THE EFFECT OF PASSIVE AND ACTIVE IMPULSE ON THE PERFORMANCES OF DROP JUMPS

This experiment is to investigate the ground reaction forces of lhree diHerent heights of drop-jumps (DJ) in order to understand the eHect of passive and active impulses on the performance of DJ. Eleven subjects were asked to perform DJs. AMIT force-platform and penny electrical gonia-meter were used to record the ground reaction forces and knee angular displacement. After treating the data and discussion, the conclusions were obtained. The active force as well as the active impulse are that of DJ20=DJ40=DJ60 whose result is consistent with the flight-height of these three diHerent DJ. On the other hand, the higher the jump-altitude is, the larger the passive impulse and passive force are. This result is very diHerent from that of flight-height, so the passive impulsive seems to have no help to prompt the performances of DJs. After further examination of the ground reaction force, we found that the key determinant process is the PARFD that slopes down as the jump-heights increase. The DJ60 induces the largest passive impulse but also accompanies negative PARFD. On other hand, the DJ20 induces the smallest passive impulse but accompanies positive PARFD. Finally, the performances of DJ20, DJ40 and DJ60 have no diHerence

A Web-Services-Based P2P Computing-Power Sharing Architecture

As demands of data processing and computing power are increasing, existing information system architectures become insufficient. Some organizations try to figure out how to keep their systems work without purchasing new hardware and software. Therefore, a Webservices-based model which shares the resource over the network like a P2P network will be proposed to meet this requirement in this paper. In addition, this paper also discusses some problems about security, motivation, flexibility, compatibility and workflow management for the traditional P2P power sharing models. Our new computing architecture - Computing Power Services (CPS) - will aim to address these problems. For the shortcomings about flexibility, compatibility and workflow management, CPS utilizes Web Services and Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) to overcome them. Because CPS is assumed to run in a reliable network where peers trust each other, the concerns about security and motivation will be negated. In essence, CPS is a lightweight Web-Services-based P2P power sharing environment and suitable for executing computing works in batch in a reliable networ

BANet: Blur-aware Attention Networks for Dynamic Scene Deblurring

Image motion blur usually results from moving objects or camera shakes. Such blur is generally directional and non-uniform. Previous research efforts attempt to solve non-uniform blur by using self-recurrent multi-scale or multi-patch architectures accompanying with self-attention. However, using self-recurrent frameworks typically leads to a longer inference time, while inter-pixel or inter-channel self-attention may cause excessive memory usage. This paper proposes blur-aware attention networks (BANet) that accomplish accurate and efficient deblurring via a single forward pass. Our BANet utilizes region-based self-attention with multi-kernel strip pooling to disentangle blur patterns of different degrees and with cascaded parallel dilated convolution to aggregate multi-scale content features. Extensive experimental results on the GoPro and HIDE benchmarks demonstrate that the proposed BANet performs favorably against the state-of-the-art in blurred image restoration and can provide deblurred results in real-time

THE REGULATION OF LEG STIFFNESS AND EMG ACTIVITIES ON PERSON WITH VISUAL IMPAIRED DURING STEP-DOWN WALKING

The purpose of present study was to evaluate leg muscular regulation and neuromuscular activation by investigating the stiffness and EMG amplitude of normal vision students and visually impaired students. 10 normal vision (age: 24.3±20 years; height: 171.5±4.6cm; mass: 65.9±8.0kg) and 10 visually impaired students (age: 23.2±2.4 years; height: 163.4±9.6cm; mass: 62.8±15.0kg) were served as subjects. AMTI force platform (1200 Hz), Peak Performance motion analysis system (60Hz) and Biovision EMG system were used synchronously to record the ground reaction force, the kinematic parameters and EMG signals of lower extremity during the subjects stepped down from height 20, 30 and 40cm. The results revealed that the regulation of neuromuscular system of the impaired is less efficient compared to the normal one because of lower muscle stiffness and EMG activity

Use of an open-source CAD software program and additive manufacturing technology to design and fabricate a definitive cast for retrofitting a crown to an existing removable partial denture

This technical report describes a digital process for designing and fabricating a stackable definitive cast and die system to facilitate the fabrication of a new surveyed crown to retrofit to a removable partial denture (RPD). By using an open-source computer-aided design (CAD) software program, this technique provides an economical option for dental clinicians and laboratory technicians to use intraoral scans and design a stackable definitive cast and die system with minimal financial investment in the CAD software. In addition, this technique provides the advantage of a conventional indirect technique in that it can create a definitive cast with an RPD clasp assembly ready for the dental technician to properly contour the new surveyed crown, but without the need for the patient to be without the RPD during the process

