Steroid-responsive encephalopathy with a peculiar CSF biomarker profile in an 89-year-old man

Being treatable, steroid-responsive encephalopathy associated with autoimmune thyroiditis (SREAT), or Hashimoto’s encephalopathy, should be distinguished from untreatable conditions. Our patient was a previously healthy 89-year-old man, who presented with cognitive and balance deterioration over several months. His cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) examination was positive for protein 14-3-3 but no other test suggested Creutzfeldt–Jacob disease. His condition improved markedly, although not fully, with intravenous corticosteroids. In control CSF sampling, protein 14-3-3 was negative but a biomarker signature consistent with Alzheimer’s disease was observed. SREAT should be considered also in the very elderly in case of subacute encephalopathy.</p

Puristusvoima-anturi osana robottitarttujan toimintaa

Tiivistelmä. Robotti on jo noin 80 vuotta vanha käsite, mutta nykyistä muotoaan robotiikka on alkanut saavuttaa vasta 1900-luvun loppupuolella teollisuuden myötä. Robotiikka onkin nopeassa kasvussa oleva teknologian ala. Sille pyritään jatkuvasti etsimään uusia sovelluskohteita ja se on korvannut ihmisiä jo monilla aloilla, kuten teollisuuden kokoonpanolinjoilla. Lisäksi robotiikka on tullut osaksi lääketiedettä ja palvelualoja, ja autonomiset autot tulevat yleistymään liikenteessä lähivuosina. Robottien yleistyessä on otettava huomioon myös turvallisuusnäkökulma, jotta niiden kanssa toimiminen olisi ihmisille luontevaa ja riskitöntä. Kun robotit kykenevät paremmin havainnoimaan ympäristöään esimerkiksi erilaisten sensorien avulla, tulee niiden käytöstä turvallisempaa. Tässä työssä esitellään puristusvoima-anturin käyttöä osana robottitarttujaa, jolla pyritään tarttumaan erilaisiin kappaleisiin. Työssä käytetyn robottitarttujan toiminta perustuu servomoottorin ja anturin yhteistoimintaan, jota ohjataan Arduino Uno -kehitysalustan avulla. Työssä tultiin tulokseen, että puristusvoima-anturi on hyödyllinen apuväline robottitarttujan toiminnassa. Tämä korostuu varsinkin silloin, kun tarttujan välissä on kova periksiantamaton kappale, mikä voi johtaa servon tai laitteiston rikkoontumiseen. Työssä käytetty anturi todettiin kuitenkin liian pieneksi, sillä se ei tunnista kappaleita, jotka ovat hieman suurikokoisempia ja joissa on tasainen pinta.Force sensing resistor as a part of robot gripper. Abstract. As a concept, robot is about 80 years old already, but the robotics has started to reach its current form in the late 20th century by becoming common with industry. The robotics is a quickly growing field of technology. New applications for robotics are constantly being striven to find, and the robotics has already replaced people in many fields, for example in assembly lines in industry. In addition, the robotics has become a part of medicine and service industry, and autonomous cars will become more general in traffic in the near future. While robots are getting more common, the security perspective of robotics should be also taken into account. This is necessary for the interaction with robots to be natural and risk free for human beings. When robots are able to detect their environment better, for example by using different sensors, it becomes safer to use them. In this project force sensing resistor is introduced as a part of a robot gripper, which is trying to catch different objects. The action of the robot gripper is based on the cooperation of servomotor and FSR, that are being controlled by Arduino Uno -development board. In conclusion, the FSR is a useful tool for the robot gripper. This appears especially when there is a tough object that won’t bend inside the gripper. This can break the servo or the setup. The sensor used in this project appeared to be too small, because it does not recognize objects that are slightly larger and have a flat surface

Inverse scattering at fixed energy on surfaces with Euclidean ends

On a fixed Riemann surface $(M_0,g_0)$ with $N$ Euclidean ends and genus $g$, we show that, under a topological condition, the scattering matrix S_V(\la) at frequency \la > 0 for the operator $\Delta+V$ determines the potential $V$ if $V\in C^{1,\alpha}(M_0)\cap e^{-\gamma d(\cdot,z_0)^j}L^\infty(M_0)$ for all $\gamma>0$ and for some $j\in\{1,2\}$, where $d(z,z_0)$ denotes the distance from $z$ to a fixed point $z_0\in M_0$. The topological condition is given by $N\geq\max(2g+1,2)$ for $j=1$ and by $N\geq g+1$ if $j=2$. In \rr^2 this implies that the operator S_V(\la) determines any $C^{1,\alpha}$ potential $V$ such that $V(z)=O(e^{-\gamma|z|^2})$ for all $\gamma>0$.Comment: 21 page

