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In this work we propose a sliding mode controllerfor in-hand manipulation that repositions a tool in the robot’shand by using gravity and controlling the slippage of the tool. In our approach, the robot holds the tool with a pinch graspand we model the system as a link attached to the grippervia a passive revolute joint with friction, i.e., the grasp onlyaffords rotational motions of the tool around a given axis ofrotation. The robot controls the slippage by varying the openingbetween the fingers in order to allow the tool to move tothe desired angular position following a reference trajectory.We show experimentally how the proposed controller achievesconvergence to the desired tool orientation under variations ofthe tool’s inertial parameters. QC 20160112

Introduction: Navigated TKA (Total Knee Arthroplasty) has heightened awareness of mal-alignment in conventional TKA, as well as providing an accurate means of measuring alignment intra-operatively. Debate as to the importance and significance of alignment versus knee balance continues. Aim: To assess cutting error, and examine the hypothesises: • ‘Slotted osteotomies are more accurate than non-slotted’ • ‘Second pass of the saw blade improves the accuracy of osteotomies’ Method: Three pairs of fresh frozen human knees were prepared, exposed, and positioned as for primary TKA. Standard cutting guides were used in conjunction with a clinical navigation system, and the error (difference between the achieved resection, and the planned resection) in each osteotomy was measured. A second, tidying, pass of the saw blade was made and the error re-measured. Cutting guides were used with a slotted and un-slotted technique in left and right knees respectively. A single experienced surgeon performed all 96 osteotomies. Results: Slotted tibial osteotomies are significantly more accurate in the sagittal (p=0.01) and coronal (p=0.04) planes. Second pass osteotomies reduce variability in femoral (p=0.07) and tibial (p=0.17) osteotomies. Discussion: The bone cutting process is prone to high levels of random error that can result in implant malalignment, and thus predispose to aseptic loosening. Navigated TKA gives the operating surgeon the opportunity to check each osteotomy, and correct any error where necessary. In conventional TKA the use of dual pass, slotted osteotomies should provide improved accuracy.

Sociologists know surprisingly little about the religious lives of adolescents in the United States. This article begins to redress that unfortunate lack of knowledge by examining descriptive findings on adolescent religious participation from three recent, reputable national surveys of American youth. We present descriptive statistics on three fundamental aspects of youth religious participation: religious affiliation, religious service attendance, and involvement in church youth groups. We also examine the influences of gender, race, age, and region on these religious outcomes. This descriptive inquiry should help to heighten broader understanding of and to lay down a baseline of essential information about American adolescent religious participation. Further research is needed to investigate the social influence of different kinds of religiosity on various outcomes in the lives of American youth. We know relatively little about the religious lives of American adolescents. The vast majority of research in the sociology of religion in the United States focuses on American adults, ages 18 and older. And few scholars of American adolescents in other fields pay close attention to youth’s religious lives. As a result, our social scientific knowledge of the religious affiliations, practices, beliefs, experiences, and attitudes of American youth is impoverished. 1 This is a problem for many reasons. American adolescents between the ages of 10‐19 represent about 14 percent of all Americans (adolescents ages 10‐24 represent 21 percent), an ageminority population deserving scholarly attention as much as any other group. Indeed, American adolescents may deserve extra scholarly attention by sociologists of religion. Adolescence represents a crucial developmental transition from childhood to adulthood and so can disclose a tremendous amount of knowledge about religious socialization and change in the life course. Adolescents are a population that many religious organizations, both congregations and parachurch ministries, particularly target in order to exert influence in their lives. Adolescence and young adulthood is also the life stage when religious conversion is most likely to take place. Adolescence furthermore provides a unique opportunity to study religious influences on family relationships and dynamics, peer interactions, risk behaviors, and many other outcome variables. Finally, adolescence provides an ideal baseline stage for longitudinal research on religious influences in people’s lives.

Peruvian liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez’s massive work, Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ, should not be read as a defensive or retreating move for liberation theology in the face of two decades of opposition. Rather, it is best understood as a creative and strategic counteroffensive to advance liberation theology in terms that the Vatican can only find difficult to counter. Nevertheless, liberation theology struggles with the difficulty of intellectually justifying itself on nondependency and non-Marxist grounds. In any case, the struggle for the work of liberation in Latin America continues.

Diabetes mellitus is one of the major risk factors for coronary artery disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate in-hospital mortality and during follow-up of diabetic patients with acute myocardial infarction treated with primary angioplasty and to determine its predictors.Eight hundred and sixty six patients were retrospectively enrolled from January 1993 to December 2013. A hundred patients with a diagnosis of diabetes were evaluated. The median follow-up was 121 months in 90% of the population.Of the 100 diabetic patients included (11.56%) 86% were male and 50% older than 70 years. Overall, 76% presented with a Killip-Kimball grade of 1 at admission and 16% presented with a Killip-Kimball 4. The most frequent location of myocardial infarction was anterior and 65% had 2 or more coronary vessel disease. In-hospital mortality was 15%. The only independent variable significantly associated was the Killip-Kimball at admission. Mortality during follow up was 35% and its independent predictors were: age, Killip-Kimball at admission and use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors Interestingly, in the non-diabetic group, Killip-kimball at admission failed to predict long-term mortalityThis group of diabetic patients was older, and with a higher prevalence of 2 or more vessel disease. Cardiogenic shock on admission was the only independent predictor of in-hospital death and along with age and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor use, an independent predictor of mortality during long term follow-up.

