BACKGROUND This study investigates the feasibility of performing advanced minimally invasive surgery (MIS) in a nonspecialized practice environment. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional survey of all community general surgeons currently practising in Ontario. RESULTS Few community surgeons perform a high volume (> 10 procedures per yr) of advanced MIS. Most (70%) believe it is important t...

We present a computer program for the simulation of Mie scattering in case of arbitrarily large size parameters. The elements of the scattering matrix, efficiency factors as well as the corresponding cross sections, the albedo and the scattering asymmetry parameter are calculated. Single particles as well as particle ensembles consisting of several components and particle size distributions can...

Dust deposition to snow can have regionally important climatic and hydrologic impacts resulting from direct reduction of surface albedo and indirectly from the initiation of snow albedo feedbacks. Modeling the radiative impacts of dust deposited in snow requires knowledge of the optical properties of both components. Here we present an inversion technique to retrieve the effective optical prope...

OBJECTIVE Minimally invasive approaches to the management of renal tumors are being studied intensively in urology. Herein, we describe the use of multiple organ-sparing techniques for the management of tumors in a patient with von Hippel Lindau disease (VHL). MATERIALS AND METHODS A 42 year-old woman with VHL underwent a right partial adrenalectomy and a left renal radiofrequency ablation (R...

We present a framework to systematically study the duality properties of scatterers. The duality properties of a scatterer are related to the polarization change that a particle excerpts on a light beam. Our formalism can be applied to any geometry and material, but we develop it in the context of spherical scatterers. Due to their symmetries, we can formulate the problem semi-analytically usin...

BACKGROUND Kinematic design is a predominant phase in the design of robotic manipulators for minimally invasive surgery (MIS). However, an extensive overview of the kinematic design issues for MIS robots is not yet available to both mechanisms and robotics communities. METHODS Hundreds of archival reports and articles on robotic systems for MIS are reviewed and studied. In particular, the kin...

There is experimental evidence that the non-sphericity of certain atmospheric particles can cause scattering properties different from those predicted by standard Mie theory. Numerous studies indicate the need to consider the presence of non-spherical particles in modeling the optical properties of atmospheric aerosols. On the other hand, natural aerosols show a great variety of shapes, making ...

The accent system of Modern Japanese is characterized by patterns of high and low tones which are conventionally specified for each word, and words are grouped into several classes according to their accent patterns. Put differently, words belonging to the same class exhibit the same accent pattern. Some dialects, however, permit more than one accent patterns in the same class, which will be re...

Activities related to medical innovation are accelerating and becoming increasingly important due to the demand for better and less invasive therapies, a rapidly aging population in the developed world and a globally larger population able to afford advanced medical care. Medical Innovation is occurring in the fields of pharmacy, diagnostics and therapeutic imaging, surgical products, intervent...