Influence of shoes with different weights on the motion of the limbs in Icelandic horses during toelt at different speeds.

REASON FOR PERFORMING STUDY: Weight boots are commonly used for Icelandic horses to increase the height of the flight arc of the forelimbs in toelt. OBJECTIVE: To show the influence of weights and toelting speed on the height of the swing phase. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eight Icelandic horses (mean ± s.d. 12 ± 3 years old, 369 ± 46 kg) were used. Reflecting makers were placed on the dorsal side of each hoof. The motion was collected with a kinematic system (10 cameras, 120 Hz sample rate, 1.3 Mpixels resolution). The horses were ridden in toelt by 2 experienced riders on a treadmill at 2 different speeds (2.96 m/s ± 0.30 and 4.10 m/s ± 0.32). At each speed the horses were measured wearing no boots, light boots (170 g) and heavy boots (280 g) on both fore hooves. The measurement sequence was varied between horses. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was carried out to test for normal distribution of data and ANOVA for repeated measurements were used to compare differences (P < 0.05). RESULTS: The weight as well as the speed of toelt had a significant influence on the height of the flight arc. At the lower speed, the mean ± s.d. height was 163 ± 55 mm, whereas at the higher speed the mean height was 228 ± 60 mm. The heavy weights increased the mean height at the lower speed from 152 ± 38 to 169 ± 48 mm and at the higher speed from 214 ± 60 to 245 ± 60 mm. CONCLUSIONS: This investigation shows that Icelandic horses can be expected to show a better toelt in competitions with weights, and ridden at a higher speed. For muscle adaptation to occur, weights should therefore be used during competitions and training.

Semantic interoperability in Czech healthcare environment supported by HL7 version 3.

OBJECTIVES: The data interchange in the Czech healthcare environment is mostly based on national standards. This paper describes a utilization of international standards and nomenclatures for building a pilot semantic interoperability platform (SIP) that would serve to exchange information among electronic health record systems (EHR-Ss) in Czech healthcare. The work was performed by the national research project of the "Information Society" program. METHODS: At the beginning of the project a set of requirements the SIP should meet was formulated. Several communication standards (openEHR, HL7 v3, DICOM) were analyzed and HL7 v3 was selected to exchange health records in our solution. Two systems were included in our pilot environment: WinMedicalc 2000 and ADAMEKj EHR. RESULTS: HL7-based local information models were created to describe the information content of both systems. The concepts from our original information models were mapped to coding systems supported by HL7 (LOINC, SNOMED CT and ICD-10) and the data exchange via HL7 v3 messages was implemented and tested by querying patient administration data. As a gateway between local EHR systems and the HL7 message-based infrastructure, a configurable HL7 Broker was developed. CONCLUSIONS: A nationwide implementation of a full-scale SIP based on HL7 v3 would include adopting and translating appropriate international coding systems and nomenclatures, and developing implementation guidelines facilitating the migration from national standards to international ones. Our pilot study showed that our approach is feasible but it would demand a huge effort to fully integrate the Czech healthcare system into the European e-health context.