2,243 research outputs found
3D printed splint designed by 3D surface scanner for patients with hand allodynia.
Allodynia is a neuropathic pain triggered by a normally painless stimulus: for example, a slight touch on the skin or slight sensation of hot or cold is extremely painful. Rehabilitation is long and uncertain. Protecting the painful area from stimuli is a priority of care. This type of care is complex and challenging for the care team: the pain caused in manufacturing a classic molded orthosis is unbearable for the patient, and the orthosis has a limited lifetime, and experience shows that it is not possible to produce two identical splints. The present study consisted in creating protective splints by 3D printing, designed from data collected with the 3D surface scanner used in our forensic imaging and anthropology unit. The pros and cons of the 3D orthosis versus standard molded orthoses from the point of view of the patient and the practitioner are discussed, with evaluation of related indications of this technology
Muscle Non-shivering Thermogenesis and Its Role in the Evolution of Endothermy
The development of sustained, long-term endothermy was one of the major transitions in the evolution of vertebrates. Thermogenesis in endotherms does not only occur via shivering or activity, but also via non-shivering thermogenesis (NST). Mammalian NST is mediated by the uncoupling protein 1 in the brown adipose tissue (BAT) and possibly involves an additional mechanism of NST in skeletal muscle. This alternative mechanism is based on Ca2+-slippage by a sarcoplasmatic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA) and is controlled by the protein sarcolipin. The existence of muscle based NST has been discussed for a long time and is likely present in all mammals. However, its importance for thermoregulation was demonstrated only recently in mice. Interestingly, birds, which have evolved from a different reptilian lineage than mammals and lack UCP1-mediated NST, also exhibit muscle based NST under the involvement of SERCA, though likely without the participation of sarcolipin. In this review we summarize the current knowledge on muscle NST and discuss the efficiency of muscle NST and BAT in the context of the hypothesis that muscle NST could have been the earliest mechanism of heat generation during cold exposure in vertebrates that ultimately enabled the evolution of endothermy. We suggest that the evolution of BAT in addition to muscle NST was related to heterothermy being predominant among early endothermic mammals. Furthermore, we argue that, in contrast to small mammals, muscle NST is sufficient to maintain high body temperature in birds, which have enhanced capacities to fuel muscle NST by high rates of fatty acid import
Scaling of spontaneous rotation with temperature and plasma current in tokamaks
Using theoretical arguments, a simple scaling law for the size of the
intrinsic rotation observed in tokamaks in the absence of momentum injection is
found: the velocity generated in the core of a tokamak must be proportional to
the ion temperature difference in the core divided by the plasma current,
independent of the size of the device. The constant of proportionality is of
the order of . When the
intrinsic rotation profile is hollow, i.e. it is counter-current in the core of
the tokamak and co-current in the edge, the scaling law presented in this
Letter fits the data remarkably well for several tokamaks of vastly different
size and heated by different mechanisms.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Pemphigoïde bulleuse induite par l’immunothérapie antitumorale [Bullous pemphigoid induced by cancer immunotherapy]
Bullous pemphigoid is the most frequent autoimmune bullous dermatosis. Cases induced by immune checkpoint inhibitors have been described. This antitumor immunotherapy changed the treatment of several malignant tumors, especially melanoma and non-small cell lung-cancer. Nevertheless, immune adverse events are common. We present a case of bullous pemphigoid induced by pembrolizumab to illustrate the link between this disease and the treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors
Toy models of crossed Andreev reflection
We propose toy models of crossed Andreev reflection in multiterminal hybrid
structures containing out-of-equilibrium conductors. We apply the description
to two possible experiments: (i) to a device containing a large quantum dot
inserted in a crossed Andreev reflection circuit. (ii) To a device containing
an Aharonov-Bohm loop inserted in a crossed Andreev reflection circuit.Comment: 5 pages, 9 figures, minor modification
Gyrokinetic analysis and simulation of pedestals, to identify the culprits for energy losses using fingerprints
Fusion performance in tokamaks hinges critically on the efficacy of the Edge
Transport Barrier (ETB) at suppressing energy losses. The new concept of
fingerprints is introduced to identify the instabilities that cause the
transport losses in the ETB of many of today's experiments, from widely posited
candidates. Analysis of the Gyrokinetic-Maxwell equations, and gyrokinetic
simulations of experiments, find that each mode type produces characteristic
ratios of transport in the various channels: density, heat and impurities.
