Placement Issues Research Articles

Patient factors influencing dermal filler complications: prevention, assessment, and treatment.

While rare, complications do occur with the esthetic use of dermal fillers. Careful attention to patient factors and technique can do much to avoid these complications, and a well-informed practitioner can mitigate problems when they do occur. Since cosmetic surgery is usually an elective process, requested by the patient, clinical trials are complex to organize and run. For this reason, an international group of practicing physicians in the field of esthetics came together to share knowledge and to try and produce some informed guidance for their colleagues, considering the literature and also pooling their own extensive clinical experience. This manuscript aims to summarize the crucial aspects of patient selection, including absolute contraindications as well as situations that warrant caution, and also covers important considerations for the pre- and posttreatment periods as well as during the procedure itself. Guidance is given on both immediate and long-term management of adverse reactions. The majority of complications are related to accepting patients inappropriate for treatment or issues of sterility, placement, volume, and injection technique. It is clear that esthetic practitioners need an in-depth knowledge of all aspects of treatment with dermal fillers to achieve optimal outcomes for their patients.

Silk coating as a novel delivery system and reversible adhesive for stiffening and shaping flexible probes

The performance of any implantable electrode depends not only on its recording or stimulation capabilities but also on its position in relation to the target site. Electrode displacement during or after implantation represents a major issue as it might result in tissue damage or incorrect recording or stimulation location, complicating the interpretation of experimental data. Although thin-film electrode arrays have overcome some of the main limitations of more traditional, stiffer probes, their intrinsic flexibility and unilateral contacts represent a new challenge: they tend to bend during insertion and are difficult to implant simultaneously while maintaining a specific relative position. Here, we present a method that addresses all these issues using a coating of silk fibroin, a versatile protein derived from silkworm cocoons. The method is demonstrated by acquiring electromyographic (EMG) recordings in Manduca sexta, a soft-bodied animal that exemplifies the issues of electrode insertion and placement in delicate and deformable tissues.

WSN in Monitoring Oil Pipelines Using ACO and GA

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are one of the most important technologies in the fields of wireless networking today. WSNs have a vast amount of applications including sensors embedded in the outer surface of pipeline or mounted along the supporting structure of bridges, robotics and health care. In this paper, we study the issues of linear sensor placement to monitor oil pipelines. We address the problem of optimal number of sensors to be deployed given initial energy of each sensor node and message buffering limitations. The objectives of the deployment process are: 1) maximizing the coverage of the pipe, 2) producing a connected network, and 3) prolonging the overall network lifetime. The paper utilizes two of the evolutionary algorithms to solve the deployment problem which are Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). Extensive set of experiments are performed for performance evaluation.

The Personalist Shift in Christology

The article deals with the issue of the personalistic placement of contemporary Christology. The character of this approach is described by a direct, existential attitude toward the personal phenomenon of Jesus Christ. The analysis in question stems from the reading of the integral and complete humanity of Christ (verus et perfectus Homo) thanks to the use of personalistic language. This take releases the traditional Christology from the burden of concepts that hinder the access to the personal mystery of the Saviour. Thus, the personalistic shiftin Christology means that the “reality” under scrutiny is seen as an irreducible “point” of the existence of the God-Man who sets a radically new horizon of the acquisition of the truth that cannot be reduced to any concepts or formulae. This process is reflected by the principle of co-seemlines that is the modus of the personal covenant of the humanum and divinum that was literally and most fully realised in Christ, thereby giving an unparalleled perspective of speaking of God and of man. The profile of Christology directed existentially (the personalistic Christology) does not lose its scientific and methodological character or conceptual coherence, but it rather broadens the significance of these elements and puts them a radically new interpretative perspective.

Genetic Algorithm Software System for Analog Circuit Design

A software system sketcher to facilitate analog circuit design is proposed. The system requires solving two sub-problems. First, the issue of placement of the devices is resolved by using genetic algorithms (GAs), followed by activation of a sub-process that combines routing preferences using a search algorithm, A*. An altruism procedure is implemented over the solution output of the A* search to achieve a better design. The sketcher mimics and implements the combination of experience and intuition required from a human designer.

