Estimating total knee replacement joint load ratios from kinematics

Accurate prediction of loads acting at the joint in total knee replacement (TKR) patients is key to developing experimental or computational simulations which evaluate implant designs under physiological loading conditions. In vivo joint loads have been measured for a small number of telemetric TKR patients, but in order to assess device performance across the entire patient population, a larger patient cohort is necessary. This study investigates the accuracy of predicting joint loads from joint kinematics. Specifically, the objective of the study was to assess the accuracy of internal–external (I–E) and anterior–posterior (A–P) joint load predictions from I–E and A–P motions under a given compressive load, and to evaluate the repeatability of joint load ratios (I–E torque to compressive force (I–E:C), and A–P force to compressive force (A–P:C)) for a range of compressive loading profiles. A tibiofemoral finite element model was developed and used to simulate deep knee bend, chair-rise and step-up activities for five patients. Root-mean-square (RMS) differences in I–E:C and A–P:C load ratios between telemetric measurements and model predictions were less than 1.10e–3 Nm/N and 0.035 N/N for all activities. I–E:C and A–P:C load ratios were consistently reproduced regardless of the compressive force profile applied (RMS differences less than 0.53e–3 Nm/N and 0.010 N/N, respectively). When error in kinematic measurement was introduced to the model, joint load predictions were forgiving to kinematic measurement error when conformity between femoral and tibial components was low. The prevalence of kinematic data, in conjunction with the analysis presented here, facilitates determining the scope of A–P and I–E joint loading ratios experienced by the TKR population.     

Cancer incidence and mortality in people aged less than 75 years: Changes in Australia over the period 1987–2007

BackgroundAustralia has one of the highest rates of cancer incidence worldwide and, despite improving survival, cancer continues to be a major public health problem. Our aim was to provide simple summary measures of changes in cancer mortality and incidence in Australia so that progress and areas for improvement in cancer control can be identified.MethodsWe used national data on cancer deaths and newly registered cancer cases and compared expected and observed numbers of deaths and cases diagnosed in 2007. The expected numbers were obtained by applying 1987 age–sex specific rates (average of 1986–1988) directly to the 2007 population. The observed numbers of deaths and incident cases were calculated for 2007 (average of 2006–2008). We limited the analyses to people aged less than 75 years.ResultsThere was a 28% fall in cancer mortality (7827 fewer deaths in 2007 vs. 1987) and a 21% increase in new cancer diagnoses (13,012 more diagnosed cases in 2007). The greatest reductions in deaths were for cancers of the lung in males (?2259), bowel (?1797), breast (?773) and stomach (?577). Other notable falls were for cancers of the prostate (?295), cervix (?242) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (?240). Only small or no changes occurred in mortality for cancers of the lung (female only), pancreas, brain and related, oesophagus and thyroid, with an increase in liver cancer (267). Cancer types that showed the greatest increase in incident cases were cancers of the prostate (10,245), breast (2736), other cancers (1353), melanoma (1138) and thyroid (1107), while falls were seen for cancers of the lung (?1705), bladder (?1110) and unknown primary (?904).ConclusionsThe reduction in mortality indicates that prevention strategies, improvements in cancer treatment, and screening programmes have made significant contributions to cancer control in Australia since 1987. The rise in incidence is partly due to diagnoses being brought forward by technological improvements and increased coverage of screening and early diagnostic testing.     

Observations on 6-mercaptopurine activity in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract Hydrogen fluoride treatment of [¹⁴C-glycerol]lipoteichoic acid synthesized by growing Streptococcus faecium ATCC9790 in the presence of 1,3[¹⁴C]glycerol produced five radioactive, water-soluble products which were identified by chromatographic and analytical techniques to be tetraglucosyl glycerol, triglucosyl glycerol, diglucosyl glycerol, monoglucosyl glycerol and unsubstituted glycerol. The percent composition of each varied modestly from culture to culture and ranged between 7 and 8% for the tetra-, 20.5 and 31.2% for the tri-, 11.3 to 23.5% for the di-, 20.9 to 26.8% for the mono-, and 23.1 to 34.8% for the unsubstituted glycerol. The same glucosylated glycerol compounds could be obtained in an in vitro reaction in which a 30 000 × g particulate enzyme catalyzed the incorporation of [³H]glucose from UDP [³H]glucose into lipoteichoic acid.     

Locational distribution of gene functional classes in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Arabidopsis thaliana</Emphasis>

Background  

We are interested in understanding the locational distribution of genes and their functions in genomes, as this distribution has both functional and evolutionary significance. Gene locational distribution is known to be affected by various evolutionary processes, with tandem duplication thought to be the main process producing clustering of homologous sequences. Recent research has found clustering of protein structural families in the human genome, even when genes identified as tandem duplicates have been removed from the data. However, this previous research was hindered as they were unable to analyse small sample sizes. This is a challenge for bioinformatics as more specific functional classes have fewer examples and conventional statistical analyses of these small data sets often produces unsatisfactory results.