Human Body

In eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Britain, a bacterial infection which we now know to be caused primarily by a streptococcus, was killing women in childbirth at an alarming rate. The disease, called puerperal, or childbed, fever, was being transmitted primarily from doctor to patient by a doctor's unwashed hands and filthy, contaminated clothing and linens. Despite this evident and, in retrospect, obvious vector, the doctors of this period never discovered how to prevent their patients from dying a gruesome and painful death. Many physicians wrote extensive accounts of the illness but often ended their works in despair, unable to find the cause. Much of the historical literature blames this befuddlement on personality traits of the physicians, arguing that egos and professional hostilities prevented the kind of cooperation that could have led to progress.

Odilon Redon's noirs were produced during a time when European society was first grappling with Darwinian theories of evolution and human origins. In this article I argue that Redon's imagery, especially his 1883 album of lithographs, Les Origines, articulate the melancholic state of the body and self in an evolutionary universe.

Objectification theory provides an important framework for understanding, researching, and intervening to improve women's lives in a sociocultural context that sexually objectifies the female body and equates a woman's worth with her body's appearance and sexual functions. The purpose of this Major Contribution is to advance theory, research, practice, and training related to the sexual objectification of women. The purpose of this article is to introduce readers to objectification theory and related research, extend objectification theory to our understanding of women's substance use and/or abuse and immersed forms of sexual objectification via sexually objectifying environments, and provide an overview of this Major Contribution on Sexual Objectification of Women.

Values for body surface area (BSA) are commonly used in medicine, particularly to calculate doses of chemotherapeutic agents and index cardiac output. Various BSA formulas have been developed over the years. The DuBois and DuBois (Arch Intern Med 1916;17:863-71) BSA equation is the most widely used, although derived from only 9 subjects. More recently, Mosteller (N Engl J Med 1987;317:1098) produced a simple formula, [weight (kg) Â height (cm)/3600] 1/2 , which could be easily remembered and evaluated on a pocket calculator, but validation data in adults are rare. The purpose of the present study was to examine the BSA based on Mosteller's formula in normal-weight (body mass index [BMI], 20-24.9 kg/m 2), overweight (BMI, 25-29.9 kg/m 2), and obese (BMI, z 30 kg/m 2) adults (N 18 years old) in comparison with other empirically derived formulas (DuBois and DuBois, Boyd [The growth of the surface area of the human body.

Objective: Human body finite element models (FE-HBMs) are available in standard occupant or pedestrian postures. There is a need to have FE-HBMs in the same posture as a crash victim or to be configured in varying postures. Developing FE models for all possible positions is not practically viable. The current work aims at obtaining a posture-specific human lower extremity model by reconfiguring an existing one. Methodology: A graphics-based technique was developed to reposition the lower extremity of an FE-HBM by specifying the flexion–extension angle. Elements of the model were segregated into rigid (bones) and deformable components (soft tissues). The bones were rotated about the flexion–extension axis followed by rotation about the longitudinal axis to capture the twisting of the tibia. The desired knee joint movement was thus achieved. Geometric heuristics were then used to reposition the skin. A mapping defined over the space between bones and the skin was used to regenerate the soft tissues. Mesh smoothing was then done to augment mesh quality. Results: The developed method permits control over the kinematics of the joint and maintains the initial mesh quality of the model. For some critical areas (in the joint vicinity) where element distortion is large, mesh smoothing is done to improve mesh quality. Conclusions: A method to reposition the knee joint of a human body FE model was developed. Repositions of a model from 9 degrees of flexion to 90 degrees of flexion in just a few seconds without subjective interventions was demonstrated. Because the mesh quality of the repositioned model was maintained to a predefined level (typically to the level of a well-made model in the initial configuration), the model was suitable for subsequent simulations.

Current studies on pole-vaulting focus mostly on energy transfer data [Ekevad, M., Lundberg, B., 1995. Simulation of ''smart'' pole .] and often fail to take into account the actions exerted on the pole [Arampatzis, . Effect of the pole-human body interaction on pole-vaulting performance. Journal of Biomechanics 37, 1353-1360]. The present study integrates the 3D kinematics data of the athlete but also the actions measured at the end of the pole in the planting box and on the track during the last stride before take-off. It proposes a mechanical model allowing determination of the pole-vaulter's actions on the pole. The model is based on a global mechanical approach. The pole-vaulter's action on his upper and lower hand is concentrated on one middle point to solve the dynamics problem. The model was applied to seven experienced pole-vaulters. The force and the moment exerted on the pole by the pole-vaulter during the last stride before take off and during jump stage, were calculated. This analysis of the compressive force and bending moment for seven pole-vaulters helps to highlight the impact of the moment in the performance. The conclusion is confirmed by an additional comparative study carried out on two polevaulters, with comparable morphologies and performing with the same pole. r