Shielding during x-ray examination of pediatric female patients with developmental dysplasia of the hip

Patients with developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) generally undergo multiple x-ray examinations of both hip joints. During these examinations, the gonads are completely exposed to radiation, unless shielded. Although many types and sizes of gonad shields exist, they often do not provide adequate protection because of size and placement issues; additionally, these shields are frequently omitted for female patients. Our aim was to assess gonad protection during x-ray examination that is provided by gonad shields designed for individual female patients with DDH.We retrospectively retrieved data from the Picture Archiving and Communication System database; pelvic plain x-ray films from 766 females, 18 years old or younger, were included in our analysis. Based on x-ray measurements of the anterior superior iliac spine, we developed a system of gonad shield design that depended on the distance between anterior superior iliac spine markers. We custom-made shields and then examined shielding rates and shielding accuracy before and after these new shields became available. Standard (general-purpose) shields were used before our custom design project was implemented. The shielding rate and shielding accuracy were, respectively, 14.5% and 8.4% before the project was implemented and 72.7% and 32.2% after it was implemented. A shield that is more anatomically correct and available in several different sizes may increase the likelihood of gonad protection during pelvic x-ray examinations.

Multi-disciplinary Behavioral Health Evaluations

Multi-disciplinary Behavioral Health Evaluations

Delirium in elderly: the role of psychiatric expertise in a multi-disciplinary team

INTRODUCTION: Delirium is a neurocognitive disorder frequently observed in elderly patients and can be found in any medical condition. Our experience of consulting elderly patients is that delirium is often unrecognized and respectively under-treated. The aim of our study was to evaluate the association between delirium and some risk factors and to elicit important diagnostic and therapeutic issues that could be of practical application to various specialists, dealing with elderly patients with delirium. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We studied 35 consecutive delirious patients (age 60-88), consulted or admitted at a gerontopsychiatric clinic. The patients came from different hospital settings of the university hospital. The ICD-10 and DSM-IV criteria for delirium and dementia were used. A psychiatric interview, clinical psychiatric and mental status examination, physical, laboratory examination and head computed tomography (CT) were performed. Cognitive impairment was recorded by Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Clock Drawing Test (CDT). Descriptive statistic and correlation analysis were applied. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Dementia was diagnosed in 23 (65.7%) out of all 35 delirious patients. Delirium was associated with factors such as prior cognitive impairment (dementia), advanced age, medical conditions and alcohol abuse. Without significant influence on the development of delirium were gender, marital status and education. Much of the disputable diagnostic issues are associated with the fact that no concrete speciality is dealing with the different aspects of delirium. The risk factors (predisposing and precipitating) provoking delirium should be concerned. The role of psychiatry services should be not restricted only to placement issues and acute treatment. CONCLUSION: Delirium in elderly is a serious medical problem, requiring precise and appropriate diagnosis and management. The fact that delirium is often multifactorial in origin necessitates a broad intervention strategy. The attention should be on prevention, primary and secondary, mostly by active psychiatric consultation. Keywords: delirium, elderly, risk factors, diagnosis, management, psychiatric expertise

An Efficient and Dynamic Data Placement, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery Using Surrogate Object in Mobile Cloud Paradigm

Advancement in wireless and mobile communication with ubiquity of devices in cloud has the potential in storing incredible volumes of knowledge provided by data in the mobile devices. Knowledge provided by high volume of data stored in virtually infinite computing infrastructure, namely, the mobile cloud has become very essential in many day to day applications. However, mobile cloud faces many challenges such as dependency on continuous network connections, data placement problems, limitation and issues in data mining and knowledge discovery with multiple service providers. In this paper a novel data placement and knowledge discovery technique, SD2-Kd (Surrogate object based Dynamic Data placement and Knowledge discovery) is proposed, which interacts two or more service providers for the purpose of load balancing and data placement in cloud replication for fast and easy access. The proposed model provides a real-time data placement from different service providers using surrogate object in the mobile support station and an exact copy updated with the database and mining server in synchronized and unsynchronized manner. The model also allows mobile devices to participate seamlessly in mining process and act on behalf of mobile device and permit to cache the location based frequent datasets and retrieve the knowledge from those datasets which in turn provides better response time and minimizes the overall network traffic incurred due to mobility and database server failover. It handles the data placement and mining process at the object level. An extensive simulation of the D2S-Kd technique has been done and it shows that the proposed technique improves the response times, achieves better bandwidth utilization, provides support for disconnection and increases the success rate of mining progressively more than the existing techniques.

Special Needs Adoption and Foster Exigencies (SAFE): A Model for Case Managers

Children with special needs disproportionately receive child welfare services in out-of-home placements, such as foster and adoptive homes. This theoretical model has been developed to describe or explain exigencies of adoptive and foster families of children with special needs (n = 82). A web content analysis, including theme, feature, link, exchange, and language analyses, of online discussion forums of adoptive and foster parents of children with special needs using a phenomenological framework was conducted. Inductive and quantitative web content analyses were conducted on themes. Parenting concerns were clustered into two main themes, disability and placement issues, and focused on children’s pre and post placement needs. A phenomenological analysis resulted in the development of the Special Needs Adoption and Foster Exigencies (SAFE), which outlines exigencies of adoptive and foster parents of children with special needs during engagement, assessment, and intervention phases of case management.

