A Modular Low-clearance Wrist Orthosis for Improving Wrist Motion in Children with Cerebral Palsy

Children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) often exhibit impairments in the coordination of the grip and lift phases of arm movements that directly impact their ability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs). The application of assistive robotic therapy to children with spastic hemiplegic CP has shown that augmented movement training can lead to improved functional outcomes and improved arm kinematics. Assistive robotic therapy of the wrist has been shown to help improve motor skills in stroke patients, but the devices employed are often large and obtrusive, focusing on a repeated motion rather than a task-based itinerary. Here, we propose a lightweight low clearance wrist orthosis for use in children with Cerebral Palsy that actuates pronation/supination and flexion/extension of the wrist

Mentoring Teachers: There's an App for That!

Faithful implementation of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics requires states, districts, and teachers to not only design instruction that meets the new content standards, but also pay close attention to the eight Standards for Mathematical Practice that are interwoven within these Standards. The Ohio Resident Educator Program partners beginning teachers with experienced mentors, each of whom might be struggling to conceptualize how the practice standards "look" during instruction. We examine a technological application (app) that mentor teachers can use to collaborate with their resident educators. Common Core Look-fors can be used by mentor teachers to collect data on how their mentee provides students with opportunities to engage in the mathematical practices. In addition, the app promotes collaboration by providing a means for mentors and their mentees to articulate their strategies for increasing student engagement in practices

Socio-demographic, Clinical, and Genetic Determinants of Quality of Life in Lung Cancer Patients.

Patient reported health-related quality of life (QOL) is a major component of the overall well-being of cancer patients, with links to prognosis. In 6,420 lung cancer patients, we identified patient characteristics and genetic determinants of QOL. Patient responses from the SF-12 questionnaire was used to calculate normalized Physical Component Summary (PCS) and Mental Component Summary (MCS) scores. Further, we analyzed 218 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the p38 MAPK signaling pathway, a key mediator of response to cellular and environmental stress, as genetic determinants of QOL in a subset of the study population (N = 641). Trends among demographic factors for mean PCS and MCS included smoking status (PCS Ptrend < 0.001, MCS Ptrend < 0.001) and education (PCS Ptrend < 0.001, MCS Ptrend < 0.001). Similar relationships were seen for MCS. The homozygous rare genotype of MEF2B: rs2040562 showed an increased risk of a poor MCS (OR: 3.06, 95% CI: 1.05-8.92, P = 0.041). Finally, survival analysis showed that a low PCS or a MCS was associated with increased risks of five-year mortality (HR = 1.63, 95% CI: 1.51-1.77, HR = 1.23, 95% CI: 1.16-1.32, respectively) and there was a significant reduction in median survival time (Plog-rank < 0.001). These findings suggest that multiple factors contribute to QOL in lung cancer patients, and baseline QOL can impact survival

Thermographic Phosphor Measurements of Shock-Shock Interactions on a Swept Cylinder

The effects of fin leading-edge radius and sweep angle on peak heating rates due to shock-shock interactions were investigated in the NASA Langley Research Center 20-inch Mach 6 Air Tunnel. The fin model leading edges, which represent cylindrical leading edges or struts on hypersonic vehicles, were varied from 0.25 inches to 0.75 inches in radius. A 9deg wedge generated a planar oblique shock at 16.7deg to the flow that intersected the fin bow shock, producing a shock-shock interaction that impinged on the fin leading edge. The fin angle of attack was varied from 0deg (normal to the free-stream) to 15deg and 25deg swept forward. Global temperature data was obtained from the surface of the fused silica fins using phosphor thermography. Metal oil flow models with the same geometries as the fused silica models were used to visualize the streamline patterns for each angle of attack. High-speed zoom-schlieren videos were recorded to show the features and temporal unsteadiness of the shock-shock interactions. The temperature data were analyzed using one-dimensional semi-infinite as well as one- and two-dimensional finite-volume methods to determine the proper heat transfer analysis approach to minimize errors from lateral heat conduction due to the presence of strong surface temperature gradients induced by the shock interactions. The general trends in the leading-edge heat transfer behavior were similar for the three shock-shock interactions, respectively, between the test articles with varying leading-edge radius. The dimensional peak heat transfer coefficient augmentation increased with decreasing leading-edge radius. The dimensional peak heat transfer output from the two-dimensional code was about 20% higher than the value from a standard, semi-infinite onedimensional method

Factorised spatial representation learning: application in semi-supervised myocardial segmentation

The success and generalisation of deep learning algorithms heavily depend on learning good feature representations. In medical imaging this entails representing anatomical information, as well as properties related to the specific imaging setting. Anatomical information is required to perform further analysis, whereas imaging information is key to disentangle scanner variability and potential artefacts. The ability to factorise these would allow for training algorithms only on the relevant information according to the task. To date, such factorisation has not been attempted. In this paper, we propose a methodology of latent space factorisation relying on the cycle-consistency principle. As an example application, we consider cardiac MR segmentation, where we separate information related to the myocardium from other features related to imaging and surrounding substructures. We demonstrate the proposed method's utility in a semi-supervised setting: we use very few labelled images together with many unlabelled images to train a myocardium segmentation neural network. Specifically, we achieve comparable performance to fully supervised networks using a fraction of labelled images in experiments on ACDC and a dataset from Edinburgh Imaging Facility QMRI. Code will be made available at https://github.com/agis85/spatial_factorisation.Comment: Accepted in MICCAI 201

Fostering children's relationship with nature : exploring the potential of Forest school

Forest School offers children opportunities to explore the natural environment regularly over an extended period of time. It is based on six key principles, one of which states Forest School fosters a relationship with nature and develops long-term pro-environment attitudes through regular personal experiences in nature. We consider to what extent this aim is achieved by exploring the published evidence. We identify that a relationship with nature could be demonstrated under six themes although there is little robust evidence to support this. We suggest further research is carried out directly linked to this aim of Forest School

LaRC Aerothermodynamic Ground Tests in Support of BOLT Flight Experiment

A review is provided of recent aerothermodynamic ground-test contributions by NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) to the BOLT flight test program. Several test entries into the Langley Aerothermodynamic Laboratory 20-Inch Mach 6 Air Tunnel are discussed. These entries were intended to support the development and design of flight hardware and instrumentation. Some trends and observations from these entries are provided. Also, a comparison of two different global heat transfer test techniques is included and discussed

Experimental Investigation of the NASA Common Research Model with a Natural Laminar Flow Wing in the NASA Langley National Transonic Facility

A test of the new NASA Common Research Model with a Natural Laminar Flow (CRMNLF) semispan wing in the NASA Langley National Transonic Facility (NTF) was completed in October 2018. The main focus of this test was the evaluation of the extent of laminar flow on the CRM-NLF wing at various Reynolds numbers and test conditions. During this test, data were acquired at chord Reynolds numbers from 10 to 30 million and at Mach numbers ranging from 0.84 to 0.86. This investigation provided valuable insight into the necessary procedures for laminar flow testing in the NTF. It also significantly advanced the new carbonbased heating layer technique to improve the quality of transition visualization data from temperature sensitive paint (TSP) in a cryogenic wind tunnel

Misdiagnosis, Mistreatment, and Harm - When Medical Care Ignores Social Forces.

The Case Studies in Social Medicine demonstrate that when physicians use only biologic or individual behavioral interventions to treat diseases that stem from or are exacerbated by social factors, we risk harming the patients we seek to serve