To design a medical decision support system (MDSS) that would accurately predict the rehabilitation protocols prescribed by the physicians for patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA) using only their demographic and clinical characteristics. The demographic and clinical variables for 170 patients receiving one of three treatment protocols for knee OA were entered into the MDSS. Demographic variables in the model were age and sex. Clinical variables entered into the model were height, weight, BMI, affected side, severity of knee OA, and severity of pain. All patients in the study received one of three treatment protocols for patients with knee OA: (a) hot packs, followed by electrotherapy and exercise, (b) ice packs, followed by ultrasound and exercise and (c) exercise alone. The resilient back propagation artificial neural network algorithm was used, with a ten-fold cross-validation. It was estimated that the MDSS is able to accurately predict the treatment prescribed by the physician for 87% of the patients. We developed an artificial neural network-based decision support system that can viably aid physicians in determining which treatment protocol would best match the anthropometric and clinical characteristics of patients with knee OA. Ziel der vorliegenden Studie war die Konzipierung eines Systems zur Unterstü tzung von medizinischen Entscheidungen (MDSS), das Ä rzten die akkurate Prognose der bei Patienten mit Gonarthrose verordneten Rehabilitation nur anhand ihrer demographischen und klinischen Eigenschaften erlaubt. Die demographischen und klinischen Variablen von 170 Patienten, die eine von drei Behandlungen fü r die Gonarthrose erhielten, wurden in das MDSS ü bertragen. Die demographischen Variablen in dem Modell waren Alter und Geschlecht. Die in das Modell ü bertragenen klinischen Variablen waren Kö rpergrö ße, Kö rpergewicht, BMI, betroffene Seite, Schweregrad der Gonarthrose und Schweregrad der Schmerzen. Alle Studienteilnehmer erhielten eine von drei Behandlungen fü r Patienten mit Gonarthrose: (a) Wä rmebehandlung, gefolgt von Elektrotherapie und Krankengymnastik, (b) Kä lte-Sofortkompressen, gefolgt von Ultraschall und Krankengymnastik, und (c) Krankengymnastik als Monotherapie. Angewandt wurde ein kü nstliches neuronales Netz auf der Basis des belastbaren Backpropagation-Algorithmus mit einer zehnfachen Kreuzvalidierung. Schä tzungen zufolge kann das MDSS die ä rztlich verordnete Therapie bei 87% der

Patients with severe aphasia are rarely treated using speech therapy. We used music therapy to continue to treat a 79-year-old patient with chronic severe aphasia. Interventions 1, 2, and 3 were to practice singing a song that the patient knew, to practice singing a song with a therapist, and to practice saying a greeting using a song with lyrics, respectively. In addition, practice of uttering names of body parts was initiated using touch and rhythm. After intervention 1, the patient could sing spontaneously and repeat lyrics. After intervention 2, she could sing with the therapist, and sing spontaneously and repeat lyrics. After intervention 3, she could memorize words with meaning, say the words in context, and use them. The patient could utter the names of two body parts after therapy with touch and rhythm. These suggest that rehabilitation therapy can still be used in patients with severe cognitive impairment.

Recognizing human action from image sequences is an active area of research in computer vision. In this paper, we present a novel method for human action recognition from image sequences in different viewing angles that uses the Cartesian component of optical flow velocity and human body shape feature vector information. We use principal component analysis to reduce the higher dimensional shape feature space into low dimensional shape feature space. We represent each action using a set of multidimensional discrete hidden Markov model and model each action for any viewing direction. We performed experiments of the proposed method by using KU gesture database. Experimental results based on this database of different actions show that our method is robust.

This paper presents the results of the research project BurnCase in the field of realistic and anatomically correct deformations of 3D models of the human body. The project goal is to develop a software system named BurnCase 3D, which supports and enhances the documentation and diagnosis of human burn injuries. The medical treatment of burn victims strongly depends on size, depth, degree and location of the burnt skin. The size of the affected region is usually expressed as a percentage of the total body surface area (TBSA). Standardized 2D charts (e.g. Lund and Browder, Rule-Of-Nines, etc.) help to determine the percentage of the burnt surface area in relation to the total body surface area. However, body proportions highly influence the distribution of body surface area along the body . Thus, standard charts can only give rough approximations of the burnt surface area compared to the real size of an injury on a specific patient. The software system BurnCase 3D will enhance this commonly applied 2D approximation process by introducing a 3D model of the patient's body. This 3D model provides a higher accordance to the real patient's surface area than any 2D chart does and allows determining the burnt surface areas more exactly. BurnCase 3D is based on an extendable library of currently 7 standard models representing different sex, age and body shape. In order to meet the physical constitution of the real patient, the best fitting model is chosen and has to be adapted according to the patient's height and weight. There exist several possibilities of adapting a 3D model to these parameters. This paper describes the three methods of body adaptations that are realized in the software system BurnCase 3D based on the thesis of Doris Siegl ).