Sensor placement for the analysis of seismic surface waves: sources of error, design criterion and array design algorithms

Seismic surface waves can be measured by deploying an array of seismometers on the surface of the earth. The goal of such measurement surveys is, usually, to estimate the velocity of propagation and the direction of arrival of the seismic waves. In this paper, we address the issue of sensor placement for the analysis of seismic surface waves from ambient vibration wavefields. First, we explain in detail how the array geometry affects the mean-squared estimation error of parameters of interest, such as the velocity and direction of propagation, both at low and high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). Secondly, we propose a cost function suitable for the design of the array geometry with particular focus on the estimation of the wavenumber of both Love and Rayleigh waves. Thirdly, we present and compare several computational approaches to minimize the proposed cost function. Numerical experiments verify the effectiveness of our cost function and resulting array geometry designs, leading to greatly improved estimation performance in comparison to arbitrary array geometries, both at low and high SNR levels.

PMU Placement Based on Heuristic Methods, when Solving the Problem of EPS State Estimation

Creation of satellite communication systems gave rise to a new generation of measurement equipment – Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU). Integrated into the measurement system WAMS, the PMU sensors provide a real picture of state of energy power system (EPS). The issues of PMU placement when solving the problem of EPS state estimation (SE) are discussed in many papers. PMU placement is a complex combinatorial problem, and there is not any analytical function to optimize its variables. Therefore, this problem is often solved by the heuristic optimization methods. Depending on the chosen set of sensors (SCADA&PMU; only PMU; PMU placement based on the concept of depth of unobservability), one can obtain no less than 3 different variants of placing PMUs for one and the same system. The paper describes the PMU placement criteria suggested by the authors to solve the SE problem. Among them: improvement of bad data detection, maximum accuracy of estimates, transformation of the system graph into a tree, maximum number of measurements to be added, PMU placement during the decomposition of the power system SE problem. It is shown that the correct selection of PMU placement criteria can improve the solutions to these problems.

Optimal Placement of Wireless Sensor Nodes for Bridge Dynamic Monitoring Based on Improved Particle Swarm Algorithm

The issue of optimal placement of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is one of the major challenges for dynamic monitoring of bridges. It should be solved based on combining the effective monitoring of the dynamic performance of a bridge with the energy consumption of WSNs. Thus, the relationship between the bridge modal and the energy consumption of wireless networks is derived. Optimizing sensor location is achieved by using the improved wavelet particle swarm algorithm, which overcomes the disadvantage of the conventional particle swarm algorithm by applying mutation operator to the selected particles with certain small probability. Based on the comparison between the ANSYS simulation results and the measured bridge data, as well as the energy distribution diagram of WSNs, the proposed method is shown to reflect the dynamic performance of the test bridge well. Moreover, the method effectively controls the energy consumption of WSNs and achieves reasonable optimization effects. Therefore, this method can be used for dynamic monitoring of wireless sensors in various bridge types.

The Perceptions of Slovak Physiotherapists of their Practice Placement Experience

The practice education of undergraduate physiotherapy students is crucial for developing skilful and knowledgeable healthcare professionals. In Slovakia, there is a lack of literature exploring physiotherapists’ practice education, which might have a serious impact on its future provision. Therefore, this study aimed to explore novice physiotherapists’ perceptions of their practice placement experience using a qualitative design. A purposive sampling of five participants was recruited to conduct semi-structured interviews which were translated and transcribed verbatim. Collected data underwent Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith et al. 2009). This resulted in four major themes that fully captured participants’ perceptions of their practice placement experience. Identified themes were as follows: ‘The practice educator who cares?’; ‘Clinical placement issues’; ‘Learning sources’ and ‘Ready for practice?’. Overall dissatisfaction and frustration from participants’ experience of practice placements suggested the necessity to put more focus on development, delineation and provision of practice education in Slovakia. Also, more research related to practice education of physiotherapists and preparation of the practice educators in Slovakia was recommended.

An Application of Rectilinear Embedding in VLSI Placement

The VLSI (Very Large Scale Integrated Circuits) technology has developed rapidly in recent years, with a lot of advanced electric products emerging. Placement layout is regarded as the initial step in VLSI physical design. Its quality has a direct effect on the chip area and performance. The rectilinear embedding, which originates from graph theory, is widely employed in VLSI placement. In this paper, we set up a mathematical model for VLSI. Firstly, the issue of VLSI placement was converted to quadrangulation by using rectilinear embedding. Then we provided generating functions for two types of quadrangulations with graph multiple parameters. And the explicit formulae by employing Lagrangian inversion were obtained. Furthermore, we found the relation between outerplanar graph and Hamilton graph, so the counting result of Hamilton quadrangulation was derived. The quadrangulation calculation can be applied to the establishment of a computerized algorithm, which can be widely used for VLSI placement optimization.

