Posterior arthroscopic approach to the ankle: an anatomic study.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to verify the safety of a new technique for a posterior arthroscopic approach to the ankle. This technique was recently described in literature. The technique uses a modified posteromedial portal, a different way of introducing the instruments into the portal, and the tendon of the flexor hallucis longus (FHL) as a landmark to work in the posterior compartment.

Cartilaginous abrasion and debridement: correlation between type of cartilaginous injury and results in patients with a 4 to 9-year follow-up.

It is the purpose of this study to verify whether or not there is a correlation between some parameters for cartilaginous injury (width, depth, and type of injury), analyzed separately, and the medium to long-term prognosis of the same. Thus, the parameters were analyzed, correlating them individually with the results obtained when a self-evaluation form was used, and the Lysholm-Gillquist score system. The small number of patients (because of the strict criteria for inclusion) does not allow for a statistically valid analysis of the results obtained.

Hemiarthroplasty of the shoulder. Clinical experience in 18 cases treated by the Neer monoblock prosthesis.

The authors report the results of 18 hemiarthroplasties of the shoulder performed between 1990 and 1994 using the Neer II monoblock prosthesis, emphasizing the technical and surgical problems encountered. The patients treated numbered 13 for traumatic pathology (acute fractures: 7; sequelae of fracture of the proximal epiphysis of the humerus: 6), and 5 for degenerative lesions (arthrosis: 3; rheumatoid arthritis: 2). An evaluation of the results was based on the Constant method and isokinetic testing.

Isokinetic testing to evaluate patients submitted to surgery for the treatment of surgical lesion of the rotator cuff.

A total of 100 cases surgically treated for rupture of the extra-rotator cuff were evaluated by isokinetic testing. Results were evaluated after a period of time ranging from 1 to 4 years, based on the Constant system, defining the type of lesion of the cuff based on the Snyder classification system, and measuring strength postsurgery using isokinetic testing after 3 and 6 months, and 1 year. Isokinetic testing made it possible to accurately evaluate which patients are capable of obtaining better recovery, and how much time is required for physiotherapy for postoperative rehabilitation, also allowing for correction on an individual basis of any muscular imbalance.

Highly constrained neural networks for industrial quality control.

In this work we investigate techniques for embedding domain-specific spatial invariances into highly-constrained neural networks. This information is used to drastically reduce the number of weights which have to be determined during the learning phase, thus allowing us to apply artificial neural networks to problems characterized by a relatively small number of available examples. As an application of the proposed methodology, we study the problem of optical inspection of machined parts.