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These findings suggest that the fusion of porcine venous tissue ex vivo may overestimate the clinical performance of fusion devices. Prior work has indicated that increased tissue hydration and the lamination of tissue layers both positively affect arterial fusion bursting pressures. The bursting pressure increase observed herein may therefore be due to storage-induced alterations in tissue composition and mechanics of the fusion interface. While harvested tissue provides an accessible medium for comparative study, the fusion of vascular tissue in vivo may avoid storage-induced biomechanical alterations and is likely a better indicator of fusion device performance in a clinical setting.

This paper presents an initial overview of insights gained into how older adults mobilize in the home and community, based on data from inertial sensors which were worn by study participants over a 7-day period. The addition of a wearable camera provided additional contextual information which can be used to assess mobility and understand the factors that influence it in the free living environment. Seven days of data collected from a group of older adults who had experienced one or more falls in the previous six months was compared to that of a control group with no history of falling. Results showed that both groups spent relatively little time walking in challenging environmental conditions, and that the fallers spent significantly less time walking under regular conditions (no effect on gait) and outdoors. Analysis of gait metrics showed that the fallers were slightly slower in general, and more noticeable differences were observed when the participants were regrouped according to mobility levels determined from baseline assessments using traditional methods.

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Distance learning over the past several years has gained in popularity not only as a way to offer instruction in locations without local expertise, but also as a cost effective method where limited enrollment at one location would not nonnally warrant offering the course. In engineering technology programs, where most courses have a laboratory component, distance leaming offers many new challenges in course delivery. This paper will discuss the authors' experiences with distance learning in two electrical engineering technology courses, each with a laboratory component. One course offered via the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunication System (IHETS) used oneway video and two-way audio for the lecture. The professor lectured to sixteen students locally, and to two remote sites with three and five students, respectively. Each remote site had a laboratory instructor who was a member of the faculty at that campus, but neither were familiar with the subject matter prior to the course offering. Due to scheduling conflicts, the involvement of the coordinators was quite different. One instructor had another class to teach during the lecture broadcast, while the other attended the lectures and completed many of the assignments.A second scenario involving distance learning is using video taped lectures with remote laboratory instructors. We present two models here. In one case, the lab was taught by an instructor who had taught the lab at the originating site. In the other case, the instructor had some knowledge of the material, but no experience with the laboratory exercises.We will make several suggestions on ways to improve the delivery of both the lecture and local offering of the laboratory of a distance course.