LOWER LIMB COORDINATIVE STRUCTURE IN HUMAN WALKING

Human movement engages many body segments which are highly coupled. These couplings, known as synergies, have been widely investigated using principal components analysis (PCA). A primary limitation of the correlation matrices underlying PCA is that they do not account for phase differences or frequency-dependent variations in amplitude ratio between signals, yet such properties are widespread in relations between signals in the sensorimotor system. Coherence derived from dynamic linear systems analyses was introduced here to PCA applied to lower limb movements during normal walking. The results showed that one component could account for over 90% of the total variance in 26 joint angles. The findings confirm that the coordinative structure of walking is very low dimensional, comprising only a single degree of freedom

Differences in perception of dysentery and enteric fever and willingness to receive vaccines among rural residents in China.

BACKGROUND: Enteric diseases including dysentery and enteric fever remain significant public health problems in China. While vaccines offer great potential in controlling these diseases, greater understanding of factors influencing acceptance of vaccines is needed to create effective enteric disease control programs in rural China. DESIGN: Cross-sectional quantitative study with randomly sampled households from two sites in China, one experiencing high rates of shigellosis (Zengding) and the other of typhoid/paratyphoid (Lingchuan). METHODS: Sociobehavioral survey data were collected through face-to-face interviews from 501 respondents (56% female) in Zhengding regarding dysentery and 624 in Lingchuan (51% female) regarding enteric fever. Vaccine acceptability was measured by expressed need for vaccination and willingness to pay. Comparative and associative analyses were conducted to assess disease perception, vaccination service satisfaction, likelihood of improvements in water and sanitation, and vaccine acceptability. RESULTS: Nearly all respondents in Lingchuan considered enteric fever to be prevalent in the community, while only one half of the respondents in Zhengding considered dysentery to be problematic (p < 0.01). Nevertheless, more respondents in Zhengding were fearful that a household member would acquire dysentery than were Lingchuan respondents worried that a household member would acquire enteric fever (p < 0.01). Perceived vulnerability of specific subgroups (odds ratios ranging from 1.6 to 8.1), knowing someone who died of the disease (odds ratio reached infinity) and satisfaction with past vaccination services (odds ratios reached infinity) were consistently associated with perceived need for vaccines of target populations of all age groups while the association between perception of sanitary improvement and vaccine need was limited. Perceived need for a vaccine was associated with willingness to pay for the vaccine. CONCLUSIONS: Perceptions of enhanced vulnerability of specific subgroups to a disease and satisfactory experiences with vaccination services may increase the perceived need for a vaccine, leading to increased willingness to pay for vaccine. Vaccines are not perceived as important for the elderly

Analysis and Design of Shaxian Snack Catering Management Information System

This paper first expounds the background, purpose and significance of the research on Shaxian snack catering system. Moreover?the daily business process and data flow of Shaxian snacks are analyzed in various aspects to improve the design thought. Combined with functional analysis, background code and pages can be made easily. Finally, the system is tested and the system logic is found. The actual data are used for data statistics, and the last step is modifying and improving. Then the interface of the catering system was made and the design of the catering system was implemented and developed. Finally, the completed restaurant system was tested, the system was tested for deficiencies, and the missing places were modified

Crack Propagation and Microstructural Transformation on The Friction Surface of a High-Speed Railway Brake Disc

While brake disc wear represents a significant problem in high-speed rail systems, the progressive development of fatigue cracks during successive braking cycles also plays a great role in braking integrity. The modified microstructure consisting of a white etching layer (WEL) containing nanosized ferrite was observed on the friction surface of worn brake discs. In order to analyze how sequential thermal and mechanical stress affected crack propagation and microstructure evolution in brake discs, successive braking cycles were simulated on a full-scale braking bench test rig. Crack initiation and propagation mechanisms were proposed based on the experimental results, i.e., (i) occurrence of heat checking caused by heating and cooling transients during braking; (ii) heat checking increasing the roughness of the friction surface which in turn caused a local stress concentration and (iii) localized friction stress and thermal stress driving the heat checking to propagate and coalesce with the radial main crack. Analysis of the thermal-mechanical conditions that exist at the friction surface during braking indicates that WEL formation can be attributed to severe plastic deformation caused by the repeated friction between the disc and pads. Mechanical testing also indicated that WEL formation is not detrimental to brake disc integrity

Long-Lasting Phosphorescence in BaSi\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3eO\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3eN\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e:Eu\u3csup\u3e2+\u3c/sup\u3e and Ba\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3eSiO\u3csub\u3e4\u3c/sub\u3e:Eu\u3csup\u3e2+\u3c/sup\u3e Phases for X-Ray and Cathode Ray Tubes

We report the long-lasting bluish-green phosphorescence for X-ray or cathode ray tubes in the phosphors with compositions of either Ba2SiO4:0.01Eu2+–xSi3N4 (x=0–1) or 2BaCO3–ySi3N4:0.01Eu2+(y=1/6–1) synthesized by a solid-state reaction. By tuning the Si3N4content, the phosphorescence may originate from Eu2+ in BaSi2O2N2(peaking at 490 nm), Ba2SiO4 (505 nm), and Ba3SiO5 (590 nm) phases. The strong phosphorescence of the Ba2SiO4:Eu2+ phase in 2BaCO3–ySi3N4:0.01Eu2+ is attributed to N substitution for O to generate a shallow trap. In Ba2SiO4:0.01Eu2+–xSi3N4 , however, N prefers reacting with Ba2SiO4 to form BaSi2O2N2 , thereby exhibiting a strong phosphorescence of the BaSi2O2N2:Eu2+ phase but a weak phosphorescence of the Ba2SiO4:Eu2+ phase

Optical biopsy identification and grading of gliomas using label-free visible resonance Raman spectroscopy.

Glioma is one of the most refractory types of brain tumor. Accurate tumor boundary identification and complete resection of the tumor are essential for glioma removal during brain surgery. We present a method based on visible resonance Raman (VRR) spectroscopy to identify glioma margins and grades. A set of diagnostic spectral biomarkers features are presented based on tissue composition changes revealed by VRR. The Raman spectra include molecular vibrational fingerprints of carotenoids, tryptophan, amide I/II/III, proteins, and lipids. These basic in situ spectral biomarkers are used to identify the tissue from the interface between brain cancer and normal tissue and to evaluate glioma grades. The VRR spectra are also analyzed using principal component analysis for dimension reduction and feature detection and support vector machine for classification. The cross-validated sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy are found to be 100%, 96.3%, and 99.6% to distinguish glioma tissues from normal brain tissues, respectively. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the classification is about 1.0. The accuracies to distinguish normal, low grade (grades I and II), and high grade (grades III and IV) gliomas are found to be 96.3%, 53.7%, and 84.1% for the three groups, respectively, along with a total accuracy of 75.1%. A set of criteria for differentiating normal human brain tissues from normal control tissues is proposed and used to identify brain cancer margins, yielding a diagnostic sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 71%. Our study demonstrates the potential of VRR as a label-free optical molecular histopathology method used for in situ boundary line judgment for brain surgery in the margins

Positive solutions for (n− 1, 1)-type singular fractional differential system with coupled integral boundary conditions

We study the positive solutions of the ( − 1, 1)-type fractional differential system with coupled integral boundary conditions. The conditions for the existence of positive solutions to the system are established. In addition, we derive explicit formulae for the estimation of the positive solutions and obtain the unique positive solution when certain additional conditions hold. An example is then given to demonstrate the validity of our main results