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Results for “acrobatic work”

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PubMed1997

Safety Level of Acrobatic Work: A Probabilistic Study.

Acrobatic work constitutes an activity during which individuals intervene on buildings, cliffs, towers, and so forth, through the use of mountaineering or speleological techniques. The most dangerous situations occur particularly when ascending a rope with ascenders or roping with a descender. Any free fall or false manoeuvre will result in a strong shock on the belaying system that may cause its rupture. The fatal accident rate (FAR) of a given occupation is defined as the average number of fatal accidents per 108 hrs of exposure to a given hazard. In this study it is assumed that the FAR is proportional to the average number of fall-initiating events, η, per worker and per hour of exposure to the fall hazard. η is estimated to be between 10-3 and 3 × 10-3. The maximum values of the rupture probability of the securing systems are calculated for the FAR of acrobatic work to be smaller than the FAR of the three most dangerous activity groups of the construction industry in France. These values allow the varying ranges of the parameters that influence this rupture probability to be determined.

acrobatic work↗

PubMed2006

Acrobatic vascular disease.

Athletes performing repetitive movements can develop arterial injuries. These are uncommon. We present a case of bilateral subclavian/axillary artery stenosis in a female patient referred to the rapid access chest pain clinic with a presumptive diagnosis of angina. Her symptoms were related to limb ischemia rather than cardiac insufficiency. Detailed history from this patient revealed that she had spent 8 years working as an acrobat being swung by the arms twice daily during performances.

Angina Pectoris↗

PubMed2005

Tubulogenesis: zipping up your fly.

In animals, rearrangements of the junctions between cells are fundamental to morphogenesis. Recent work has revealed the acrobatics that Drosophila tracheal cells perform as they intercalate to form unicellular tubes.

Adherens Junctions↗

PubMed1993

[Aneurysm spurium after resection of aortic coarctation].

25 years after reconstruction of an aortic coarctation by prosthetic material, an insufficiency of the anastomosis gave rise to the development of a false aneurysm. The aneurysm was resected and the anastomosis was reconstructed in parallel extracorporal circulation with femoral cannulation in order to prevent ischemic lesions of the spinal cord and the visceral organs. The patient who works as a circus acrobat, made a successful recovery.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

[Working conditions of female workers in the system of "Soiuzgostsirk" (the Soviet State Circus)].

Labour activity of those engaged in the system of Soyuzgostsirk was analyzed. It was established that unsatisfactory sanitary and hygienic situation for members of the orchestra, workers taking care of animals and others, physical and neuroemotional load of gymnasts, acrobats and their assistants, induced uncomfortable work posture of conjurers and gymnasts were in some cases regarded as the main unfavourable occupational factors. The health state of the above professional groups was assessed. Preventive measures aimed at sanitation of labour conditions and decrease of disease rates were developed.

Animal Husbandry↗

PubMed2005

Different types of environmental enrichment have discrepant effects on spatial memory and synaptophysin levels in female mice.

Environmental enrichment paradigms that incorporate cognitive stimulation, exercise, and motor learning benefit memory and synaptic plasticity across the rodent lifespan. However, the contribution each individual element of the enriched environment makes to enhancing memory and synaptic plasticity has yet to be delineated. Therefore, the current study tested the effects of three of these elements on memory and synaptic protein levels. Young female C57BL/6 mice were given 3h of daily exposure to either rodent toys (cognitive stimulation) or running wheels (exercise), or daily acrobatic training for 6 weeks prior to and throughout behavioral testing. Controls were group housed, but did not receive enrichment. Spatial working and reference memory were tested in a water-escape motivated radial arm maze. Levels of the presynaptic protein synaptophysin were then measured in frontoparietal cortex, hippocampus, striatum, and cerebellum. Exercise, but not cognitive stimulation or acrobat training, improved spatial working memory relative to controls, despite the fact that both exercise and cognitive stimulation increased synaptophysin levels in the neocortex and hippocampus. These data suggest that exercise alone is sufficient to improve working memory, and that enrichment-induced increases in synaptophysin levels may not be sufficient to improve working memory in young females. Spatial reference memory was unaffected by enrichment. Acrobat training had no effect on memory or synaptophysin levels, suggesting a minimal contribution of motor learning to the mnemonic and neuronal benefits of enrichment. These results provide the first evidence that different elements of the enriched environment have markedly distinct effects on spatial memory and synaptic alterations.

