Walking is a complex, rhythmic task performed by the locomotor system. However, natural gait rhythms can be influenced by metronomic auditory stimuli, a phenomenon of particular interest in neurological rehabilitation. In this paper, we examined the effects of aural, visual and tactile rhythmic cues on the temporal dynamics associated with human gait. Data were collected from fifteen healthy adults in two sessions. Each session consisted of five 15-minute trials. In the first trial of each session, participants walked at their preferred walking speed. In subsequent trials, participants were asked to walk to a metronomic beat, provided through visually, aurally, tactile or all three cues (simultaneously and in sync), the pace of which was set to the preferred walking speed of the first trial. Using the collected data, we extracted several parameters including: gait speed, mean stride interval, stride interval variability, scaling exponent and maximum Lyapunov exponent. The extracted parameters showed that rhythmic sensory cues affect the temporal dynamics of human gait. The auditory rhythmic cue had the greatest influence on the gait parameters, while the visual cue had no statistically significant effect on the scaling exponent. These results demonstrate that visual rhythmic cues could be considered as an alternative cueing modality in rehabilitation without concern of adversely altering the statistical persistence of walking.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small, 21-24 nucleotides long, non-coding RNAs involved in the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. Using the array analysis on Arabidopsis thaliana infected with the Oil-seed Rape Mosaic Virus (ORMV), we have found 28 up-regulated miRNAs. From them, six were selected for further validation by Northern blot analysis: miRNA172a, miRNA161, miRNA167a&b, miRNA168a&b, miRNA171a, and miRNA159. In addition, 29 miRNAs were detected in plants exposed to drought stress, 13 of those detected miRNAs were up-regulated and 16 down-regulated miRNAs. Out of 29 differentially expressed miRNAs during the abiotic stress, six miRNAs (167a&b, 168a&b, 173, 171b&c, 399d and 447c) were chosen for Northern blot and RT-PCR analysis to confirm the array results. Interestingly, four out of these six miRNAs, 171b&c, 168a&b, 399d, and 447c, showed very high abundance of pri-miRNAs and pre-miRNAs. Furthermore, mature forms of miRNAs171b&c, 399d, and 447c, were not detectable in the rosette leaves, indicating that miRNA processing is tissue specific. In conclusion, using the array analysis we show that 28 miRNAs are involved in the plant response to viral infection and 29 miRNAs are involved in the regulation of drought stress. We also demonstrate that at least some miRNAs involved in the stress response in Arabidopsis thaliana are regulated at the maturation level. One such example is miRNA 171b&c. This miRNA is transcribed in all tissues, evidenced by its detected pri and pre-miRNA forms; however, its mature form is constitutively or transiently expressed depending on the tissue type.

Abstract The Buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris L., Poaceae) is one of the most important pasturage grasses due to its high productivity and good forage qualities. This species possess a high adaptability to bioclimatic constraints of arid zones and may be used for the restoration of degraded arid ecosystems. Tunisian populations present three ploidy levels (4x, 5x and 6x) with a basic chromosome number x=9. This study reported for the first time the distribution of the ribosomal genes (rRNA) for pentaploid and hexaploid cytotypes of Cenchrus ciliaris. Molecular cytogenetic study using double fluorescence in situ hybridization has shown that the two rDNA families, 5S and 18S-5.8S-26S (18S), displayed intraspecific variation in number of loci among different ploidy levels. Each ploidy level was characterized by specific number of both 5S and 18S rDNA loci (two loci in tetraploid, five in pentaploid and six in hexaploid level). For three studied cytotypes (4x, 5x and 6x) all 5S rDNA loci were localized on the subcentromeric region of chromosomes, while 18S loci were situated on the telomeric region of short chromosome arms. Data of the FISH experiments show proportional increase of ribosomal loci number during polyploidization processes.

Interdigitating dendritic cell sarcoma is extremely rare neoplasm that mainly occurs in the lymph nodes. Only 45 cases have been reported in the literature to date. We report a case of this sarcoma arising from the liver and lung, a previosly unreported site for this neoplasm. An 19-year-old girl deteriorated rapidly after artificial abortion and died 4 weeks later. Autopsy showed markedly enlarged liver and lung with numerous nodules up to 0.5 centimeters in diameter. Microscopically, nodules was composed of large pleomorphic cells that were immunohistochemically positive for proteins S-100 and vimentin, some of them expressed positivity to fascin and CD 68, with a rich small CD3 positive T lymphocytic infiltrateite around them. Based of these findings, the present case was diagnosed as interdigitating dendritic cell sarcoma, a neoplasm that remains a diagnostic and clinical challenge, because it can mimic a wide variety of other malignant tumors and tumor-like lesions.

Actinobacillosis is a sporadic, inflammatory disease of the soft tissue in cattle, sheep, goats (Swarbrick 1967, Fubini and Campbell 1983, Muhammad and others 2006, Radostits 2007) and other species (Dibb and others 1981, Carmalt and others 1999, Kennerman and others 2006). The causative organism, Actinobacillus lignieresii , is part of the oral flora (Rycroft and Garside 2000, Quinn 2002) and invades mucosal surfaces following trauma caused by abrasive ingesta or the action of the teeth during mastication (Radostits 2007). In cattle, the disease typically involves the formation of pyogranulomas in the oral cavity, tongue or fore-stomachs with subsequent spread to regional lymph nodes (Hebeler and others 1961, Mortimer 1962, Rycroft and Garside 2000), although the skin of the head, neck and, occasionally, the limbs can also be affected. An unusual presentation of the disease is reported here where extensive distal limb involvement resulted in severe lameness in 20 of 130 animals on a beef fattening unit. The cases occurred in a group of one- to two-year-old Aberdeen Angus crossbred cattle over an 11-month period from when the animals were housed in October 2009 until the following August 2010. Affected animals were housed in groups of 30 to a pen in slatted units at a stocking density of 1 animal/2 metre2. The cases presented clinically as focally extensive unilateral firm swellings distal to the elbow/stifle regions of the fore and hind limbs, resulting in significant …

Simplicial Dirac structures as finite analogues of the canonical Stokes-Dirac structure, capturing the topological laws of the system, are defined on simplicial manifolds in terms of primal and dual cochains related by the coboundary operators. These finite-dimensional Dirac structures offer a framework for the formulation of standard input-output finite-dimensional port-Hamiltonian systems that emulate the behavior of distributed-parameter port-Hamiltonian systems. This paper elaborates on the matrix representations of simplicial Dirac structures and the resulting port-Hamiltonian systems on simplicial manifolds. Employing these representations, we consider the existence of structural invariants and demonstrate how they pertain to the energy shaping of port-Hamiltonian systems on simplicial manifolds.

The aim of the study was to analyse participation of primary care physicians in infectious disease surveillance and to find factors which influence the primary health physician’s participation in surveillance. Infectious disease reporting by 854 primary care physicians from 15 primary care institutions in South Backa district, AP Vojvodina, Serbia was monitored during a 6 month period. The number and structure of infectious disease reporting through the mandatory surveillance system was compared with the number and structure of infectious diseases reported through routine statistics and the number and structure of infectious diseases reported in the whole area, including reports from secondary and tertiary health care settings and laboratories. The youngest and oldest physicians reported the lowest average number of infectious diseases. Paediatricians and dermatologists had the highest and emergency specialists, occupational medicine specialists and other consultants the lowest average number of reported infectious diseases, with the ratio between paediatricians and emergency medicine specialists being 347:1. Lowest reporting rate was observed for infections routinely diagnosed in clinics such as hepatitis, or with ethical considerations such as sexually transmitted infections. The average weekly number of reported infectious diseases was from 0.0 per emergency medicine specialists to 1.4 per paediatrician. Completeness of infectious disease surveillance in primary health care is unsatisfactory. Changing currently insufficient undergraduate and postgraduate training in surveillance might be an important tool for establishing a more effective and sensitive surveillance system. Guidelines for laboratory confirmation and reporting could also increase quality of surveillance. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/sljid.v2i2.4325 Sri Lankan Journal of Infectious Diseases Vol.2(2) 2012: 37-46

OBJECTIVE To determine the reliability of transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) in predicting the size of an atrial septal defect (ASD). MATERIAL AND METHODS The study included 16 patients who underwent the catheter-based procedures to close an atrial septal defect between February 2008 and December 2011 at the Paediatrics Clinic, CCU Sarajevo, after clinical and TTE and TEE evaluation. In order to determine the assumed diameter of the balloon (A-SBD), we used the formula of quantification A-SBD=TTE defect diameter×1:09 + 3.9 mm and A-SBD=1.1× transesophageal diameter of ASD+2.0 mm. The ASD was examined using the long-axis view, the basal short-axis view, the apical four-chamber view and the subcostal view to observe its position, diameter and relation to neighbouring structures. The largest diameter was selected as the reference diameter. RESULTS Of the total number of treated patients, 11 were female. Treatment was conducted by a foreign and local team of invasive cardiologists. The average age of the patients was 8.43 years (2 -17 years). Apart from a transient disturbance of rhythm in the youngest patients, there were no other intra and postprocedural complications. The obtained formulas represent "our" default size of the SBD, based on measurements of TTE and TEE: A-SBD (TTE)=6.02+0.86×TTE and A-SBD (TEE)=3.93+0.86×TEE. CONCLUSION ASD diameter determined by TTE and TEE can reliably determine the appropriate size needed Amplatzer Septal Occluder device.

This paper presents a design concept and analysis of a bipedal walking robot with a novel type of actuation using elastic cables. Each leg has 6-dof, the trunk has 3-dof, and each arm has 1-shoulder-dof. Conventional walking robots consist of joint-attached drives at revolute joints. This yields relatively heavy legs and arms with high moments of inertia, which makes balancing robot dynamic walking difficult due to the high inertial forces of distal segments. The cable-based actuation system is designed for the most kinetically-active biped segments, such as lower legs. These consist of DC motors located on the trunk, elastic cables (with serially-connected springs) and cable routing with specially-designed pulleys. Since the trunk segment accelerations are significantly lower than the leg segments accelerations, it is expected that the overall energy required by the cable-actuated robot is significantly lower than the energy input to a directly-actuated biped. Another novelty in the biped actuation system design is the use of elastic rather than non-elastic cables, for two reasons: smoothing out the sharp impulses due to the foot-ground collision and reduction of the number of motors to actuate each joint. Non-elastic cable-based drives require each cable to be pulled by a separate motor, which would double the number of motors and increase the weight. This problem can be solved using elastic cables and specially-shaped pulleys to reduce the number of motors with a slight increase in controller complexity. The bipedal walking robot architecture with cable drives mimics the human body architecture, where the hip joint is a 3-dof spherical joint, 1-dof knee joint, and 2-dof ankle joint. The architecture is more compact compared to the conventional joint attached drive architecture, wherein all revolute joints are separated. Based on the kinematic and dynamic analysis of the robot, a controller is designed and the perturbation robustness tested. A feedback linearization controller design is used, requiring system dynamics knowledge. Steps toward hardware implementation have been made, since we have implemented an elastic cable actuation system on a robotic cat prior to the concept design for the bipedal robot. The difficulties are discussed, including future plans for improvements and hardware testing.