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Spasticity attributable to exaggerated stretch reflex pathways, particularly affecting the ankle plantar flexors, often impairs overground walking in persons with incomplete spinal cord injury. Compelling evidence from rodent models underscores how exposure to acute intermittent hypoxia (AIH) can provide a unique medium to induce spinal plasticity in key inhibitory pathways mediating stretch reflex excitability and potentially affect spasticity. In this study, we quantify the effects of a single exposure to AIH on the stretch reflex in able‐bodied individuals. We hypothesized that a single sequence of AIH will increase the stretch reflex excitability of the soleus muscle during ramp‐and‐hold angular perturbations applied to the ankle joint while participants perform passive and volitionally matched contractions. Our results revealed that a single AIH exposure did not significantly change the stretch reflex excitability during both passive and active matching conditions. Furthermore, we found that able‐bodied individuals increased their stretch reflex response from passive to active matching conditions after both sham and AIH exposures. Together, these findings suggest that a single AIH exposure might not engage inhibitory pathways sufficiently to alter stretch reflex responses in able‐bodied persons. However, the generalizability of our present findings requires further examination during repetitive exposures to AIH along with potential reflex modulation during functional movements, such as overground walking. What is the central question of this study? Acute intermittent hypoxia (AIH) has been shown to enhance walking performance in persons with spinal cord injury but might also trigger changes affecting dysregulated stretch reflex pathways, leading to spasticity. We examined the effect of AIH on stretch reflex excitability in able‐bodied individuals. What is the main finding and its importance? We did not find significant changes in reflex responses after AIH nor changes in reflex scaling from passive to active conditions. This study provides a crucial insight that enhances our understanding of AIH engagement of key inhibitory pathways that affect reflex excitability.

Humans routinely modify their walking speed to adapt to functional goals and physical demands. However, damage to the central nervous system (CNS) often results in abnormal modulation of walking speed and increase risk of falls. There is considerable interest in pursuing therapies that incorporate augmented sensory feedback devices to compensate for less reliable signaling within the CNS after injury or disease. Augmented visual feedback uses a range of immersive environments to enhance walking ability after injury to the CNS. Fully immersive virtual reality technologies show benefits in boosting training-related gains in walking performance; however, they lack views of the real world that may limit functional carryover. Mixed reality provides partially immersive environments to extend the virtual reality benefits of interacting with virtual objects but within an unobstructed view of the real world. Despite this potential advantage, the feasibility of using a wearable MR head mount device (MR-HMD) for visual feedback to prompt goal-directed changes in overground walking speed remains unclear. Thus, we developed and evaluated a novel mixed reality application using the Microsoft HoloLens MR-HMD to augment visual feedback during overground walking in a cohort of able-bodied adults. This platform provided real-time visual cues related to each participant’s self-selected walking speed. Participants walked with MR-HMD visual feedback at 85%, 100%, and 115% of their baseline self-selected speed. We block-randomized the order of these feedback conditions. Walking performance corresponded to the accuracy and variability of three walking parameters (speed, stride length, and stride time) within and between the feedback conditions. Overall, participants matched their overground walking speed to the target speed of the MR-HMD visual feedback conditions (all p-values > 0.05). Walking speed variability did not differ between walking with and without visual feedback. However, stride length and time variability increased with visual feedback as compared to without feedback. The findings offer support for MR-based visual feedback as a method to provoke goal-specific changes in overground walking behavior. Further studies are necessary to determine the clinical safety and efficacy of this MR-HMD technology to provide extrinsic sensory feedback in combination with traditional treatments in rehabilitation.

The book is probably not the ideal starting point for someone new to Campbell's writings-for that, readers might want to try The Power of Myth or The Hero With a Thousand Faces-but it is an excellent companion to those other works. For those new to Asian myths, this book can serve as a good primer. Flis work has appeared in The Journal of Children's Literature Studies, Sliepnir, the forthcoming Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien, and other venues.

Humans and animals interact with a variety of terrain with sloped surfaces being on the of the most fundamental. As the biomechanical requirements for walking on sloped surfaces changes with the angle of incline and direction of travel, the nervous system must have an efficient means to tune the motor output to meet these variable requirements. We hypothesized that this tuning is achieved by altering the gains of intermuscular force dependent spinal reflexes. We tested this hypothesis using the decerebrate cat model with vestibular labyrinthectomy which allowed for the simulation of sloped support surfaces by manipulating the angle of the neck. We measured the changes in intermuscular force feedback by stretching individual ankle extensor muscles in various combinations during background motor patterns such as stepping and crossed extensor reflex. We also measured the changes in endpoint stiffness of the cat hindlimb using a newly developed robotic system.We found that certain pathways of inhibitory force feedback, such as between gastrocnemius and flexor hallucis longus, were enhanced in the downhill cases and somewhat diminished in the uphill conditions. These findings corresponded to a measured decrease in hindlimb stiffness during downhill conditions; however, the uphill cases did not exhibit any trend of altered stiffness. Both the increased inhibition and decreased stiffness for downhill matched our expectations as a more compliant limb is needed to provided braking action rather than producing propulsive force. The greater variability in our uphill experiments possibly indicates that multiple successful strategies exist under these conditions or that the patterns are very similar to level conditions and the differences are too subtle to resolve with our methods.

