Performance Testing of Endoscopic Biopsy Forceps

Author(s):  
Barbara S. Linke ◽  
Anthony Toribio ◽  
Shannon Geary ◽  
Ulf P. Neumann ◽  
Anjali A. Roeth

Endoscopic biopsy forceps are the key to minimally invasive procedures to an endoscopic surgeon. These surgeons have to maneuver forceps with cutting performance through the body while maintaining minimal damage to the narrow channels during insertion. The amount of precision the user needs to successfully perform endoscopic surgery is high enough to create a preference amongst surgeons. Physicians are often not involved in the purchasing decision on the instruments, but they usually can provide their preference of instrument mainly based on the subjective perception of how an instrument feels or works in their hands. To base discussions between surgeons and purchasing departments on quantitative data of forceps use performance, this study aims to provide a performance testing method for different instruments such as different brands, designs, reusable or single-use, or instruments in different wear stages. Ultimately, this will allow to determine which instrument performs with the maximum efficiency at the lowest cost. First, findings in the literature on forceps failure, wear and testing are described. Then, the forceps design and handling during a biopsy are investigated. A preliminary test set-up is introduced for a repeatable biopsy test for endoscopic forceps. Different tissue types and samples can be used in the test stand to define an ideal acceleration profile for the forceps during biopsy and the cut can be analyzed by microscopy afterwards. A sensor on the operator’s wrist measures acceleration and jerk while pulling at the forceps, which will give new insight into the performance of different forceps types and forceps in different wear states, independent from forceps’ brand, design or wear states.

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 876
Author(s):  
Filipe Rodrigues ◽  
Diogo Monteiro ◽  
Pedro Flores ◽  
Pedro Forte

The aim of the present study was to examine the Body Image Satisfaction Questionnaire (BISQ) as a multidimensional instrument, designed to measure individuals’ body image satisfaction. A sample of 790 Portuguese healthy adults (female = 399; male = 391) aged 18 and 49 years old (M = 28.61, SD = 7.97) completed the BISQ. Exploratory factor analysis of the BISQ provided initial psychometric validity for a five-factor model assessing five dimensions of body image, namely, face, upper torso, lower torso, lower body, and overall body appearance. Confirmatory factor analysis supported this five-correlated model, in which a bifactor model provided the best fit to the data, defining a body image satisfaction factor and five specific factors. The BISQ clearly distinguished between various dimensions of body image satisfaction and showed satisfactory psychometric quality through factor analyses. This measure may have a broad application for research and practice, as a tool for capturing individual body image satisfaction.


1960 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 759-763 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. W. Snellen

When studying a walking subject's thermal exchange with the environment, it is essential to know whether in level walking any part of the total energy expenditure is converted into external mechanical work and whether in grade walking the amount of the external work is predictable from physical laws. For this purpose an experiment was set up in which a subject walked on a motor-driven treadmill in a climatic room. In each series of measurements a subject walked uphill for 3 hours and on the level for another hour. Metabolism was kept equal in both situations. Air and wall temperatures were adjusted to the observed weighted skin temperature in order to avoid any heat exchange by radiation and convection. Heat loss by evaporation was derived from the weight loss of the subject. All measurements were carried out in a state of thermal equilibrium. In grade walking there was a difference between heat production and heat loss by evaporation. This difference equaled the caloric equivalent of the product of body weight and gained height. In level walking the heat production equaled heat loss. Hence it was concluded that in level walking all the energy is converted into heat inside the body. Submitted on April 26, 1960


2018 ◽  
Vol 167 ◽  
pp. 04002
Author(s):  
Iliycho Iliev ◽  
Snezhana Gocheva-Ilieva ◽  
Chavdar Kulin

Subject of investigation is a new high-powered strontium bromide (SrBr2) vapor laser emitting in multiline region of wavelengths. The laser is an alternative to the atom strontium lasers and electron free lasers, especially at the line 6.45 μm which line is used in surgery for medical processing of biological tissues and bones with minimal damage. In this paper the experimental data from measurements of operational and output characteristics of the laser are statistically processed by means of cluster analysis and tree-based regression techniques. The aim is to extract the more important relationships and dependences from the available data which influence the increase of the overall laser efficiency. There are constructed and analyzed a set of cluster models. It is shown by using different cluster methods that the seven investigated operational characteristics (laser tube diameter, length, supplied electrical power, and others) and laser efficiency are combined in 2 clusters. By the built regression tree models using Classification and Regression Trees (CART) technique there are obtained dependences to predict the values of efficiency, and especially the maximum efficiency with over 95% accuracy.