Animals↗

PubMed1996

[Physiologic and hygienic evaluation of work and health status of women workers employed at institutions of the Culture Ministry].

The authors revealed substantial occupational hazards that are: unfavorable sanitary and hygienic environment (musicians, librarians, workers taking care of animals, and others), physical and psychoemotional stress (gymnasts, acrobats, and their assistants, actors, workers taking care of animals), unnatural and uncomfortable working posture (gymnasts, conjurers). Matching physiologic and hygienic results with evaluation of the workers' health state, the authors managed to disclose correlation between the occupational characteristics and functional state. The studies helped to form methodic recommendation on better health state for the occupations observed, on rational placement of pregnant women employed by Russian Culture Ministry.

Adult↗

PubMed1984

[FBA and/or CTG: fetal blood analysis and/or cardiotocography].

"The Ranking and Value of Intrapartum Cardiotocography--A Contribution to the Efficiency of the Method", and "Overrating of Cardiotocography and Negative Clinical Effects", two round-table discussions on specialist congresses during 1982/1983, prompted a controversial discussion on the subject: Intensive Care during Pregnancy and Delivery via FBA (foetal blood analysis) and/or CTG (cardiotocography)? In two recently published papers originating from the working team of Professor Saling, Hammacher's score was used as measure for assessing the value of cardiotocography. Hence, the author has been both prompted and challenged to this editorial not only as the inaugurator, but also as "interpretative acrobat" of cardiotocography. In his opinion, the overrated use of FBA represents an additional risk to the foetus due to possible compressions of the umbilical cord--placenta circulation because of the artificial rupture of the membranes which is often necessary when performing FBA. He pleads for preserving the "padding" provided by the amniotic fluid, by employing external cardiotocography--monitoring via the reliable beat-to-beat autocorrelation technique--while retaining the amniotic sack.

Acidosis↗

PubMed2005

Arbor Clinical Nutrition Updates: evidence-based clinical nutrition education using the Internet.

The Arbor Clinical Nutrition Updates (ACNU) is a weekly electronic nutrition journal for health professionals. Each issue summarises several recent clinical research papers appearing in the general medical and nutrition literature and which deal with a common nutrition topic. A commentary is added on how this research fits in with previous work, and what it all means for the practising clinician. ACNU is the world's most widely read electronic nutrition publication, with over 100,000 largely health-professional readers in 186 countries. It is published in nine languages and distributed by email without charge in both plain text and Acrobat formats. ACNU utilises a number of the Internet's unique characteristics to facilitate broad reach, currency and active reader feedback. This, together with its brevity and summarising format, helps to maintain its relevance to the nutrition education needs of health professionals, particularly those in clinical practice, and to overcome the factors most commonly reported by health professionals as obstacles to their greater adoption of evidence-based medicine. ACNU is intended to be a collaboration with the primary research journals to extend the reach of new nutrition research findings to a wider community of researchers, academics and clinicians than each journal might otherwise reach individually. As such, ACNU utilises the Internet to promote the goals of open-access publishing and evidence-based medicine.

Clinical Competence↗

PubMed1996

Synaptogenesis and Fos expression in the motor cortex of the adult rat after motor skill learning.

Recent work has suggested that changes in synapse number as well as changes in the expression of the Fos protein may occur within the motor cortex in association with motor learning. The number of synapses per neuron and the percentage of Fos-positive neurons within layer II/III of the rat motor cortex was measured after training on a complex motor learning task. Adult female rats were allocated randomly to either an acrobatic condition (AC), a motor control condition (MC), or an inactive control condition (IC). AC animals were trained to traverse a complex series of obstacles, and each AC animal was pair matched with an MC animal that traversed an obstacle-free runway. IC animals received no motor training. Animals from each condition were killed at various points during training, and unbiased stereological techniques were used to estimate the number of synapses per neuron and the percentage of Fos-positive cells within layer II/III of the motor cortex. AC animals exhibited an overall increase in the number of synapses per neuron in comparison to MC and IC animals at later stages of training. AC animals also had a significantly higher overall percentage of Fos-positive cells in comparison to both controls, with a trend for the increase to be greater during the acquisition versus the maintenance phase. These data suggest that Fos may be involved in the biochemical processes underlying skill acquisition and that motor learning, as opposed to motor activity, leads to increases in synapse number in the motor cortex.