An abundant amino acid in the human body, glutamine (Gln) has many important metabolic roles that may protect or promote tissue integrity and enhance the immune system. Low plasma and tissue levels of Gin in the critically ill suggest that demand may exceed endogenous supply. A relative deficiency of Gln in such patients could compromise recovery and result in prolonged illness and an increase in late mortality. This study examines this hypothesis. Using a prospective, block-randomized, double-blind treatment study design, we tested whether a Gin-containing parenteral nutrition (PN) compared with an isonitrogenous, isoenergetic control feed would influence outcome, with the endpoints of morbidity, mortality, and cost at 6 mo postintervention. In one general intensive care unit (ICU), to ensure consistency of management policies, 84 critically ill adult patients, with Acute Physiological and Chronic Health Evaluation II score > 10, requiring nutritional support received PN only if enteral nutrition was contraindicated or unsuccessful. Survival at 6 mo was significantly improved in those receiving Gin PN (24/42 versus 14/42; P = 0.049). Significantly more deaths occurred in patients requiring control PN for > 10 d (P = 0.03). The excess control deaths occurred later and those patients had had a significantly longer postintervention stay (P = 0.012) and use of ICU. In the Gln recipients, the total ICU and hospital cost per survivor was reduced by 50%. In critically ill ICU patients unable to receive enteral nutrition, a Gin-containing PN solution improves survival at 6 mo and reduces the hospital costs per survivor.

The corrosion resistance of a two-layer polymer (silane + parylene) coating, on implant stainless steel was investigated by microscopic observations and electrochemical measurements. Long term exposure tests in Hanks solution revealed that the coating of 2 lm can be successfully used for corrosion protection. However, the addition of H 2 O 2 , simulating the inflammatory response of human body environment causes a dramatic destruction of the protective coating. Analysis of the experimental data in terms of circuit models enables proposing a deterioration mechanism. OH Å radicals formed at the metal surface attack the polymer, thus the deterioration starts from the metal/polymer interface and progress towards the outward surface.

The increasing use of Carbon nuclei in cancer therapy centres is motivated by their potential advantages as a very precise high LET radiation. The knowledge of the fragmentation of Carbon nuclei when they interact with the human body is important to evaluate the spatial profile of their energy deposition in the tissues, hence the damage to the tissues neighbouring the tumour. We report here a study of the fragmentation with the nuclear emulsion experimental technique. We have designed, built and exposed to a Carbon nuclei beam a chamber made of Lexan plates alternated with nuclear emulsion films. Lexan plates acted as passive material simulating human body tissues while nuclear emulsion films were used as both tracking devices with micrometric accuracy and ionisation detectors. Such a detector allowed the detection of Carbon interactions produced along their path, the identification of the fragments produced and the measurement of their scattering angle. We have measured the Carbon ion survival probability and studied their interactions. We report on the secondary particle multiplicity and the electrical charge distribution. We give results of the scattering angle of final state fragments as well as the range for H and He. Finally we give the total and partial charge-changing cross-sections for z = 1, 2, 3, 4 which are compared with previous results when available. The present work aims at providing data required as input to Monte Carlo simulations of Carbon ion interactions in the human body and ultimately of their therapeutic effectiveness.

This paper presents a tutorial introduction to the handling of uncertainty and decision-making in medical reasoning systems. It focuses on the central role of uncertainty in all of medicine and identifies the major themes that arise in research papers. It then reviews simple Bayesian formulations of the problem and pursues their generalization to the Bayesian network methods that are popular today. Decision making is presented from the decision analysis viewpoint, with brief mention of recently-developed methods. The paper concludes with a review of more abstract characterizations of uncertainty, and anticipates the growing importance of analytic and "data mining" techniques as growing amounts of clinical data become widely available.

The number line estimation task captures central aspects of children's developing number sense, that is, their intuitions for numbers and their interrelations. Previous research used children's answer patterns and verbal reports as evidence of how they solve this task. In the present study we investigated to what extent eye movements recorded during task solution reflect children's use of the number line. By means of a cross-sectional design with 66 children from Grades 1, 2, and 3, we show that eye-tracking data (a) reflect grade-related increase in estimation competence, (b) are correlated with the accuracy of manual answers, (c) relate, in Grade 2, to children's addition competence, (d) are systematically distributed over the number line, and (e) replicate previous findings concerning children's use of counting strategies and orientationpoint strategies. These findings demonstrate the validity and utility of eye-tracking data for investigating children's developing number sense and estimation competence.