The use of the blast-wave analogy, as an aid to the interpretation of experimental data on the motion of a fluid past an obstacle at hypersonic speeds, has led to the theoretical study of its role in an asymptotic expansion of the solution to the governing equations at large distances downstream of the body. In all attempts to set up such an expansion it has proved necessary to divide the flow régime into two parts, an outer part dominated by the blast wave and an inner part consisting of streamlines which, originally, pass close by the body. The matching of these two regions is apparently only possible if a certain integral vanishes. In the present paper a numerical integration, in one particular set of circumstances, is carried out to test the validity of the asymptotic expansion proposed. Formally, an unsteady problem is tackled, for ease of computation, but the steady analogue follows immediately and is of exactly the form discussed in the earlier investigations. It is found that the main results are in line with the theory and that the integral in question is indistinguishable from zero. However, a deeper investigation of the asymptotic expansion shows that, for an expansion of the type envisaged, an infinite set of integrals must each vanish. The next integral does not appear to be zero according to our computations but this result is not believed to be conclusive. Assuming that all the integrals do vanish, then it appears that the inner layer, which although inviscid, has many of the characteristics of a viscous boundary layer, has the addi­tional, surprising property that it can exert no direct influence on the outer flow at large distances downstream of the body.


2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (6 (Suppl. 2)) ◽  
pp. S131-S147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel A.S. Taylor ◽  
Gregory E. Peoples ◽  
Stewart R. Petersen

The focus of this review is on the physiological considerations necessary for developing employment standards within occupations that have a heavy reliance on load carriage. Employees within military, fire fighting, law enforcement, and search and rescue occupations regularly work with heavy loads. For example, soldiers often carry loads >50 kg, whilst structural firefighters wear 20–25 kg of protective clothing and equipment, in addition to carrying external loads. It has long been known that heavy loads modify gait, mobility, metabolic rate, and efficiency, while concurrently elevating the risk of muscle fatigue and injury. In addition, load carriage often occurs within environmentally stressful conditions, with protective ensembles adding to the thermal burden of the workplace. Indeed, physiological strain relates not just to the mass and dimensions of carried objects, but to how those loads are positioned on and around the body. Yet heavy loads must be borne by men and women of varying body size, and with the expectation that operational capability will not be impinged. This presents a recruitment conundrum. How do employers identify capable and injury-resistant individuals while simultaneously avoiding discriminatory selection practices? In this communication, the relevant metabolic, cardiopulmonary, and thermoregulatory consequences of loaded work are reviewed, along with concomitant impediments to physical endurance and mobility. Also emphasised is the importance of including occupation-specific clothing, protective equipment, and loads during work-performance testing. Finally, recommendations are presented for how to address these issues when evaluating readiness for duty.


2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Deirdre Ruane

In 1997 the Internet was seen by many as a tool for radical reinterpretation of physicality and gender. Cybertheorists predicted we would leave our bodies behind and interact online as disembodied minds, and that the technology would reshape the way we saw ourselves. However, physicality has proved to be an inextricable part of all our interactions. Changing Internet technology has allowed Net users to find a myriad ways to perform and express their gender online. In this paper I consider attitudes to gender on the Net in 1997, when the main concerns were the imbalance between men and women online and whether it was possible or desirable to bring the body into online interactions. In much of the discourse surrounding gender online, a simple binary was assumed to exist. I go on to consider the extent to which those attitudes have changed today. Through my own experience of setting up a women’s community on Livejournal, and my observations of a men’s community set up in response, I conclude that though traditional attitudes to gender have largely translated to the Net and the binary is still the default view, some shifts have occurred. For example, between 1997 and today there seems to have been a fundamental change in perceptions of women’s attitudes to adversarial debate, and an increase in awareness of genders beyond the binary. In addition, experience and preliminary investigation lead me toward a hypothesis that today’s female-identified Net users are engaged in more conscious and active exploration and performance of their gender online than male-identified users are.


