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Spasticity is a hypertonic muscle behavior commonly observed in patients with multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, stroke, etc. Clinical assessment for spasticity is done through passive stretch evaluations of various joints using qualitative clinical scales, such as the Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS). Due to the subjective nature of this evaluation method, diagnostic results can have poor reliability and inconsistency. A few research groups have developed electromechanical training simulators of upper arm spasticity with the intent of providing healthcare students practical training opportunities. This paper presents a novel, purely mechanical (nonpowered) training simulator as an alternative design approach. This passive design utilizes a hydraulic damper with selectable viscous effect to simulate the speed-dependent spastic muscle tone and a Scotch-Yoke linkage system to create the “catch-release” behavior of spasticity. An analytical fluid model was developed to systematically design the hydraulic damper. The error residuals between model prediction and experimental damping force were found within ±2.0 N and percent errors within ±10% across various testing speeds (i.e., 250, 500, 750, and 1000 mm/min). The performance of the fully assembled simulator was tested under slow (ω ≤ 60 deg/s), medium (60 deg/s < ω < 150 deg/s), and fast (ω ≥ 150 deg/s) stretch speeds, where ω is the joint angular speed. Preliminary bench-top results suggested the feasibility of replicating five distinct levels of spasticity behaviors (MAS levels 0–4), where resistive torque increased with higher stretch speed and peak resistive torque ranged from 1.3 to 6.7 N · m under the fast stretch speed.

The medically important spider genus Latrodectus Walckenaer 1805, commonly referred to as “button spiders” in South Africa, is represented by six species in the country. Using morphology and the COI barcoding gene we describe a new forest dwelling species, Latrodectus umbukwane n. sp. Wright, Wright, Lyle and Engelbrecht. Females have red markings on both the ventral and posterior dorsal surfaces of the abdomen, parallel spermathecae and three loops of the copulatory ducts. Males have an embolus with four loops and diagnostic white markings on the ventral surface of the abdomen that darken with age. Egg sacs are smooth, large, and bright purple when freshly laid, turning shiny grey with time. Latrodectus umbukwane n. sp. is known only from sand forest vegetation types in northern Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. A predicted geographic distribution for this species is provided based on cartographic mapping of known habitat and altitudinal preference, from which area of occupancy (AOO; 698 km2) and extent of occurrence (EOO; 4963 km2) were calculated to assess potential IUCN Red List status. Due to the uncertainty of the distribution of this species, a Red List status of Data Deficient (DD) is recommended. An updated key to the southern African species of Latrodectus is provided.

Patients with neuromuscular disorders such as Parkinson’s disease (PD), traumatic brain or spinal cord injury, or multiple sclerosis (MS) can develop different levels of abnormal muscle behavior (hypertonia) such as rigidity and spasticity [1], [2]. Hypertonia can affect different parts of the body such as upper or lower extremities. Symptoms include pain, increased muscle tone, spasms, and decreased functional abilities. Hypertonia can interfere with many activities of daily living, greatly affecting the quality of life in patients and causing anxiety, depression, and social isolation [2].

Most palliative care patients will require multidisciplinary management to optimise symptom control. This overview will show that endovascular procedures are an important consideration in many cases. These procedures can be used primarily, or more commonly, as an adjunct to other therapy modalities. Catheter, wire and modern imaging technology allow interventional radiologists to treat a wide, and growing, spectrum of conditions. Percutaneous endovascular procedures allow for minimal discomfort and rapid recovery, ideal for palliative care patients. Many symptoms (or life-threatening conditions) can be treated with endovascular techniques. This discussion aims to demonstrate the increasing spectrum of endovascular interventions and review the evidence available. This overview cannot provide an exhaustive list of possible procedures, but covers most aspects and should reinforce the evidence base for intervention in this field. We have included a section on the technical aspects of endovascular intervention, including the use of sedoanalgesia, and post-embolisation syndrome. Embolisation of bleeding tumours, including bronchial artery embolisation and symptomatic renal tumour embolisation, is a fairly well-established technique. Embolisation of symptomatic skeletal metastases has shown good results. Covered stent grafting of ruptured or threatened arteries is an evolving field that has benefited from developments in stent graft technology and design. Symptomatic, unresectable liver tumours can be embolised with good results. Stent insertion in the superior vena cava produces dramatic relief of superior vena cava syndrome. Advanced malignancy predisposes to venous thrombosis; caval filtration is discussed together with venous thrombectomy.