Less than 20 of the hundreds of carotenoids found in nature are found in the human body. These carotenoids are present in the body from the foods or dietary supplements that humans consume. The body does not synthesize them. Among the carotenoids present in the body, only lutein and its coexistent isomer, zeaxanthin, are found in that portion of the eye where light is focused by the lens, namely, the macula lutea. Numerous studies have shown that lutein and zeaxanthin may provide significant protection against the potential damage caused by light striking this portion of the retina. In the eye, lutein and zeaxanthin have been shown to filter high-energy wavelengths of visible light and act as antioxidants to protect against the formation of reactive oxygen species and subsequent free radicals. Human studies have demonstrated that lutein and zeaxanthin are present in the skin, and animal studies have provided evidence of significant efficacy against light-induced skin damage, especially the ultraviolet wavelengths. Little was known about the protective effects of these carotenoids in human skin until recently. This article reviews the scientific literature pertaining to the effects that lutein and zeaxanthin exhibit in the human eye and skin.

We describe a learning based method for recovering 3D human body pose from single images and monocular image sequences. Our approach requires neither an explicit body model nor prior labelling of body parts in the image. Instead, it recovers pose by direct nonlinear regression against shape descriptor vectors extracted automatically from image silhouettes. For robustness against local silhouette segmentation errors, silhouette shape is encoded by histogram-of-shape-contexts descriptors. We evaluate several different regression methods: ridge regression, Relevance Vector Machine (RVM) regression and Support Vector Machine (SVM) regression over both linear and kernel bases. The RVMs provide much sparser regressors without compromising performance, and kernel bases give a small but worthwhile improvement in performance. Loss of depth and limb labelling information often makes the recovery of 3D pose from single silhouettes ambiguous. We propose two solutions to this: the first embeds the method in a tracking framework, using dynamics from the previous state estimate to disambiguate the pose; the second uses a mixture of regressors framework to return multiple solutions for each silhouette. We show that the resulting system tracks long sequences stably, and is also capable of accurately reconstructing 3D human pose from single images, giving multiple possible solutions in ambiguous cases. For realism and good generalization over a wide range of viewpoints, we train the regressors on images resynthesized from real human motion capture data. The method is demonstrated on a 54-parameter full body pose model, both quantitatively on independent but similar test data, and qualitatively on real image sequences. Mean angular errors of 4-5 degrees are obtained -a factor of 3 better than the current state of the art for the much simpler upper body problem.

j I n 1999, the National Science Foundation (NSF) unveiled a new 7.5 million dollar program, NSF Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12), to partner graduate students in the sciences with high school science teachers "... injecting new energy into ... K-12 positively influencing higher education-all while satiating a desperate hunger for mutual responsibility between all levels of science and mathematics education" (NSF PR 99-12; www.nsf.gov). In 2001, the program was expanded due to the positive responses from both higher education institutions and K-12 schools (NSF PR 01-27; vwww.nsf. ov). The program's design was to allow graduate fellows to serve as content advisors for teachers in science and mathematics; while providing improved communication, teaching, and community outreach skills for the graduate fellows. The GK-12 program ultimately will foster a strong, long lasting partnership between K-12 schools and higher-education institutions (http://www. ns. gov/home/crssprgm/gk 12/).

Individuals with visual impairments have to develop a series of spatial skills so that they can move and be oriented in a spatial environment. Body knowledge, laterality, directionality, mental rotation, perspective-taking and spatial coding are considered to be essential spatial skills. In the present study we include body knowledge in the spectrum of spatial skills because body knowledge is considered to be a fundamental component of environmental knowledge (

We synthesize new human body motions from existing motion data. We divide the body of an animated character into several parts, such as to upper and lower body, and partition the motion of the character into corresponding partial motions. By combining different partial motions we can generate new motion sequences. We select the most natural-looking combinations by analyzing the similarity of partial motions using techniques such as motion segmentation, dimensionality reduction, and clustering. These new combinations can dramatically increase the size of a motion database, allowing more score in selecting motions to meet constraints such as collision avoidance. We verify the naturalness and physical plausibility of the new motions using an SVM learning model and by analysis of static balance.

