Identification of the mechanical moduli of flexible thermoplastic thin films using reflected ultrasonic waves: Inverse problem.

A method for the identification of the mechanical moduli and density of flexible, supple thermoplastic thin films placed on elastic substrates using ultrasonic waves has been developed. The composite medium immersed in a fluid host medium (water) was excited using a 50MHz transducer operating at normal incidence in reflection mode. Inverse problems involving experimental data pertaining to elastic wave propagation in the thin films on their substrates and theoretical fluid-solid interaction models for stratified media using elasticity theory were solved.

A clinical profile of patients with Parkinson's disease and psychosis.

Aims: The aim of the study was to study the clinical profile of the patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and psychosis.

Settings And Design: This was a prospective, cross sectional, hospital-based study done at the Department of Neurology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India from September 2009 to January 2011. All patients with PD, diagnosed by United Kingdom PD Society Brain Bank criteria, having with features of psychosis as diagnosed by the neuropsychiatric inventory (NPI) were included.

Electrophysiological evaluation of spinocerebellar ataxias 1, 2 and 3.

Introduction: Subclinical neuropathy is an important feature of spinocerebellar ataxias (SCA) but the true prevalence and electrophysiological characteristics in genetically proven patients of SCA 1, 2 and 3 are largely unknown.

Methods: We prospectively compared the electrophysiological characteristics of neuropathy in 61 genetically confirmed cases of SCA (SCA1=28, SCA2=16 and SCA3=17). Nerve conduction studies were performed in at least one sensory and one motor nerve, in right upper and lower limb using standard methods.

[Confirmation of the high prevalence in Morocco of the homozygous mutation c.144delC in the aurora kinase C gene (AURKC) in the teratozoospermia with large-headed spermatozoa].

Objectives: To confirm the recurrent character of the mutation c.144delC in the aurora kinase C (AURKC) gene in Morocco and determine the indication and the interest of the research of this anomaly.

Patients And Methods: We looked for the mutation c.