Sagittal plane assessment of manual concave rod bending for posterior correction in adolescents with idiopathic thoracic scoliosis (Lenke 1 and 3)

Objectives The objectives of this study were to evaluate the repeatability and reproducibility of a method for measuring freehand rod bending and to analyze the relationship between the rod's bend and the resulting sagittal correction. Materials and methods All the children who underwent correction by posterior translation using pedicle screws at all levels were included prospectively in 2018 and 2019. The rod's sagittal parameters were measured retrospectively by three independent surgeons on two separate occasions using the same protocol. After the rods were bent but before they were inserted, the surgeon traced the contours of the rods on a sheet of paper that was later scanned and analyzed semiautomatically. The spinal parameters were calculated based on biplanar radiographs taken preoperatively, postoperatively and at the final follow-up visit. Patients who had less than 10° thoracic kyphosis (T5–T12) made up the “Lenke N−” subgroup. Results Thirty patients were included (14 of whom were Lenke N−) who had a Cobb angle of 59.2 ± 11.3° preoperatively and 13.3 ± 8.4° postoperatively (p 0.9 (excellent). The mean kyphosis of the concave rod was 48.4 ± 5.7° (38.3–60.9°). The mean change in T5–T12 kyphosis was 9.7 ± 10.8° (−14.3–30.8°) (p < 0.0001) in the entire population, while it was 17.7 ± 7.1° (5.5–30.8°) (p < 0.0001) in the Lenke N− subgroup. The change in thoracic kyphosis was positively correlated with the kyphosis of the concave rod (rho = 0.52; p = 0.003). Conclusion This study found excellent reproducibility and repeatability of measuring freehand rod bending. The kyphosis applied to the concave rod is positively correlated to the change in the resulting kyphosis and made it possible to restore satisfactory thoracic kyphosis

Rethinking business models for innovation

One of the major challenges confronted by those in charge of technological innovation involves anticipating the value creation model sufficiently early on,in a highly uncertain context both as far as the technology itself is concerned and the potential market. Today, in many industrial sectors, the innovation boundaries have moved towards projects that are more and more exploratory and fuzzy. The simple optimisation of linear processes of the "stage-gate" type is no longer sufficient to build sustainable competitive advantages. The notion of Business Models, when applied to innovation, enables us to describe how a company creates value through innovation, generally within a business ecosystem, and how the value will be distributed between the actors involved. The authors of this book believe that the notions of Business Modelling and value creation are key to all the dimensions of successful innovation, whether technology, marketing, organisational or economically based. Rethinking Business Models for Innovation: this title describes the relationship between thinking, modelling, and also field-testing. The book is based on a series of nine recent cases of innovation involving company managers, often assisted by researchers (the co-authors of each chapter), and how they built and formalised their Business Models and then tested their strategies. After having discovered the variety of the cases, the reader will understand that every innovation situation generates specific questions about Business Models. However, we feel that we can identify three key issues that arise, more or less, in each of these projects. The chapters in this book build on these issues: the identification of sources of value and revenue models (the notion of value creation), the position of the company in the value-network or ecosystem (the sharing of value) and finally the evolution of Business MoDdels over time (the sustainability and the competitiveness of the company). The last chapter goes over all the contributions, exploring the notion of value in the Business Model approach.business model ; innovation ; value ; entrepreneurial project