The inXuence of extremely low temperatures on the human body and physiological reactions are not fully recognized. It has been postulated that cryostimulation could modify immunological reactions, leukocytes mobilization and levels of cytokines. The aim of this research was to estimate the inXuence of a ten sessions 3-min-long exposures to cryogenic temperature (¡130°C) on the white blood cell (WBC) count, level of IL6 and the total oxidative and antioxidative status in 15 young, clinically healthy men. Blood samples were obtained in the morning before cryostimulation, again 30 min after treatment and the next day in the morning, both during the Wrst and tenth session. The WBC count, level of IL6 and total lipid peroxides as the total oxidative status and the total antioxidative status (TAS), were measured. After completing a total of ten whole-body therapy sessions a signiWcant increase in WBC count, especially lymphocytes and monocytes was noted. There was an increase in level of IL6 after Wrst and the last cryostimulation the most pronounced after tenth session. On the contrary the TAS level decreased signiWcant after the treatment. It was concluded that repeated expositions to extremely low temperatures use in cryostimulation have mobilization eVect on immunological system.

Humanistic computing is proposed as a new signal processing framework in which the processing apparatus is inextricably intertwined with the natural capabilities of our human body and mind. Rather than trying to emulate human intelligence, humanistic computing recognizes that the human brain is perhaps the best neural network of its kind, and that there are many new signal processing applications (within the domain of personal technologies) that can make use of this excellent but often overlooked processor. The emphasis of this paper is on personal imaging applications of humanistic computing, to take a first step toward an intelligent wearable camera system that can allow us to effortlessly capture our day-today experiences, help us remember and see better, provide us with personal safety through crime reduction, and facilitate new forms of communication through collective connected humanistic computing. The author's wearable signal processing hardware, which began as a cumbersome backpackbased photographic apparatus of the 1970's and evolved into a clothing-based apparatus in the early 1980's, currently provides the computational power of a UNIX workstation concealed within ordinary-looking eyeglasses and clothing. Thus it may be worn continuously during all facets of ordinary day-today living, so that, through long-term adaptation, it begins to function as a true extension of the mind and body.

Given the high relevance of visual input to human behavior, it is often important to precisely monitor the spatial orientation of the visual axis. One popular and accurate technique for measuring gaze orientation is based on the dual search coil. This technique does not allow for very large displacements of the subject, however, and is not robust with respect to translations of the head. More recently, less invasive procedures have been developed that record eye movements with camera-based systems attached to a helmet worn by the subject. Computational algorithms have also been developed that can calibrate eye orientation when the head's position is fixed. Given that camera-based systems measure the eye's position in its orbit, however, the reconstruction of gaze orientation is not as straightforward when the head is allowed to move. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm and calibration method to compute gaze orientation under unrestrained head conditions. Our method requires only the accurate measurement of orbital eye position (for instance, with a camera-based system), and the position of three points on the head. The calculations are expressed in terms of linear algebra, so can easily be interpreted and related to the geometry of the human body. Our calibration method has been tested experimentally and validated against independent data, proving that is it robust even under large translations, rotations, and torsions of the head.

Objective: To determine factors contributing to successful diabetes self-management in Appalachia, as evidenced by daily blood glucose monitoring. Methods: A telephone survey (N=3841) was conducted to assess health status and health care access. The current investigation is limited to the subset of this sample who report having diabetes (N=529). Results: A multivariate logistic regression model established that having attended a diabetes education class (P<.01) was the most significant predictor of successful diabetes self-management. The inability to pay for care, demographic variables, and health risk indicators were not found to be significantly related to self-management. Conclusions: This study identifies the role of education in successful diabetes self-management for patients in the Appalachian region.

The aim of the paper is to examine the possible relationships between the different dimensions of aesthetics on the one hand, and medical practice and medical ethics on the other hand. Firstly, I consider whether the aesthetic perception of the human body is relevant for medical practice. Secondly, a possible analogy between the artistic process and medical action is examined. The third section concerns the comparison between medical ethical judgements and aesthetic judgement of taste. It is concluded that the mutual relevance between the aesthetic sphere, moral judgement and medical practice can be understood only if we recognize these spheres as distinct.

Contemporary vehicles must satisfy high ride comfort criteria. This paper attempts to develop criteria for ride comfort improvement. The highest loading levels have been found to be in the vertical direction and the lowest in lateral direction in passenger cars and trucks. These results have formed the basis for further laboratory and "eld investigations. An investigation of the human body behaviour under random vibrations is reported in this paper. The research included two phases; biodynamic research and ride comfort investigation. A group of 30 subjects was tested. The in#uence of broadband random vibrations on the human body was examined through the seat-to-head transmissibility function (STHT). Initially, vertical and fore and aft vibrations were considered. Multi-directional vibration was also investigated. In the biodynamic research, subjects were exposed to 0)55, 1)75 and 2)25 m/s r.m.s. vibration levels in the 0)5}40 Hz frequency domain. The in#uence of sitting position on human body behaviour under two axial vibrations was also examined. Data analysis showed that the human body behaviour under two-directional random vibrations could not be approximated by superposition of one-directional random vibrations. Non-linearity of the seated human body in the vertical and fore and aft directions was observed. Seat}backrest angle also in#uenced STHT. In the second phase of experimental research, a new method for the assessment of the in#uence of narrowband random vibration on the human body was formulated and tested. It included determination of equivalent comfort curves in the vertical and fore and aft directions under one-and two-directional narrowband random vibrations. Equivalent comfort curves for durations of 2)5, 4 and 8 h were determined.