2019 ◽  
Vol 95 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-153
Author(s):  
D. A. Dmitriev ◽  
Olga S. Indeykina ◽  
A. D. Dmitriev

Sound environment is an essential sensory stimuli influencing on the all functional systems of the body. The nature of this influence depends not only on the volume, but also on the whole complex of factors affecting the subjective perception of sound. The article describes the effect of different noise and music stimuli on health and functional state of the human body, the importance of noise sensitivity due to the severity of the composition offunctional changes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Lilis Rosmainar Tambunan ◽  
Widia Ningsih ◽  
Ni Putu Ayu ◽  
Haula Nanda

Vitamin C is one of the nutrients that act as antioxidants and effectively overcome free radicals that can damage cells or tissues, including protecting the lens from oxidative damage caused by radiation. Vitamin C is widely found in fruits, and vegetables, one of them in chili. Vitamin C in chili has a function as a good antioxidant for the body (able to increase the immune system absorbed by calcium in the body. This study aims to determine the levels of vitamin C contained in some types of chili using UV-Vis spectrophotometry method and conduct a preliminary test. The highest levels of vitamin C obtained by using spectrophotometric method at 200 nm wavelength were on red curly pepper (50 g/100 g) and followed by chili jablay orange-red (38 g/100 g), green cayenne (29 g/100 g), red pepper large (22 g/100 g), and large green chili (9 g/100 g). While based on preliminary test it was found that all chilies contain saponins, as well as only large red pepper (sample 1) and red curly pepper (sample 4) containing flavonoids Keywords: capsicum, chilly, spectrophotometry


This paper proposes a hybrid model for use by travelers on a smartphone. The principles lie in the combined deployment of 24x7 network that directly serves the travelers and links the existing phone service as an alternate backup choice. Such a redundancy will insure higher reliability in an urgent situation, where many available communication channels are often jammed by panic calls and accesses. In addition, off-line service is also provided as an optional access means to ease the network traffic, whereby important information can be immediately conveyed to the travelers in need of assistance. An information management workflow is also set up to effectively disseminate the relevant information. The proposed system is implemented and tested by volunteers. The results are compared with the predicted outcomes obtained from the preliminary test. It was found that once the users are familiar with the answers, they tend to prematurely exit the application. However, it is not the case with operator assistance as they can continue inquiring freely with the human operator. Future artificial intelligent techniques can be employed to enhance the non-human operations to become as lively as the human service.


Author(s):  
Tina Unglaube ◽  
Hsiao-Wei D. Chiang

In recent years closed loop supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycles have drawn the attention of many researchers as they are characterized by a higher theoretic efficiency and smaller turbomachinery size compared to the conventional steam Rankine cycle for power generation. Currently, first prototypes of this emerging technology are under development and thus small scale sCO2 turbomachinery needs to be developed. However, the design of sCO2 turbines faces several new challenges, such as the very high rotational speed and the high power density. Thus, the eligibility of well-established radial inflow gas turbine design principles has to be reviewed regarding their suitability for sCO2 turbines. Therefore, this work reviews different suggestion for optimum velocity ratios for gas turbines and aims to re-establish it for sCO2 turbines. A mean line design procedure is developed to obtain the geometric dimensions for small scale sCO2 radial inflow turbines. By varying the specific speed and the velocity ratio, different turbine configurations are set up. They are compared numerically by means of CFD analysis to conclude on optimum design parameters with regard to maximum total-to-static efficiency. Six sets of simulations with different specific speeds between 0.15 and 0.52 are set up. Higher specific speeds could not be analyzed, as they require very high rotational speeds (more than 140k RPM) for small scale sCO2 turbines (up to 150kWe). For each set of simulations, the velocity ratio that effectuates maximum efficiency is identified and compared to the optimum parameters recommended for radial inflow turbines using subcritical air as the working fluid. It is found that the values for optimum velocity ratios suggested by Rohlik (1968) are rather far away from the optimum values indicated by the conducted simulations. However, the optimum values suggested by Aungier (2005), although also established for subcritical gas turbines, show an approximate agreement with the simulation results for sCO2 turbines. Though, this agreement should be studied for a wider range of specific speeds and a finer resolution of velocity ratios. Furthermore, for high specific speeds in combination with high velocity ratios, the pressure drop of the designed turbines is too high, so that the outlet pressure is beyond the critical point. For low specific speeds in combination with low velocity ratios, the power output of the designed turbines becomes very small. Geometrically, turbines with low specific speeds and high velocity ratios are characterized by very small blade heights, turbines with high specific speeds and small velocity ratios by very small diameters.


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