3d Printed Prosthetic Hand

3D printed prosthetic hands are a common medical device for pediatric partial hand patients due to their manufacturability and cost-effectiveness. Current designs employ a single fist grip, but prosthetists agree that the most useful grip is the three-finger chuck. We aim to modify an existing 3D printed prosthetic hand to enable the user to switch between a single fist grip and three-finger chuck as well as lock the grip that is being used

pH-Dependent Drug Delivery Systems

Gastric carcinoma, or stomach cancer, is a major disease in the world today. Although it only accounts for about 2% of all cancer cases in the United States, it is much more prevalent in nations such as Korea, Japan, Great Britain, South America, and Iceland. While the most common treatment for gastric carcinoma is surgery, there are chemotherapeutic alternatives including the application of doxorubicin, also known as Adriamycin?. However, as with nearly all chemotherapy drugs, doxorubicin causes dose-dependent toxicity that results in severe biological side effects and, potentially, death. Many of the adverse effects of doxorubicin may be attributed to the fact that it is normally administered intravenously; thus, although the drug?s target is the stomach, the doxorubicin is systemically rampant. Hence, we have developed a delivery system for doxorubicin that we hope will limit the drug?s action to the stomach alone. We begin with a means for encasing the doxorubicin inside two types of hydrogels whose diffusive properties vary depending on temperature and pH levels, such that diffusion may be maximized in the stomach and minimized at all other locations inside the gastrointestinal tract. This original design was modeled as a 1-D radial line to represent the spherical shape of the pill. After investigation, another design involving a hollowed out hemisphere was modeled and tested. Results comparison shows that the second design scheme is superior to the first both in outward drug flux and in the amount of drug able to be delivered. Ultimately, results of the study showed that pH-dependent drug release can be attained at a steady and reliable rate, with significantly greater rates of release inside the stomach. However, we were unable to attain a clinically adequate amount of total doxorubicin release with our model designs. Still, it may be possible to achieve medically useful results with pH-dependent drug delivery systems given certain technological improvements in the future

Lyalpha heating and its impact on early structure formation

In this paper we have calculated the effect of Lyalpha photons emitted by the first stars on the evolution of the IGM temperature. We have considered both a standard Salpeter IMF and a delta-function IMF for very massive stars with mass 300 M_sun. We find that the Lyalpha photons produced by the stellar populations considered here are able to heat the IGM at z<25, although never above ~100 K. Stars with a Salpeter IMF are more effective as, due to the contribution from small-mass long-living stars, they produce a higher Lyalpha background. Lyalpha heating can affect the subsequent formation of small mass objects by producing an entropy floor that may limit the amount of gas able to collapse and reduce the gas clumping.We find that the gas fraction in halos of mass below ~ 5 x 10^6 M_sun is less than 50% (for the smallest masses this fraction drops to 1% or less) compared to a case without Lyalpha heating. Finally, Lyalpha photons heat the IGM temperature above the CMB temperature and render the 21cm line from neutral hydrogen visible in emission at z<15.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, to be printed in MNRA

Momu: A mobile music toolkit

ABSTRACT The Mobile Music (MoMu) toolkit is a new open-source software development toolkit focusing on musical interaction design for mobile phones. The toolkit, currently implemented for iPhone OS, emphasizes usability and rapid prototyping with the end goal of aiding developers in creating real-time interactive audio applications. Simple and unified access to onboard sensors along with utilities for common tasks found in mobile music development are provided. The toolkit has been deployed and evaluated in the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra (MoPhO) and serves as the primary software platform in a new course exploring mobile music

The formation of compact massive self-gravitating discs in metal-free haloes with virial temperatures of ~ 13000-30000 K

