Helicopter landing procedures and landing manual in M/V Island Intervention

Summary This bachelor thesis defines the helicopter operations onboard the ship Island Intervention. All existing manuals are very hard to read, due to the amount of theoretical information concerning helicopter operations. This is the reason why I wanted to write a more practical synopsis of the operations. The thesis is written to be a summary of the operations and safety aspects in a more practical point of view. The thesis starts with a theoretical part of the offshore business and helicopter operations, as it is an important part of the business. The theoretical part of the thesis handles in brief the construction of the helideck, the requirements and Island Intervention`s helideck’s safety equipment. The thesis is meant to be more practical than theoretical. Therefore, detailed theory and legal issues have been limited. To obtain more content and practical ideas, I have used interviews as my research method. All interviewed personnel have been trained in helideck procedures during the helicopter operations and they all have several years of experience in offshore business and helideck operations. To gain answers to my thesis problem, I used a questionnaire as information gaining method. The questionnaire was given to ten crewmembers, which all have HLO (Helicopter Landing Officer) training. The questionnaire consisted of five open questions. Thus, they were meant to be answered in the personnel’s own words. An open questionnaire was chosen, for the reason that it would allow the participants to answer freely and express his/her own thoughts on their personal experiences. Therefore, the answers were not tied up to numeral multiple choice answers. According to all examinee, helicopter operations are restively safe and in good standard. However, all of the participants agreed that the existing manuals onboard are too abstract and needed to be simplified. This observation supported my basic idea for this thesis.Tiivistelmä Tämä opinnäytetyö käsittelee helikopteri operaatiota laivalla jossa työskentelen. Nykyiset laivoilla olevat manuaalit ovat hyvin vaikealukuisia sisältäen paljon teoreettista informaatiota helikopterioperaatiosta. Tästä syystä halusin rakentaa käytännönläheisemmän paketin. Opinnäytetyö on rakennettu työkaluksi, josta on helppo ja nopea käydä läpi operaation pääkohdat ja turvallisuusaspektit. Työn alkuun olen rakentanut teoriaosuuden, jossa annetaan lukijalle selvennys itse offshore toiminnasta ja siihen läheisesti liittyvästä helikopteri toiminnasta. Tässä osuudessa käsitellään lyhyesti myös helikopterikannen vaatimuksia ja Island Interventionin turvallisuusvälineitä. Koska työ on tarkoituksenmukaisesti ajateltu olevan painoltaan käytännönläheinen työkalu, rajasin pois turhaa teoreettista puolta ja juridista puolta. Jotta työhön saatiin enemmän sisältöä ja käytännölliseen puoleen eri ammattilaisten ajatuksia, päätin käyttää yhtenä tiedonkeruumenetelmänä haastatteluja. Haastattelut suoritettiin Island Interventionin miehistölle, jotka ovat koulutettuja toimimaan helikopterikannella operaation aikana. Heillä kaikilla on jo vuosien kokemus öljypuolen laivatyöskentelystä ja helikopteri operaatiosta Itse ongelman ratkaisussa päätin käyttää kyselyä tutkimusmetodina. Kysely teetettiin 10 miehistönjäsenelle, eli kaikille saatavilla oleville HLO (Helicopter landing officer) kurssin käyneille. Kysely pitää sisällään 5 kysymystä joihin kaikkiin haluttiin sanallinen vastaus. Tämän tyylinen kysely antoi vastaajalle mahdollisuuden kertoa lyhyesti omista ajatuksistaan sitomatta liikaa vastauksia numeraalisiin monivalinta vastauksiin. Vastauksista kävi selville, että turvallisuus helikopteri operaatioissa on hyvällä tasolla. Kävi myös selville, että vastaajat ovat yhtä mieltä kanssani mitä tulee manuaalien vaikeaselkoisuuteen. Monet kaipasivat selkeyttä manuaaleihin ja tämä tukee tätä opinnäytetyön tarpeellisuutta

Helsinki VideoMEG Project : Augmenting magnetoencephalography with synchronized video recordings

The primary goal of the Helsinki VideoMEG Project is to enable magnetoencephalography (MEG) practitioners to record and analyze the video of the subject during an MEG experiment jointly with the MEG data. The project provides: Hardware assembly instructions and software for setting up video and audio recordings of the participant synchronized to MEG data acquisition. Basic software tools for analyzing video and audio together with the MEG data. The resulting setup allows reliable recording of video and audio from the subject in various real-world usage scenarios. The Helsinki VideoMEG Project allowed successful establishment of video-MEG facilities in four different MEG laboratories in Finland, Sweden and the United States.Peer reviewe

