Passive Radar Sensing for Human Activity Recognition: A Survey.

Continuous and unobtrusive monitoring of daily human activities in homes can potentially improve the quality of life and prolong independent living for the elderly and people with chronic diseases by recognizing normal daily activities and detecting gradual changes in their conditions. However, existing human activity recognition (HAR) solutions employ wearable and video-based sensors, which either require dedicated devices to be carried by the user or raise privacy concerns. Radar sensors enable non-intrusive long-term monitoring, while they can exploit existing communication systems, e.

Agent-Supported Peer Collaboration in MOOCs.

While massive open online courses (MOOCs) can be effective in scaling education, orchestrating collaborative learning activities for large audiences remains a non-trivial task that introduces a series of practical challenges, such as the lack of adequate human support. Even when collaboration takes place, there is uncertainty whether meaningful interactions will occur among learners. This work presents the architecture of a prototype system called PeerTalk.

Hybrid circumferential fixation for degenerative lumbosacral spine disease: posterior lumbar interbody fusion plus universal clamp rod-band instrumentation: a novel technique for lumbosacral fixation.

Study Design: Retrospective study on circumferential hybrid instrumentation with posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) and the novel posterior Universal Clamp (UC) instrumentation.

Objective: This study evaluated the roentgenographic and clinical outcome after PLIF with PEEK cage augmented with UC posterior sublaminar fixation without posterior fusion.

Summary Of Background Data: Although UC has been successfully used in scoliosis surgery, to our knowledge, this is the first report on its use in degenerative lumbosacral disease.

Primary malignant schwannoma involving simultaneously the right Gasserian ganglion and the distal part of the right mandibular nerve. Case report.

A 66-year-old man presented to our Department with trigeminal neuralgia of the third division of the right trigeminal nerve. He also complained of some difficulty in mastication because of a tumour mass in the right lower jaw. A brain CT scan, X-rays of the lower jaw and viscerocranium CT scan revealed a malignant schwannoma of the right Gasserian ganglion involving simultaneously the distal end of the right mandibular nerve.

Results of anterior discectomy without fusion for treatment of cervical radiculopathy and myelopathy.

In this retrospective study 180 patients were submitted to anterior discectomy without fusion for cervical radiculopathy and myelopathy. Ninety-five patients presented with single-level discopathy, the main symptom being radiculopathy in this group. Eighty-five patients presented with multiple-level discopathy, the main symptom being myelopathy instead of radiculopathy.

The symptomatic incompetent cervical intervertebral disc.

A series of 16 patients with symptoms such as pain in the neck, occiput, shoulder and arm; numbness in the hands; and/or difficulty in walking, is described. Neurological examination of the upper extremities disclosed signs of nerve roots dysfunction in 5 patients and long tract signs in 12, whereas examination of the lower extremities disclosed long tract signs in every patient. Positive contrast cervical myelograms suggested mild posterior bulging of one or two intervertebral discs in every patient, but computed tomographic myelograms invariably demonstrated a coincident narrow cervical spinal canal, thus revealing the true compressive potential of the aforementioned mild disc protrusion on the spinal cord.

Brain cortex phospholipids liposomes effects on CSF HVA, 5-HIAA and on prolactin and somatotropin secretion in man.

Liposomes obtained from bovine brain cortex phospholipids (BC-PL), which display several effects on brain function in mice, have been administered intravenously (200 mg) to healthy subjects at various times before diagnostic lumbar puncture. HVA and 5-HIAA concentrations in CSF have been evaluated with the aim of assessing changes of monoamines metabolism. An increase of HVA occurs after 2 hours from BC-PL administration, reaching its peak after 6--7 hours.

5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) levels in the cerebrospinal fluid of hydrocephalic children before and after ventricular shunting procedure.

21 cases of hypertensive hydrocephalus were investigated for lumbar 5-HIAA before and after operation. Seven groups (posterior fossa tumors) of patients aged between 2 and 12 years were tested after tumor removal; the others (nontumorous hydrocephalus) after ventricular shunting. This last group included 8 patients with noncommunicating hydrocephalus aged between 15 days and 12 years and 6 with communicating hydrocephalus aged between 6 months and 9 years.