tri metode operacijske pretrage: hijerarhijski proces analize, PROMETHEE metodu i linearno programiranje. Prva metoda, AHP, koristi se za izračun težina svakog kriterija pomoću usporedbe u parovima. Koristeći PROMETHEE metodu alternative (dobavljači) rangiraju se te se izračunavaju koeficijenti preferencije za svakog dobavljača. LP model, koji se temelji na prethodno prikupljenim koeficijentima, distribuira količine narudžbi svakom dobavljaču u svrhu maksimiziranja TVP-a.This thesis presents a supplier selection quantitative model. The model deals with three methods of operation research: Analytic Hierarchy Process, PROMETHEE method and linear programming. The first of them – AHP – is used to calculate the weights of each criteria by pairwise comprehension. By using the PROMETHEE method the alternatives (suppliers) are ranked and preference coefitions for each supplier are calculated. The LP model, which is based on the previous gathered coefitions, distributes order quantities to each supplier in order to maximise the Total Value of Purchasing (TVP)

Impact of sensory neuropeptide deficiency on behavioral patterns and gait in a murine surgical osteoarthritis model

Substance P (SP) and a calcitonin‐related gene alpha (αCGRP −/− ) are implicated in musculoskeletal pain perception and were shown to have different effects on the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis (OA). However, it has not been investigated, whether deficiency for SP or αCGRP impacts pain‐related behavior and well‐being as well as gait during development of experimental OA. We induced OA in the right knee of wild‐type (WT) mice and mice either deficient for SP (tachykinin 1, Tac‐1) or αCGRP (male, n  = 8 per genotype) by destabilizing the medial meniscus (DMM). We monitored body weight and food and water intake as indicators of wellbeing, determined nest building and composite pain score, and performed CatWalk gait analysis over 12 weeks. Cartilage degeneration was determined by OARSI scoring. The 12‐week post‐DMM, cartilage degradation in the medial compartment was significantly reduced in Tac1 −/− mice compared to the WT and to αCGRP −/− mice, coinciding with highest unloading of the operated limb in Tac1 −/− . Behavioral and gait analysis revealed only minor differences between the genotypes. Paw print area was most prominently reduced in Tac1 −/− over the observation period; at 12 weeks, we found a significant reduction in normalized print area in Tac1 −/− compared to presurgery and to the WT at the same time‐point. Calculated weight bearing was significantly reduced only in Tac1 −/− . Overall, we observed minor impact of DMM on gait and behavior in the present study. The reduced cartilage damage in the absence of SP might be in part due to reduced loading, however, the mechanism is not clear yet

A kinematic dataset of locomotion with gait and sit-to-stand movements of young adults

Kinematic data is a valuable source of movement information that provides insights into the health status, mental state, and motor skills of individuals. Additionally, kinematic data can serve as biometric data, enabling the identification of personal characteristics such as height, weight, and sex. In CeTI-Locomotion, four types of walking tasks and the 5 times sit-to-stand test (5RSTST) were recorded from 50 young adults wearing motion capture (mocap) suits equipped with Inertia-Measurement-Units (IMU). Our dataset is unique in that it allows the study of both intra- and inter-participant variability with high quality kinematic motion data for different motion tasks. Along with the raw kinematic data, we provide the source code for phase segmentation and the processed data, which has been segmented into a total of 4672 individual motion repetitions. To validate the data, we conducted visual inspection as well as machine-learning based identity and action recognition tests, achieving 97% and 84% accuracy, respectively. The data can serve as a normative reference of gait and sit-to-stand movements in healthy young adults and as training data for biometric recognition

Understanding Person Identification Through Gait

Gait recognition is the process of identifying humans from their bipedal locomotion such as walking or running. As such, gait data is privacy sensitive information and should be anonymized where possible. With the rise of higher quality gait recording techniques, such as depth cameras or motion capture suits, an increasing amount of detailed gait data is captured and processed. Introduction and rise of the Metaverse is but one popular application scenario in which the gait of users is transferred onto digital avatars. As a first step towards developing effective anonymization techniques for high-quality gait data, we study different aspects of movement data to quantify their contribution to gait recognition. We first extract categories of features from the literature on human gait perception and then design experiments for each category to assess how much the information they contain contributes to recognition success. Our results show that gait anonymization will be challenging, as the data is highly redundant and interdependent

Housekeeping gene validation for RT-qPCR studies on synovial fibroblasts derived from healthy and osteoarthritic patients with focus on mechanical loading

