STUDY DESIGN Multicenter randomized controlled trial. OBJECTIVE To compare the efficacy and safety of balloon kyphoplasty (BKP) with nonsurgical management (NSM) during 24 months in patients with painful vertebral compression fractures (VCFs). SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Recently, several large randomized controlled trials have been conducted and reported how vertebral augmentation compares ...

Neurogenic stunned myocardium (NSM) is a well-known complication of subarachnoidal hemorrhage, but has been reported rarely in association with other central nervous system disorders. A case of NSM is described in a patient with hemorrhagic brain contusion associated with cerebral edema. An 18-year-old man was admitted with severe cranial trauma following a car roll-over. Six days after admissi...

BACKGROUND To compare improvement in quality of life (QoL) and symptoms' relief in vertebral compression fractures (VCF) due to osteoporosis for patients undergoing balloon kyphoplasty (BKP) to those undergoing non-surgical management (NSM) in a real-life setting. METHODS In this prospective, comparative study, quality-of-life was evaluated in eight centres in Germany between 2005 and 2008, f...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Nipple-sparing mastectomy (NSM) is a widely accepted surgical technique for patients with early breast cancer. The technique improves cosmetic outcomes, but a decrease in nipple sensitivity has been observed with NSM because of the incision into the nipple-areola complex (NAC). Endoscopic nipple-sparing mastectomy with skin lifting system (ENSMSLS) removes all breast t...

Cell fates in the sea urchin embryo are remarkably labile, despite the fact that maternal polarity and zygotic programs of differential gene expression pattern the embryo from the earliest stages. Recent work has focused on transcriptional gene regulatory networks (GRNs) deployed in specific embryonic territories during early development. The micromere-primary mesenchyme cell (PMC) GRN drives t...

Introduction The material interpretation of conditionals is commonly recognized as involving some paradoxical results. I here argue that the truth functional approach to natural language is the reason for the inadequacy of this material interpretation, since the truth or falsity of some pair of statements ‘p’ and ‘q’ cannot per se be decisive for the truth or falsity of a conditional relation ‘...

Verification of functional correctness of control programs is an essential task for the development of space electronics; it is difficult and time-consuming and typically outweighs design and programming tasks in terms of development hours. We present a verification approach designed to help spacecraft engineers reduce the effort required for formal verification of low-level control programs ex...

Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) is a member of the genus Phlebovirus within the family Bunyaviridae. It can cause severe epidemics among ruminants and fever, myalgia, a hemorrhagic syndrome, and/or encephalitis in humans. The RVFV M segment encodes the NSm and 78-kDa proteins and two major envelope proteins, Gn and Gc. The biological functions of the NSm and 78-kDa proteins are unknown; both pro...

BACKGROUND The simple and well-described structure of the C. elegans nervous system offers an unprecedented opportunity to identify the genetic programs that define the connectivity and function of individual neurons and their circuits. A correspondingly precise gene expression map of C. elegans neurons would facilitate the application of genetic methods toward this goal. Here we describe a pow...