The department of homeland security and the department of health and human services have targeted bulk food contamination as a focus for attention. Milk transport falls into three of the 17 targeted national infrastructure protection plan sectors including agriculture-food, public health and commercial facilities. The current manual methods of securing milk are paper intensive and prone to errors. The bulk milk transportation sector requires a security enhancement that will both reduce recording errors and enable normal transport activities to occur while providing security against unauthorized access. Our group has developed a milk transport security system which is an electromechanical access control and communication system that assures the secure transport of milk, milk samples, milk data, and security data between locations, and specifically between dairy farms, transfer stations, receiving stations, and milk plants. It includes a security monitoring system installed on the milk transport tank, a hand held device, optional printers, data server, and security evaluation software. The system operates automatically and requires minimal or no attention by the bulk milk hauler/sampler. The system is compatible with existing milk transport infrastructure, and has the support of the milk producers, milk transportation companies, milk marketing agencies, and dairy processors. The security protocol developed is applicable for transport of other bulk foods both nationally and internationally.
Aims The use of technology to assess balance and alignment during total knee surgery can provide an overload of numerical data to the surgeon. Meanwhile, this quantification holds the potential to clarify and guide the surgeon through the surgical decision process when selecting the appropriate bone recut or soft tissue adjustment when balancing a total knee. Therefore, this paper evaluates the potential of deploying supervised machine learning (ML) models to select a surgical correction based on patient-specific intra-operative assessments. Methods Based on a clinical series of 479 primary total knees and 1,305 associated surgical decisions, various ML models were developed. These models identified the indicated surgical decision based on available, intra-operative alignment, and tibiofemoral load data. Results With an associated area under the receiver-operator curve ranging between 0.75 and 0.98, the optimized ML models resulted in good to excellent predictions. The best performing model used a random forest approach while considering both alignment and intra-articular load readings. Conclusion The presented model has the potential to make experience available to surgeons adopting new technology, bringing expert opinion in their operating theatre, but also provides insight in the surgical decision process. More specifically, these promising outcomes indicated the relevance of considering the overall limb alignment in the coronal and sagittal plane to identify the appropriate surgical decision.
Northwest Nuclear, LLC (NWN), the Applied Physics Institute (API) at Western Kentucky University, and Crisis Prep Services, LLC (CPS) have developed a tracking technology for first responders and security personnel based upon the AeroScout system (a product of AeroScout, Inc.) and technologies developed independently by NWN, API, and CPS. These systems provide location information using 802.11XXX architecture by measuring the time of arrival of packets from a set of active radio frequency (RF) tags to a set of location receivers. The system can track and graphically display the location on maps, drawings, floor plans or photographs of tagged items on any 802.11-compliant devices (PDAs, laptops, computers, WiFi telephones) situated both outside and inside structures. This location information would be vital for tracking the location of first responders, security, and other emergency personnel during rescue operations; particularly, under adverse conditions (e.g., fires). NWN, API, and CPS have been improving the precision of the location measurement to an uncertainty of 20 cm or 8 inches (under certain conditions) and also developing algorithms to increase the accuracy. NWN and API personnel have developed: 1) special tags which indicate tampering or sudden movement and transmit briefly under these conditions, and 2) permanent and portable systems which can be deployed rapidly. Additional software created by Crisis Prep Services, LLC allows response force personnel to be tracked and located inside a building in real time as well as use the software and tags as a training and rehersal system. The location of each person is depicted on a drawing of the building and is displayed on a laptop computer or any other browser capable device.
�With improved medical treatments of cancer, cancer patients are living longer and many will go on to develop metastatic disease. Bone is the third most common site of metastasis. Bony metastasis is an important contributing factor to the deterioration of patient’s lives due to pain, fracture, and loss of function. Bony metastasis is a problem that will be affecting increasing numbers of patients and most practicing orthopaedic surgeons will provide care to this group of patients. A biopsy and staging workup are essential in the initial treatment of patients with bony lesions. Treatment for patients with metastatic disease is primarily palliative, with the goals of limiting pain and rapidly returning patients to function. Surgical indications include pathological fractures, impending pathological fractures, and intractable pain that have failed non-operative management. Treatment of pathological fractures differs from treatment of conventional fractures due to effects of tumor biology on host bone and effects of cancer on patients’ general medical condition. Through an understanding of these factors, the orthopaedic surgeon can use techniques that maximize the likelihood of creating a lasting, stable construct, resulting in elimination pain and rapid return of patients to function.