Biomechanical Characteristics and EMG Activities of Weighted Countermovement Jump

The purpose of this study was to investigate the biomechanical characteristics and EMG activities during a weighted countermovement jump (WCMJ) with 0%, 25% and 50% of body weight. Eight male college students participated this study. An AMTI force platform, Penny&Giles goniometer and Biovision EMG system were used synchronously to record the related parameters while subjects performed WCMJs. The results indicate that by increasing load, the eccentric mean force, the maximum force and concentric impulse increases significantly. With the load increase, the EMG activities of soleus and gastrocnemius did not changed significantly, while the eccentric mean EMG amplitude of rectus femoris got greater. This reveals that WCMJ has a marked influence on the lower extremity, especially on the rectus femoris

Sonographic Detection of Pseudoaneurysm in Vascular Injury in Emergency Department

A 31-year-old man suffered from a stab wound to the lower extremity. The patient had a hard sign of a vascular injury (a diminished distal pulse) and therefore probably should have undergone operative repair, but refused. One week later, he returned to our emergency department with a painful right thigh swelling. Bedside sonography was used to detect a pseudoaneurysm. Emergency sonography is a fast, non-invasive, and rapid decision-making approach in emergency practice

Regulation of shear-induced nuclear translocation of the Nrf2 transcription factor in endothelial cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Vascular endothelial cells (ECs) constantly experience fluid shear stresses generated by blood flow. Laminar flow is known to produce atheroprotective effects on ECs. Nrf2 is a transcription factor that is essential for the antioxidant response element (ARE)-mediated induction of genes such as heme-oxygenase 1 (HO-1). We previously showed that fluid shear stress increases intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) in ECs. Moreover, oxidants are known to stimulate Nrf2. We thus examined the regulation of Nrf2 in cultured human ECs by shear stress.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Exposure of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) to laminar shear stress (12 dyne/cm²) induced Nrf2 nuclear translocation, which was inhibited by a phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor, a protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor, and an antioxidant agent N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), but not by other protein kinase inhibitors. Therefore, PI3K, PKC, and ROS are involved in the signaling pathway that leads to the shear-induced nuclear translocation of Nrf2. We also found that shear stress increased the ARE-binding activity of Nrf2 and the downstream expression of HO-1.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our data suggest that the atheroprotective effect of laminar flow is partially attributed to Nrf2 activation which results in ARE-mediated gene transcriptions, such as HO-1 expression, that are beneficial to the cardiovascular system.</p

Suppression of inducible cyclooxygenase and nitric oxide synthase through activation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ by flavonoids in mouse macrophages

AbstractPeroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)γ transcription factor has been implicated in anti-inflammatory response. Of the compounds tested, apigenin, chrysin, and kaempferol significantly stimulated PPARγ transcriptional activity in a transient reporter assay. In addition, these three flavonoids strongly enhanced the inhibition of inducible cyclooxygenase and inducible nitric oxide synthase promoter activities in lipopolysaccharide-activated macrophages which contain the PPARγ expression plasmids. However, these three flavonoids exhibited weak PPARγ agonist activities in an in vitro competitive binding assay. Limited protease digestion of PPARγ suggested these three flavonoids produced a conformational change in PPARγ and the conformation differs in the receptor bound to BRL49653 versus these three flavonoids. These results suggested that these three flavonoids might act as allosteric effectors and were able to bind to PPARγ and activate it, but its binding site might be different from the natural ligand BRL49653

Electrochemical impedimetric biosensor based on a nanostructured polycarbonate substrate

This study integrates the techniques of nanoelectroforming, hot-embossing, and electrochemical deposition to develop a disposable, low-cost, and high sensitivity nanostructure biosensor. A modified anodic aluminum oxide barrier-layer surface was used as the template for thin nickel film deposition. After etching the anodic aluminum oxide template off, a three-dimensional mold of the concave nanostructure array was created. The fabricated three-dimensional nickel mold was further used for replica molding of a nanostructure polycarbonate substrate by hot-embossing. A thin gold film was then sputtered onto the polycarbonate substrate to form the electrode, followed by deposition of an orderly and uniform gold nanoparticle layer on the three-dimensional gold electrode using electrochemical deposition. Finally, silver nanoparticles were deposited on the uniformly deposited gold nanoparticles to enhance the conductivity of the sensor. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy analysis was then used to detect the concentration of the target element. The sensitivity of the proposed scheme on the detection of the dust mite antigen, Der p2, reached 0.1 pg/mL