The Impact of Presumed Consent Legislation on Cadaveric Organ Donation: A Cross Country Study

In the U.S., Great Britain, and in many other countries, the gap between the demand and the supply of human organs for transplantation is on the rise, despite the efforts of governments and health agencies to promote donor registration. In some countries of continental Europe, however, cadaveric organ procurement is based on the principle of presumed consent. Under presumed consent legislation, a deceased individual is classified as a potential donor in absence of explicit opposition to donation before death. This article analyzes the impact of presumed consent laws on donation rates. For this purpose, we construct a dataset on organ donation rates and potential factors affecting organ donation for 22 countries over a 10-year period. We find that while differences in other determinants of organ donation explain much of the variation in donation rates, after controlling for those determinants presumed consent legislation has a positive and sizeable effect on organ donation rates.

Informed Consent Versus Presumed Consent The Role of the Family in Organ Donations

Two types of legislation underlie cadaveric organ donations: presumed consent (PC) and informed consent (IC). In informed consent countries, people are only donors when deceased if they registered to do so while alive. Conversely, in presumed consent countries, anybody is a potential donor when deceased. People have thus to register if they do not want to donate their body. PC has always been perceived as the “best” system for society in terms of organ donations whereas IC is supposed to be more ethical. However, in both systems, the family has a say, especially for the deceased who did not sign anything while alive. Taking the family decision into account, we show that the previous results may be reversed. The difference between both systems resides in the way an individual can commit to his/her will, eventually against the opinion of his/her family. IC can dominate PC in terms of organ donations whereas PC can be a more ethical system. In the general case, two opposite effects are at stake and the result depends on the extent to which people stay in the default situation. We discuss several causes of inactions (death taboo, procrastination, anticipated regret,...) and their impact on both the individual and the family.

Toward simple control for complex, autonomous robotic applications: combining discrete and rhythmic motor primitives

Vertebrates are able to quickly adapt to new environments in a very robust, seemingly effortless way. To explain both this adaptivity and robustness, a very promising perspective in neurosciences is the modular approach to movement generation: Movements results from combinations of a finite set of stable motor primitives organized at the spinal level. In this article we apply this concept of modular generation of movements to the control of robots with a high number of degrees of freedom, an issue that is challenging notably because planning complex, multidimensional trajectories in time-varying environments is a laborious and costly process. We thus propose to decrease the complexity of the planning phase through the use of a combination of discrete and rhythmic motor primitives, leading to the decoupling of the planning phase (i.e. the choice of behavior) and the actual trajectory generation. Such implementation eases the control of, and the switch between, different behaviors by reducing the dimensionality of the high-level commands. Moreover, since the motor primitives are generated by dynamical systems, the trajectories can be smoothly modulated, either by high-level commands to change the current behavior or by sensory feedback information to adapt to environmental constraints. In order to show the generality of our approach, we apply the framework to interactive drumming and infant crawling in a humanoid robot. These experiments illustrate the simplicity of the control architecture in terms of planning, the integration of different types of feedback (vision and contact) and the capacity of autonomously switching between different behaviors (crawling and simple reaching

Contactless magnetic brake for automotive applications

Road and rail vehicles and aircraft rely mainly or solely on friction brakes. These brakes pose several problems, especially in hybrid vehicles: significant wear, fading, complex and slow actuation, lack of fail-safe features, increased fuel consumption due to power assistance, and requirement for anti-lock controls. To solve these problems, a contactless magnetic brake has been developed. This concept includes a novel flux-shunting structure to control the excitation flux generated by permanent magnets. This brake is wear-free, less-sensitive to temperature than friction brakes, has fast and simple actuation, and has a reduced sensitivity to wheel-lock. The present dissertation includes an introduction to friction braking, a theory of eddy-current braking, analytical and numerical models of the eddy-current brake, its excitation and power generation, record of experimental validation, investigation and simulation of the integration of the brake in conventional and hybrid vehicles

Lower function, quality of life, and survival rate after total knee arthroplasty for posttraumatic arthritis than for primary arthritis

