Analysis of outcome of percutaneous versus open pedicle screw fixation in the treatment of thoraco-lumbar spine fractures: a prospective comparative study

Background: Aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness between percutaneous and open pedicle screw fixation in the treatment of traumatic thoracolumbar burst fractures with spinal injury.Methods: A prospective comparative study including thirty patients with thoracolumbar burst fracture were equally divided into an open pedicle screw fixation (OPSF) group and a percutaneous pedicle screw fixation (PPSF) group. Demographic characteristics, clinical and radiological outcomes, and adverse events were assessed and compared between the 2 groups.Results: Demographic and clinical features including age, gender, fracture level, mechanism of injury and neurological status in both groups were not significantly different (all p>0.05). The PPSF group exhibits significantly lower operative time, intraoperative blood loss, and hospital stay compared with the OPSF group (all p<0.05). There was no significant difference in the sagittal Cobb′s angle (CA), fracture vertebral body angle (VBA), anterior vertebral body height (AVBH) on pre-operative, immediate post-operative and final follow up between the two surgical techniques (all p>0.05). Visual analogue scale (VAS) remarkably decreased in both groups after surgery but difference was not statically significant (p=0.808). Common postoperative complications in both groups were superficial infections, pressure ulcer and urinary tract infection (UTI) worsening. Hardware failure was seen only in one case of PPSF group.Conclusions: Patients with thoracolumbar burst fractures can be effectively managed with PPSF/OPSF. There were no significant differences in radiological and clinical outcomes and post-op complications between 2 groups but blood loss, operative time and hospitalization stay were less in percutaneous group, which may represent a potential benefit.

Impact of climate change on yield of different crops grown in Cachar district of Assam, India

Impact of climate change on crop yield threatens food security which is detrimental to agricultural sector. Cachar district of Assam is a climate susceptible district due to its unique geographical location and hydrological regime in north-eastern India. So, the present study was carried out to assess impact of climate change on crop yield for sustainability of agriculture. Climatic data viz., rainfall, maximum-minimum temperature and sunshine hours were collected from an observatory of Tea Research Association, Silcoorie, Cachar district for 2007-2012. Statistical and correlation analysis was employed to evaluate potential climate change impact on productivity of twenty three major crops of the study site. The correlation coefficient (r, Pearson’s Product Moment) between any climatic parameter and crop yield implied that climate has strong linear correlation with yield of crops resulting in twenty-two strong correlations. Among the climatic parameters rainfall was found to have most significant impact on yield. Noteworthy reduction was observed in yield of Autumn Paddy and Winter Paddy by 8.75 and 20.44 during the year 2008-2009 due to 3.98 and 36.22% decrease of rainfall with r values 0.95 and -0.76, respectively. Also, a quantum leap of 145.32% increase of rainfall during Rabi season of 2007-2008 decreased the yield of Potato and Rabi vegetables by 22.96 and 16.89%, respectively. The study revealed that climate change has significant impact on crop yield which could be alleviated by adopting rainwater harvesting technology at the top and foot hills of the hilly areas

Agro-economic analysis of sustainable cropping patterns in hydric rice fallows of upper Brahmaputra valley, Asom

Three post rainy season crops, viz. potato (Solanum tuberosum L.), pea (Pisum sativum L.) and mustard (Brassica juncea L.) were evaluated for their economic efficiency for two years (2005-06 to 2006-07) in four hydric rice growing soils under two management levels (farmers' practice and recommended package of practices) in upper Brahmaputra valley of Asom. The farm experimental results recorded tuber yield of 208 q/ha for potato, 9.48 q/ha of grain yield of mustard and 57.5 q/ha of green pod yield of peas under recommended doses with high benefit cost ratio of 2.44 for potato and 2.35 for mustard in Lahangaon series (coarse loamy Aeric Fluvaquents) as compared to farmer’s practice (benefit cost ratio of 1.57 for potato to 1.71 for peas). The performance of potato and peas in rice fallows of Brahmaputra valley was evident in all soils under recommended practices in terms of benefit cost ratio, efficient uptake of NPK and yield

Electroflotation of ultrafine chalcopyrite particles with sodium oleate collector

The electroflotation behaviour of ultrafine chalcopyrite particles was investigated using a mechanically agitated cell. The use of sodium oleate as collector proved effective in the flotation of particles of average size of 5 µm. The results showed that chalcopyrite recovery increases with increasing pulp pH, and current density, but decreases with increasing pulp density. The successful flotation of chalcopyrite with oleate might be attributed to its electrochemical surface oxidation, resulting in the formation of cupric and ferric oxide species. Chemisorption of oleate ions onto oxidized chalcopyrite surface is suggested to be the main cause for the increase in chalcopyrite recovery

Split Supersymmetry in Unified Models

In the context of split supersymmetry, the gaugino mass spectrum seems to be very important to satisfy the dark matter content of the universe and the gauge coupling unification. In this paper, we have considered various sources of gaugino masses in the context of unified models. We show that the gaugino mass spectrum varies in different unification pictures. In the context of SU(5), we have found that the Bino/Wino mass ratio can be close to one at the weak scale which is helpful to satisfy the WMAP data. The gluino/Wino mass ratio is also different from the usual scenario of unified gaugino masses. The gaugino masses can be around one TeV and m_SUSY is chosen so that the gluino mass does not create any cosmological problem. In the context of the Pati-Salam model, we show that the gluino mass can be made very heavy even after maintaining the unification of the gauge couplings.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure

Sleptogenesis

We propose that the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe can naturally arise from a net asymmetry generated in the sleptonic sector at fairly low reheat temperatures. The best candidate is indeed the right-handed sneutrino. The initial asymmetry in the sneutrino sector can be produced from the decay of the inflaton, and is subsequently transferred into the Standard Model (s)lepton doublet via the decay of the sneutrino. The active sphalerons then reprocess the leptonic asymmetry into the baryonic asymmetry. The marked feature of this scenario is that the lepton asymmetry is decoupled from the neutrino Yukawa sector. We exhibit that our scenario can be embedded within models which seek the origin of a tiny mass for neutrinos.Comment: 7 revtex pages, 2 figures (uses axodraw). Minor changes for better clarification and updated references. Final version to appear in Phys. Rev.