Risk factors for delayed and non-union following transfibular ankle arthrodesis

Background: This study was to identify risk factors associated with delayed union and non-union in patients who underwent transfibular ankle arthrodesis.Methods: This study included 43 patients who underwent ankle arthrodesis using transfibular approach between January 2012 and September 2018 and were followed up for more than 12 months. The patients were divided into two groups according to delayed union or non-union. Group A included patients who had delayed union or non-union and Group B included patients without these complications. Variables that could contribute to non-union including etiologies, age, chronic renal failure, hypertension, diabetes, smoking, pre-operative talus bone quality, pre-operative angulation of the talus and fixation methods were evaluated.Results: The mean time to bone union was 12.7±7.25 weeks. Group A included 12 patients with 5 cases of non-union and 7 cases of delayed union and group B included 31 patients. Infection of the ankle joint (OR, 1.73; p=0.041) was risk factor for non-union and delayed union on the basis of multivariate analysis.Conclusions: We concluded that infection of the ankle joint is the most significant risk factor for delayed union and nonunion in our study. Careful attention should be paid preoperatively, intraoperatively and postoperatively to patients who have this risk factor to obtain a satisfactory surgical outcome

A Study of Pastoral Leadership that has had Great Influence on Korean Church Growth Focusing on Jae Gun Revival Denomination in Korea

The purpose of this thesis project is to understand what the biblical principles for Pastoral Leadership are and, to evaluate the Korean Pastoral Leadership within the Jae Gun Revival Denomination(JRD) in Korea. Based on surveys sent to the JRD pastors in Korea, the project analyzes and evaluates the actual figures of church ministry, History, church growth, and common viewpoint of pastoral leadership. This project shows that what the reason about the Korean church growth so rapidly and find out that main reason is pastoral leadership. This project wants to reveal the new future for the JRD with pastoral leadership growth

Experimental investigation of plasmofluidic waveguides

Plasmofluidic waveguides are based on guiding light which is strongly confined in fluid with the assistance of a surface plasmon polariton. To realize plasmofluidic waveguides, metal-insulator-silicon-insulator-metal (MISIM) waveguides, which are hybrid plasmonic waveguides fabricated using standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology, are employed. The insulator of the MISIM waveguide is removed to form 30-nm-wide channels, and they are filled with fluid. The plasmofluidic waveguide has a subwavelength-scale mode area since its mode is strongly confined in the fluid. The waveguides are experimentally characterized for different fluids. When the refractive index of the fluid is 1.440, the plasmofluidic waveguide with 190-nm-wide silicon has propagation loss of 0.46 dB/mu m; the coupling loss between it and an ordinary silicon photonic waveguide is 1.79 dB. The propagation and coupling losses may be reduced if a few fabrication-induced imperfections are removed. The plasmofluidic waveguide may pave the way to a dynamically phase-tunable ultracompact device.open0

Does the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Adoption Matter? Exploring Patterns of EMR Implementation and its Impact on Hospital Performance

We aimed to explore the patterns of electronic medical records (EMR) adoption and its effects on hospital performance. We analyzed hospital-level panel data from 2008 to 2013 using Bayesian regression and the Naïve Bayes model. Our research analysis revealed 38 different adoption patterns for 1,919 hospitals that completed EMR implementation (having all of the four components) and 42 different investment patterns for 1,341 hospitals that could not complete the EMR implementation. We examined the hospitals’ EMR adoption patterns that were not completed; but predicted as completed using the Naïve Bayes model. Our results revealed that the hospitals that completed EMR adoption showed higher performance in terms of patient recommendation and net patient revenue than those that did not complete EMR adoption. More importantly, most of hospitals that observed as “not completed” but predicted as “completed” showed lower performance in terms of patient recommendation as well as net patient revenue

Characterizations of realized metal-insulator-silicon-insulator-metal waveguides and nanochannel fabrication via insulator removal

