398 research outputs found
Ulnar Collateral Ligament Reconstruction with Traditional Docking Compared to Novel Surgical Techniques
Background: Ulnar Collateral Ligament Reconstruction (UCLR) is a surgical procedure on one of the main ligaments that provides normal stability for the elbow joint against excessive valgus stress. Damage to this ligament is common in athletes performing overhead throwing activities, primarily baseball players, due to excessive valgus stress during the throwing motion. The most common form of treatment for this type of injury is reconstructive surgery of the ligament, especially if athletes wish to return to sport participation. This type of surgery is extremely invasive and requires extensive post-operative rehabilitation in order to facilitate return to play. To date, many surgical techniques have been proposed and evaluated, but there are no conclusive comparison studies on patient outcomes following UCLR. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze previous studies on UCLR techniques and determine if there is a single superior surgical method leading to improved biomechanical outcomes and decreased failure measures. Our focused clinical question was identifying if the traditional docking technique compared to novel docking techniques during UCLR superior in relation to biomechanical outcomes and failure measures in cadaveric tissue. Methodology: The study design in this paper is a critically appraised topic. Various scholarly databases such as PubMed, MEDLINE and SportDiscus were utilized to search for studies related to UCLR surgical techniques. After an initial search, a list of fifteen relevant studies were identified. Each study was then scrutinized and evaluated to meet predetermined inclusion criteria and a minimum score of 6/9 on the PEDro scale. All studies not meeting these requirements were excluded. This left a total of five articles which were then used to answer the clinical question for this paper. The inclusion criteria involved meeting a cadaveric age of 16-60 y, objective measures of valgus testing, angular displacement, stiffness and modes of failure as post-operative outcomes. Further, we included studies that had a minimum of seven cadaver pairs tested, and studies were required to compare traditional docking to at least one novel technique. Results: All five studies involved compared at least one novel surgical technique to the docking technique. Four studies found no significant overall difference between the native and reconstructed states of any surgical technique. One study found no overall significant difference, but did identify slight differences in biomechanical properties. Discussion: All conclusions from individual studies demonstrate comparable findings between all UCLR techniques. Biomechanics, kinematics and failure modes in the acute stages following surgery in cadavers are similar between UCLR techniques. Despite all that has been done, additional research is still necessary to determine a superior surgical technique
Formation and annealing of dislocation loops induced by nitrogen implantation of ZnO
Although zinc oxide is a promising material for the fabrication of short
wavelength optoelectronic devices, p-type doping is a step that remains
challenging for the realization of diodes. Out of equilibrium methods such as
ion implantation are expected to dope ZnO successfully provided that the
non-radiative defects introduced by implantation can be annealed out. In this
study, ZnO substrates are implanted with nitrogen ions, and the extended
defects induced by implantation are studied by transmission electron microscopy
and X-ray diffraction (XRD), before and after annealing at 900^{\circ}C. Before
annealing, these defects are identified to be dislocation loops lying either in
basal planes in high N concentration regions, or in prismatic planes in low N
concentration regions, together with linear dislocations. An uniaxial
deformation of 0.4% along the c axis, caused by the predominant basal loops, is
measured by XRD in the implanted layer. After annealing, prismatic loops
disappear while the density of basal loops decreases and their diameter
increases. Moreover, dislocation loops disappear completely from the
sub-surface region. XRD measurements show a residual deformation of only 0.05%
in the implanted and annealed layer. The fact that basal loops are favoured
against prismatic ones at high N concentration or high temperature is
attributed to a lower stacking fault energy in these conditions. The
coalescence of loops and their disappearance in the sub-surface region are
ascribed to point defect diffusion. Finally, the electrical and optical
properties of nitrogen-implanted ZnO are correlated with the observed
structural features.Comment: 8 page
Cosmological parameter extraction and biases from type Ia supernova magnitude evolution
We study different one-parametric models of type Ia Supernova magnitude
evolution on cosmic time scales. Constraints on cosmological and Supernova
evolution parameters are obtained by combined fits on the actual data coming
from Supernovae, the cosmic microwave background, and baryonic acoustic
oscillations. We find that data prefer a magnitude evolution such that
high-redshift Supernova are brighter than would be expected in a standard
cosmos with a dark energy component. Data however are consistent with
non-evolving magnitudes at the one-sigma level, except special cases.
We simulate a future data scenario where SN magnitude evolution is allowed
for, and neglect the possibility of such an evolution in the fit. We find the
fiducial models for which the wrong model assumption of non-evolving SN
magnitude is not detectable, and for which at the same time biases on the
fitted cosmological parameters are introduced. Of the cosmological parameters
the overall mass density has the strongest chances to be biased due to the
wrong model assumption. Whereas early-epoch models with a magnitude offset ~z^2
show up to be not too dangerous when neglected in the fitting procedure, late
epoch models with magnitude offset ~sqrt(z) have high chances to bias the fit
results.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication by A&A.