International audienceBackground and purpose - Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) for treatment of end-stage posttraumatic arthritis (PTA) has specific technical difficulties and complications. We compared clinical outcome, postoperative quality of life (QOL), and survivorship after TKA done for PTA with those after TKA performed for primary arthritis (PA). Patients and methods - We retrospectively reviewed patients who were operated on at our institution for PTA between 1998 and 2005 (33 knees), and compared them to a matched group of patients who were operated on for PA during the same period (407 knees). Clinical outcomes and postoperative QOL were compared in the 2 groups using Knee Society score (KSS), range of motion (ROM) of the knee, and the knee osteoarthritis outcomes score (KOOS). Implant survival rate was calculated using Kaplan-Meier analysis. Results - At a mean follow-up of 11 (5-15) years, KSS knee increased from mean 39 (SD 18) to 87 (SD 16) in the PA group (p = 0.003), and from 31 (SD 11) to 77 (SD 15) in the PTA group (p = 0.003). KSS function increased from 55 (12) to 89 (25) in the PA group (p = 0.008) and from 44 (SD 14) to 81 (SD 10) in the PTA group (p = 0.008). Postoperative ROM also improved in both groups, from 83 degrees to 108 degrees in the PTA group (p < 0.001) as opposed to 116 degrees to 127 degrees in the PA group (p = 0.001), with lower results in the PTA group (p < 0.001). KOOS was lower in the PTA group (p < 0.001). The survival rate of TKA at 10 years with an endpoint defined as "any surgery on the operated knee" showed better results in the PA group (99%, CI: 98-100 vs. 79%, CI: 69-89; p < 0.001). Interpretation - Patients and surgeons should be aware that clinical outcome and implant survival after TKA for PTA are lower than after TKA done for P

4×170 Gbit/s DWDM/OTDM transmission using only one quantum dash Fabry Perot mode-locked laser

oral session 6.C "High Bit-Rate Transmission"International audienceWe demonstrate a 4×170 Gbit/s DWDM/OTDM transmission experiment using only one quantum dash Fabry-Perot mode-locked laser. BER measurements show a penalty of 1dB at BER=10^-9 for back-to-back and error floor for BER=10^-8 for transmission over 100 km

Cascadability assessment of a microcavity-saturable-absorber based phase-preserving amplitude regenerator in a DPSK transmission system

International audienceWe investigate the cascadability of a microcavity-saturable-absorber-based phase-preserving amplitude regenerator for RZ-DPSK signals. The results show that the tolerance of phase-encoded signals to nonlinear phase noise is increased. A distance improvement ratio up to 1.6 is experimentally demonstrated

Traitement tout-optique d'un Signal RZ DPSK à 42,7 Gbit/s en utilisant Absorbant Saturable en Micro-Cavité

session orale 8 : « Systèmes et réseaux de Télécommunication »National audienceDans ce papier, nous présentons une technique de traitement tout-optique à base d'absorbant saturable limitant les fluctuations d'intensité d'un signal RZ DPSK à 42,7 Gbit/s tout en préservant sa phase. Des mesures de taux d'erreur binaire et de facteur de qualité démontrent le potentiel du dispositif pour le traitement tout-optique d'un signal DPSK dans un régime où le bruit de phase non-linéaire est dominant

All-optical 2R regeneration with a vertical microcavity based saturable absorber

International audienceThis paper gives an overview of recent demonstrations of optical 2R regeneration achieved by vertical microcavity mirror based multiple-quantum-well Saturable Absorber (SA). The potential of the device to perform WDM regeneration is firstly demonstrated through the first pigtailed saturable absorber chip implemented with 8 independent fibres using a cost effective coupling technique. The cascadability and wavelength tunability assessment of this module associated to a power limiter fibre-based function has been experimentally demonstrated at 42.6 Gbit/s. Because this method of power limiting is not a suitable solution for all-optical multichannel 2R regeneration, a new SA structure allowing a power limiting function was proposed. We describe and characterize such a structure in this paper. This new SA opens the door to a complete passive all-optical 2R regeneration relying upon a single technology, as shown in this paper through the use of two SA: SA.0 for extinction ratio enhancement and SA.1 for power level equalization allowing receiver sensitivity (up to 3.5 dB) and Q factor (up to 1.4 dB) improvement for a RZ signal at 42.6 Gbit/s. The limitation of SA.1 when the regenerator must be cascaded a large number of times is also described, leading to the observation that SA.1 should be more suitable for phase encoded formats which are more spectrally efficient than OOK formats. A SA.1 used as a phase-preserving amplitude regenerator in a 42.6 Gbit/s RZ-DPSK transmission system is therefore assessed. A fibre launched power margin of 2 dB and a receiver sensitivity improvement of 5.5 dB are obtained. Finally, we use, for the first time an SA.1 as a phase-preserving amplitude regenerator of RZ DQPSK signals. The regenerator is assessed in a recirculating loop at 28 Gbaud. The system tolerance to nonlinear phase noise is enhanced by 3 dB and the distance improvement factor was 1.3 for a BER=10-4