Many artists have worked to bring Middle‐earth to life. John Howe, Alan Lee, Jef Murray, and Ted Nasmith are four popular artists whose works are enjoyed by readers of The Lord of the Rings, and their work is worth considering in the context of Tolkien's own thoughts on fantasy illustration. The differences between the work of these artists can help us better appreciate Tolkien's Middle‐earth. Each artist has his own vision in mind when recreating Tolkien's world, all of which may be valid when one looks at the original texts.

Optical cross-correlation is a technique that can achieve both high specificity and high sensitivity when deployed as the basis for a sensing technology. Offering significant gains in cost, size and complexity, it can also deliver significantly higher signal-to-noise ratios than traditional approaches such as absorption methodologies. In this paper, we present an optical cross-correlation technology constructed around a bespoke customised Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG). Exploiting the remarkable flexibility in design enabled by multiple aperiodic Bragg gratings, optical filters are devised that exactly mimic the absorption features of a target gas species (for this paper, acetylene C 2 H 2 ) over some waveband of interest. This grating forms the heart of the sensor architecture described here that employs modulated optical cross-correlation for gas detection. An experimental demonstration of this approach is presented, and shown to be capable of differentiating between different concentrations of the C 2 H 2 target gas. Furthermore these measurements are shown to be robust against interloper species, with minimal impact on the detection signal-to-noise arising from the introduction of contaminant gases. This represents is a significant step toward the use of customised FBGs as low-cost, compact, and highly customisable photonic devices for deployment in gas detection.

Accidental linear mark from ruler edge Accidental bruise 0 (0) 28 (44.4) 29 (46.1) 6 (9.5) [chi]2 analysis demonstrated no statistically significant difference between subgroups (years' experience, grade, area of practice and child protection training level). p Value ranges from 0.95 to 0.99. [...]despite a high level of child protection training amongst participants there was considerable variation of opinion, even in those scenarios with bruising patterns more typical of child abuse. In practice, paediatricians have more information available, including presence of other risk factors and previous contact with social services.

Background: The alumni of today’s Pathology Informatics and Clinical Informatics fellowships fill diverse roles in academia, large health systems, and industry. The evolving training tracks and curriculum of Pathology Informatics fellowships have been well documented. However, less attention has been given to the posttraining experiences of graduates from informatics training programs. Here, we examine the career paths of subspecialty fellowship-trained pathology informaticians. Methods: Alumni from four Pathology Informatics fellowship training programs were contacted for their voluntary participation in the study. We analyzed various components of training, and the subsequent career paths of Pathology Informatics fellowship alumni using data extracted from alumni provided curriculum vitae. Results: Twenty-three out of twenty-seven alumni contacted contributed to the study. A majority had completed undergraduate study in science, technology, engineering, and math fields and combined track training in anatomic and clinical pathology. Approximately 30% (7/23) completed residency in a program with an in-house Pathology Informatics fellowship. Most completed additional fellowships (15/23) and many also completed advanced degrees (10/23). Common primary posttraining appointments included chief medical informatics officer (3/23), director of Pathology Informatics (10/23), informatics program director (2/23), and various roles in industry (3/23). Many alumni also provide clinical care in addition to their informatics roles (14/23). Pathology Informatics alumni serve on a variety of institutional committees, participate in national informatics organizations, contribute widely to scientific literature, and more than half (13/23) have obtained subspecialty certification in Clinical Informatics to date. Conclusions: Our analysis highlights several interesting phenomena related to the training and career trajectory of Pathology Informatics fellowship alumni. We note the long training track alumni complete in preparation for their careers. We believe flexible training pathways combining informatics and clinical training may help to alleviate the burden. We highlight the importance of in-house Pathology Informatics fellowships in promoting interest in informatics among residents. We also observe the many important leadership roles in academia, large community health systems, and industry available to early career alumni and believe this reflects a strong market for formally trained informaticians. We hope this analysis will be useful as we continue to develop the informatics fellowships to meet the future needs of our trainees and discipline.