OBJECTIVE To evaluate the factors related to surgical complications, rate of gastrostomy tube (G-tube) dependence, and hospitalization in patients undergoing reconstruction with a pectoralis myocutaneous flap vs a soft-tissue revascularized flap. DESIGN Quasi-experimental case series with a historic control group. POPULATION A total of 179 patients (138 men and 41 women) with a mean (SD) ag...

Pristine graphene (G) has not received much attention as a catalyst support, presumably due to its relative inertness as compared to reduced graphene oxide (RGO). In the present work, we used swollen liquid crystals (SLCs) as nano-reactors for graphene-palladium nanocomposites synthesis. The 'soft' confinement of SLCs directs the growth of palladium (Pd) nanoparticles over the G sheets. In this...

The singlet pseudoscalar sector of light mesons is investigated in the soft-wall model, a bottom-up approach to AdS/QCD correspondence. ${\ensuremath{\eta}}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ mass results from mixing among fields dual axial current, current and $G\stackrel{\texttildelow{}}{G}$ operator. topological susceptibility computed for any quark mass, Witten-Veneziano relation obtained large ${N}_{c}$ li...

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are a promising soft actuator technology for robotics. Adding robotic functionalities—folding, variable stiffness, and adhesion—into their actuator design is a novel method to create functionalized robots with simplified actuator configurations. We first propose a foldable actuator that has a simple antagonistic DEA configuration allowing bidirectional actu...

Recent research in AI Planning is focused on improving the quality of the generated plans. PDDL3 incorporates hard and soft constraints on goals and the plan trajectory. Plan trajectory constraints are conditions that need to be satisfied at various stages of the plan. Soft goals are goals, which need not necessarily be achieved but are desirable. An extension of Constraint Satisfaction Problem...

The concept of soft sets, introduced by Molodtsov [20] is a mathematicaltool for dealing with uncertainties, that is free from the difficultiesthat have troubled the traditional theoretical approaches. In this paper, weapply the notion of the soft sets of Molodtsov to the theory of Hilbert algebras.The notion of soft Hilbert (abysmal and deductive) algebras, soft subalgebras,soft abysms and sof...

Aims of this prospective study were to evaluate the results of vocal fold structural fat grafting for glottic insufficiency and to compare the outcomes obtained in unilateral vocal fold paralysis (UVFP) and congenital or acquired soft tissue defects in vocal folds. Sixty-six consecutive patients with breathy dysphonia, in 43 cases (aged 16-79 years) related to UVFP and in 23 cases (aged 16-67 y...

BACKGROUND Personality traits are associated with health outcomes including non-communicable diseases. This could be partly explained by lifestyle related factors including diet. The personality traits neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are linked with resilience, meaning adaptability in challenging situations. Resilient people usually comply with favorabl...