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ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces Feb 2022Various insects can entrap and stabilize air plastrons and bubbles underwater. When these bubbles interact with surfaces underwater, they create air capillary bridges...
Various insects can entrap and stabilize air plastrons and bubbles underwater. When these bubbles interact with surfaces underwater, they create air capillary bridges that de-wet surfaces and even allow underwater reversible adhesion. In this study, a robotic arm with interchangeable three-dimensional (3D)-printed bubble-stabilizing units is used to create air capillary bridges underwater for manipulation of small objects. Particles of various sizes and shapes, thin sheets and substrates of diverse surface tensions, from hydrophilic to superhydrophobic, can be lifted, transported, placed, and oriented using one- or two-dimensional arrays of bubbles. Underwater adhesion, derived from the air capillary bridges, is quantified depending on the number, arrangement, and size of bubbles and the contact angle of the counter surface. This includes a variety of commercially available materials and chemically modified surfaces. Overall, it is possible to manipulate millimeter- to sub-millimeter-scale objects underwater. This includes cleaning submerged surfaces from colloids and arbitrary contaminations, folding thin sheets to create three-dimensional structures, and precisely placing and aligning objects of various geometries. The robotic underwater manipulator can be used for automation and control in cell culture experiments, lab-on-chip devices, and manipulation of objects underwater. It offers the ability to control the transport and release of small objects without the need for chemical adhesives, suction-based adhesion, anchoring devices, or grabbers.
PubMed: 35080367
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c23845 -
Leveraging the metacoupling framework for sustainability science and global sustainable development.National Science Review Jul 2023Sustainability science seeks to understand human-nature interactions behind sustainability challenges, but has largely been place-based. Traditional sustainability... (Review)
Review
Sustainability science seeks to understand human-nature interactions behind sustainability challenges, but has largely been place-based. Traditional sustainability efforts often solved problems in one place at the cost of other places, compromising global sustainability. The metacoupling framework offers a conceptual foundation and a holistic approach to integrating human-nature interactions within a place, as well as between adjacent places and between distant places worldwide. Its applications show broad utilities for advancing sustainability science with profound implications for global sustainable development. They have revealed effects of metacoupling on the performance, synergies, and trade-offs of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across borders and across local to global scales; untangled complex interactions; identified new network attributes; unveiled spatio-temporal dynamics and effects of metacoupling; uncovered invisible feedbacks across metacoupled systems; expanded the nexus approach; detected and integrated hidden phenomena and overlooked issues; re-examined theories such as Tobler's First Law of Geography; and unfolded transformations among noncoupling, coupling, decoupling, and recoupling. Results from the applications are also helpful to achieve SDGs across space, amplify benefits of ecosystem restoration across boundaries and across scales, augment transboundary management, broaden spatial planning, boost supply chains, empower small agents in the large world, and shift from place-based to flow-based governance. Key topics for future research include cascading effects of an event in one place on other places both nearby and far away. Operationalizing the framework can benefit from further tracing flows across scales and space, uplifting the rigor of causal attribution, enlarging toolboxes, and elevating financial and human resources. Unleashing the full potential of the framework will generate more important scientific discoveries and more effective solutions for global justice and sustainable development.
PubMed: 37305165
DOI: 10.1093/nsr/nwad090 -
Health & Place May 2015For several decades, the emphasis on abstinence within homeless support systems has presented significant barriers to care for those who continue to use alcohol or drugs...
For several decades, the emphasis on abstinence within homeless support systems has presented significant barriers to care for those who continue to use alcohol or drugs further marginalizing them in terms of housing and health/social services. In response, health care specialists and policymakers have recommended the integration of harm reduction philosophies and interventions into system-level responses to end homelessness. Managed alcohol programs (MAPs) have been developed to this end and have demonstrated positive results. While recent studies of MAPs have focused attention on reductions in alcohol related harms few have examined their meaning from the perspective of clients or considered the role of place. In this paper, we utilize the 'enabling places' frameworks to identify the place-bound properties that make a difference in the recovery journeys of clients. Drawing on in-depth interviews with clients from one program we develop a description of MAPs as enabling places that afford the elemental resources for personal recovery.
