Study Design:
This study was a retrospective, multicenter cohort study.
Objectives:
Rare complications of cervical spine surgery are inherently difficult to investigate. Pseudomeningocoele (PMC), an ...abnormal collection of cerebrospinal fluid that communicates with the subarachnoid space, is one such complication. In order to evaluate and better understand the incidence, presentation, treatment, and outcome of PMC following cervical spine surgery, we conducted a multicenter study to pool our collective experience.
Methods:
This study was a retrospective, multicenter cohort study of patients who underwent cervical spine surgery at any level(s) from C2 to C7, inclusive; were over 18 years of age; and experienced a postoperative PMC.
Results:
Thirteen patients (0.08%) developed a postoperative PMC, 6 (46.2%) of whom were female. They had an average age of 48.2 years and stayed in hospital a mean of 11.2 days. Three patients were current smokers, 3 previous smokers, 5 had never smoked, and 2 had unknown smoking status. The majority, 10 (76.9%), were associated with posterior surgery, whereas 3 (23.1%) occurred after an anterior procedure. Myelopathy was the most common indication for operations that were complicated by PMC (46%). Seven patients (53%) required a surgical procedure to address the PMC, whereas the remaining 6 were treated conservatively. All PMCs ultimately resolved or were successfully treated with no residual effects.
Conclusions:
PMC is a rare complication of cervical surgery with an incidence of less than 0.1%. They prolong hospital stay. PMCs occurred more frequently in association with posterior approaches. Approximately half of PMCs required surgery and all ultimately resolved without residual neurologic or other long-term effects.
Handbook of Citizen Science in Ecology and Conservation is the first practical and comprehensive manual for creating, implementing, or improving natural science research and monitoring projects that ...involve collaboration between scientists and the general public. As citizen science projects become increasingly common, project leaders are seeking information on concrete best practices for planning and implementing projects-practices that allow them to guide and gauge success while also ensuring the collection of high-quality data and rewarding experiences for volunteers. In this handbook, citizen science practitioners from around the world and with decades of experience provide step-by-step instructions, insights, and advice, and they explore real-world applications through case studies from a variety of citizen science projects. This is the definitive reference guide for anyone interested in starting or improving a citizen science project with ecological or conservation applications, from professors and graduate students to agency staff and nongovernmental organizations.
BACKGROUND:Antiretroviral therapy (ART) introduced during primary HIV infection followed by treatment interruption (TI) is postulated to enhance virologic control through induction of HIV-specific ...CD4 T cells, which foster virus-specific CD8+ T cells that suppress virus replication. This hypothesis was evaluated in 21 subjects enrolled in AIDS Clinical Trials Group 709, a substudy of AIDS Clinical Trials Group 371, which prospectively evaluated subjects who received ≥1 year of ART initiated in acute or recent HIV infection followed by TI.
METHODS:Lymphoproliferation was assessed by methyl-H thymidine incorporation and HIV-specific CD8+ T-cell interferon-gamma responses by enzyme-linked immunospot-forming assays. Virologic success was defined as sustained viral load <5000 copies per milliliter for 24 weeks after TI.
RESULTS:HIV-specific lymphoproliferative responses were detected at least once in 5 (24%) of 21 subjects, were generally transient, and were unrelated to HIV-specific interferon-gamma responses (P > 0.4). HIV-specific CD8+ interferon-gamma responses increased after 48 weeks of ART (P = 0.03), but failed to predict virologic success (P = 0.18). Compared with seronegative subjects, lymphoproliferation to Candida, cytomegalovirus, and alloantigens was similar in HIV-infected subjects during ART, but lower during TI (P ≤ 0.04).
CONCLUSIONS:HIV-specific CD8+ T-cell interferon-gamma responses expand during ART following primary HIV infection, but are not related to HIV-specific lymphoproliferative responses nor virologic success. Impaired non-HIV antigen-specific lymphoproliferation associated with TI suggests this strategy could be deleterious.
Beyond Zuccotti Park Ronald Shiffman, Rick Bell, Lance Jay Brown, Lynne Elizabeth
10/2012
eBook
The Occupy Wall Street movement has challenged the physical manifestation of the First Amendment rights to freedom of assembly. Where and how can people congregate today? Forty social scientists, ...planners, architects, and civil liberties experts explore the definition, use, role, and importance of public space for the exercise of our democratic rights to free expression. The book also discusses whose voice is heard and what factors limit the participation of minorities in Occupy activities. This foundational work puts issues of democracy and civic engagement back into the center of dialogue about the built environment. Background Beyond Zuccotti Park is a collaborative effort of Pratt Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, City College of New York School of Architecture, New Village Press and its parent organization, Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility. The book is part of an open civic inquiry on the part of these organizations. The project was seeded by a series of free public forums?Freedom of Assembly: Public Space Today?held at the Center for Architecture in response to the forced clearance of Occupy activities from Zuccotti Park and public plazas throughout the country. The first two recorded programs took place on December 17, 2011 and February 4, 2012.
Automated neural circuit reconstruction through electron microscopy (EM) images is a challenging problem. In this paper, we present a novel method that exploits multi-scale contextual information ...together with Radon-like features (RLF) to learn a series of discriminative models. The main idea is to build a framework which is capable of extracting information about cell membranes from a large contextual area of an EM image in a computationally efficient way. Toward this goal, we extract RLF that can be computed efficiently from the input image and generate a scale-space representation of the context images that are obtained at the output of each discriminative model in the series. Compared to a single-scale model, the use of a multi-scale representation of the context image gives the subsequent classifiers access to a larger contextual area in an effective way. Our strategy is general and independent of the classifier and has the potential to be used in any context based framework. We demonstrate that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms in detection of neuron membranes in EM images.
These NCCN Guidelines Insights discuss the major recent updates to the NCCN Guidelines for Bladder Cancer based on the review of the evidence in conjunction with the expert opinion of the panel. ...Recent updates include (1) refining the recommendation of intravesical bacillus Calmette-Guérin, (2) strengthening the recommendations for perioperative systemic chemotherapy, and (3) incorporating immunotherapy into second-line therapy for locally advanced or metastatic disease. These NCCN Guidelines Insights further discuss factors that affect integration of these recommendations into clinical practice.
Problems and Solutions Edgar, Gerald A.; Ullman, Daniel H.; West, Douglas B.
The American mathematical monthly,
20/1/2/, Volume:
125, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
A proposal by David Stoner, a student at Harvard University in Cambridge MA, which supposes that a, b, c, d, e, and f are nonnegative real numbers that satisfy a + b + c = d + e + f . Let t be a real ...number greater than 1. Prove that at least one of the inequalities is false.
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