Renal perfusion, oxygenation and metabolism: the role of imaging

Thanks to technical advances in the field of medical imaging, it is now possible to study key features of renal anatomy and physiology, but so far poorly explored due to the inherent difficulties in studying both the metabolism and vasculature of the human kidney. In this narrative review, we provide an overview of recent research findings on renal perfusion, oxygenation, and substrate uptake. Most studies evaluating renal perfusion with positron emission tomography (PET) have been performed in healthy controls, and specific target populations like obese individuals or patients with renovascular disease and chronic kidney disease (CKD) have rarely been assessed. Functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) has also been used to study renal perfusion in CKD patients, and recent studies have addressed the kidney hemodynamic effects of therapeutic agents such as glucagon-like receptor agonists (GLP-1RA) and sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2-i) in an attempt to characterise the mechanisms leading to their nephroprotective effects. The few available studies on renal substrate uptake are discussed. In the near future, these imaging modalities will hopefully become widely available with researchers more acquainted with them, gaining insights into the complex renal pathophysiology in acute and chronic diseases

Inverse problems with partial data for a magnetic Schr\"odinger operator in an infinite slab and on a bounded domain

In this paper we study inverse boundary value problems with partial data for the magnetic Schr\"odinger operator. In the case of an infinite slab in $R^n$, $n\ge 3$, we establish that the magnetic field and the electric potential can be determined uniquely, when the Dirichlet and Neumann data are given either on the different boundary hyperplanes of the slab or on the same hyperplane. This is a generalization of the results of [41], obtained for the Schr\"odinger operator without magnetic potentials. In the case of a bounded domain in $R^n$, $n\ge 3$, extending the results of [2], we show the unique determination of the magnetic field and electric potential from the Dirichlet and Neumann data, given on two arbitrary open subsets of the boundary, provided that the magnetic and electric potentials are known in a neighborhood of the boundary. Generalizing the results of [31], we also obtain uniqueness results for the magnetic Schr\"odinger operator, when the Dirichlet and Neumann data are known on the same part of the boundary, assuming that the inaccessible part of the boundary is a part of a hyperplane

Renal vascular resistance is increased in patients with kidney transplant

Background Despite improvement in short-term outcome of kidney transplants, the long-term survival of kidney transplants has not changed over past decades. Kidney biopsy is the gold standard of transplant pathology but it's invasive. Quantification of transplant blood flow could provide a novel non-invasive method to evaluate transplant pathology. The aim of this retrospective cross-sectional pilot study was to evaluate positron emission tomography (PET) as a method to measure kidney transplant perfusion and find out if there is correlation between transplant perfusion and histopathology. Methods Renal cortical perfusion of 19 kidney transplantation patients [average time from transplantation 33 (17-54) months; eGFR 55 (47-69) ml/min] and 10 healthy controls were studied by [(15) O]H2O PET. Perfusion and Doppler resistance index (RI) of transplants were compared with histology of one-year protocol transplant biopsy. Results Renal cortical perfusion of healthy control subjects and transplant patients were 2.7 (2.4-4.0) ml min(- 1) g(- 1) and 2.2 (2.0-3.0) ml min(- 1) g(- 1), respectively (p = 0.1). Renal vascular resistance (RVR) of the patients was 47.0 (36.7-51.4) mmHg mL(- 1)min(- 1)g(- 1) and that of the healthy 32.4 (24.6-39.6) mmHg mL(- 1)min(-1)g(-1) (p = 0.01). There was a statistically significant correlation between Doppler RI and perfusion of transplants (r = - 0.51, p = 0.026). Transplant Doppler RI of the group of mild fibrotic changes [0.73 (0.70-0.76)] and the group of no fibrotic changes [0.66 (0.61-0.72)] differed statistically significantly (p = 0.03). No statistically significant correlation was found between cortical perfusion and fibrosis of transplants (p = 0.56). Conclusions [(15) O]H2O PET showed its capability as a method in measuring perfusion of kidney transplants. RVR of transplant patients with stage 2-3 chronic kidney disease was higher than that of the healthy, although kidney perfusion values didn't differ between the groups. Doppler based RI correlated with perfusion and fibrosis of transplants

Cargo Cults in Information Systems Development: a Definition and an Analytical Framework

Organizations today adopt agile information systems development methods (ISDM), but many do not succeed with the adoption process and in achieving desired results. Systems developers sometimes fail in efficient use of ISDM, often due to a lack of understanding the fundamental intentions of the chosen method. In many cases organizations simply imitate the behavior of others without really understanding why. This conceptual paper defines this phenomenon as an ISDM cargo cult behavior and proposes an analytical framework to identify such situations. The concept of cargo cults originally comes from the field of social anthropology and has been used to explain irrational, ritualistic imitation of certain behavior. By defining and introducing the concept in the field of information systems development we provide a diagnostic tool to better understand one of the reasons why ISDM adoption sometimes fail