This paper presents an analysis of techniques that have been studied in the recent years for human body detection via visual information. The focus of this work is on developing image processing routines for autonomous robots operating for detecting victims in rescue environments. The paper both discusses problems arising in human body detection from visual information and describes the methods that are more adequate to be applied in a rescue scenario. Finally, some preliminary experiments for such methods in recognizing rescue victims are reported.

Identifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for individuating and classifying diseases is a matter of great importance in the fields of law, ethics, epidemiology, and of course, medicine. In this paper, I first propose a means of achieving this goal, ensuring that no two distinct disease-types could correctly be ascribed to the same disease-token. I then posit a metaphysical ontology of diseases-that is, I give an account of what a disease is. This is essential to providing the most effective means of interfering with disease processes. Following existing work in the philosophy of medicine and epidemiology (primarily Christopher Boorse; Caroline Whitbeck; Alexander Broadbent), philosophy of biology (Joseph LaPorte; D.L. Hull), conditional analyses of causation (J.L. Mackie; David Lewis), and recent literature on dispositional essentialism (Stephen Mumford and Rani Anjum; Alexander Bird), I endorse a dispositional conception of disease. Following discussion of various conceptions of disease-identity, their relations to the clinical and pathological effects of the diseases in question, and how diseases are treated, I conclude (i) that diseases should be individuated by their causes, and (ii) that diseases are causal processes best seen as simultaneously acting sequences of mutually manifesting dispositions.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the problem of the human body as to whether it is wholly and directly influenced by the rational forces of the soul, or it contains something instinctive or unconscious that can exert a determinative influence on human actions and behavior. Drawing on Thomistic anthropology, the author gives his interpretation of organic factors in the human body and their place in the free and rational actions of the human being through the case study of sensual appetitive powers. The latter, he concludes, are what simplify the execution of desires of the soul.

Human body size and body proportions are interpreted as markers of ethnicity, 'race,' adaptation to temperature, nutritional history and socioeconomic status. Some studies emphasize only one of these indicators and other studies consider combinations of indicators. To better understand the biocultural nature of human size and proportions a new study of the growth of Maya-American youngsters was undertaken in 1999 and 2000. One purpose of this research is to assess changes in body proportion between Maya growing up in the US and Maya growing up in Guatemala. Height and sitting height of 6-12-year-old boys and girls (ns360) were measured and the sitting height ratio wsitting heighty heightx=100, a measure of proportion, was calculated. These data are compared with a sample of Maya of the same ages living in Guatemala and measured in 1998 (ns1297). Maya-American children are currently 10.24 cm taller, on average, and have a significantly lower sitting height ratio, (i.e. relatively longer legs, averaging 7.02 cm longer) than the Guatemala Maya. Maya-American children have body proportions more like those of white children in the US than like Maya children in Guatemala. Improvements in the environment for growth, in terms of nutrition and health, seem to explain both the trends in greater stature and relatively longer legs for the Maya-Americans. These findings are applied to the problem of modern human origins as assessed from fossil skeletons. It has been proposed that heat adapted, relatively long-legged Homo sapiens from Africa replaced the cold adapted, relatively short-legged Homo neandertalensis of the Levant and Europe wJ Hum Evol 32 (1997a) 423x. Skeletal samples of Maya adults from rural Guatemala have body proportions similar to adult Neandertals and to skeletal samples from Europe with evidence of nutritional and disease stress. Just as nutrition and health status explains the differences in the body proportions of living Maya children, these factors, along with adaptation to climate, may also explain much of the differences between the Neandertal and African hominid samples. ᮊ

This paper presents an evaluation of thermal comfort in an extended road trial study. Automobile seats play an important role in improving the thermal comfort. In the assessment of thermal comfort in autos, in general subjective and objective measurements are used. Testing on the road is very difficult but real traffic conditions affect the comfort level directly, as well as the driver's experience to real conditions. Thus, for such cases real traffic situations should not be neglected in the evaluation of comfort. The aim of this study was to carry out, on an extended road trial study, an evaluation of thermal comfort using human subjects. In the experiments used, the 100% polyester seat cover had three different cover materials, which were velvet, jacquard and micro fiber. All experiments were carried out on a sunny day with ten participants over 1 h. They were carried out at air temperatures of 25 1C in a Fiat Marea 2004, which had an automatic climate function. Skin temperature at eight points and skin wettedness at two points on the human body were measured during the trials. Participants were required to complete a questionnaire of 15 questions, every 5 min.