We investigate experimentally metal-insulator-silicon-insulator-metal (MISIM) waveguides that are fabricated by using fully standard CMOS technology. They are hybrid plasmonic waveguides, and they have a feature that their insulator is replaceable with functional material. We explain a fabrication process for them and discuss fabrication results based on 8-inch silicon-on-insulator wafers. We measured the propagation characteristics of the MISIM waveguides that were actually fabricated to be connected to Si photonic waveguides through symmetric and asymmetric couplers. When incident light from an optical source has transverse electric (TE) polarization and its wavelength is 1318 or 1554 nm, their propagation losses are between 0.2 and 0.3 dB/mu m. Excess losses due to the symmetric couplers are around 0.5 dB, which are smaller than those due to the asymmetric couplers. Additional measurement results indicate that the MISIM waveguide supports a TE-polarized hybrid plasmonic mode. Finally, we explain a process of removing the insulator without affecting the remaining MISIM structure to fabricate similar to 30-nm-wide nanochannels which may be filled with functional material.open8

A forecasting of stock trading price using time series information based on big data

Big data is a large set of structured or unstructured data that can collect, store, manage, and analyze data with existing database management tools. And it means the technique of extracting value from these data and interpreting the results. Big data has three characteristics: The size of existing data and other data (volume), the speed of data generation (velocity), and the variety of information forms (variety). The time series data are obtained by collecting and recording the data generated in accordance with the flow of time. If the analysis of these time series data, found the characteristics of the data implies that feature helps to understand and analyze time series data. The concept of distance is the simplest and the most obvious in dealing with the similarities between objects. The commonly used and widely known method for measuring distance is the Euclidean distance. This study is the result of analyzing the similarity of stock price flow using 793,800 closing prices of 1,323 companies in Korea. Visual studio and Excel presented calculate the Euclidean distance using an analysis tool. We selected “000100” as a target domestic company and prepared for big data analysis. As a result of the analysis, the shortest Euclidean distance is the code “143860” company, and the calculated value is “11.147”. Therefore, based on the results of the analysis, the limitations of the study and theoretical implications are suggested

Suppression of vascular endothelial growth factor expression at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels

Gene expression is regulated at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. Therefore, in order to achieve a high level of silencing, which includes minimizing any residual expression of a target gene, suppression at both the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels is required. In this study, we describe a new method for highly efficient gene silencing that combines zinc finger protein-mediated transcriptional repression and small interfering RNA (siRNA)-mediated inhibition of post-transcriptional events. To measure the amount of gene expression under various conditions, we used a luciferase reporter gene that was driven by a variety of promoters, including that of the human vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) gene. We also measured expression of the endogenous VEGF-A gene. Inhibition of gene expression by each of the two individual technologies was effective, but in-depth analyses revealed residual expression of the target gene. The combination of specific zinc finger transcription factors and siRNAs greatly enhanced the silencing of the human VEGF-A gene, not only when cells were grown in the presence of normal amounts of oxygen but also under conditions of hypoxic stimulation. These results suggest that a bi-level approach to the silencing of VEGF-A expression may be clinically beneficial as part of a cancer treatment protocol

High-Performance PVC Gel for Adaptive Micro-Lenses with Variable Focal Length.

This paper presents a bio-inspired adaptive micro-lens with electrically tunable focus made of non-ionic high-molecular-weight polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gel. The optical device mimics the design of the crystalline lens and ciliary muscle of the human eye. It consists of a plano-convex PVC gel micro-lens on Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) glass, confined with an annular electrode operating as an artificial ciliary muscle. Upon electrical activation, the electroactive adhesive force of the PVC gel is exerted on the annular anode electrode, which reduces the sagittal height of the plano-convex PVC gel lens, resulting in focal length variation of the micro-lens. The focal length increases from 3.8 mm to 22.3 mm as the applied field is varied from 200 V/mm to 800 V/mm, comparable to that of the human lens. The device combines excellent optical characteristics with structural simplicity, fast response speed, silent operation, and low power consumption. The results show the PVC gel micro-lens is expected to open up new perspectives on practical tunable optics