Running in highly cushioned shoes increases leg stiffness and amplifies impact loading

Running shoe cushioning has become a standard method for managing impact loading and consequent injuries due to running. However, despite decades of shoe technology developments and the fact that shoes have become increasingly cushioned, aimed to ease the impact on runners' legs, running injuries have not decreased. To better understand the shoe cushioning paradox, we examined impact loading and the spring-like mechanics of running in a conventional control running shoe and a highly cushioned maximalist shoe at two training speeds, 10 and 14.5 km/h. We found that highly cushioned maximalist shoes alter spring-like running mechanics and amplify rather than attenuate impact loading. This surprising outcome was more pronounced at fast running speed (14.5 km/h), where ground reaction force impact peak and loading rate were 10.7% and 12.3% greater, respectively, in the maximalist shoe compared to the conventional shoe, whereas only a slightly higher impact peak (6.4%) was found at the 10 km/h speed with the maxima list shoe. We attribute the greater impact loading with the maximalist shoes to stiffer leg during landing compared to that of running with the conventional shoes. These discoveries may explain why shoes with more cushioning do not protect against impact-related running injuries.Peer reviewe

Modulation of sensory cortical activity by deep brain stimulation in advanced Parkinson's disease

Despite optimal oral drug treatment, about 90% of patients with Parkinson's disease develop motor fluctuation and dyskinesia within 5-10 years from the diagnosis. Moreover, the patients show non-motor symptoms in different sensory domains. Bilateral deep brain stimulation (DBS) applied to the subthalamic nucleus is considered the most effective treatment in advanced Parkinson's disease, and it has been suggested to affect sensorimotor modulation and relate to motor improvement in patients. However, observations on the relationship between sensorimotor activity and clinical improvement have remained sparse. Here, we studied the somatosensory evoked magnetic fields in 13 right-handed patients with advanced Parkinson's disease before and 7 months after stimulator implantation. Somatosensory processing was addressed with magnetoencephalography during alternated median nerve stimulation at both wrists. The strengths and the latencies of the similar to 60-ms responses at the contralateral primary somatosensory cortices were highly variable but detectable and reliably localized in all patients. The response strengths did not differ between preoperative and postoperative DBSON measurements. The change in the response strength between preoperative and postoperative condition in the dominant left hemisphere of our right-handed patients correlated with the alleviation of their motor symptoms (p = .04). However, the result did not survive correction for multiple comparisons. Magnetoencephalography appears an effective tool to explore non-motor effects in patients with Parkinson's disease, and it may help in understanding the neurophysiological basis of DBS. However, the high interindividual variability in the somatosensory responses and poor tolerability of DBSOFF condition warrants larger patient groups and measurements also in non-medicated patients.Peer reviewe

Diagnostic accuracy of contrast-enhanced CT for neck abscesses : A systematic review and meta-analysis of positive predictive value

Objectives To review the diagnostic accuracy of contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) in differentiating abscesses from cellulitis in patients with neck infections, using surgical findings as the reference standard. Materials and methods Previous studies in the last 32 years were searched from PubMed and Embase. Because of partial verification bias (only positive abscess findings are usually verified surgically), sensitivity and specificity estimates are unreliable, and we focused on positive predictive value (PPV). For all studies, PPV was calculated as the proportion of true positives out of all positives on imaging. To estimate pooled PPV, we used both the median with an interquartile range and a model-based estimate. For narrative purposes, we reviewed the utility of common morphological CT criteria for abscesses, such as central hypodensity, the size of the collection, bulging, rim enhancement, and presence of air, as well as sensitivity and specificity values reported by the original reports. Results 23 studies were found reporting 1453 patients, 14 studies in children (771 patients), two in adults (137 patients), and seven including all ages (545 patients). PPV ranged from 0.67 to 0.97 in individual studies, had a median of 0.84 (0.79–0.87), and a model-based pooled estimate of 0.83 (95% confidence interval 0.80–0.85). Most morphological CT criteria had considerable overlap between abscesses and cellulitis. Conclusions The pooled estimate of PPV is 0.83 for diagnosing neck abscesses with CT. False positives may be due to limited soft tissue contrast resolution. Overall, none of the morphological criteria seem to be highly accurate for differentiation between abscess and cellulitis.© 2022 Hagelberg et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Mining port operation information from AIS data

Peer reviewe

Deep brain stimulation of subthalamic nucleus modulates cortical auditory processing in advanced Parkinson's Disease

