Suchergebnisse

In February 2011, north Queensland experienced one of the largest and most severe tropical cyclones on record. Category 5 Cyclone Yasi caused substantial structural damage not only on land, but also at sea, including to the historic shipwreck of the SS Yongala. The Yongala is of high cultural and natural heritage value and is a major dive tourism attraction. As part of a Queensland Government initiative to document the degree of damage by Cyclone Yasi, changes to its structure were documented by comparative analysis of multibeam bathymetry data of the wreck collected in August 2004 and May 2011 (i.e. pre- and post-Yasi respectively). The storm had a significant physical impact on the c.110m-long wreck. The most pronounced changes occurred in the forward section of the wreck. A 35m section forward of the central deck citadel has rotated around its own axis and the bow dropped more than 5m in depth. Minor deformations were observed at the stern of the wreck and debris was identified on the seafloor around the wreck. The impacts of the cyclone will exacerbate deterioration. It is very likely that the wreck's hull will rupture in the short- to medium-term, especially if further extreme weather events occur. Together with visual observations, the results of this study will inform ongoing site management by contributing to the identification of key risk areas, and help to establish policies and procedures to address damage to the wreck's integrity in the future.

Prosthetic technology for people with missing limbs has made great progress in recent decades. However, acceptance rates and user satisfaction are not only dependent on technical aspects, but also to a great extent on social and psychological factors. We propose that these factors should receive greater attention in order to improve prosthetic care and give recommendations how to incorporate the findings from social science in research and development (R&D) and in care practice. Limited access due to high costs of new prosthetic technology combined with rising costs in health care systems in general is a further issue we address. Our legal and ethical analysis of the reimbursement process in Germany shows that this issue requires further empirical investigation, a stakeholder dialogue and maybe even policy changes. Social science knowledge and participatory methods are of high relevance to answer questions about the benefit of prosthetics for users, based on individual needs and preferences, which should be at the core of debates on ethical resource allocation.

Neuroprostheses aimed to restore lost functions after a limb amputation are based on the interaction with the nervous system by means of neural interfaces. Among the different designs, intraneural electrodes implanted in peripheral nerves represent a good strategy to stimulate nerve fibers to send sensory feedback and to record nerve signals to control the prosthetic limb. However, intraneural electrodes, as any device implanted in the body, induce a foreign body reaction (FBR) that results in the tissue encapsulation of the device. The FBR causes a progressive decline of the electrode functionality over time due to the physical separation between the electrode active sites and the axons to the interface. Modulation of the inflammatory response has arisen as a good strategy to reduce the FBR and maintain electrode functionality. In this paper, transversal intraneural multi-channel electrodes (TIMEs) were implanted in the rat sciatic nerve and tested for three months to evaluate stimulation and recording capabilities under chronic administration of dexamethasone. Dexamethasone treatment significantly reduced the threshold for evoking muscle responses during the follow-up compared to saline-treated animals, without affecting the selectivity of stimulation. However, dexamethasone treatment did not improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the recorded neural signals. Dexamethasone treatment allowed to maintain more working active sites along time than saline treatment. Thus, systemic administration of dexamethasone appears as a useful treatment in chronically implanted animals with neural electrodes as it increases the number of functioning contacts of the implanted TIME and reduces the intensity needed to stimulate the nerve. ; This research was supported by the European Union FPTICT projects NEBIAS (contract number FP7-611687), EPIONE (FP7-602547), FEDER and by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Graphene Flagship Core Project 2 (grant agreement 785219) and FLAG-ERA JTC 2017 project GRAFIN, by TERCEL (RD12/0019/0011) and CIBERNED (CB06/05/1105) funds from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III of Spain, and by Fundación Ramón Areces (CIVP18A3897). The ICN2 is supported by the Severo Ochoa program from Spanish MINECO (Grant SEV-2013-0295), and by the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. ; Peer reviewed