Selection of appropriate housekeeping genes is essential for the validity of data normalization in reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). Synovial fibroblasts (SF) play a mediating role in the development and progression of osteoarthritis (OA) pathogenesis, but there is no information on reliable housekeeping genes available. Therefore the goal of this study was to identify a set of reliable housekeeping genes suitable for studies of mechanical loading on SF from healthy and OA patients. Nine genes were evaluated towards expression stability and ranked according their relative stability determined by four different mathematical procedures (geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper and comparative ΔCq). We observed that RPLP0 (ribosomal protein, large, P0) and EEF1A1 (eukaryotic translation elongation factor 1 alpha 1) turned out to be the genes with the most stable expression in SF from non-OA or OA patients treated with or without mechanical loading. According to geNorm two genes are sufficient for normalization throughout. Expression of one tested target gene varied considerably, if normalized to different candidate housekeeping genes. Our study provides a tool for accurate and valid housekeeping gene selection in gene expression experiments on SF from healthy and OA patients with and without mechanical loading in consistent with the MIQE (Minimum Information for Publication of Quantitative Real-Time PCR Experiments) guidelines and additionally demonstrates the impact of proper housekeeping gene selection on the expression of the gene of interest

Reliable and redundant FPGA based read-out design in the ATLAS TileCal Demonstrator

The Tile Calorimeter at ATLAS is a hadron calorimeter based on steel plates and scintillating tiles read out by PMTs. The current read-out system uses standard ADCs and custom ASICs to digitize and temporarily store the data on the detector. However, only a subset of the data is actually read out to the counting room. The on-detector electronics will be replaced around 2023. To achieve the required reliability the upgraded system will be highly redundant. Here the ASICs will be replaced with Kintex-7 FPGAs from Xilinx. This, in addition to the use of multiple 10 Gbps optical read-out links, will allow a full read-out of all detector data. Due to the higher radiation levels expected when the beam luminosity is increased, opportunities for repairs will be less frequent. The circuitry and firmware must therefore be designed for sufficiently high reliability using redundancy and radiation tolerant components. Within a year, a hybrid demonstrator including the new read-out system will be installed in one slice of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter. This will allow the proposed upgrade to be thoroughly evaluated well before the planned 2023 deployment in all slices, especially with regard to long term reliability. Different firmware strategies alongside with their integration in the demonstrator are presented in the context of high reliability protection against hardware malfunction and radiation induced errors

Towards a VR Evaluation Suite for Tactile Displays in Telerobotic Space Missions

Research and development of telerobotic systems supplemented by haptic feedback for future planetary exploration missions has gained significant importance in the past decade. Major space agencies endeavor to deploy such systems before sending humans to the surface of unknown or unexplored celestial bodies. Astronauts control these telerobotic systems from remote locations, such as an orbital space station. Haptic feedback for teleoperating the robots in outer space is extremely important, not only to improve user immersion and task performance, but also to improve our understanding of surface properties. At the same time, for spaceflight, making use of compact, light-weight and robust devices are preferred for precise tactile feedback from telemanipulation tasks. In this paper, we introduce "ViESTac", a first attempt to develop a generic VR suite to be able to evaluate and compare fingertip-wearable tactile devices. Applications of such a suite include, but are not limited to allowing teleoperators to judiciously choose suitable tactile devices for a particular task. To account for the wide variety of existing fingertip-wearable tactile devices and their display capabilities, the suite contains a set of virtual scenarios to investigate different tactile properties of virtual objects. It also dedicates a virtual scenario to evaluate how tactile feedback may govern the accuracy of human positioning in standard tasks. This proposed suite is advocated by a pilot study with 13 participants and two distinct state-of-the-art tactile devices. Results of the study clearly indicate that the virtual suite can successfully cater to the need of evaluating and comparing fingertip-wearable tactile devices

Balancing Wearability and Functionality in the Design of a Haptic Fingertip Device

The FingerTac provides vibrotactile feedback at the palmar side of the finger while keeping it unobstructed. Yet, wearability aspects have been a shortcoming in the design. We propose a redesign that enhances wearability while preserving functionality. The redesign was evaluated compared to the original design in a user study. Our design was perceived as more comfortable, while performance and haptic sensation were sustained. However, the redesign was inferior in generating localized vibrotactile perceptions on the finger. This highlights the importance of balancing wearability and functional requirements when developing vibrotactile feedback devices. Further research is needed to address this challenge and understand the implications for FingerTac and the design of any haptic device