Revised version: Corrected Typos, reference added to section
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Electrophysiological stimulation of excised rat muscle elicits a measurable change in tissue sodium concentration using 23Na-MRI
Changes in the tissue sodium gradient play an important role in cell signalling such as at the neuromuscular junction and as part of neuronal action potentials. 23Na-MRI has the ability to measure the macroscopic sodium distribution. In this study we investigated the changes in tissue sodium in an electrically stimulated and freshly excised rat leg muscle.This work was supported by CRUK [C8742/A18097]. This is a contribution from the Cancer Imaging Centre in Cambridge & Manchester, which is funded by the EPSRC and Cancer Research UK. We would like to express our gratitude to the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres (ECMC) for continued support. JK receives funding support from GlaxoSmithKline
Evidence for short-lived SN Ia progenitors
We use the VESPA algorithm and spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to
investigate the star formation history of the host galaxies of 257 Type Ia
supernovae. We find 5 evidence for a short-lived population of
progenitors with lifetimes of less than 180 Myr, indicating a Type Ia supernova
channel arising from stars in the mass range 3.5-8 . As
standardizeable candles, Type Ia supernovae play an important role in
determining the expansion history of the Universe, but to be useful for future
cosmological surveys, the peak luminosity needs to be free of uncorrected
systematic effects at the level of 1-2%. If the different progenitor routes
lead to supernovae with even moderately small differences in properties, then
these need to be corrected for separately, or they could lead to a systematic
bias in future supernovae surveys, as the prompt route is likely to increase in
importance at high redshift. VESPA analysis of hosts could be a valuable tool
in this, by identifying which progenitor route is most likely.Comment: Accepted version by the journal, no changes in the result
Hubble Space Telescope Observations of the Draco Dwarf Spheroidal
We present an F606W-F814W color-magnitude diagram for the Draco dwarf
spheroidal galaxy based on Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 images. The luminosity
function is well-sampled to 3 magnitudes below the turn-off. We see no evidence
for multiple turnoffs and conclude that, at least over the field of the view of
the WFPC2, star formation was primarily single-epoch. If the observed number of
blue stragglers is due to extended star formation, then roughly 6% (upper
limit) of the stars could be half as old as the bulk of the galaxy. The color
difference between the red giant branch and the turnoff is consistent with an
old population and is very similar to that observed in the old, metal-poor
Galactic globular clusters M68 and M92. Despite its red horizontal branch,
Draco appears to be older than M68 and M92 by 1.6 +/- 2.5 Gyrs, lending support
to the argument that the ``second parameter'' which governs horizontal branch
morphology must be something other than age. Draco's observed luminosity
function is very similar to that of M68, and the derived initial mass function
is consistent with that of the solar neighborhood.Comment: 16 pages, AASTeX, 9 postscript figures, figures 1 and 2 available at
ftp://bb3.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/draco/. Accepted for publication in the
Astronomical Journa
Diversity of supernovae Ia determined using equivalent widths of Si II 4000
Spectroscopic and photometric properties of low and high-z supernovae Ia (SNe
Ia) have been analyzed in order to achieve a better understanding of their
diversity and to identify possible SN Ia sub-types. We use wavelet transformed
spectra in which one can easily measure spectral features. We investigate the
\ion{Si}{II} 4000 equivalent width (EW_w\lbrace\ion{Si}{II}\rbrace). The
ability and, especially, the ease in extending the method to SNe at high- is
demonstrated. We applied the method to 110 SNe Ia and found correlations
between EW_w\lbrace\ion{Si}{II}\rbrace and parameters related to the
light-curve shape for 88 supernovae with available photometry. No evidence for
evolution of EW_w\lbrace\ion{Si}{II}\rbrace with redshift is seen. Three
sub-classes of SNe Ia were confirmed using an independent cluster analysis with
only light-curve shape, colour, and EW_w\lbrace\ion{Si}{II}\rbrace. SNe from
high- samples seem to follow a similar grouping to nearby objects. The
EW_w\lbrace\ion{Si}{II}\rbrace value measured on a single spectrum may point
towards SN Ia sub-classification, avoiding the need for expansion velocity
gradient calculations.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure
The Type Ia Supernova Rate in Radio and Infrared Galaxies from the CFHT Supernova Legacy Survey
We have combined the large SN Ia database of the Canada-France-Hawaii
Telescope Supernova Legacy Survey and catalogs of galaxies with photometric
redshifts, VLA 1.4 GHz radio sources, and Spitzer infrared sources. We present
eight SNe Ia in early-type host galaxies which have counterparts in the radio
and infrared source catalogs. We find the SN Ia rate in subsets of radio and
infrared early-type galaxies is ~1-5 times the rate in all early-type galaxies,
and that any enhancement is always <~ 2 sigma. Rates in these subsets are
consistent with predictions of the two component "A+B" SN Ia rate model. Since
infrared properties of radio SN Ia hosts indicate dust obscured star formation,
we incorporate infrared star formation rates into the "A+B" model. We also show
the properties of SNe Ia in radio and infrared galaxies suggest the hosts
contain dust and support a continuum of delay time distributions for SNe Ia,
although other delay time distributions cannot be ruled out based on our data.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, 7 tables, accepted for publication in A
F.A.R.O.G. FORUM, Vol. 2 No. 9
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/francoamericain_forum/1008/thumbnail.jp
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