Topics: Adult; Alcoholism; Canada; Harm Reduction; Health Services Accessibility; Ill-Housed Persons; Housing; Humans; Male; Middle Aged
PubMed: 25817940
DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2015.02.011 -
Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic... Sep 2016The choice of implant length is an essential factor in deciding the survival rates of these implants and the overall success of the prosthesis. Placing an implant in the... (Review)
Review
The choice of implant length is an essential factor in deciding the survival rates of these implants and the overall success of the prosthesis. Placing an implant in the posterior part of the maxilla and mandible has always been very critical due to poor bone quality and quantity. Long implants can be placed in association with complex surgical procedures such as sinus lift and bone augmentation. These techniques are associated with higher cost, increased treatment time and greater morbidity. Hence, there is need for a less invasive treatment option in areas of poor bone quantity and quality. Data related to survival rates of short implants, their design and prosthetic considerations has been compiled and structured in this manuscript with emphasis on the indications, advantages of short implants and critical biomechanical factors to be taken into consideration when choosing to place them. Studies have shown that comparable success rates can be achieved with short implants as those with long implants by decreasing the lateral forces to the prosthesis, eliminating cantilevers, increasing implant surface area and improving implant to abutment connection. Short implants can be considered as an effective treatment alternative in resorbed ridges. Short implants can be considered as a viable treatment option in atrophic ridge cases in order to avoid complex surgical procedures required to place long implants. With improvement in the implant surface geometry and surface texture, there is an increase in the bone implant contact area which provides a good primary stability during osseo-integration.
PubMed: 27790598
DOI: 10.7860/JCDR/2016/21838.8550 -
Behavioural Processes Jun 1996The goal of this study was to determine whether fish can learn to forage in different places at different times of the day, each place being associated with a specific...
The goal of this study was to determine whether fish can learn to forage in different places at different times of the day, each place being associated with a specific time. Groups of eight golden shiners (Notemigonus crysoleucas) were kept in aquaria equipped with automatic feeders that dropped food on one side in the morning and on the other side in the afternoon, or on one side in the morning, the other side at midday, and back on the first side in the evening. After 3-4 weeks, food was withheld and the position of the fish within the aquaria was noted at 5-min intervals throughout the day. Consistent with time-place learning, most fish were on the correct side at the correct time. However, another experiment with three places instead of two provided only equivocal evidence of time-place learning; this could reflect the fact that, in the lakes they inhabit, golden shiners may need only distinguish between two places: open waters and littoral. Experiments with phase-shifts of the photoperiod showed that temporal discrimination is based on a circadian clock that can be gradually phase-advanced by 6 h in about 3 days.
PubMed: 24896874
DOI: 10.1016/0376-6357(96)88023-5 -
Scandinavian Journal of Urology and... Dec 2001We aimed to compare the three techniques of dartos pouch orchiopexy, suture fixation to the scrotal wall and narrowing of the neck of pouch with or without suture... (Clinical Trial)
Clinical Trial Comparative Study Randomized Controlled Trial
OBJECTIVE
We aimed to compare the three techniques of dartos pouch orchiopexy, suture fixation to the scrotal wall and narrowing of the neck of pouch with or without suture fixation, in regard to the postoperative ascensus of testes.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
We operated on 150 unilateral palpable undescended testis with the scrotal pouch orchiopexy technique. In this prospective study, patients were randomly divided into three groups: Testes were fixed to the scrotal wall in the first group, they were placed into the scrotal pouch without fixation but the neck of the dartos pouch was narrowed around the vas deferens and the vessels in the second group and testes were fixed to the scrotum with a suture and the dartos fascial opening was narrowed concomitantly in the third group.
RESULTS
Patients were followed between 6 and 48 months (28.0 +/- 11.4). Only four testes of the first group (8.0%) were replaced upward after the operation where all the other two groups' testes were in their places.
CONCLUSION
We believe that only narrowing of the dartos fascia around the vas deferens and vessels without fixation to the scotum prevents ascending of the testis upward after orchiopexy operations. We think this technique decrease the risk of supposed damage to the testicular tissue due to suture material.
Topics: Child; Child, Preschool; Cryptorchidism; Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Infant; Male; Prospective Studies; Testis; Urologic Surgical Procedures
PubMed: 11848432
DOI: 10.1080/003655901753367631 -
Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual... Mar 2017To compare visually guided manual prehension in participants with primarily central field loss (CFL) due to age-related macular degeneration and peripheral visual field... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
PURPOSE
To compare visually guided manual prehension in participants with primarily central field loss (CFL) due to age-related macular degeneration and peripheral visual field loss (PFL) due to glaucoma. This study extends current literature by comparing directly "reach-to-grasp" performance, and presents a new task of "transport-to-place" the object accurately to a new location. Data were compared to age-matched controls.