Animals↗

PubMed1978

Evaluation method of mental workload under flight conditions.

In order to analyze the relationship between heart rate variability (HRV) and the flight tasks of pilots, HRV of various mental and physical work stresses were investigated. For the physical stress on the treadmill, S.D. of heart rate sequence showed a minimum value at medium stresses and remained there until the maximum stress. However, the centrifuge acceleration test presupposed special physical stresses, and S.D. was almost same as the resting findings. In the tracking tasks, which presupposed maximum interpretative actions, the increase in the mean heart rate (MHR) was small with the S.D. increased a greater amount than for resting results. Consequently, preflight checks and level flight phases presupposed medium interpretative actions and mental stress with reserve capacity. Takeoff and landing phases were considered as both high interpretative action and high emotional stress situations. Acrobatic and gunnery training flight phases were considered physical load, strong interpretative actions, and emotional stress tasks.

Acceleration↗

PubMed1999

[Family doctor: acrobat or drugstore clerk?].

In four cases there existed a discrepancy between the patient's request and the views of the GP who went by the guidelines of the Dutch College of General Practitioners. The requests concerned were those of a woman aged 56 who wanted a serum cholesterol determination and a youth aged 17 with a sprained ankle who asked for an X-ray--they were not satisfied until their wishes had been fulfilled--and those of a man aged 43 with recurrent low back pain who wanted to be referred to physical therapy and a woman aged 39 with a common cold who wanted a prescription for an antibiotic--they were only satisfied after a favourable development. The general practitioner has to choose whether to fulfill the patient's wishes or try to explain that the advice--based on medical evidence--is preferable. Good patient information is necessary for a better understanding of each other's points of view and, moreover, gives the doctor more satisfaction in his or her work.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Neural networks in the cockpit of the fly.

Flies have been buzzing around on earth for over 300 million years. During this time they have radiated into more than 125,000 different species (Yeates and Wiegmann 1999), so that, by now, roughly every tenth described species is a fly. They thus represent one of the most successful animal groups on our planet. This evolutionary success might, at least in part, be a result of their acrobatic maneuverability, which enables them, for example, to chase mates at turning velocities of more than 3000 degrees s(-1) with delay times of less than 30 ms (Land and Collett 1974; Wagner 1986). It is this fantastic behavior, which has initiated much research during the last decades, both on its sensory control and the biophysical and aerodynamic principles of the flight output (Dickinson et al. 1999, 2000). Here, we review the current state of knowledge about the neural processing of visual motion, which represents one sensory component intimately involved in flight control. Other reviews on this topic have been published with a similar (Hausen 1981, 1984; Hausen and Egelhaaf 1989; Borst 1996) or different emphasis (Frye and Dickinson 2001; Borst and Dickinson 2002). Because of space limitations, we do not review the extensive work that has been done on fly motion-sensitive neurons to advance our understanding of neural coding (Bialek et al. 1991; Rieke et al. 1997; de Ruyter et al. 1997, 2000; Haag and Borst 1997, 1998; Borst and Haag 2001). Unless stated otherwise, all data presented in the following were obtained on the blowfly Calliphora vicina which we will often casually refer to as 'the fly'.

Animals↗

PubMed2004

The new rules for bringing innovations to market.

It's tough to get consumers to adopt innovations--and it's getting tougher all the time. That's because more and more markets are taking on the characteristics of networks. The interconnections among today's companies are so plentiful that often a new product's adoption by one player depends on its systematic adoption by other players. Consider the disparate companies involved with the popularization of digital photography: software vendors, camera manufacturers, broadband communications companies, printer manufacturers, and so on. By contrast, Kodak was pretty much the sole player involved with popularizing film photography. The traditional levers executives use to launch products--such as targeting unique customer segments or developing compelling value propositions--don't work as well in this new environment. Instead, innovators must orchestrate a change of behaviors across the market, unraveling the status quo so that a large number of players adopt their offerings and believe they are better off for having done so. In this article, Monitor Group's Bhaskar Chakravorti outlines a four-part framework for doing just that. The innovator must reason back from a target endgame, implementing only those strategies that maximize its chances of getting to its goal. It must complement power players, positioning its innovation as an enhancement to their products or services. The innovator must offer coordinated switching incentives to three core groups: the players that add to the innovation's benefits, the players that act as channels to adopters, and the adopters themselves. And it must preserve flexibility in case its initial strategy fails. Chakravorti uses Adobe's introduction of its Acrobat software as an example of an innovator that took into account other players in the network--and succeeded because of it.

