Continuous leg dyskinesia assessment in Parkinson's disease -clinical validity and ecological effect.

Introduction: Dyskinesias in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients are a common side effect of long-term dopaminergic therapy and are associated with motor dysfunctions, including gait and balance deficits. Although promising compounds have been developed to treat these symptoms, clinical trials have failed. This failure may, at least partly, be explained by the lack of objective and continuous assessment strategies.

Approximate thermodynamic structure for driven lattice gases in contact.

For a class of nonequilibrium systems, called driven lattice gases, we study what happens when two systems are kept in contact and allowed to exchange particles with the total number of particles conserved. For both attractive and repulsive nearest-neighbor interactions among particles and for a wide range of parameter values, we find that, to a good approximation, one could define an intensive thermodynamic variable, such as the equilibrium chemical potential, that determines the final steady state for two initially separated driven lattice gases brought into contact. However, due to nontrivial contact dynamics, there are also observable deviations from this simple thermodynamic law.

[Preoperative planning in hip endoprosthetics: presenting a computer-assisted system using CAD software].

The implantation of hip prostheses is a complex operation if one takes in consideration the peculiar features of the different types of implants, the knowledge and skill of the surgeon and the differing characteristics of the patients. In particular, biomechanical parameters have to be respected if a good long-term outcome is to be achieved. Normally the planning of the operation is done with colored pencils and tracing paper.

[Alkaptonuria and ochronotic arthropathy. Arthroscopic and intraoperative findings in implantation of a knee joint surface replacing prosthesis].

Alcaptonuria is a rare (incidence approx. 1:10(6)), autosomal-recessive transmitted metabolic disease. The basic defect is a lack of the enzyme homogentisic acid oxidase.

Effects of membrane lipid and fluidity modifications on HIV-1 infectibility of primate lymphocytes in vitro.

Although most non-human primates, except the chimpanzee and the gibbon in vivo are not infectible by HIV-1, lymphocytes of several of these species can be infected by HIV-1 in vitro. In order to investigate whether the in vitro infectibility of primate lymphocytes might be attributed to plasma membrane adaptation processes or to serum factors, we compared HIV-1 infectibility of cultivated peripheral blood lymphocytes of macaques and of baboons on day one and on day ten of cultivation. These data were correlated to plasma membrane lipid composition and membrane fluidity.