This, together with experimental observations of transport in some channel, or,
of the relative size of the driving sources of channels, can identify or
determine the dominant modes causing energy transport. In multiple ELMy H-mode
cases that are examined, these fingerprints indicate that MHD-like modes are
apparently not the dominant agent of energy transport; rather, this role is
played by Micro-Tearing Modes (MTM) and Electron Temperature Gradient (ETG)
modes, and in addition, possibly Ion Temperature Gradient (ITG)/Trapped
Electron Modes (ITG/TEM) on JET. MHD-like modes may dominate the electron
particle losses. Fluctuation frequency can also be an important means of
identification, and is often closely related to the transport fingerprint. The
analytical arguments unify and explain previously disparate experimental
observations on multiple devices, including DIII-D, JET and ASDEX-U, and
detailed simulations of two DIII-D ETBs also demonstrate and corroborate this
Analysis of ELM stability with extended MHD models in JET, JT-60U and future JT-60SA tokamak plasmas
The stability with respect to a peeling–ballooning mode (PBM) was investigated numerically with
extended MHD simulation codes in JET, JT-60U and future JT-60SA plasmas. The MINERVA-DI
code was used to analyze the linear stability, including the effects of rotation and ion diamagnetic drift
( *w i), in JET-ILW and JT-60SA plasmas, and the JOREK code was used to simulate nonlinear
dynamics with rotation, viscosity and resistivity in JT-60U plasmas. It was validated quantitatively
that the ELM trigger condition in JET-ILW plasmas can be reasonably explained by taking into
account both the rotation and *w i effects in the numerical analysis. When deuterium poloidal rotation
is evaluated based on neoclassical theory, an increase in the effective charge of plasma destabilizes
the PBM because of an acceleration of rotation and a decrease in *w i. The difference in the amount of
ELM energy loss in JT-60U plasmas rotating in opposite directions was reproduced qualitatively with
JOREK. By comparing the ELM affected areas with linear eigenfunctions, it was confirmed that the
difference in the linear stability property, due not to the rotation direction but to the plasma density
profile, is thought to be responsible for changing the ELM energy loss just after the ELM crash. A
predictive study to determine the pedestal profiles in JT-60SA was performed by updating the EPED1 model to include the rotation and *w i effects in the PBM stability analysis. It was shown that the plasma rotation predicted with the neoclassical toroidal viscosity degrades the pedestal performance by about 10% by destabilizing the PBM, but the pressure pedestal height will be high enough to achieve the target parameters required for the ITER-like shape inductive scenario in JT-60SA.JSPS KAKENHI 15K06656EURATOM 63305
Enhancement of the Josephson current by magnetic field in superconducting tunnel structures with paramagnetic spacer
The dc Josephson critical current of a (S/M)IS tunnel structure in a parallel
magnetic field has been investigated (here S is a superconductor, S/M is the
proximity coupled S and paramagnet M bilayer and I is an insulating barrier).
We consider the case when, due to the Hund's rule, in the M metal the effective
molecular interaction aligns spins of the conducting electrons antiparallel to
localized spins of magnetic ions. It is predicted that for tunnel structures
under consideration there are the conditions when the destructive action of the
internal and the applied magnetic fields on Cooper pairs is weakened and the
increase of the applied magnetic field causes the field-induced enhancement of
the tunnel critical current. The experimental realization of this interesting
effect of the interplay between superconductivity and magnetism is also
discussed.Comment: 5 pages 3 figure
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