There are not many studies pertaining to the spinal or limb abnormalities in people with intellectual disabilities, without a clear profile of these deformities of them, efforts to understand its characters and improve their quality of life will be impossible.

Abstraet--A mathematical description of six-degree of freedom (6-DOF) forces and moments with respect to a commonly utilized knee joint coordinate system was performed using a I6 x 61 Jacobian matrix developed in this study. The presented Jacobian allows the proper transformation of the forces and moments measured at a sensor coordinate system (attached to the tibia in this case) into the joint coordinate system and is dependent on the kinematics of the joint itself. Experimental application of the developed mathematics to A-P drawer tests of the intact knee confirmed that it is possible to determine the forces and moments applied to a human knee within the joint coordinate system during joint loading. More importantly, the inverse Jacobian was also determined for implementation in the force-moment control of the joint during testing using a robotic testing system. This approach is demonstrated for the joint coordinate system for the human knee in the current study, although it may be more generally applied to allow determination and control of forces and moments within any description of motions, and for any additional joints in the human body.

Our entire history is only the history of waking men. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg DURING THE FIRST DAYS OF AUTUMN IN 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson, at age twenty-seven, spent twelve days trudging through the Cévennes, France's southern highlands, despite having suffered from frail health during much of his youth. His sole companion was a donkey named Modestine. With Treasure Island and literary fame five years off, Stevenson's trek bore scant resemblance to the grand tours of young Victorian gentlemen. Midway through the journey, having scaled one of the highest ranges, he encamped at a small clearing shrouded by pine trees. Fortified for a night's hibernation by a supper of bread and sausage, chocolate, water, and brandy, he reclined within his "sleeping sack," with a cap over his eyes, just as the sun had run its course. But rather than resting until dawn, Stevenson awoke shortly past midnight. Only after lazily smoking a cigarette and enjoying an hour's contemplation did he fall back to sleep. "There is one stirring hour," he later recorded in his journal, "unknown to those who dweil in houses, when a wakeful infiluence goes abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet," men and beasts alike. Never before had Stevenson savored a "more perfect hour"-free, he delighted, from the "bastille of civilization." "It seemed to me as if life had begun again afresh, and I knew no one in all the universe but the almighty maker."' Aside from spending the night outdoors, no explanation sufficed for the wistful hour of consciousness that Stevenson experienced in the early morning darkness. "At what inaudible summons," he wondered, "are all these sleepers thus recalled in the same hour to life?" Were the stars responsible or some "thrill of mother earth below our resting bodies? Even shepherds and old country-folk, who are the This article draws from a book I am writing, At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, for which I have been fortunate enough to receive fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Virginia Center for the Humanities.

Physical rehabilitation following spinal cord injury-related paralysis has traditionally focused on teaching compensatory techniques, thus enabling the individual to achieve day-to-day function despite significant neurological deficits. But the concept of an irreparable central nervous system (CNS) is slowly being replaced with evidence related to CNS plasticity, repair, and regeneration, all related to persistently maintaining appropriate levels of neurological activity both below and above the area where the damage occurred. It is now possible to envision functional repair of the nervous system by implementing rehabilitative interventions. Making the transition from &quot;bench to bedside&quot; requires careful analysis of existing basic science evidence, strategic focus of clinical research, and pragmatic implementation of new therapeutic tools. Activity, defined as both function specific motor task and exercise appears to be a necessity for optimization of functional, metabolic,...

This paper focuses on the production of electricity using a thermoelectric generator placed on the human body connected to a dc-dc converter. The small difference in temperature between the hot heat source (e.g. the human body, T b = 37 • C) and the cold heat source (e.g. ambient air, Ta = 22 • C), associated with a poor quality thermal coupling (mainly with the cold source), leads to a very low temperature gradient at the thermoelectric generator terminals and hence low productivity. Under these use conditions, the present article proposes an analysis of various ways to improve productivity given a surface capture system. Furthermore, we demonstrated, in this particular context, that maximizing the recovered electric power proves to be a different problem from that of maximizing efficiency, e.g. the figure of merit Z. We therefore define a new factor ZE, depending on the physical characteristics of thermoelectric materials, that maximizes electric power in the particular case where the thermal coupling is poor. Finally, this study highlights the benefit of sub-optimization of the power extracted from the thermoelectric generator to further improve efficiency of the overall system. We show that, given the conversion efficiency of the dc-dc converter, the maximum power point of the overall system is no more reached when the output voltage of the thermoelectric generator is equal to half of its electromotive force.