METHODS
Three-dimensional motion data were collected from 17 glaucoma participants with PFL, 17 participants with age-related macular degeneration CFL and 10 age-matched control participants. Participants reached toward and grasped a cylindrical object (reach-to-grasp), and then transported and placed (transport-to-place) it at a different (predefined) peripheral location. Various kinematic indices were measured. Correlation analyses explored relationships between visual function and kinematic data.
RESULTS
In the reach-to-grasp phase, CFL patients exhibited significantly longer movement and reaction times when compared to PFL participants and controls. Central field loss participants also took longer to complete the movement and made more online movements in the latter part of the reach. During the transport-to-place phase, CFL participants showed increased deceleration times, longer movement trajectory, and increased vertical wrist displacement. Central field loss also showed higher errors in placing the object at a predefined location. A number of kinematic indices correlated significantly to central visual function indices (P < 0.05).
CONCLUSIONS
Significant differences in performance exist between CFL and PFL participants. Various indices correlated significantly with loss in acuity and contrast sensitivity (CS), suggesting that performance is more dependent on central visual function irrespective of underlying pathology.
Topics: Aged; Contrast Sensitivity; Female; Glaucoma; Humans; Imaging, Three-Dimensional; Macular Degeneration; Male; Motion Perception; Movement; Psychomotor Performance; Scotoma; Visual Fields
PubMed: 28282488
DOI: 10.1167/iovs.16-20273 -
Emergency Medicine Journal : EMJ Nov 2005Invasive practical procedures require identification of surface anatomical landmarks to reduce risk of damage to other structures. Needle thoracocentesis has specific...
BACKGROUND
Invasive practical procedures require identification of surface anatomical landmarks to reduce risk of damage to other structures. Needle thoracocentesis has specific complications, which have been previously documented. An observational study was performed among emergency physicians to name the landmark for needle thoracocentesis and identify this point on a human volunteer as per Advanced Trauma and Life Support (ATLS) guidelines.
RESULTS
A cohort of 25 emergency physicians was studied, 21 (84%) of which were ATLS certified. The correct landmark was named by 22 (88%). Only 15 (60%) correctly identified the second intercostal space on the human volunteer, all placing the needle medial to the midclavicular line, with a range of 3 cm. Two (8%) named and identified the site of needle pericardiocentesis; one (4%) named and identified the fifth intercostal space in the anterior axillary line.
DISCUSSION
These results demonstrate a low accuracy among emergency physicians in identifying correct landmarks for needle thoracocentesis under elective conditions. Should greater emphasis be placed on competency based training in ATLS?
Topics: Chi-Square Distribution; Clinical Competence; Cohort Studies; Emergency Treatment; Humans; Medical Staff, Hospital; Needles; Paracentesis; Pneumothorax; Thorax
PubMed: 16244336
DOI: 10.1136/emj.2004.015107 -
Animal Welfare (South Mimms, England) 2024Dairy calves are typically fed restricted amounts of milk. Although feed restrictions are predicted to result in negative affective states, the relative aversiveness of...
Dairy calves are typically fed restricted amounts of milk. Although feed restrictions are predicted to result in negative affective states, the relative aversiveness of 'hunger' remains largely unexplored in this species. Here, we investigated whether the conditioned place preference paradigm can be used to explore how calves feel when experiencing different levels of satiation. This paradigm provides insight into what animals remember from past experiences, the assumption being that individuals will prefer places associated with more pleasant or less unpleasant experiences. Sixteen Holstein calves were either fed a restricted (3 L per meal totalling 6 L per day) or 'enhanced' milk allowance ( up to 6 L per meal totalling up to 12 L per day) in their home-pen. Calves were then placed in a conditioning pen for 4 h immediately after being fed their morning meal to allow them to develop an association between the pen and their state of post-prandial satiation. Calves were conditioned across four days with their satiation state alternating between days to allow them to develop an association between pen and satiation levels. On the 5th day, calves were individually allowed to roam freely between the two pens for 30 min. We expected that calves would prefer the pen where they previously experienced higher levels of satiation, but our results show no to limited effects of treatment. However, some methodological issues (colour and side bias) prevent us from drawing strong conclusions. We discuss reasons for these issues and potential solutions to avoid these in future studies.
PubMed: 38694488
DOI: 10.1017/awf.2024.24