11,954 research outputs found
Frameless stereotactic image-guided C1-C2 transarticular screw fixation for atlantoaxial instability: review of 20 patients
Journal ArticleAtlantoaxial instability can result from trauma, rheumatoid arthritis, congenital malformation, or tumor invasion. The goal of treatment is stabilization of the C1-C2 complex to prevent neurologic and neurovascular compromise. First described in 1987 by Magerl and Seemann, C1-C2 transarticular screw fixation has been shown to yield excellent fusion rates.1-4 Several authors have reported that this technique offers the best biomechanical stability and allows the least amount of rotation.5-8 However, placement of transarticular screws (TASs) is technically challenging and incurs significant risk of neural and vascular injury. Previous clinical studies of C1-C2 TAS fixation have reported screw misplacement in up to 15% of patients, with an 8% rate of vertebral artery (VA) injury.9,10 Safe and accurate screw placement requires thorough radiologic assessment of the cervical spine with careful preoperative planning of screw trajectory
Diagnosis and management of sacral Tarlov cysts
Journal ArticlePerineurial (Tarlov) cysts are meningeal dilations of the posterior spinal nerve root sheath that most often affect sacral roots and can cause a progressive painful radiculopathy. Tarlov cysts are most commonly diagnosed by lumbosacral magnetic resonance imaging and can often be demonstrated by computerized tomography myelography to communicate with the spinal subarachnoid space. The cyst can enlarge via a net inflow of cerebrospinal fluid, eventually causing symptoms by distorting, compressing, or stretching adjacent nerve roots. It is generally agreed that asymptomatic Tarlov cysts do not require treatment. When symptomatic, the potential surgery-related benefit and the specific surgical intervention remain controversial. The authors describe the clinical presentation, treatment, and results of surgical cyst fenestration, partial cyst wall resection, and myofascial flap repair and closure in a case of a symptomatic sacral Tarlov cyst. They review the medical literature, describe various theories on the origin and pathogenesis of Tarlov cysts, and assess alternative treatment strategies
Improved Measurement of ttZ Couplings at the LHC
We consider QCD tt~Z production at the LHC with Z->\bar\nu\nu and
all-hadronic tt~ decays, i.e. pp -> p_T(miss)bb~+4 jets, as a tool to measure
ttZ couplings. This channel has a significantly larger cross section than those
where the Z boson decays leptonically. However, tt~, bb~+4 jet, tt~j and tt~jj
production give rise to potentially large backgrounds. We show that these
processes can be suppressed to an acceptable level with suitable cuts, and find
that adding the p_T(miss)bb~+4 jet channel to the final states used in previous
ttZ couplings analyses will improve the sensitivity by 10-60%. We also discuss
how the measurement of the ttZ couplings may constrain Little Higgs models.Comment: revtex4, 16 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
A 3-D Track-Finding Processor for the CMS Level-1 Muon Trigger
We report on the design and test results of a prototype processor for the CMS
Level-1 trigger that performs 3-D track reconstruction and measurement from
data recorded by the cathode strip chambers of the endcap muon system. The
tracking algorithms are written in C++ using a class library we developed that
facilitates automatic conversion to Verilog. The code is synthesized into
firmware for field-programmable gate-arrays from the Xilinx Virtex-II series. A
second-generation prototype has been developed and is currently under test. It
performs regional track-finding in a 60 degree azimuthal sector and accepts 3
GB/s of input data synchronously with the 40 MHz beam crossing frequency. The
latency of the track-finding algorithms is expected to be 250 ns, including
geometrical alignment correction of incoming track segments and a final
momentum assignment based on the muon trajectory in the non-uniform magnetic
field in the CMS endcaps.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, proceedings for the conference on Computing in
High Energy and Nuclear Physics, March 24-28 2003, La Jolla, Californi
Top quark physics in hadron collisions
The top quark is the heaviest elementary particle observed to date. Its large
mass makes the top quark an ideal laboratory to test predictions of
perturbation theory concerning heavy quark production at hadron colliders. The
top quark is also a powerful probe for new phenomena beyond the Standard Model
of particle physics. In addition, the top quark mass is a crucial parameter for
scrutinizing the Standard Model in electroweak precision tests and for
predicting the mass of the yet unobserved Higgs boson. Ten years after the
discovery of the top quark at the Fermilab Tevatron top quark physics has
entered an era where detailed measurements of top quark properties are
undertaken. In this review article an introduction to the phenomenology of top
quark production in hadron collisions is given, the lessons learned in Tevatron
Run I are summarized, and first Run II results are discussed. A brief outlook
to the possibilities of top quark research a the Large Hadron Collider,
currently under construction at CERN, is included.Comment: 84 pages, 32 figures, accepted for publication by Reports on Progress
in Physic
Classical versus Quantum Structure of the Scattering Probability Matrix. Chaotic wave-guides
The purely classical counterpart of the Scattering Probability Matrix (SPM)
of the quantum scattering matrix is defined for 2D
quantum waveguides for an arbitrary number of propagating modes . We compare
the quantum and classical structures of for a waveguide
with generic Hamiltonian chaos. It is shown that even for a moderate number of
channels, knowledge of the classical structure of the SPM allows us to predict
the global structure of the quantum one and, hence, understand important
quantum transport properties of waveguides in terms of purely classical
dynamics. It is also shown that the SPM, being an intensity measure, can give
additional dynamical information to that obtained by the Poincar\`{e} maps.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure
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