Editorial Comment on the Article by M.S. Ryazantsev et al. “Influence of Posterior Tibial Slope on the Risk of Recurrence After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction”

The failure of ACL reconstruction may occur not only due to repeated injury but also technical errors or biological reasons. The individual patterns of knee morphology addressed in the study of M.S. Ryasantsev et al., particularly tibial slope. Statistically significant difference does not necessarily mean that it leads to clinical impact on the patient. Therefore, all findings should be discussed from the point of minimal clinically relevant difference, especially if the study is underpowered

Follow-Up After Hip and Knee Arthroplasty: a Review of the Literature and a Report on a Pilot Project at the Vreden National Medical Research Center of Traumatology and Orthopedics

Background. Today in our country, the follow-up of patients after arthroplasty is carried out in accordance with clinical guidelines, the wording of which is based on monographs from 2006, 2008, and 2014, in addition, clinical guidelines for follow-up do not take into account the results of treatment assessed by the patient himself. The purpose of this study was to examine existing systems and develop a proprietary follow-up system for patients after hip and knee arthroplasty. Results. A review of the literature revealed that follow-up of patients after arthroplasty is an unsolved problem, within which there is low coverage, reluctance or forgetfulness of the asymptomatic patient, the problem of accessibility of medical examinations, and an excessive financial burden on the health care system. Since 2022, fixed recommendations for follow-up after arthroplasty have been used in the clinical practice of our center in discharge epicrisis. Recommendations for the frequency of follow-up were formulated by experts based on a comprehensive review of the literature and their own experience. In the first three months, 221 hip and 235 knee evaluation questionnaires were collected through the proposed mechanism, with a progressive increase in the number of questionnaires based on weekly monitoring data. Conclusion. Unfortunately, the outpatient clinic system is not always able to provide qualitative monitoring of patients after arthroplasty due to various reasons, therefore, in our opinion, the implementation of the mechanism of remote monitoring of patients will allow detecting various complications at the stage of early diagnosis, which will contribute to prompt solution of these problems. The remote monitoring system is also an important source of scientific data

Improved Data Acquisition Applying the Digitization Technique to Nuclear Experiments

Rapid growth in computing performance and nearly unlimited storage capacity has stimulated the use of waveform digitizers as a new technique for nuclear experiments. This method has advantages compared to standard analogue techniques. Presently, we are implementing the digitization technique in measurements of prompt fission neutron emission in coincidence with the fission fragments of the spontaneous fission of 252Cf. As detector a twin Frischgrid ionization chamber is used, together with NE213 liquid scintillation detectors for the neutron registration. Preliminary results show that the procedure works and a good agreement of the fission fragment mass distribution with literature values is obtained.JRC.D.5-Neutron physic

Development of Digital Technique for the Determination of Fission Fragments and Emitted Prompt Neutron Characteristics.

In recent years digital processing technology is slowly replacing traditional analogue techniques. The main advantage is the digitalization of the signal shape which contains all the information on the particle, i.e. kinetic energy, emission angle and mass. This information is actually determined off-line by digital signal processing and opens up the possibility to modify the analysis procedure without repeating the experiment. In the present work the digital signal processing technique is implemented for measurement of emitted prompt neutrons in coincidence with fission fragments. A double Frisch-gridded ionization chamber is used as fission fragment detector. The emitted prompt neutrons are detected by a NE213 based liquid scintillator detector from CEN Bordeaux Gradignan. The neutron energy is determined by the time-of-flight technique. Both the ionization chamber and neutron detector digitized signals are stored for further off-line analysis. A specialized data analysis program has been develop to treat the experimental data. The experimental set up is intalled at the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM, Geel, Belgium) To test the digital technique and to verify the method of off-line analysis a 252Cf(sf) source is used since here both the fission fragment and the prompt emitted neutron properties are well known from literature.JRC.D.5-Neutron physic

Electronic and atomic structure of subchondral femoral bone in intact and osteoarthritic knee compartments

In the work we suggest an answer to the question: how is the local electronic and atomic structure as well as molecular architecture of bone tissue distorted in case of skeletal pathology? X-ray diffraction and photoelectron spectroscopy techniques are applied to medial and lateral condyles of the femoral bone resected during total knee arthroplasty in patients with medial compartmental knee osteoarthritis (OA). The measured data are examined and discussed. It is shown that the skeletal pathology affects local electronic and atomic structure of mineral matrix in bone. For the first time the site-dependent changes in cristallinity, binding energies and chemical composition of the intact and OA damaged areas of femur-saw-cuts are investigated. Specifically, in the sclerotic area crystallinity of the subchondral bone tissue increases, the binding energies of the Ca and P 2p core levels demonstrate opposite shifts and the widths of the core−1 photoelectron lines are maximal. The results show perspectives for development of novel approaches to medical imaging and diagnosis of bone tissue at the subcellular level

Structural basis for the ligand promiscuity of the neofunctionalized, carotenoid-binding fasciclin domain protein AstaP

Abstract Fasciclins (FAS1) are ancient adhesion protein domains with no common small ligand binding reported. A unique microalgal FAS1-containing astaxanthin (AXT)-binding protein (AstaP) binds a broad repertoire of carotenoids by a largely unknown mechanism. Here, we explain the ligand promiscuity of AstaP-orange1 (AstaPo1) by determining its NMR structure in complex with AXT and validating this structure by SAXS, calorimetry, optical spectroscopy and mutagenesis. α1-α2 helices of the AstaPo1 FAS1 domain embrace the carotenoid polyene like a jaw, forming a hydrophobic tunnel, too short to cap the AXT β-ionone rings and dictate specificity. AXT-contacting AstaPo1 residues exhibit different conservation in AstaPs with the tentative carotenoid-binding function and in FAS1 proteins generally, which supports the idea of AstaP neofunctionalization within green algae. Intriguingly, a cyanobacterial homolog with a similar domain structure cannot bind carotenoids under identical conditions. These structure-activity relationships provide the first step towards the sequence-based prediction of the carotenoid-binding FAS1 members

Robotic optical telescopes global network MASTER II. Equipment, structure, algorithms

Presented paper describes the basic principles and features of the implementation of a robotic network of optical telescopes MASTER, designed to study the prompt (simultaneous with gamma radiation) optical emission of gamma-ray bursts and to perform the sky survey to detect unknown objects and transient phenomena. With joint efforts of Sternberg astronomical institute, High altitude astronomical station of the Pulkovo observatory, Ural state university, Irkutsk state university, Blagoveshchensk pedagogical university, the robotic telescopes MASTER II near Kislovodsk, Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk and Blagoveshchensk were installed and tested. The network spread over the longitudes is greater than 6 h. A further expansion of the network is considered. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V