The approach to toothpick ingestion and its complications should not be underestimated. The surgeon should be prepared for life-threatening situations such as major vascular involvement, as well as highly specialized and technically challenging procedures, when the hepatic hilum is involved for instance. Referral to tertiary centers is sometimes mandatory.

Flexure mechanisms are a designer’s delight. Except for the limits of elasticity, flexures present few other boundaries as far as applications are concerned. Flexures have been used as bearings to provide smooth and guided motion. For example in precision motion stages; as springs to provide preload, for example in the brushes of a DC motor or a camera lens cap etc. Flexural joints are widely u...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate whether vertical facial patterns influence maximal occlusal force (MOF), masticatory muscle electromyographic (EMG) activity, and medial mandibular flexure (MMF). MATERIAL AND METHODS Seventy-eight dentate subjects were divided into 3 groups by Ricketts's analysis: brachyfacial, mesofacial and dolychofacial. Maximum occlusal force in the molar r...

Primary colonic adenocarcinoma and synchronous rectal carcinoids are rare tumors. Whenever a synchronous tumor with a nonmetastatic carcinoid component is encountered, its prognosis is determined by the associate malignancy. The discovery of an asymptomatic gastrointestinal carcinoid during the operative treatment of another malignancy will usually only require resection without additional trea...

This paper presents a new and comprehensive method for modeling robots having highly flexible members such as flexure joints. An accurate model of large deformation bending is important for precisely describing the configuration of the flexible member. Additionally, the accuracy of the Jacobian and Hessian of the forward kinematics are critically important at large angles for predicting the def...

Thispaper describesthe fundamental physicalmotivationsfor small-scaleminimum surface-effect design,and presents a three degree-of-freedom micromanipulator design that incorporates a minimum surface.effect approach. The primary focus of the design is the split-tube flexure, a unique small-scale revolute joint that exhibits a considerably larger range of motion and significantly better multi-axis...

Colorectal mucoceles usually arise in the appendix, and colonic disease is very rare. We report the first case of a mucocele of the colonic liver flexure that was treated successfully with endoscopy. A 36-year-old man was admitted to our hospital because of abdominal distension persisting for 3 days. Colonoscopic examination revealed a round polyp in the hepatic flexure, and we performed hot sn...

An effort made towards the performance improvement for an XY micromanipulator featuring parallel architecture and flexure hinges has been presented in this paper. Through the implementation of four steps evolution of the original structure, a new manipulator with decoupled motion is finally obtained, which owns an enlarged workspace and eliminated stiffening and buckling phenomena. The merits o...

INSTRUCTIONS Precision nano-positioning techniques have become very important for biomedical science, optics and microscopy. PZT and flexure compliant mechanisms are widely used in these various fields and applications within these fields. Compliant mechanisms are flexible structures, which can generate the desired motions by undergoing elastic deformation instead of through rigid linkage/joint...