Electro hydraulic drives are often used where the dynamic response requirements of the driven load in terms of speed, cycling, accuracy and stability are particularly severe. One such application is the control and drive system associated with a high frequency hydraulic vibrator. A hydraulic shaker controls a valve which directs high pressure hydraulic fluid to generate controlled vibration. Hy...

Bone micro-damage is commonly accepted as a relevant parameter for fracture risk assessment, but there is no available technique for its non-invasive characterization. The objective of this work is to study the potential of nonlinear ultrasound for damage detection in human bone. Ultrasound is particularly desirable due to its non-invasive and non-ionizing characteristics. We show results illus...

We are developing a lexicon of specific heart period changes, or lexons, that recur frequently and whose physiological meaning can be read into ambulatory electrocardiogram (ECG). The transient, reversible "burst" of tachycardia induced by exercise initiation can also be seen on ambulatory ECG. We hypothesized that burst morphology depended on the work that preceded it and on baroreceptor activ...

The influence of supplemental oxygen on exercise performance was assessed in 17 patients with severe airflow obstruction. Exercise capacity was measured by the six minute walking distance, by an endurance walking test, and by an endurance cycling test and comparison was made with performance when the patient was breathing air. In addition, the relation between the flow rate of supplemental oxyg...

Phospholamban has been suggested to be a key regulator of cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca cycling and contractility and a potential therapeutic target in restoring the depressed Ca cycling in failing hearts. Our understanding of the function of phospholamban stems primarily from studies in genetically altered mouse models. To evaluate the significance of this protein in larger mammalian ...

Superelastic NiTi and NiTi-TiC composites were subjected to static uniaxial compressive loading while neutron diffraction spectra were simultaneously acquired. A methodology was established to obtain quantitative strain, texture and phase volume fraction information during the forward and reverse stress-induced martensitic transformation. Despite the presence of 10 vol. % of stiff TiC particles...

In asynchronous duty-cycled wireless sensor networks, it is desirable that the data forwarding scheme is adaptive to the dynamics caused by the uncertainty of sensor nodes’ working schedules. Contentionbased forwarding is designed to adapt to the dynamic environments. In this work, we are interested in the contention-based geographic forwarding (CGF) for two asynchronous duty-cycling (ADC) mode...

The use of noninvasive techniques to measure respiratory muscle performance after different types of endurance exercise has not been entirely successful, as the results have not consistently indicated diminished performance for similar types of exercise. The aim of the present study was 1) to compare different, noninvasive methods to assess respiratory muscle performance before and after an exh...

INTRODUCTION Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has systemic repercussions that can lead to peripheral muscle dysfunction. Muscle atrophy reduces aerobic capacity, greatly limiting activities of daily living and quality of life. Pulmonary rehabilitation is the gold standard treatment for these patients, however, patients may not be able to reach sufficient training intensities for ben...

In order to determine if the expression of the activation marker CD38 can correlate with HIV disease progression independently of cycling, we performed a cluster-based multivariate correlation analysis of total circulating CD4(+) T cell counts and viral loads with frequencies of CD38 and Ki67 expression on CD4(+) lymphocytes from patients with untreated HIV infection, stratified in maturation s...