Effect of adductor canal block on medial compartment knee pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis: Retrospective comparative study

Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a common disease in middle-aged and elderly people. Pain is the chief complaint of symptomatic KOA and a leading cause of chronic disability, which is most often found in medial knees. The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of pain relief and functional improvement in KOA patients treated with ultrasound-guided adductor canal block (ACB)

Evaluation for Damaged Degree of Vegetation by Forest Fire Using LiDAR and Digital Aerial Photograph

The amount of vegetation physically damaged by forest fire can be evaluated using lidar (Light Detection And Ranging) data because the loss of canopy height and width by forest fire can be relevant to the number of points transmitted to the ground through the canopy of the damaged forest. On the other hand, the biological damage of vegetation caused by forest fire can be obtained from the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which determines the vegetation vitality. In this study, the degree of physical damage from the lidar data was classified into serious physical damage (SPD) and light physical damage (LPD). The degree of biological damage using NDVI was likewise classified into serious biological damage (SBD) and light biological damage (LBD). Finally, the damaged area was graded into four categories: (a) SPD and SBD, (b) LPD and SBD, (c) SPD and LBD, and (d) LPD and LBD. The accuracy assessment for the area classified into four grades showed an overall accuracy of 0.74, and a kappa value of 0.61 which provides improvement over previous works

High-speed infrared phase modulators using short helical pitch ferroelectric liquid crystals

A fast phase modulator based on ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) is demonstrated and its performances characterized. For uniform alignment and pure phase modulation, we propose a new FLC device configuration using short helical pitch material and homeotropic alignment structure. This device is driven by periodic in-plane electrode stripes implemented on the surface of both cell substrates. As a result, we have obtained large phase modulation ( \u3e 2 pi at lambda=1.55 mu m) and fast response ( \u3c 200 mu sec)

Reconstituting ring-rafts in bud-mimicking topography of model membranes.

During vesicular trafficking and release of enveloped viruses, the budding and fission processes dynamically remodel the donor cell membrane in a protein- or a lipid-mediated manner. In all cases, in addition to the generation or relief of the curvature stress, the buds recruit specific lipids and proteins from the donor membrane through restricted diffusion for the development of a ring-type raft domain of closed topology. Here, by reconstituting the bud topography in a model membrane, we demonstrate the preferential localization of cholesterol- and sphingomyelin-enriched microdomains in the collar band of the bud-neck interfaced with the donor membrane. The geometrical approach to the recapitulation of the dynamic membrane reorganization, resulting from the local radii of curvatures from nanometre-to-micrometre scales, offers important clues for understanding the active roles of the bud topography in the sorting and migration machinery of key signalling proteins involved in membrane budding

A Cognitive Radio-Based Energy-Efficient System for Power Transmission Line Monitoring in Smart Grids

The research in industry and academia on smart grids is predominantly focused on the regulation of generated power and management of its consumption. Because transmission of bulk-generated power to the consumer is immensely reliant on secure and efficient transmission grids, comprising huge electrical and mechanical assets spanning a vast geographic area, there is an impending need to focus on the transmission grids as well. Despite the challenges in wireless technologies for SGs, cognitive radio networks are considered promising for provisioning of communications services to SGs. In this paper, first, we present an IEEE 802.22 wireless regional area network cognitive radio-based network model for smart monitoring of transmission lines. Then, for a prolonged lifetime of battery finite monitoring network, we formulate the spectrum resource allocation problem as an energy efficiency maximization problem, which is a nonlinear integer programming problem. To solve this problem in an easier way, we propose an energy-efficient resource-assignment scheme based on the Hungarian method. Performance analysis shows that, compared to a pure opportunistic assignment scheme with a throughput maximization objective and compared to a random scheme, the proposed scheme results in an enhanced lifetime while consuming less battery energy without compromising throughput performance

Differential Expression of Glut1 in Pulmonary Neuroendocrine Tumors: Correlation with Histological Grade

Background : Increased glucose uptake, a process that is mediated by glucose transporter (Glut1) proteins, is an important metabolic feature in a variety of cancer cells. The overexpression of Glut1 in human cancers is known to be related to a variety of histopathological parameters, including histological grade, proliferation rate, and lymphatic invasion. The principal objective of this study was to evaluate Glut1 expression in the spectrum of pulmonary neuroendocrine (NE) tumors including typical carcinoid tumor (TC), atypical carcinoid tumor (AC), large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC), and small cell carcinoma (SCC), and to characterize the relationship between Glut1 expression and the histologic grade of NE tumors. Methods : 19 TC, 7 AC, 13 LCNEC, and 6 SCC patients were included in this study. The percentages of Glut1-positive tumor cells in these patients were determined. For statistical analysis, Glut1 expression was subdivided into a Glut1-low expression group (0-30%) and a Glut1-high expression group (31-90%). Results : In our subgroup analyses, the histological grade of pulmonary neuroendocrine (NE) tumors was significantly correlated with Glut1 expression; TC (n=19, 3.6 +/- 4.2%), AC (n=7, 20.0 +/- 4.9%), LCNEC (n=13, 60.0 +/- 21.1%), and SCC (n= 6, 74.2 +/- 16.9%). Glut1-high expression was significantly associated with high-grade NE tumors such as LCNEC and SCC (n=19, 62.6 +/- 21.0%) (p=0.000). Conclusions: The results of this study appear to indicate that Glut1 overexpression is a consistent feature of high-grade NE lung tumors.This work was supported by grant no 02-2008-029 from the SNUBH Research Fund and partly supported by the Korean Science & Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) through the Tumor Immunity Medical Research Center at Seoul National University College of Medicine.Song YS, 2008, LUNG CANCER, V61, P54, DOI 10.1016/j.lungcan.2007.11.012Nguyen XC, 2007, EUR J RADIOL, V62, P214, DOI 10.1016/j.ejrad.2006.12.008Khandani AH, 2007, NUCL MED COMMUN, V28, P173Chung JH, 2004, J NUCL MED, V45, P999TRAVIS WD, 2004, WHO INT HISTOLOGICALKalir T, 2002, CANCER, V94, P1078, DOI 10.1002/cncr.10280Wong CYO, 2001, EUR J NUCL MED, V28, P1702Wang BY, 2000, CANCER, V88, P2774Brown RS, 1999, J NUCL MED, V40, P556Ito T, 1998, MODERN PATHOL, V11, P437Travis WD, 1998, HUM PATHOL, V29, P272Baer SC, 1997, J AM ACAD DERMATOL, V37, P575Younes M, 1997, CANCER, V80, P1046Voldstedlund M, 1997, APMIS, V105, P537Haber RS, 1997, THYROID, V7, P363Younes M, 1997, CANCER EPIDEM BIOMAR, V6, P303Younes M, 1996, CLIN CANCER RES, V2, P1151Younes M, 1996, CANCER RES, V56, P1164Younes M, 1995, ANTICANCER RES, V15, P2895NAGASE Y, 1995, J UROLOGY, V153, P798MELLANEN P, 1994, INT J CANCER, V56, P622BROWN RS, 1993, CANCER, V72, P2979TAKATA K, 1992, CELL TISSUE RES, V267, P407PESSIN JE, 1992, ANNU REV PHYSIOL, V54, P911PARDRIDGE WM, 1990, J BIOL CHEM, V265, P18035ISSELBAC.KJ, 1972, NEW ENGL J MED, V286, P929