Ohio State University

About: Ohio State University is a education organization based out in Columbus, Ohio, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 102421 authors who have published 222715 publications receiving 8373403 citations. The organization is also known as: Ohio State & The Ohio State University.

The role of dynamic three-dimensional trunk motion in occupationally-related low back disorders. The effects of workplace factors, trunk position, and trunk motion characteristics on risk of injury.

Abstract: Current ergonomic techniques for controlling the risk of occupationally-related low back disorder consist of static assessments of spinal loading during lifting activities. This may be problematic because several biomechanical models and epidemiologic studies suggest that the dynamic characteristics of a lift increase spine loading and the risk of occupational low back disorder. It has been difficult to include this motion information in workplace assessments because the speed at which trunk motion becomes dangerous has not been determined. An in vivo study was performed to assess the contribution of three-dimensional dynamic trunk motions to the risk of low back disorder during occupational lifting in industry. More than 400 repetitive industrial lifting jobs were studied in 48 varied industries. Existing medical and injury records in these industries were examined so that specific jobs historically categorized as either high-risk or low-risk for reported occupationally-related low back disorder could be identified. A triaxial electrogoniometer was worn by workers and documented the three-dimensional angular position, velocity, and acceleration characteristics of the lumbar spine while workers lifted in these high-risk or low-risk jobs. Workplace and individual characteristics were also documented for each of the repetitive lifting tasks. A multiple logistic regression model was developed, based on biomechanical plausibility, and indicated that a combination of five trunk motion and workplace factors distinguished between high and low risk of occupationally-related low back disorder risk well (odds ratio: 10.7). These factors included 1) lifting frequency, 2) load moment, 3) trunk lateral velocity, 4) trunk twisting velocity, and 5) the trunk sagittal angle. This analysis implies that by suitably varying these five factors observed during the lift collectively, the odds of high-risk group membership may decrease by almost 11 times. The predictive power of this model was found to be more than three times greater than that of current lifting guidelines. This study, though not proving causality, indicates an association between the biomechanical factors and low back disorder risk. This model could be used as a quantitative, objective measure to design the workplace so that the risk of occupationally-related low back disorder is minimized.

Culture, Openness, and Finance

Abstract: Religions have little to say about shareholders but have much to say about creditors We find that the origin of a country's legal system is more important than its religion and language in explaining shareholder rights However, a country's principal religion helps predict the cross-sectional variation in creditor rights better than a country's openness to international trade, its language, its income per capita, or the origin of its legal system Catholic countries protect the rights of creditors less than other countries, and long-term debt is less important in these countries A country's openness to international trade mitigates the influence of religion on creditor rights Religion and language are also important predictors of how countries enforce rights

Integral sliding mode in systems operating under uncertainty conditions

Abstract: The paper generalized a new sliding mode design concept, namely integral sliding mode (ISM). The order of the motion equation in ISM is equal to the order of the original system, rather than reduced by the number of dimension of the control input. As the result, robustness of the system can be guaranteed throughout an entire response of the system starting from the initial time instance. Uniform formulations of the ISM design principle are developed in the paper. It is shown through examples that our generalized ISM scheme enables a wide scope of application areas. In the case that the given control matrix can not be used directly for generating the sliding mode, the associated decoupling problem was also discussed based on the concept of sliding mode transformation. To alleviate chattering, we remove the discontinuous control action from the real control path and insert it to an internal dynamic process for generating the sliding mode.

The 5-methylcytosine content of DNA from human tumors

Abstract: The over-all 5-methylcytosine (m5C) content of DNA from normal tissues varies considerably in a tissue-specific manner. By high-performance liquid chromatography, we have examined the m5C contents of enzymatic digests of DNA from 103 human tumors including benign, primary malignant and secondary malignant neoplasms. The diversity and large number of these tumor samples allowed us to compare the range of DNA methylation levels from neoplastic tissues to that of normal tissues from humans. Most of the metastatic neoplasms had significantly lower genomic m5C contents than did most of the benign neoplasms or normal tissues. The percentage of primary malignancies with hypomethylated DNA was intermediate between those of metastases and benign neoplasms. These findings might reflect an involvement of extensive demethylation of DNA in tumor progression. Such demethylation could be a source of the continually generated cellular diversity associated with cancer.