Commerce↗

PubMed2004

Computer simulation for prediction of performance and thermodynamic parameters of high energy materials.

A new code viz., Linear Output Thermodynamic User-friendly Software for Energetic Systems (LOTUSES) developed during this work predicts the theoretical performance parameters such as density, detonation factor, velocity of detonation, detonation pressure and thermodynamic properties such as heat of detonation, heat of explosion, volume of explosion gaseous products. The same code also assists in the prediction of possible explosive decomposition products after explosion and power index. The developed code has been validated by calculating the parameters of standard explosives such as TNT, PETN, RDX, and HMX. Theoretically predicated parameters are accurate to the order of +/-5% deviation. To the best of our knowledge, no such code is reported in literature which can predict a wide range of characteristics of known/unknown explosives with minimum input parameters. The code can be used to obtain thermochemical and performance parameters of high energy materials (HEMs) with reasonable accuracy. The code has been developed in Visual Basic having enhanced windows environment, and thereby advantages over the conventional codes, written in Fortran. The theoretically predicted HEMs performance can be directly printed as well as stored in text (.txt) or HTML (.htm) or Microsoft Word (.doc) or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format in the hard disk. The output can also be copied into the Random Access Memory as clipboard text which can be imported/pasted in other software as in the case of other codes.

Chemistry, Physical↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Individual differences in susceptibility to motion sickness among six Skylab astronauts.

One of the Skylab experiments dealt with motion sickness, comparing susceptibility in the workshop aloft with susceptibility preflight and postflight. Tests were conducted on and after mission-day 8 (MD 8) by which time the astronauts were adapted to working conditions. Stressful accelerations were generated by requiring the astronauts, with eyes covered, to execute standardized head movements (front, back, left, and right) while in a chair that could be rotated at angular velocities up to 30 rpm. The selected endpoint was either 150 discrete head movements or a very mild level of motion sickness. In all rotation experiments aloft, the five astronauts tested (astronaut 1 did not participate) were virtually symptom free, thus demonstrating lower susceptibility aloft than in preflight and postflight tests on the ground when symptoms were always elicited. Inasmuch as the eyes were covered and the canalicular stimuli were the same aloft as on the ground, it would appear that lifting the stimulus to the otolith organs due to gravity was an important factor in reducing susceptibility to motion sickness even though the transient stimuli generated under the test conditions were substantial and abnormal in pattern. Some of the astronauts experienced motion sickness under operational conditions aloft or after splashdown, but attention is centered chiefly on symptoms manifested in zero gravity. None of the Skylab-II crew (astronauts 1 to 3) was motion sick aloft. Astronaut 6 of the Skylab-III crew (astronauts 4 to 6) experienced motion sickness within an hour after transition into orbit; this constitutes the earliest such diagnosis on record under orbital flight conditions. The eliciting stimuli were associated with head and body movements, and astronaut 6 obtained relief by avoiding such movements and by one dose of the drug combination 1-scopolamine 0.35 mg + d-amphetamine 5.0 mg. All three astronauts of Skylab-III experienced motion sickness in the workshop where astronaut 6 was most susceptible and astronaut 4, least susceptible. The higher susceptibility of SL-III crewmen in the workshop, as compared with SL-II crewmen, may be attributable to the fact that they were based in the command module less than one-third as long as SL-II crewmen. The unnatural movements, often resembling acrobatics, permitted in the open spaces of the workshop revealed the great potentialities in weightlessness for generating complex interactions of abnormal or unusual vestibular and visual stimuli. Symptoms were controlled by body restraint and by drugs, but high susceptibility to motion sickness persisted for 3 days and probably much longer; restoration was complete on MD 7. From the foregoing statements it is clear that on and after MD 8 the susceptibility of SL-II and SL-III crewmen to motion sickness under experimental conditions was indistinguishable. The role played by the acquisition of adaptation effects prior to MD 8 is less clear and is a subject to be discussed.

Acceleration↗