We have used the hydrodynamical AMR code ENZO to investigate the dynamical evolution of the gas at the centre of dark matter haloes with virial velocities of ~ 20 - 30 kms and virial temperatures of ~ 13000-30000 K at z ~ 15 in a cosmological context. The virial temperature of the dark matter haloes is above the threshold where atomic cooling by hydrogen allows the gas to cool and collapse. We neglect cooling by molecular hydrogen and metals, as may be plausible if H_2 cooling is suppressed by a meta-galactic Lyman-Werner background or an internal source of Lyman-Werner photons, and metal enrichment has not progressed very far. The gas in the haloes becomes gravitationally unstable and develops turbulent velocities comparable to the virial velocities of the dark matter haloes. Within a few dynamical times it settles into a nearly isothermal density profile over many decades in radius losing most of its angular momentum in the process. About 0.1 - 1 % of the baryons, at the centre of the dark matter haloes, collapse into a self-gravitating, fat, ellipsoidal, centrifugally supported exponential disc with scale-length of ~ 0.075-0.27 pc and rotation velocities of 25-60 kms. We are able to follow the settling of the gas into centrifugal support and the dynamical evolution of the compact disc in each dark matter halo for a few dynamical times. The dynamical evolution of the gas at the centre of the haloes is complex. In one of the haloes the gas at the centre fragments into a triple system leading to strong tidal perturbations and eventually to the in-fall of a secondary smaller clump into the most massive primary clump. The formation of centrifugally supported self-gravitating massive discs is likely to be an important intermediary stage en route to the formation of a massive black hole seed.Comment: Re-submitted to MNRAS taking into account the referee's suggestions for moderate revision. 16 pages, 11 figure

Pathways to massive black holes and compact star clusters in pre-galactic dark matter haloes with virial temperatures > 10000K

Large dynamic range numerical simulations of atomic cooling driven collapse of gas in pre-galactic DM haloes with T_vir ~ 10000 K show that the gas loses 90% and more of its angular momentum before rotational support sets in. In a fraction of these haloes where the metallicity is low and UV radiation suppresses H_2 cooling, conditions are thus very favourable for the rapid build-up of massive black holes. Depending on the progression of metal enrichment, the continued suppression of H_2 cooling by external and internal UV radiation and the ability to trap the entropy produced by the release of gravitational energy, the gas at the centre of the halo is expected to form a supermassive star, a stellar-mass black hole accreting at super-Eddington accretion rates or a compact star-cluster undergoing collisional run-away of massive stars at its centre. In all three cases a massive black hole of initially modest mass finds itself at the center of a rapid inflow of gas with inflow rates of ~ 1 M_solar\yr. The massive black hole will thus grow quickly to a mass of 10^5 to 10^6 M_solar until further inflow is halted either by consumption of gas by star formation or by the increasing energy and momentum feedback from the growing massive black hole. Conditions for the formation of massive seed black holes in this way are most favourable in haloes with T_vir ~ 15000 K and V_vir ~ 20 km\s with less massive haloes not allowing collapse of gas by atomic cooling and more massive haloes being more prone to fragmentation. This should imprint a characteristic mass on the mass spectrum of an early population of massive black hole seeds in pre-galactic haloes which will later grow into the observed population of supermassive black holes in galactic bulges.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to MNRA

Anesthetic management for neonate with giant cystic hygroma involved upper airway -A case report-

Significant differences exist between neonatal and adult airways. Anesthetic management of the airway may be challenging in neonate and young infant with large neck mass because these patients are at risk for sudden complete airway occlusion resulting in hypoventilation and hypoxemia. We experienced a 30-day-old baby presented with large cystic hygroma on the left side of neck. This mass was infiltrated in pharynx and large enough to disturb swallowing and breathing, and was not reduced despite of sclero-therapy. Therefore he was decided to get surgical removal. During the gaseous induction with sevoflurane, spontaneous respiration was maintained because difficulty was encountered with intubation. Intraoperatively, the endotracheal tube was dislodged unexpectedly because vigorous surgical traction. Postoperatively the baby was extubated 2 day after operation, and suffered from transient facial nerve palsy and continuous discharge from surgical wound. He was administered ICU for a long time

Food safety knowledge and practice by the stages of change model in school children

In this study, 342 grade 4-6 elementary school students in Gyeonggi-do were recruited to determine their readiness to change food safety behavior and to compare their food safety knowledge and practices by the stages of change. The subjects were divided into three stages of change; the percentage of stage 1 (precontemplation) was 10.1%, the percentage of stage 2 (contemplation and preparation) was 62.4%, and that of stage 3 (action and maintenance) was 27.5%. Food safety knowledge scores in stage 3 (4.55) or stage 2 (4.50) children were significantly higher than those in stage 1 children (4.17) (P < 0.05). The two food safety behavior items "hand washing practice" and "avoidance of harmful food" were significantly different among the three groups (P < 0.05). Stages of change were significantly and positively correlated with food safety knowledge and practice. Age was significantly and negatively correlated with the total food safety behavior score (r = -0.142, P < 0.05). The most influential factor on the stage of change was a mother's instruction about food safety (P < 0.01)