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has proven its clinical efficacy in Parkinson's disease (PD), but its exact mechanisms and cortical effects continue to be unclear. Subthalamic (STN) DBS acutely modifies auditory evoked responses, but its long-term effect on auditory cortical processing remains ambiguous. We studied with magnetoencephalography the effect of long-term STN DBS on auditory processing in patients with advanced PD. DBS resulted in significantly increased contra-ipsilateral auditory response latency difference at similar to 100 ms after stimulus onset compared with preoperative state. The effect is likely due to normalization of neuronal asynchrony in the auditory pathways. The present results indicate that STN DBS in advanced PD patients has long-lasting effects on cortical areas outside those confined to motor processing. Whole-head magnetoencephalography provides a feasible tool to study motor and non-motor neural networks in PD, and to track possible changes related to cortical reorganization or plasticity induced by DBS.Peer reviewe

Secondary somatosensory cortex evoked responses and 6-year neurodevelopmental outcome in extremely preterm children

Objective: We assessed in extremely preterm born (EPB) children whether secondary somatosensory cor-tex (SII) responses recorded with magnetoencephalography (MEG) at term-equivalent age (TEA) correlate with neurodevelopmental outcome at age 6 years. Secondly, we assessed whether SII responses differ between 6-year-old EPB and term-born (TB) children. Methods: 39 EPB children underwent MEG with tactile stimulation at TEA. At age 6 years, 32 EPB and 26 TB children underwent MEG including a sensorimotor task requiring attention and motor inhibition. SII responses to tactile stimulation were modeled with equivalent current dipoles. Neurological outcome, motor competence, and general cognitive ability were prospectively evaluated at age 6 years. Results: Unilaterally absent SII response at TEA was associated with abnormal motor competence in 6-year-old EPB children (p = 0.03). At age 6 years, SII responses were bilaterally detectable in most EPB (88%) and TB (92%) children (group comparison, p = 0.69). Motor inhibition was associated with decreased SII peak latencies in TB children, but EPB children lacked this effect (p = 0.02). Conclusions: Unilateral absence of an SII response at TEA predicted poorer motor outcome in EPB children. Significance: Neurophysiological methods may provide new means for outcome prognostication in EPB children. (c) 2021 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe

Cortical beta burst dynamics are altered in Parkinson's disease but normalized by deep brain stimulation

Exaggerated subthalamic beta oscillatory activity and increased beta range cortico-subthalamic synchrony have crystallized as the electrophysiological hallmarks of Parkinson's disease. Beta oscillatory activity is not tonic but occurs in 'bursts' of transient amplitude increases. In Parkinson's disease, the characteristics of these bursts are altered especially in the basal ganglia. However, beta oscillatory dynamics at the cortical level and how they compare with healthy brain activity is less well studied. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to study sensorimotor cortical beta bursting and its modulation by subthalamic deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease patients and age-matched healthy controls. We show that the changes in beta bursting amplitude and duration typical of Parkinson's disease can also be observed in the sensorimotor cortex, and that they are modulated by chronic subthalamic deep brain stimulation, which, in turn, is reflected in improved motor function at the behavioural level. In addition to the changes in individual beta bursts, their timing relative to each other was altered in patients compared to controls: bursts were more clustered in untreated Parkinson's disease, occurring in 'bursts of bursts', and re-burst probability was higher for longer compared to shorter bursts. During active deep brain stimulation, the beta bursting in patients resembled healthy controls' data. In summary, both individual bursts' characteristics and burst patterning are affected in Parkinson's disease, and subthalamic deep brain stimulation normalizes some of these changes to resemble healthy controls' beta bursting activity, suggesting a non-invasive biomarker for patient and treatment follow-up.Peer reviewe

Exocrine pancreas function decreases during the progression of the beta-cell damaging process in young prediabetic children

Objective: The function of the exocrine pancreas is decreased in patients with type 1 diabetes but it is not known when this defect develops. The current study set out to determine whether the reduced exocrine function becomes manifest after the initiation of islet autoimmunity. Methods: The study was nested in the prospective Type 1 Diabetes Prediction and Prevention study where children with human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-conferred susceptibility are observed from birth. Elastase-1 levels were analyzed from stool samples collected at the time of seroconversion to islet autoantibody positivity and at diagnosis of type 1 diabetes, as well as from samples taken from matched control children of similar age. Results: Elastase levels were lower in case children at the time of the diagnosis of diabetes when compared to the control children. However, elastase concentrations did not differ between cases and controls at the time when autoantibodies appeared. Conclusion: The results suggest that the defect in the exocrine function develops after the appearance of islet autoantibodies. Further studies are needed to assess whether reduced elastase levels predict rapid progression of islet autoimmunity to clinical disease.Peer reviewe