The effect of work related mechanical stress on the peripheral temperature of the hand

The evolution and developments in modern industry have resulted a wide range of occupational activities, some of which can lead to industrial injuries. Due to the activities of occupational medicine, much progress has been made in transforming the way that operatives perform their tasks. However there are still many occupations where manual tasks have become more repetitive, contributing to the development of conditions that affect the upper limbs. Repetitive Strain Injury is one classification of those conditions which is related to overuse of repetitive movement. Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome is a subtype of this classification directly related to the operation of instruments and machinery which involves vibration. These conditions affect a large number of individuals, and are costly in terms of work absence, loss of income and compensation. While such conditions can be difficult to avoid, they can be monitored and controlled, with prevention usually the least expensive solution. In medico-legal situations it may be difficult to determine the location or the degree of injury, and therefore determining the relevant compensation due is complicated by the absence of objective and quantifiable methods. This research is an investigation into the development of an objective, quantitative and reproducible diagnostic procedure for work related upper limb disorders. A set of objective mechanical provocation tests for the hands have been developed that are associated with vascular challenge. Infrared thermal imaging was used to monitor the temperature changes using a well defined capture protocol. Normal reference values have been measured and a computational tool used to facilitate the process and standardise image processing. These objective tests have demonstrated good discrimination between groups of healthy controls and subjects with work related injuries but not individuals, p<0.05, and are reproducible. A maximum value for thermal symmetry of 0.5±0.3ºC for the whole upper limbs has been established for use as a reference. The tests can be used to monitor occupations at risk, aiming to reduce the impact of these conditions, reducing work related injury costs, and providing early detection. In a medico-legal setting this can also provide important objective information in proof of injury and ultimately in objectively establishing whether or not there is a case for compensation

Template Based Alignment and Interpolation Methods Comparison of Region of Interest in Thermal Images

Clinicians often have to compare two or more medical images with each other. Usually it is not the entire image that is important but only particular regions of interest (ROIs). In order to simplify the comparison and to reduce a source of human error a new approach for semiautomatically aligning ROIs is proposed. Using thermal (infrared) images as an example this paper builds on the author's previous work on automatically producing contour outlines of ROIs by applying noise removal and edge detection techniques. This study uses the outcome of the previous work to produce an initial and approximate ROI template shape from one of the images. This template shape is displayed as an overlay onto the second image together with control points which the user can manually move into new positions that match the contours of the second image. Using this shift of the control points the second image can then be transformed (morphed) into the same outline shape as the first image. It is the aim of this work to compare the results of applying three different interpolation methods commonly used for scaling and transforming images. The measures used for comparison are the changes of temperature mean and standard deviation in the ROIs resulting from transformation. Results show that the change in mean temperature is less than 0.5ºC in the worst case and 0.2ºC in the best Nearest Neighbour algorithm)

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved