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Objective of the present paper is to discuss treatment of bacterial respiratory infections in lambs. This should aim to control clinical signs, as well as to limit lesions in the lungs of the affected animals, and requires immediate action with mainly antimicrobial agents effective against the causal bacteria. In clinical practice, correct identification of affected lambs is important for administration of the appropriate treatment regime. Fluoroquinolones, tilmicosin, tulathromycin, chlortetracycline, doxycycline and oxytetracycline are effective against both Mannheimia haemolytica and Mycoplasma, which are the major causal agents of respiratory infections of lambs. Simultaneous administration of non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs is also recommended. All lambs with clinical signs must undergo the full treatment schedule. The potential value of a metaphylactic treatment in clinically healthy lambs, within flocks with affected animals, should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Treatment protocols of the disease should always include management changes in the flock to eliminate factors that contribute to development of the disease.

Radiographic measurements have established a link between meniscus extrusion and meniscus degeneration as well as with knee osteoarthritis. The presented work combines medical imaging with motion capture data from two healthy female subjects to create subject specific knee models that predict tibio-menisco-femoral contact forces and ligament forces during muscle driven simulations of barefoot gait. The developed computational models were used to explore the relationship between the extent of meniscal extrusion and biomechanical function by altering the laxity of the meniscal horn attachments during gait. The extrusion distance increased as laxity increased and the amount of contact force transferred through the menisci during gait decreased rapidly as the meniscal attachments became more lax. Horn attachment lengths that were 20% longer than MRI attachment lengths resulted in an almost complete loss of force transfer through the menisci during the gait cycle. Relatively small changes (2 to 3 mm) in the lengths at which horn bundles first become taut, manifested in large changes in the capacity of the tissue to transmit forces. As meniscal horn attachment laxity increased from 80% to 120% of the MRI measured horn distance, medial meniscus extrusion increased 3.9 mm for the first subject and 2.7 mm for the second subject. For the same horn laxity changes, the percent of medial tibiofemoral contact force transmitted through the medial meniscus during early stance decreased from 51% to 8% and from 36% to 14% for the two subjects. The results of our study show that increased meniscal extrusion occurs with increased laxity of the meniscal tibia attachments and this increased laxity results in loss of meniscal function.

In this paper, the electric and magnetic flux density values in open type air substations are analyzed. For this reason, an extensive measurement survey was conducted to identify potential large sources of electric and magnetic fields within seven 132/11 kV open type air substations always having them compared with the International Commission Non Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) safety guidelines published in 1998. The maximum electric and magnetic flux density values obtained in the open air circuitry units are found to be 7696 and 7306.5 V m−1 and 45.89, 38.11, 35.30 μT, which are 1.30, 1.37, and 10.9, 11.3, 14.1 times below the safety guidelines of the ICNIRP. In one of the coil rooms, the magnetic flux density was found to be 6.26 times above the safety guidelines, constituting an immediate threat to working personnel of the substation. Furthermore, a simplistic theoretical methodology based on experimental measurements is proposed that establishes a linear correlation between the transformer current and the maximum magnetic flux density based on Biot–Savart law, provided that the distance from the source remains constant, to predict the magnetic flux density by extrapolation to the permitted and nominal currents and compare them to the safety guidelines of the ICNIRP.

A simplistic numerical methodology for calculating the magnetic fields in open air type substations around bus bars and single line conductors is suggested based on the finite element analysis of electrodynamics equations. The suggested methodology is firstly validated through direct comparison with experimental results at the 66/11 kV substation of Latsia in Cyprus. Thereafter, the validated numerical methodology is used to predict the magnetic field values at nominal currents and the resulting fields are compared with the International Commission on Non Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) field guidelines, dictating whether regulation limits are surpassed. It is found that the measured and the predicted magnetic field values are within the safety guidelines of the ICNIRP.

Electric and magnetic field measurements around overhead and underground power lines have been performed extensively within a transmission and distribution electric grid. Measurements have been performed at different heights of the human body close to such transmission and distribution power lines that operate at a frequency of 50 Hz, at different currents and at three different voltages of 11, 66 and 132 kV. These measurements were performed in an attempt to firstly verify that the existing measurements fall within the signified guidelines for electric and magnetic field exposure, published in 1998 by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection. Furthermore, and most importantly, were used to validate/develop a model capable of predicting the magnetic field produced in both overhead and underground transmission and distribution power lines using experimental measurements. This is achieved by establishing a linear correlation between the current load of one of the two three phase circuits and the magnetic field, in an attempt to predict the magnetic fields produced in power lines using the SCADA system at overloaded periods.

Background Our objective was to analyze the effect of different anteromedial coronoid fracture patterns with different combinations of ligamentous repairs. We hypothesized that smaller fractures would be sufficiently treated with ligamentous repair alone but that larger fragments would require a combination of ligament and bony repair versus reconstruction. Methods Two multibody models were created from cadaveric specimens in the ADAMS program. Four different conditions were simulated: (1) no fracture, (2) O'Driscoll anteromedial subtype I (2.5-mm) fracture, (3) subtype II 2.5-mm fracture, and (4) subtype II 5-mm fracture. In each of these conditions, 3 ligament repairs were studied: lateral ulnar collateral ligament (LUCL), posterior bundle of the medial collateral ligament (pMCL), and both LUCL and pMCL. For each condition, kinematics and articular contact areas were calculated. Results LUCL repair alone increases whereas pMCL repair decreases internal rotation of the ulna relative to all tested posteromedial rotatory instability conditions; their rotational effects are summative when both ligaments are repaired. With a subtype I fracture and both pMCL and LUCL injuries, repairing the LUCL alone corrects angulation whereas rotational stability is satisfactory through the arc from 0° to 90°. In a subtype II 2.5-mm fracture, isolated repair of the LUCL or pMCL is not capable of restoring rotation or angulation. For a subtype II 5-mm fracture, no combination of ligamentous repairs could restore rotation or angulation. Conclusions This study suggests that LUCL repair alone is sufficient to restore kinematics for small subtype I fractures for an arc avoiding deep flexion; whereas nearly normal kinematics throughout the arc of motion can be achieved if the pMCL is also repaired. Larger anteromedial coronoid fractures should ideally have fragments fixed in addition to ligament repairs.

H-reflexes are useful for evaluating the group Ia monosynaptic reflex excitability in the lower and upper extremities (UEs). However, there is no established between-day protocol for measuring H-reflex excitability in the UE extensor carpi radialis longus (ECRL). The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable protocol to measure the H-reflex excitability between-days for the ECRL, and the antagonist muscle, the flexor carpi radialis (FCR). H-reflex recruitment curves were recorded from eight healthy young subjects over 3 consecutive days in both muscles. Variables associated with the H-reflex excitability were measured: (a) maximum amplitude (Hmax); (b) gain (HGN); (c) threshold (HTH, visHTH, and sdHTH). All variables were normalized with respect to the M-wave. Within individual muscles, there were no statistically significant differences between-days for the group (p>0.05) and variables showed fair to good reliability (ICC=0.57-0.99). This method of reliably measuring H-reflex excitability within UE muscles will be useful for investigating the effects of pathology and rehabilitation on monosynaptic reflexes.

This study investigated effects of step length on the stepping response used to arrest an impending forward fall. Twelve healthy young (mean age 22, S.D. 3.3 years) males participated by recovering balance with a single step following a forward lean-and-release. Participants were instructed to step to one of three floor targets representing small, natural, and large step lengths. The effect of step length was examined on the primary outcome variables: pushoff time, liftoff and landing time, swing duration, balance recovery time, landing impulse, and center of mass (COM) characteristics. Pushoff and liftoff times were not affected by step length, although swing phase duration, landing and recovery times and the anterior-posterior (AP) impulse at landing increased with increasing step length. The results support the idea of an invariant step preparation phase. Given that our participants naturally chose not to utilize a step as short as they were capable of employing, healthy young individuals do not minimize recovery time nor strength requirements when selecting their step length.

Innovative applications of non-linear time series analysis have recently been used to investigate physiological phenomena. In this study, we investigated the feasibility of using the correlation integral to monitor the localized muscle fatigue process in the biceps brachii during sustained maximal efforts. The subjects performed isometric maximum contractions until failure in elbow flexion (90° from neutral). The median and the 70th percentile frequency of the Surface electromyography (SEMG) power spectrum, the integrated SEMG, and the Correlation Integral (CI) were evaluated during the trials. The linear correlation between these variables and the elbow torque production was used to quantify the ability of a parameter to follow the fatiguing process. The CI had the highest linear correlation with torque (0.77 (0.12SD)), while the spectral indices correlations with torque were much lower. The decreasing trend of the torque production was followed by the spectral indices for only the beginning part of the contraction, while the CI increased sharply after the torque production fell to about 0.60 of the MVC. This suggests that the CI is sensitive to different changes of the SEMG signal during fatigue than the spectral variables.

A special prefabricated fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite shield or jacket was developed to repair wood piles in the field. Two types of load-transfer mechanisms between the wood pile and the FRP composite shield were developed and tested: (1) cement-based structural grout; and (2) steel shear connectors with an expanding polyurethane chemical grout. The objective of this paper is to characterize the structural response of full-size pre-damaged wood piles repaired with the FRP composite shield system. A three-point bending test procedure was used to simulate the response of a pile subjected to lateral loads. The load-deformation response, deflected shape profile, relative longitudinal displacements (slip), strain distribution, ultimate bending moment capacity and mode of failure were evaluated. Wood piles were pre-damaged by reducing approximately 60% of the cross-section over a portion of the pile. It was found that a pre-damaged wood pile repaired using the FRP composite shield with cement-based grout exceeded the bending capacity of a reference wood pile. The repair system using the FRP composite shield with steel shear connectors and polyurethane grout did not fully restore the bending capacity of a reference wood pile; however it can be used for marine borer protection when wood damage is not critical.

Introduction: In mammographic imaging, use of high contrast screen-film combinations results in under-exposed and over-exposed film areas corresponding to dense mammary gland and breast periphery (BP), respectively, characterised by degraded image contrast. A digital equalisation technique was designed and developed in order to deal with the problem of poor visualisation of these regions. Methods and material: The technique is based on the film-digitiser characteristic curve and a layer model of the breast region, as depicted on a mammogram. It remaps each layer grey level (GL) values by a correction factor that accounts for thickness variation in BP and the presence of dense fibroglandular tissues at the mammary gland. The major steps of the technique are segmentation, to isolate the breast region from mammogram background, and adaptive layer GL remapping. Results: The performance of the technique was initially evaluated on a sample of 60 mammograms. Comparative evaluation between the initial and processed images was performed on the basis of nine anatomical features situated at dense mammary gland and BP. The mammographic images resulting from application of the proposed technique are GL equalised and the visualisation improvement of all anatomical features was found to be statistically significant (P