An intensive seasonal sampling programme at twocontrasting sites in Loch Lomond, the largest lake inBritain, showed the 1992–93 status of the loch to bemesotrophic in the shallow south basin andoligotrophic in the deeper north basin. There isevidence for an increase in both phytoplanktonproduction and reactive phosphorus concentrations inthe loch during the two decades up to 1993. CanonicalCorrespondence Analysis (CCA), plus classification (by Two-Way Indicator Species Analysis: TWINSPAN) ofthe dataset of time-position samples from the lochrevealed that seasonal factors (particularly thethermal regime of the loch, and associated variables)remain more important than non-seasonal environmentalvariables in predicting changes in phytoplanktoncommunity composition. As in the 1970s, the communityremains dominated by a diatom-desmid assemblage, but cyanobacteria blooms, albeit at fairly low abundance,are becoming a frequent phenomenon in the south basinof the loch.

Parapatellar pain is a common complaint in the active adolescent patient population. Patello-femoral pain syndrome, Osgood-Schlatter disease, Sinding-Larsen-Johansson syndrome, patellar tendinitis, and other stress failure conditions are the primary causes of these parapatellar symptoms. Not all cases of knee discomfort are related to knee pathology. This case study discusses hip pathology as a source of referred knee pain in an 8-year-old male athlete. Care must be taken to evaluate all possible sources of both primary and referred pain in all cases.

Loch Lomond, one of the few British strongholds of the powan, Coregonus lavaretus (L.), has recently been colonized by the ruffe, Gymnocephalus cernuus (L.). The ruffe are now widespread, abundant and one of the commonest fish in Loch Lomond. Analysis of the gut contents of these fish caught on powan spawning grounds in Loch Lomond showed that they, as well as native brown trout, Salmo trutta L., and powan themselves, prey upon powan ova. Ruffe maintained a high winter feeding rate compared with powan and trout and fed on a broad range of benthic prey, of which powan ova formed the greatest biomass (84% of total diet) and dominated the diet numerically (57% of prey items). The observed incidence of powan ova consumption by ruffe was significantly greater than that of both brown trout and powan (P

portioned by service personnel using standardized portioning tableware. Energy (KJ) and protein (g) intakes were estimated by nursing staff using three visual methods: Method A: Food registration (each item, meat/fish, vegetables, potatoes, sauce) Method B: Reduced Plate Method (consumed 0, 25, 50 or 100%) Method C: Plate Method (consumed 0, 25, 50, 75 or 100%) As reference method separate weighting of all food items preand post serving was used. Results are given as median and [25%>, 75%> percentiles]. Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used, Alpha level 0.05. Results: The total energy served pr. lunch meal was 893.6 KJ [830.4 1034.3] and the weighed intake 676.6 kJ [421.4 870.0]. The median intake estimated by method A: 663.0 KJ [389.0 873.0] (p = 0.044), method B: 487.8 KJ [316.5 873.0] (p < 0.001) and method C: 636.0 KJ [436.5 873.0] (p < 0.001) respectively. The weighted protein content pr. served meal was 13.0 g [11.4 15.4] with a weighted intake of 10.3 g [5.3 13.1]. The median intake estimated by method A: 10.7 g [5.3 11.7] (P= 0.045), method B: 8.0 g [4.8 11.7] (p < 0.001) and method C: 9.3 g [5.8 11.7] (p < 0.001). Conclusion: All visual methods underestimated energy intake. Methods B and C underestimated protein intake whereas method A overestimated protein intake. However, best estimates was found using method A.

This study examined the safety of one type of strength training for prepubescent males. Eighteen males (av erage age, 8.3 ± 1.2 years) participated in a 45 min/ session, three session/week, 14 week supervised strength training program with an attendance rate of 91.5%. Concentric work was done almost exclusively. KinCom analysis showed significant strength gain in this group (P < 0.05), while an age, sex, and activity matched control group did not gain strength.Safety was evaluated by injury surveillance, blood pressure and heart rate monitoring, scintigraphy, and creatine phosphokinase measurement. Effects on growth and development, flexibility, and motor perform ance were also investigated, as these are factors with an impact on sports injury occurrence.Results showed that in the short term, supervised concentric strength training results in a low injury rate and does not adversely affect bone, muscle, or epi physes ; nor does it adversely affect growth, develop ment, flexibility, or motor performance. As the safety question is multifaceted, this should not lead to the conclusion that strength training for prepubescents is uniformly safe. Further research is needed.

In recent years, Dr. Tippett, the former editor of MISSIOLOGY, has been seeking to schematize the conversion process in non-western societies. His concern arose over the felt need to organize and interpret the extensive field data on this phenomenon he had observed and gathered over the years while serving as a missionary and anthropologist in the island world of the Pacific. This article reflects the progression of his thinking over the last decade. Those who are acquainted with his extensive writing in the field of “power encounter” and “people-movements” will appreciate this extensive description of the conversion experience which brings these two phenomena into clear and related focus.