Acknowledgements, About the Contributors, Introduction: Correcting a Curious Neglect, or Bringing Religion Back In, Part One: Preexistent Organizations and Leadership, Chapter 1. The Black Church in the Civil Rights Movement: The SCLS as the Decentralized, Radical Arm of the Black Church, Chapter 2. Radical Islamic Insurgency in the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979, Part Two: Religious Ritual and Insurgent Consciousness, Chapter 3. Pastoral Mobilization and Contention: The Religious Foundation of the Solidarity Movement in Poland, Chapter 4. Religious Rituals of Resistance and Class Consciousness in Bolivian Tin-Making CommunitiesPart Three: Mobilization and Repression, Chapter 5. Popular Religion, Protest and Revolt: The Emergence of Political Insurgency in the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran Churches of the 1960s-1980s, Chapter 6. Church Leadership, State Repression, and the 'Spirit of Involvement' in the South African Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1983-1990, Part Four: Symbolic Worlds and Activist Identity, Chapter 7. For God and the Fatherland: Protestant Symbolic Worlds and the Rise of National Socialism in Germany

Research on volunteering behavior has consistently found a positive relationship between religion and volunteering. Using a sample of churchgoing Protestants (N=1,738)from the Religious Identity and Influence Survey we examine the specific influences of religiosity, religious identity, religious socialization, and religious social networks on local volunteer activity in church programs and non-church organizations, as well as general volunteering tendencies. These influences are presented within the theoretical framework of religious capital. Logistic regression techniques were applied to determine the strength of the contribution of these influences while accounting for basic background factors. Findings suggest that churchgoing Protestants are influenced by all measures to some degree, but religiosity (specifically participation in church activities) remains the strongest influence. Significant religious influences overall are most pronounced within the context of church-related volunteering which suggests that churchgoing Protestants exhibit a strong sense of community identity through their local churches. A discussion of these results and their implications for volunteering follows.

To further understanding of Americans' explanations for racial inequality, and the implications these explanations have for reducing black-white socioeconomic inequality, we explore the role of religion. We argue that the cultural tools of a religious subculture shape the rationale for racial inequality. Examining white conservative Protestants, who comprise nearly 25 percent of white Americans, we identify religious cultural tools we call “accountable freewill individualism,” “anti-structuralism,” and “relationalism.” Based on these, we hypothesize that white conservative Protestants explain inequality in more individualistic and less structural terms than other white Americans. We also expect them to emphasize perceived dysfunctional social relations among African Americans in their explanations. Using the 1996 General Social Survey and qualitative data from 117 in-depth interviews, these hypotheses are clearly supported. Religion, it appears, has an independent effect on explanations of racial inequality. Based on these findings, we suggest that rationales for racial inequality are not mere defenses of socioeconomic privilege, but, more fundamentally, defenses of identity, culture, and worldview.

Drawing on Connell's notion of gender projects, the authors assess the degree to which contemporary evangelical ideals of men's headship challenge, as well as reinforce, a hegemonic masculinity. Based on 265 in-depth interviews in 23 states across the country, they find that rather than espousing a traditional gender hierarchy in which women are simply subordinate to men, the majority of contemporary evangelicals hold to symbolic traditionalism and pragmatic egalitarianism. Symbolic male headship provides an ideological tool with which individual evangelicals may maintain a sense of distinctiveness from the broader culture of which they are a part. At the same time, symbolic headship blunts some of the harsher effects of living in a materially rich, but time poor, culture, by defusing an area of potential conflict, creating a safe space within which men can negotiate, and strengthening men's material and emotional ties to their families.

We report the findings of our research on differing levels of movement involvement by focusing on participation in a high-risk/cost campaign mobilized by Nicaragua Exchange, a solidarity organization in the U.S.-Central America peace movement of the 1980s. Our data confirm the importance of relational ties in high-risk activism, yet raise questions about the relevance of biographical availability and the unique functions of organizational ties. We argue that McAdam's model is an important advance in our understanding of the factors that facilitate high-risk/cost activism, yet its micro-structural approach does not sufficiently account for human agency and individual abilities to negotiate and overcome barriers to activism.

Theories of social movements and collective action typically present social protest as one of three alternatives available to the individual: inaction, institutionalized political action, or protest. These political alternatives are rarely considered simultaneously nor are they modeled explicitly. In this paper we make use of survey data from a representative sample of the United States population. We employ multinomial logistic regression to determine what differentiates those who protest from those who engage only in institutionalized politics and from those who engage in no political action. We find that those who engage in social protest are similar in many respects to those who engage actively in institutionalized politics, yet education on social and political issues, participation in community organizations, and frequent church attendance increases the likelihood that individuals will engage in protest relative to institutionalized politics.