BACKGROUND CONTEXT: Several studies report a favorable short-term outcome after nonoperatively treated two-column thoracic or lumbar burst fractures in patients without neurological deficits. Few reports have described the long-term clinical and radiological outcome after these fractures, and none have, to our knowledge, specifically evaluated the long-term outcome of the discs adjacent to the fra

Hydrologists are often faced with the problem of missing values in a precipitation-runoff process database to construct runoff prediction models. They tend to use simple and naive methods to deal with the problem of missing data. Thus far, the common practice has been to discard observations with missing values. In this paper, we present some statistically principled methods for gap filling and di

The pattern of phenotypic and molecular variation within the polytypic olivaceous warbler H. pallida was examined. This species is distributed in the southern parts of the western Palaearctic, central Asia and in the arid parts of northern Africa, and also in parts of the sub-Saharan Sahel zone. Based on morphology, five subspecies, at times assigned to three groups, have been identified. By compa

We have used Doppler-free polarization spectroscopy, intermodulated fluorescence and intermodulated optogalvanic spectroscopy for measuring isotope shifts in 6 Ne lines connecting the 2p53s and 2p53p configurations. The measurements were performed on two different hollow cathodes. For the 5852, 5882, 5945, 5976, 6143 and 6164 A lines the 22Ne-20Ne isotope shift was found to be 2300(15), 1740(2), 1

Developmental plasticity of spectral processing in vertebrates was investigated in fish by using an innate behavior, the optomotor response. Rearing blue acara (Aequidens pulcher; Cichlidae) under white lights of different intensities as well as deprivation of long wavelengths induced significant changes in the animals' responses to chromatic stimuli. Deprivation of short wavelengths had no effect

The clinical spectrum of Trichomonas vaginalis infection varies from asymptomatic to mild, moderate or severe vaginitis. Nitric oxide and other reactive nitrogen radicals produced by immune effector cells are important cytotoxic and cytostatic mediators against several microorganisms including parasites. In the present study, inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and reactive nitrogen intermediat

Novel molecularly imprinted polymer systems utilizing 4-vinylpyridine and 1-vinylimidazole as functional monomers have been developed for enantioselective recognition of carboxylic and N-protected amino acids. Non-covalent interactions between the functional monomers and the template molecules were the source of the subsequent recognition sites in the resultant polymers. The capacity of the polyme

Penetrative convection is discussed where the instability is driven by radiative heating of water below the temperature of maximum density. Convection of this type occurs in ice-covered freshwater lakes in late spring, when the snow cover vanishes and solar radiation is absorbed beneath the ice cover. The vertical temperature structure, bulk mixed layer scaling, and mixed layer deepening are exami

Aims/hypothesis. A common G to A polymorphism (UCSNP-43) in the Calpain 10 gene was recently found to be associated with Type 11 (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus and variations in post-absorptive and insulin stimulated glucose metabolism in vivo. We aimed to study the influence of Calpain 10 polymorphism on insulin action in fat cells. Methods. Calpain 10 polymorphism (UCSNP-19, -43 or -6

Recent ChIP experiments of human and mouse embryonic stem cells have elucidated the architecture of the transcriptional regulatory circuitry responsible for cell determination, which involves the transcription factors OCT4, SOX2, and NANOG. In addition to regulating each other through feedback loops, these genes also regulate downstream target genes involved in the maintenance and differentiation

The dependence of transverse momentum spectra of neutral pions and eta mesons with p(T) < 16 GeV/c and p(T) < 12 GeV/c, respectively, on the centrality of the collision has been measured at midrapidity by the PHENIX experiment at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in d + Au collisions at root s(NN) = 200 GeV. The measured yields are compared to those in p + p collisions at the same roo

Introduction The purpose of the present guidelines on the radioiodine therapy (RAIT) of differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) formulated by the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) Therapy Committee is to provide advice to nuclear medicine clinicians and other members of the DTC-treating community on how to ablate thyroid remnant or treat inoperable advanced DTC or both employing large 13

INTRODUCTION: It is difficult to assess the individual response of locally advanced cervical cancer to chemoradiation therapy during the course of treatment. We have investigated the predictive value of positron emission tomography (PET) with 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose (FDG) early during treatment in relation to progression-free survival. METHODS: This prospective single-center clinical trial

In this paper we describe how the contention-based medium access mechanism of 802.11e, EDCA, can be enhanced in order to allow stations to reserve medium access for their real-time applications with QoS requirements. We present our proposed scheme, which is called EDCA with resource reservation (EDCA/RR), and describe how it can be extended in order to be used in wireless multi-hop networks. EDCA/

Growth of a microstructurally short edge crack in the neighbourhood of a grain boundary has been studied using a dislocation technique. Influence of the distance between the crack tip and a high-angle grain boundary was studied for 5000 load cycles. Growth rate was found to change stepwise during crack advance, both accelerating and decelerating, and finally retarding before crack arrest. Crack pr

Heat stress has been demonstrated to have strong cardiovascular effects. However, the underlying mechanism-mediated cardiovascular effects are still not fully understood. The present study was designed to examine if heat stress alters vascular G-protein coupled receptor-mediated vasomotion and endothelium function in rat mesenteric artery. Rats were divided into two groups, heat stress rats and co

The formation of hydrides in zirconium alloys significantly affects their mechanical properties and is considered to play a critical role in their failure mechanisms, yet relatively little is known about the micromechanical behavior of hydrides in the bulk. This paper presents the result of in situ uniaxial mechanical tensioning experiments on hydrided zircaloy-2 and zircaloy-4 specimens using ene