The Hadrynian Horsethief Creek Group that underlies much of the northern Selkirk Mountains is divided into three members. The upper pelitic member is overlain by latest Hadrynian to Lower Cambrian rocks of the Hamill Group and is correlated with the Yankee Belle Formation of the Cariboo Group in the Cariboo Mountains to the northwest. The underlying middle marble member is correlated with the Cunningham Formation, and the lowest exposed lower pelitic member with the Isaac Formation.Westward thickening of the Horsethief Creek Group is paralleled by a gradational change in the upper pelitic member from a predominantly clastic sequence to the east to a predominantly calcareous sequence to the west. The overlying Hamill Group also changes in character, becoming more pelitic and interdigitating with basaltic metavolcanics toward the west. These facies changes are compatible with results from adjacent areas that point to deposition on a continental shelf in late Proterozoic to early Paleozoic time.

A glacial dispersal train of erratics derived from Paleozoic bedrock has been delineated stretching east-northeast–west-southwest across central Baffin Island. The lithologies of these erratics suggest a derivation from strata of member B of the Ordovician Ship Point Formation to the west, which are presently either submerged or covered by Quaternary sediment in the eastern part of Foxe Basin. These Paleozoic erratics were carried from Foxe Basin onto the Baffin Upland and the western edge of the Davis Highlands. They can be inferred to have reached at least Ekalugad Fiord and the eastern part of Home Bay.

Traditionally, the use of the Lennox Hill derotation brace has primarily been for the management of sports related injuries. From the professional to the weekend athlete, or the patient who must return to a demanding occupation, the Lennox Hill brace has been utilized preoperatively and/or postoperatively to manage various knee disorders. In this case report, the Lennox Hill derotation brace was employed to manage post-total knee replacement pain and instability in a geriatric patient. Of particular interest in this case, also, is an increase in quadriceps strength with the Lennox Hill brace being worn versus quadriceps strength with traditional hinge bracing and without brace being worn.J Orthop Sports Phys Ther 1984;5(5):265-268.

Phytosociological studies have dealt primarily witlh non-spatial relationships of different types of vegetation and have related the calculated patterns onily secondarily to environmental gradients. Vegetation composition gave the basis for its arrangement in a continuum (Curtis 1959) and for the correlation of associations and other communities (Ellenberg 1956). Studies in plant geography have been concerned mainly with the all-or-nothing approach of plotting distribution maps of taxa. Few botanists have investigated the varying importance of a taxon within its range (Halliday and Brown 1943). Boyko (1947) applied the term geoecology to a combination of phytoisociology and plant geography. He formulated a geoecological law based on autecological studies and indicated possibilities of using environmental criteria for the ordination of vegetation on a quantitative basis. Differences in the environment of two points are so varied that no single environmental factor can be studied without interference of other factors, and it is impossible to state with certainty what constitutes a single factor (Cain 1944). Only variations of groups of factors, termed complex-gradients by Whittaker (1954), are suitable for this approach. Vegetation changes continually over a large area but varies rather abruptly within small areas (Gleason 1926). This pattern suggests the use of two complex-gradients, one of the macro-environment given through geographical position and the other of the micro-environment correlated with local topography, although these gradients are only relative and differ mainly in scale. Whittaker (1956) has used a two-dimensional gradient by plotting macro-environment as altitude against micro-environment which he derived from the vegetation composition. The micro-environmental gradient has only been correlated empirically with the topography. Similar but mostly qualitative comparisons of vegetation on a much greater scale in the ordination of macro-environment against micro-environment were made by Humboldt (1807) and subsequent

Although physical therapists are not trained to "diagnose, " it is essential that they possess competent evaluation skills and the ability to form accurate impressions which are then treated accordingly. This is especially true when the physical therapist is the first line of professional intervention in treating injury. Emphasis of this case report is not on new or unusual evaluation-treatment techniques. Rather, the key to efficient care of the athlete lies in the perseverance of the health care professional in reevaluation, appropriate precautions, and adequate follow-up. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther 1982;4(1):44-46.

The effect on performance of a standard dose of a beta-blocking drug was examined in a controlled test situation closely approximating actual flying training conditions and involving helicopter flying skills. Pindolol or a placebo was administered 90 min before a test flight and the flying and hovering performance of five students was assessed by qualified flying instructors. No significant difference was found between assigned performance ratings of test drug flights and placebo flights. It could not be concluded that a beta-blocking drug would improve the hovering performance of ab initio helicopter trainee pilots.