The kidney plays an important role in ion homeostasis in the human body. Several hereditary disorders characterized by perturbations of renal calcium and magnesium reabsorption were described over the past fifty years. Only recently, mutations in renal ion channels and transporters have been identified in several of these diseases. Our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms responsible for renal calcium and magnesium reabsorption is expanding, in part due to these advances in molecular genetics, revealing complex and tightly regulated processes adapting the reabsorption of these divalents to the body's requirements. This review describes this interaction between the elucidation of the physiological mechanisms involved in calcium and magnesium reabsorption and the emerging pathophysiological understanding of disorders in which renal handling of these divalent ions is disturbed. Therefore, this demonstrates that studying these relatively rare hereditary disorders can generate important novel insights in the identification of crucial (patho)physiological mechanisms. Samenvatting De nier speelt een belangrijke rol bij het handhaven van de elektrolytenbalans in ons lichaam. In de afgelopen vijftig jaar zijn erfelijke syndromen beschreven waarbij de renale calcium-en magnesiumresorptie zijn aangedaan. De laatste decennia is pas duidelijk geworden dat veel van deze ziektebeelden berusten op mutaties in onder andere renale ionkanalen en transporteiwitten. Mede dankzij de kennis afkomstig uit moleculair genetisch onderzoek worden nu ook de moleculaire mechanismen die verantwoordelijk zijn voor de calcium-en magnesiumresorptie ontrafeld. Hieruit blijkt dat de nier over complexe en specifiek te reguleren systemen beschikt waarmee de resorptie van ionen uit de voorurine exact kan worden aangepast aan de behoeften van het lichaam. Dit artikel beschrijft de wisselwerking tussen de opheldering van de fysiologische mechanismen betrokken bij de resorptie van deze divalente kationen en de voortschrijdende inzichten met betrekking tot de pathofysiologische basis waarop verstoringen in deze processen kunnen leiden tot klinische ziektebeelden. Hieruit blijkt dat het onderzoek naar relatief zeldzame erfelijke ziekten een belangrijke bron van informatie is bij de identificatie van cruciale (patho)fysiologische mechanismen.

Human bones and biological remains conserved in anthropological, medical, and archaeological collections are foci of ethical debate, as recently illustrated by the affair of Charles Byrne's bones. In the near future, curators will have to choose between global conservation of all (or almost all) anthropological collections and systematic restitution to their original communities or families. Various proposals and examples of restitution and nonrestitution are given (with justifications) in order to support the concept that the body (especially the dead body) is not property. We propose that the only element supporting arguments in favor of restitution could be the name of the individual, highlighting the importance of all identification processes for such "artifacts." This is undoubtedly a universal value: naming the dead, identifying and then burying the person, i.e., reversing the progression along the timeline from individual to scientific specimen. Such elements could be of great interest to all universities and medical institutions that keep human remains in their collections for educational or historical purposes when they are confronted with ethical problems and/or repatriation requests. Clin. Anat. 00:000-000,

The paper presents, firstly, a brief review of the long history of information ethics beginning with the Greek concept of parrhesia or freedom of speech as analyzed by Michel Foucault. The recent concept of information ethics is related particularly to problems which arose in the last century with the development of computer technology and the internet. A broader concept of information ethics as dealing with the digital reconstruction of all possible phenomena leads to questions relating to digital ontology. Following HeideggerÕs conception of the relation between ontology and metaphysics, the author argues that ontology has to do with Being itself and not just with the Being of beings which is the matter of metaphysics. The primary aim of an ontological foundation of information ethics is to question the metaphysical ambitions of digital ontology understood as todayÕs pervading understanding of Being. The author analyzes some challenges of digital technology, particularly with regard to the moral status of digital agents. The author argues that information ethics does not only deal with ethical questions relating to the infosphere. This view is contrasted with arguments presented by Luciano Floridi on the foundation of information ethics as well as on the moral status of digital agents. It is argued that a reductionist view of the human body as digital data overlooks the limits of digital ontology and gives up one basis for ethical orientation. Finally issues related to the digital divide as well as to intercultural aspects of information ethics are explored -and long and short-term agendas for appropriate responses are presented.

As a result of normal metabolic processes, the human body produces reactive oxygen species capable of oxidizing biomolecules that can damage DNA, cells, and contribute to chronic disease. This process can be attenuated or perhaps reversed by diets containing spices that have the ability to scavenge reactive oxygen species. The present study measured the concentration of polyphenols in peppercorn (black