Successful Treatment of Atypical Femoral Fracture with Bowed Femur Using Contralateral Intramedullary Nail Combined with Early Daily Teriparatide

We report a case of atypical femoral fracture achieving early fracture union with combination therapy comprising contralateral nail and immediate teriparatide injection. Fracture union of atypical fractures is often delayed due to bowing deformity and bone metabolic disorders. Combination treatment that takes both problems into consideration represents a useful treatment option for atypical femoral fracture

Ultrasonographic Evaluation of Thymus in Holstein Calves and Heifers and its Diagnostic Application

This study was performed to evaluate the cross section of the thymus in 46 clinically healthy Holstein calves and heifers from birth to 100 weeks of age and 8 age-matched affected animals with chronic bronchopneumonia by ultrasonography. The cross sectional area of the thymus increased in healthy calves and heifers from birth to 31 weeks of age, peaked around 35 weeks of age, and then decreased until 100 weeks after birth. A positive correlation (r= 0.74, P<0.05) was found between the area in cross section and the weight of the whole thymus in calves and heifers with chronic bronchopneumonia. The cross- sectional areas of the thymus were significantly (P<0.05) lowered in animals with chronic bronchopneumonia. The cross sections of thymus in clinically healthy calves at 2 weeks of age and heifers at 34 weeks and 87 weeks of age were hypoechoic, moderately hyperechoic and hyperechoic, respectively. The observation of thymus by ultrasonography seems to be an effective tool for estimating the size of the thymus objectively in Holstein calves and heifers from birth to 100 weeks of age. The results of this study prove the approach to be useful and applicable to monitor the growth of thymus in Holstein calves and heifers and their association with chronic pneumonia

Deciphering Time Scale Hierarchy in Reaction Networks

Markovian dynamics on complex reaction networks are one of the most intriguing subjects in a wide range of research fields including chemical reactions, biological physics, and ecology. To represent the global kinetics from one node (corresponding to a basin on an energy landscape) to another requires information on multiple pathways that directly or indirectly connect these two nodes through the entire network. In this paper we present a scheme to extract a hierarchical set of global transition states (TSs) over a discrete-time Markov chain derived from first-order rate equations. The TSs can naturally take into account the multiple pathways connecting any pair of nodes. We also propose a new type of disconnectivity graph (DG) to capture the hierarchical organization of different time scales of reactions that can capture changes in the network due to changes in the time scale of observation. The crux is the introduction of the minimum conductance cut (MCC) in graph clustering, corresponding to the dividing surface across the network having the “smallest” transition probability between two disjoint subnetworks (superbasins on the energy landscape) in the network. We present a new combinatorial search algorithm for finding this MCC. We apply our method to a reaction network of Claisen rearrangement of allyl vinyl ether that consists of 23 nodes and 66 links (saddles on the energy landscape) connecting them. We compare the kinetic properties of our DG to those of the transition matrix of the rate equations and show that our graph can properly reveal the hierarchical organization of time scales in a network