Thoracolumbar burst fractures requiring instrumented fusion: Should reducted bone fragments be removed? A retrospective study

Background Thoracolumbar burst fractures are common clinical entity encountered in neurosurgical practice, accounting for 10–20% of all spinal fractures. Clinical picture could be devastating due to severe neurological deficits which lead the patients dependent both socially and emotionally. Materials and methods This study compared two groups of patients who were operated because of thoracolumbar burst fracture secondary to spinal trauma in terms of neurologic deficits, degree of improvement, and radiologic measurements at one-year follow-up. The first group (group I) included the patients who underwent posterior total laminectomy, peroperative reduction of intracanal bone fragments, and posterior spinal instrumentation and the second group (group II) included the patients who underwent total laminectomy, and spinal instrumentation without reduction of free bone fragments. Results Neither group showed significant correlation with any measurement parameter. Radiological assessments and clinical improvements did not disclosed significant difference between the two groups at one-year follow-up. Conclusion Retropulsion of free bone fragments extend the time of surgery and causes complications. This study found that there is no need to retropulse the bone fragments in the spinal canal in patients with unstable burst fractures who underwent total laminectomy and posterior long segment stabilization

Consumer willingness to pay for organic sea bass in Turkey

This study analyzes the willingness of Turkish consumers to pay for organically farmed sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax). A contingent valuation survey was conducted during 2004 in six super- markets in Adana, Turkey. An ordered probit analysis with a sample selection model was used to determine the probability of consumers’ willingness to pay for organically farmed sea bass by considering related explanatory variables. Results indicate that 91.5% of the respondents would be willing to pay a premium for organically farmed sea bass. Econometric results suggest that willingness to pay is mainly related to household income, education, food safety concerns, whether the respondent is the primary food shopper in household, and whether there are chil- dren under the age of 10 in the household

Greenhouse technology for cultivation in arid and semi-arid regions

Greenhouses have expanded from Northern areas to other climatic regions in the world, including arid and semi-arid regions. The main limiting factors for greenhouse cultivation in such areas are the high ambient temperatures with low humidity (sometimes with high humidity in coastal areas), typical of these regions during almost all the year, and the availability of good quality water for irrigation and eventually for cooling. Therefore, the technological options for protected cultivation in these areas are quite dependent on the average maximum temperatures along the year. If the area has average maximum temperatures not higher than 30-35°C during the autumn, winter and spring months, a lower technology approach can be used, combining the use of simple plastic covered structures, with high natural ventilation capacity (i.e. retractable roof greenhouses or similar technological approaches), selective mobile shading screens (NIR reflection) and/or evaporative cooling, provided that quality water is available or can be produced. During the summer months, cultivation could be moved to highlands, with cooler night-time temperatures, using screenhouses combined with fogging (low or high pressure, depending on the water quality). If temperatures are higher than 30-35°C during the whole year, pad and fan combined with selective shading is possibly the best option, avoiding cultivation during the summer months, but limiting the size of the greenhouses. Other more sophisticated technologies have been proposed for these regions, which involve in many cases closing the greenhouse and using highly energy dependent active cooling systems and different ways of seawater desalination. The high energy required to cool actively the greenhouses makes it essential to study carefully the possibilities of using renewable energies (wind, solar, geothermal, etc.) to cover at least, a part of large energy demand, as well as to establish resource conserving climate control strategies. In many cases and for some crops under extreme environments, food security concerns and urbanization makes reasonable to consider the possibility of indoor cultivation (plant factories) as potential economic option if they are demonstrated as resource conserving and profitable technologies and production mechanism