Clinical trial of a low-cost external fixator for global surgery use.

Purpose: A low-cost modular external fixator for the lower limb has been developed for global surgery use. The purpose of this study is to assess outcome measures in the first clinical use of the device.

Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted with patients recruited in two trauma hospitals.

Use of external fixators in developing countries: a short socioeconomic analysis.

The use of external fixators (EFs) dates back to 377 BC Hippocrates' time, and it has a wide range of orthopaedic applications. External fixator has expanded its use in the management of fractures and other musculoskeletal conditions. It is widely used all over the world to manage complex musculoskeletal injuries.

Obtaining patient torso geometry for the design of scoliosis braces. A study of the accuracy and repeatability of handheld 3D scanners.

Objective: Obtaining patient geometry is crucial in scoliosis brace design for patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. Advances in 3D scanning technologies provide the opportunity to obtain patient geometries quickly with fewer resources during the design process compared with the plaster-cast method. This study assesses the accuracy and repeatability of such technologies for this application.

An engineering review of external fixators.

External Fixators are a common technique used to treat a variety of issues related to bones, predominantly due to its non-intrusive nature and versatility in terms of form and materials. While it is mainly used to treat open fractures, its other uses include limb lengthening, deformity correction, bone grafting, compression of non-unions and stabilization of dislocations. Its earliest use dates as far back as 400 BCE and has undergone significant improvements, focusing on both customization and optimization.

A Wearable System to Analyze the Human Arm for Predicting Injuries Due to Throwing.

There is limited understanding on factors that contribute to throwing related injuries that frequently occur in sports such as Baseball, Cricket and Javelin throwing.This preliminary study focuses on the development of a real time wearable system focusing on extracting key parameters related to potential upper arm injuries associated with the throwing action in the game of Cricket. A wearable system is developed to analyze Electromyography (EMG) signals for detecting muscle activity and Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) data for monitoring the arm motion.

Mechanical Properties of Double Network Poly (Acrylic Acid) Based Hydrogels for Potential Use as a Biomaterial.

Load-bearing applications of hydrogels include soft robots, tissue engineering, and stretchable electronics. This paper presents an extensive study of double network poly (acrylic acid) based hydrogel on stress relaxation, compression fatigue, shear stress, and shock absorption properties as a potential load-bearing soft tissue replacement biomaterial. Double network poly (acrylic acid) hydrogel was selected due to simple processing and availability.

The levels of plasma low density lipoprotein are independent of cholesterol ester transfer protein in fish-oil fed F1B hamsters.

BACKGROUND: Cholesterol ester transfer protein (CETP) plays a major role in regulating the levels of LDL- and HDL-cholesterol. We previously observed a fish-oil-induced elevation of low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-and very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL)-cholesterol concentrations and a decrease in high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol concentration in F1B hamsters. The molecular mechanism/s by which fish oil induces hyperlipidaemic effect was investigated in this study.

A diffusion and T2 relaxation MRI study of the ovine lumbar intervertebral disc under compression in vitro.

The ovine lumbar intervertebral disc is a useful model for the human lumbar disc. We present preliminary estimates of diffusion coefficients and T2 relaxation times in a pilot MRI study of the ovine lumbar intervertebral disc during uniaxial compression in vitro, and identify factors that hamper the ability to accurately monitor the temporal evolution of the effective diffusion tensor at high spatial resolution.

Hyperlipidaemic effect of fish oil in Bio F1B hamsters.

We investigated the dietary influence of low and high levels of fish oil, supplemented with or without dietary cholesterol, on the plasma lipoprotein profile in Bio F1B hamsters, a model susceptible to diet-induced hyperlipidaemia. The MIX diet, a diet supplemented with a mixture of lard and safflower-seed oil, was used as the control diet to maintain the saturated MUFA and PUFA levels similar to the fish-oil diet. The animals were fed the specific diets for 2 weeks and fasted for 14 h before killing.