2P1-G08 ピクピク運動計測による筋電気刺激の最適な電極配置の選択手法の検討(感覚・運動・計測(3))

Muscle electrical stimulation envisions a wide range of human augmentation application. However, the applications commonly have the issue of optimal electrode placement. The electrode moves according to the body position; thereby, the calibration of the optimal electrode placement is needed every time the body moves. In this paper, we propose a method to select an optimal electrode pair for finger flexion using twitching motion measurement. We delivered electrical stimulation producing twitching motion via four electrode pairs and measured the acceleration. Using the acceleration value, we selected the optimal electrode pair that twitched the finger the most. Preliminary experiment with four electrodes showed feasibility of our method.

Attitudes of general dental practitioners towards implant dentistry in an environment with widespread provision of implant therapy

To determine attitudes of general dental practitioners in a community where provision dental implants is a well-known treatment modality; and to identify variations in the attitudes with respect to dentists' factors, training factors and implant provision factors. A questionnaire survey to a random sample of registered dentists In Hong Kong was performed. Attitudes towards implant dentistry with respect to (i) perceived superiority of implant therapy, (ii) perceived outcomes of dental implant therapy, (iii) perceived complications & maintenance issues and (iv) placement issues were ascertained. In addition, information was collected on dentists' factors, training factors and implant provision factors. Variations in attitudes towards implant dentistry were explored in bivariate and regression analyses. Among eligible practitioners (n=246), the response rate was 46.3%. Dentists perceived implants to be superior to conventional prostheses for the replacement of a single missing posterior tooth (80%, 67) and likewise, for the replacement of a single missing anterior tooth (67%, 67), P<0.05. Variations in attitudes with respect to attitudes exists with respect to dentists' factors (years in practice [P<0.05]), place of graduation (P<0.05); implant trainings factors ("hand-on" training [P<0.05]); number of days of training (P<0.05) and implant experience factors (Number of patients treated [P<0.05]) and number of implants placed (P<0.05). In a community where provision of dental implants is widespread among its General Dental Practitioners (GDPs), their attitudes are not wholly in line with evidence-based knowledge. Variations in their attitudes existed with respect to dentist factors, training and experience issues.

Load dependent sensor placement method: Theory and experimental validation

A structural health monitoring system consists of permanently installed sensors to collect structural information, and these sensors are required to be placed at ‘good’ positions for damage identification. Conventional sensor placement methods make use of dynamic characteristics of a structure, i.e., mode shapes and natural frequencies, to determine optimal sensor positions. However, these methods do not take into account actual loading conditions and structural responses. In fact, participation degree of interested mode shapes in structural responses is of importance in both sensor placement and subsequent modal identification. In the work, a novel load dependent sensor placement method is developed by taking into consideration both structural dynamic characteristics and actual loading conditions. The objective of the proposed method is to achieve a nearly global unbiased estimate of modal coordinates, and consequently best modal and damage identification. It selects optimal sensor positions by subspace approximation of actual structural responses with the linear space spanned by interested mode shapes. Experiments are conducted on a six-story truss structure to validate the proposed load dependent sensor placement method. It is found that changing load conditions have to be accounted for when the issue of sensor placement is seriously examined. Furthermore, experiments have shown that better mode shape identification can be achieved at sensor positions chosen by the proposed novel load dependent sensor placement method than by conventional techniques.

Ethics and Accreditation in Addictions Counselor Training: Possible Field Placement Issues for CACREP‐Accredited Addictions Counseling Programs

The Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs now recognizes addictions counseling as a specialized field of practice. Two case studies illustrate possible unintended violations of ethical and training standards.

Sensor placement in temperature-based control strategies to improve baseline stability in Tian–Calvet microcalorimeters

We address the issue of hardware placement in the development of robust temperature control strategies that can be used to maintain a stable baseline during microcalorimetric experiments. The two different control loops, each defined by the location of sensor within the calorimeter that is used to achieve control, were first developed and then tested in a fully instrumented experimental system. Both control strategies were structured on proportional-integral-derivative controllers, after which calorimetric experiments were carried out to test the efficiency and robustness of the corresponding methodology. Results indicate that sensor placement plays a fundamental role in the controlled baseline stability and that is better to place the sensing device closer to the heater than to the central core. As part of this study, comparisons were also done against a previously reported control scheme based on heat-flow measurements. Results indicate that controlling only one variable, either temperature or heat flow is sufficient to compensate for heater-induced noise, but not for external fluctuations for which a combined strategy may be necessary.