: Lessons from entrepreneurial projects

International audienceOne of the major challenges confronted by those in charge of technological innovation involves anticipating the value creation model sufficiently early on,in a highly uncertain context both as far as the technology itself is concerned and the potential market. Today, in many industrial sectors, the innovation boundaries have moved towards projects that are more and more exploratory and fuzzy. The simple optimisation of linear processes of the "stage-gate" type is no longer sufficient to build sustainable competitive advantages. The notion of Business Models, when applied to innovation, enables us to describe how a company creates value through innovation, generally within a business ecosystem, and how the value will be distributed between the actors involved. The authors of this book believe that the notions of Business Modelling and value creation are key to all the dimensions of successful innovation, whether technology, marketing, organisational or economically based. Rethinking Business Models for Innovation: this title describes the relationship between thinking, modelling, and also field-testing. The book is based on a series of nine recent cases of innovation involving company managers, often assisted by researchers (the co-authors of each chapter), and how they built and formalised their Business Models and then tested their strategies. After having discovered the variety of the cases, the reader will understand that every innovation situation generates specific questions about Business Models. However, we feel that we can identify three key issues that arise, more or less, in each of these projects. The chapters in this book build on these issues: the identification of sources of value and revenue models (the notion of value creation), the position of the company in the value-network or ecosystem (the sharing of value) and finally the evolution of Business MoDdels over time (the sustainability and the competitiveness of the company). The last chapter goes over all the contributions, exploring the notion of value in the Business Model approach.L'innovation technologique, qu'elle soit conduite par des start-ups ou par de grandes entreprises, n'est plus une condition suffisante de la création de valeur. Créer de la valeur sur des marchés nouveaux nécessite le plus souvent de repenser l'organisation de l'entreprise, sa façon de faire des affaires, ses partenariats stratégiques, autrement dit, son business model. Cet ouvrage se veut un guide pour les porteurs de projets d'innovation en leur fournissant des outils de compréhension et d'analyse de la dimension stratégique de leur projet. Les études de cas présentées sont le fruit d'une collaboration étroite entre les porteurs de chacun des projets et des chercheurs en management de l'innovation reconnus. Au travers de ces cas, trois grandes problématiques sont abordées : l'identification des sources de valeur chez les clients potentiels, la position que l'entreprise pourra prendre dans son écosystème et enfin l'évolution des business models dans le temps. Sur chacun des cas, le lecteur aura accès à une compréhension fine des problèmes stratégiques posés par l'innovation ainsi que des outils de management mis en œuvre pour aider à réfléchir et à agir. (http://www.rethinkingbusinessmodel.net/

SREB, a GATA Transcription Factor That Directs Disparate Fates in Blastomyces dermatitidis Including Morphogenesis and Siderophore Biosynthesis

Blastomyces dermatitidis belongs to a group of human pathogenic fungi that exhibit thermal dimorphism. At 22°C, these fungi grow as mold that produce conidia or infectious particles, whereas at 37°C they convert to budding yeast. The ability to switch between these forms is essential for virulence in mammals and may enable these organisms to survive in the soil. To identify genes that regulate this phase transition, we used Agrobacterium tumefaciens to mutagenize B. dermatitidis conidia and screened transformants for defects in morphogenesis. We found that the GATA transcription factor SREB governs multiple fates in B. dermatitidis: phase transition from yeast to mold, cell growth at 22°C, and biosynthesis of siderophores under iron-replete conditions. Insertional and null mutants fail to convert to mold, do not accumulate significant biomass at 22°C, and are unable to suppress siderophore biosynthesis under iron-replete conditions. The defect in morphogenesis in the SREB mutant was independent of exogenous iron concentration, suggesting that SREB promotes the phase transition by altering the expression of genes that are unrelated to siderophore biosynthesis. Using bioinformatic and gene expression analyses, we identified candidate genes with upstream GATA sites whose expression is altered in the null mutant that may be direct or indirect targets of SREB and promote the phase transition. We conclude that SREB functions as a transcription factor that promotes morphogenesis and regulates siderophore biosynthesis. To our knowledge, this is the first gene identified that promotes the conversion from yeast to mold in the dimorphic fungi, and may shed light on environmental persistence of these pathogens

Transcribing "Le Pèlerinage de Damoiselle Sapience": Scholarly Editing Covid19-Style

This article describes a methodological experiment conducted during the 13th Annual (Virtual) Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age, hosted by the University of Pennsylvania, November 18–20, 2020. The experiment consisted of a “relay style” event in which three teams transcribed, revised, and prepared for submission to this journal a full edition of the “Le Pèlerinage de Damoiselle Sapience” and other texts from UPenn Ms Codex 660, ff. 86r–95v within the three-day timespan of the conference. The project used methods typical of crowdsourcing and drew participants from all over the world and from all different stages of their careers. After one group completed its work, the results were passed into the hands of the next. The final result—in the form of a finished manuscript edition, ready for submission to Digital Medievalist—was presented on the last day of the conference. The main purpose of this experiment was to demonstrate how the work of the transcriber and editor might be structured as a short-term digital event that relied wholly on virtual interactions with both the source materials and among collaborators. This method also reveals the positive aspects of the many challenges posed by working simultaneously, remotely, and globally

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good

Search for stop and higgsino production using diphoton Higgs boson decays

Results are presented of a search for a "natural" supersymmetry scenario with gauge mediated symmetry breaking. It is assumed that only the supersymmetric partners of the top-quark (stop) and the Higgs boson (higgsino) are accessible. Events are examined in which there are two photons forming a Higgs boson candidate, and at least two b-quark jets. In 19.7 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collision data at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, recorded in the CMS experiment, no evidence of a signal is found and lower limits at the 95% confidence level are set, excluding the stop mass below 360 to 410 GeV, depending on the higgsino mass