Defining and evaluating non-academic (in)competence and personal (un)suitability in clinical training: Exploring the role of personality and interpersonal skills.

The present study represented an attempt to define what individuals involved in the human service professions believe are the necessary personal and interpersonal skills required to demonstrate clinical or non-academic competence. Participants\u27 opinions of the importance of these personality dimensions and interpersonal skills, as well as their perceptions concerning their assessment, teaching, and remediation were explored. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-07, Section: B, page: 3723. Adviser: Jim Porter. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2004

The Design and analysis of a HA/PLA pedicle screw for spinal fusion

Metallic pedicle screws have been widely used in the orthopaedic field to treat spinal diseases. Although spinal screws have improved over the last few decades, there is still sometimes a need for a second painful surgery to remove the instrumentation due to late-onset pain or discomfort due to breakage or infection. Polylactic acid has been heavily studied recently and is emerging as a viable absorbing material for bone fixation devices with good biological response; however there have been no optimization studies for its use and practicality as a lumbar pedicle screw. In addition to the lack of pedicle applications for the material, there are no FEA studies analyzing the objective values of simultaneous bending and pull-out of a pedicle screw or a pedicle screw augmented with calcium phosphate bone cement. Finite element analysis, Taguchi method, and an artificial neural network were used as the optimization methodology. Three-dimensional finite element method was used to create an arranged L18 orthogonal array of a model simultaneously applying a bend and pull-out test. These simulations were used to calculate two objective values for analysis. Artificial neural networks were used to estimate an optimum design which had the lowest surface stress in the screw. The obtained design was used for experimental testing to verify computational results and analyze practicality of clinical use. The optimal screw was shown to have a maximum surface stress of 81.83 MPa. The reaction in the CPC was shown to have a surface stress of 43.69 MPa. The screw and CPC stresses are below their yield strengths, which should result in non-failure. However, the biggest concern is rigidity of the device, which was tested experimentally. An unrigid device will prevent bone fusion and will make the product unfeasible

Design of a central telephone exchange

Citation: Dille, Grace. The development of the English novel. Senior thesis, Kansas State Agricultural College, 1897.Morse Department of Special CollectionsIntroduction: In designing this plant we have endeavored to meet the requirements of an up-to-date telephone exchange. With the increasing demand for the telephone, comes the necessity of improving the arrangement and the apparatus used in the exchange, to obtain quick and reliable service. Telephone men have been and are still bending all their energies in this direction. Not only is quick service an important factor, but it is of great moment to the subscriber. As the laying of cables under ground is becoming one of the necessities in large cities, we have assumed that our lines are to be layed in the best possible manner, using, only reliable conduit material, and a good grade of copper in the cables. Our purpose in using copper wire rather than iron wire is, that if at any time a change of material was desired the copper would always bring in a good return, while the iron wire would have small value. The use of copper in under ground cables cuts down depreciation to a considerable extent

Ueber den Einfluss l�ngerer Belichtung auf die Bestimmung der organischen Substanz im Wasser

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The footprint of atmospheric turbulence in power grid frequency measurements

Fluctuating wind energy makes a stable grid operation challenging. Due to the direct contact with atmospheric turbulence, intermittent short-term variations in the wind speed are converted to power fluctuations that cause transient imbalances in the grid. We investigate the impact of wind energy feed-in on short-term fluctuations in the frequency of the public power grid, which we have measured in our local distribution grid. By conditioning on wind power production data, provided by the ENTSO-E transparency platform, we demonstrate that wind energy feed-in has a measurable effect on frequency increment statistics for short time scales (< 1 sec) that are below the activation time of frequency control. Our results are in accordance with previous numerical studies of self-organized synchronization in power grids under intermittent perturbation and rise new challenges for a stable operation of future power grids fed by a high share of renewable generation

Elimination of a group II intron from a plastid gene causes a mutant phenotype

Group II introns are found in bacteria and cell organelles (plastids, mitochondria) and are thought to represent the evolutionary ancestors of spliceosomal introns. It is generally believed that group II introns are selfish genetic elements that do not have any function. Here, we have scrutinized this assumption by analyzing two group II introns that interrupt a plastid gene (ycf3) involved in photosystem assembly. Using stable transformation of the plastid genome, we have generated mutant plants that lack either intron 1 or intron 2 or both. Interestingly, the deletion of intron 1 caused a strong mutant phenotype. We show that the mutants are deficient in photosystem I and that this deficiency is directly related to impaired ycf3 function. We further show that, upon deletion of intron 1, the splicing of intron 2 is strongly inhibited. Our data demonstrate that (i) the loss of a group II intron is not necessarily phenotypically neutral and (ii) the splicing of one intron can depend on the presence of another

Changing the firing threshold for normal optic nerve axons by the application of infra-red laser light.

Normal optic nerve axons exhibit a temperature dependence, previously explained by a membrane potential hyperpolarization on warming. We now report that near infra-red laser light, delivered via a fibre optic light guide, also affects axonal membrane potential and threshold, at least partly through a photo-thermal effect. Application of light to optic nerve, at the recording site, gave rise to a local membrane potential hyperpolarization over a period of about a minute, and increased the size of the depolarizing after potential. Application near the site of electrical stimulation reversibly raised current-threshold, and the change in threshold recorded over minutes of irradiation was significantly increased by the application of the Ih blocker, ZD7288 (50 µM), indicating Ih limits the hyperpolarizing effect of light. Light application also had fast effects on nerve behaviour, increasing threshold without appreciable delay (within seconds), probably by a mechanism independent of kinetically fast K+ channels and Na+ channel inactivation, and hypothesized to be caused by reversible changes in myelin function

NGL-2 regulates pathway-specific neurite growth and lamination, synapse formation, and signal transmission in the retina

Parallel processing is an organizing principle of many neural circuits. In the retina, parallel neuronal pathways process signals from rod and cone photoreceptors and support vision over a wide range of light levels. Toward this end, rods and cones form triad synapses with dendrites of distinct bipolar cell types, and the axons or dendrites, respectively, of horizontal cells (HCs). The molecular cues that promote the formation of specific neuronal pathways remain largely unknown. Here, we discover that developing and mature HCs express the leucine-rich repeat (LRR)-containing protein netrin-G ligand 2 (NGL-2). NGL-2 localizes selectively to the tips of HC axons, which form reciprocal connections with rods. In mice with null mutations in Ngl-2 (Ngl-2(−/−)), many branches of HC axons fail to stratify in the outer plexiform layer (OPL) and invade the outer nuclear layer. In addition, HC axons expand lateral territories and increase coverage of the OPL, but establish fewer synapses with rods. NGL-2 can form transsynaptic adhesion complexes with netrin-G2, which we show to be expressed by photoreceptors. In Ngl-2(−/−) mice, we find specific defects in the assembly of presynaptic ribbons in rods, indicating that reverse signaling of complexes involving NGL-2 regulates presynaptic maturation. The development of HC dendrites and triad synapses of cone photoreceptors proceeds normally in the absence of NGL-2 and in vivo electrophysiology reveals selective defects in rod-mediated signal transmission in Ngl-2(−/−) mice. Thus, our results identify NGL-2 as a central component of pathway-specific development in the outer retina