Segmental Kinematic Analysis of Planovalgus Feet during Walking in Children with Cerebral Palsy

Pes planovalgus (flatfoot) is a common deformity among children with cerebral palsy. The Milwaukee Foot Model (MFM), a multi-segmental kinematic foot model, which uses radiography to align the underlying bony anatomy with reflective surface markers, was used to evaluate 20 pediatric participants (30 feet) with planovalgus secondary to cerebral palsy prior to surgery. Three-dimensional kinematics of the tibia, hindfoot, forefoot, and hallux segments are reported and compared to an age-matched control set of typically-developing children. Most results were consistent with known characteristics of the deformity and showed decreased plantar flexion of the forefoot relative to hindfoot, increased forefoot abduction, and decreased ranges of motion during push-off in the planovalgus group. Interestingly, while forefoot characteristics were uniformly distributed in a common direction in the transverse plane, there was marked variability of forefoot and hindfoot coronal plane and hindfoot transverse plane positioning. The key finding of these data was the radiographic indexing of the MFM was able to show flat feet in cerebral palsy do not always demonstrate more hindfoot eversion than the typically-developing hindfoot. The coronal plane kinematics of the hindfoot show cases planovalgus feet with the hindfoot in inversion, eversion, and neutral. Along with other metrics, the MFM can be a valuable tool for monitoring kinematic deformity, facilitating clinical decision making, and providing a quantitative analysis of surgical effects on the planovalgus foot

Effectively Evaluating Online Faculty

Online courses and instructors require administration to use innovation to create valid faculty evaluations. This session examines why teaching evaluations need to be adjusted and how to make those adjustments to in order to effectively evaluate the faculty and therefore, keep administration, promotion committees, and faculty content

How to evaluate a syllabus for an online course.

This session explores how to determine strengths and weakness of an online course by examining the syllabus. Presenters and participants will move beyond the technical aspects such as alignment of content and into the flow of the online course. For this workshop participants are welcome to provide a syllabus for review

Spontaneous Chelation-Driven Reduction of the Neptunyl Cation in Aqueous Solution.

Octadentate hydroxypyridinone (HOPO) and catecholamide (CAM) siderophore analogues are known to be efficacious chelators of the actinide cations, and these ligands are also capable of facilitating both activation and reduction of actinyl species. Utilizing X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopies, as well as cyclic voltammetry measurements, herein, we elucidate chelation-based mechanisms for driving reactivity and initiating redox processes in a family of neptunyl-HOPO and CAM complexes. Based on the selected chelator, the ability to control the oxidation state of neptunium and the speed of reduction and concurrent oxo group activation was demonstrated. Most notably, reduction kinetics for the NpV O2 +/ /NpIV redox couple upon chelation by the ligands 3,4,3-LI(1,2-HOPO) and 3,4,3-LI(CAM)2 (1,2-HOPO)2 was observed to be faster than ever reported, and in fact quicker than we could measure using either X-ray absorption spectroscopy or electrochemical techniques

An antimicrobial impregnated urinary catheter that reduces mineral encrustation and prevents colonisation by multi-drug resistant organisms for up to 12 weeks

Two major complications of indwelling urinary catheterisation include infection and mineral encrustation of the catheter. Our antimicrobial urinary catheter (AUC) impregnated with rifampicin, triclosan, and sparfloxacin has demonstrated long-term protective activity against major uropathogens. This study aimed to firstly assess the ability of the AUC to resist mineral encrustation in the presence and absence of bacteria. Secondly, it aimed to investigate the AUC’s anti-biofilm activity against multi-drug resistant organisms. There was no difference in surface roughness between AUC and control segments. In a static and a perfusion model, phosphate deposition was significantly reduced on AUCs challenged with P. mirabilis. Furthermore, none of the AUCs blocked during the 28 day test period, unlike controls. The AUC prevented colonisation by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis, extended-spectrum beta-lactamase producing E. coli, and carbapenemase-producing E. coli for 12 consecutive weekly challenges. All three drugs impregnated into the catheter continued to exert protective activity throughout 12 weeks of constant perfusion. The drugs appear to migrate into the crystalline biofilm to continually protect against bacteria not it direct contact with the catheter surface. In conclusion, the AUC reduces mineral encrustation and may increase time to blockage in the presence of P. mirabilis, and does not predispose to mineral deposition under other conditions. It also offers 12 weeks of protection against multi-drug resistant bacteria

Drip Paintings and Fractal Analysis

It has been claimed [1-6] that fractal analysis can be applied to unambiguously characterize works of art such as the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock. This academic issue has become of more general interest following the recent discovery of a cache of disputed Pollock paintings. We definitively demonstrate here, by analyzing paintings by Pollock and others, that fractal criteria provide no information about artistic authenticity. This work has also led to two new results in fractal analysis of more general scientific significance. First, the composite of two fractals is not generally scale invariant and exhibits complex multifractal scaling in the small distance asymptotic limit. Second the statistics of box-counting and related staircases provide a new way to characterize geometry and distinguish fractals from Euclidean objects

Annual Modulation of Dark Matter in the Presence of Streams

In addition to a smooth component of WIMP dark matter in galaxies, there may be streams of material; the effects of WIMP streams on direct detection experiments is examined in this paper. The contribution to the count rate due to the stream cuts off at some characteristic energy. Near this cutoff energy, the stream contribution to the annual modulation of recoils in the detector is comparable to that of the thermalized halo, even if the stream represents only a small portion (~5% or less) of the local halo density. Consequently the total modulation may be quite different than would be expected for the standard halo model alone: it may not be cosine-like and can peak at a different date than expected. The effects of speed, direction, density, and velocity dispersion of a stream on the modulation are examined. We describe how the observation of a modulation can be used to determine these stream parameters. Alternatively, the presence of a dropoff in the recoil spectrum can be used to determine the WIMP mass if the stream speed is known. The annual modulation of the cutoff energy together with the annual modulation of the overall signal provide a "smoking gun" for WIMP detection.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figures. v2: Added reference and minor revisions to match PRD versio

Microbial diversity and potential pathogens in onamental fish aquarium water

© The Author(s), 2012. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 7 (2012): e39971, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0039971.Ornamental fishes are among the most popular and fastest growing categories of pets in the United States (U.S.). The global scope and scale of the ornamental fish trade and growing popularity of pet fish in the U.S. are strong indicators of the myriad economic and social benefits the pet industry provides. Relatively little is known about the microbial communities associated with these ornamental fishes or the aquarium water in which they are transported and housed. Using conventional molecular approaches and next generation high-throughput amplicon sequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA gene hypervariable regions, we characterized the bacterial community of aquarium water containing common goldfish (Carassius auratus) and Chinese algae eaters (Gyrinocheilus aymonieri) purchased from seven pet/aquarium shops in Rhode Island and identified the presence of potential pathogens. Our survey identified a total of 30 phyla, the most common being Proteobacteria (52%), Bacteroidetes (18%) and Planctomycetes (6%), with the top four phyla representing >80% of all sequences. Sequences from our water samples were most closely related to eleven bacterial species that have the potential to cause disease in fishes, humans and other species: Coxiella burnetii, Flavobacterium columnare, Legionella birminghamensis, L. pneumophila, Vibrio cholerae, V. mimicus. V. vulnificus, Aeromonas schubertii, A. veronii, A. hydrophila and Plesiomonas shigelloides. Our results, combined with evidence from the literature, suggest aquarium tank water harboring ornamental fish are an understudied source for novel microbial communities and pathogens that pose potential risks to the pet industry, fishes in trade, humans and other species