Prediction of fatigue screw loosening in anterior spinal fixation using dual energy x-ray absorptiometry

STUDY DESIGN: A biomechanical study was performed to investigate a relation between the bone mineral density of the vertebral body and the number of loading cycles to induce fatigue loosening of an anterior vertebral screw. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to investigate the potential usefulness of dual energy x-ray absorptiometry of measuring bone mineral density of the vertebral body in predicting the fatigue loosening of th anterior vertebral screw. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: Loosening of the vertebral body screw is a well know failure in spinal instrumentation, and more commonly observed than pullout failure. The relation between bone mineral density and pullout strength of the screw has been investigated previously, but no studies are available on the fatigue loosening in anterior spinal fixation. METHODS: Bone mineral density was measured using dual energy x-ray absorptiometry and the screw loosening was produce by a cyclic loading in the cephalad-caudal direction. Screw loosening was defined as 1 mm displacement of the screw relative to bone, and the number of loading cycles to induce the screw loosening was obtained and statistically correlated with bone mineral density. RESULTS: There was a positive correlation between the number of loading cycles to induce screw loosening and bone mineral density (R = 0.8, P < 0.01). The average number of loading cycles to induce screw loosening was significantly less for specimens with bone mineral density < 0.45 g/cm2 compared to those with bone mineral density > or = g/cm2. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that bone mineral density may be a good predictor of anterior vertebral screw loosening. Bone mineral density < 0.45 g/cm2 may be critical value of loosening of the anterior vertebral body screw. However, further biomechanical and clinical studies are required before using threshold value clinically.     

Effect of stress triaxiality levels in crack tip regions on the characteristics of void growth and fracture criteria

The behaviour of void growth in the crack tip regions of four specimen geometries with different stress triaxiality levels have been investigated by the FEM method and experimental observations in plane strain and plane stress cases respectively. It was found that the shape change of growing voids, the configurations of a blunting crack tip and the sizes of decreasing ligament between the void and the crack tip are strongly dependent upon the stress triaxiality levels. Under the condition of plane stress, the stress triaxiality on the ligaments of cracks are nearly the same for different specimen geometries, also the void growth, crack tip blunting asnd decreasing of ligament size are identical for various specimens with increasing load levels, which lead to the conclusion that the J_i-value is independent of specimen geometries. However, in the plain strain case, different void growth, crack tip blunting and decreasing in ligament size for various stress triaxiality levels directly caused the J_i-value to be dependent on the specimen geometries. It was found that when the void is linked to the blunting crack tip by the extrapolation to the zero ligament from FEM calculations, the J_i values, measured experimentally, are underestimated slightly.     

Highly active lanthanum doped nickel anode for solid oxide fuel cells directly fuelled with methane

Lanthanum doped nickel and YSZ composite anode (LaNi–YSZ) exhibited a greatly reduced polarization resistance and high performance for electrochemical oxidation of hydrogen and methane, which resulted from a fine anode structure with a high dispersion of nickel catalyst and a high catalytic activity towards methane.     

F150交换机告警关联规则的研究

为了提高电信网络运营效率，降低维护成本，电信运营企业在网络告警管理系统中需要引入数据挖掘技术。本文主要研究利用数据挖掘技术来进行故障的管理，即对告警进行关联性分析，详细分析了告警序列数据的关联规则挖掘算法，并在南昌本地网F150交换机的告警数据库中予以实现，同时对实际挖掘结果进行分析和整理，推导出一些实用的关联规则。     

99Tcm-MDP scintigraphy in high-voltage electrical burn patients

In high-voltage electrical burn injuries (> 1000 V), it is difficult to identify the site and extent of non-viable deep tissue damage for debridement to avoid further tissue injury from wound infection and the risk of sepsis. This prospective study was designed to evaluate the usefulness of 99Tcm-methylene di-phosphonate (99Tcm-MDP) scintigraphy in detecting the extent of tissue injury and determining the level of amputation required for electrical burn patients. Over a 5 year period, 33 high-voltage electrical burn patients were studied. Blood flow and blood pool studies revealed absent perfusion in 37 limbs, all of which eventually were amputated. In addition to a routine three-phase bone scan, images were obtained at 30-60 min (early images) to evaluate whether soft tissue injury could be detected better at that time. For comparison of the detection rate from the early images and bone (delayed) images, 164 corresponding spot views of both images were reviewed. Eighty-three and 125 tissue necrotic lesions were demonstrated by the early images and bone images respectively. All of the 83 lesions found by the early images were more clearly identified by the bone images. All but one of the 125 lesions underwent surgical debridement or amputation. We concluded that the blood flow and blood pool images correlated well with the level of amputation required. The site and extent of tissue necrotic lesions can be clearly identified on 99Tcm-MDP bone scans. Because the early images were less sensitive in detecting tissue necrosis, we suggest that early imaging is not necessary.     

Expression, exon-intron organization, and chromosome mapping of the human sodium iodide symporter

The active iodide uptake of the thyroid gland in humans is mediated by the human sodium iodide symporter (hNIS). In this report, we show that hNIS expression was detected primarily in thyroid tissue, but also in breast, colon, and ovary tissues. Expression of hNIS is greatly reduced in thyroid tumors compared to normal thyroid tissue. Among tumor tissues, hNIS expression appears to be variable, consistent with the variable response to radioiodide treatment observed for thyroid carcinomas. The coding region of hNIS is interrupted by 14 introns, and the nucleotide sequence of each exon-intron junction is reported. Using this information, an alternatively spliced form of hNIS was identified. Finally, the chromosome location of the hNIS gene was mapped to chromosome 19p.     

Performance evaluation of a multichannel transceiver system forADSL and VHDSL services

The authors study the performance of a multichannel modulation method for asymmetric digital subscriber lines (ADSLs) and very high-speed digital subscriber lines (VHDSLs). In the ADSL case, over all unloaded North American subscriber lines in the test set, a unidirectional 1.536 Mb/s data rate service from the end office to the customer premises is possible on a single twisted pair at an error rate of 10^-7 with at least a 6 dB margin used coded multichannel modulation with sufficient transmit power. In the VHDSL case, data rates in excess of 100 Mb/s can be transmitted reliably, at an error rate of 10^-7, using uncoded multichannel modulation on a single twisted pair over a distance ⩽150 ft with a sufficiently high sampling rate (≈24 MHz) and transmit power. It is shown that a cost-effective multichannel transceiver design suggested for high-speed digital subscriber line (HDSL) service will also work well for ADSL and VHDSL services with only minimal modifications