Abstract Purpose The present study compared patients developing ASD after L4/5 spinal fusion with a control group using patient-specific statistical shape model (SSM) to find alignment-differences between the groups. Methods This included who had undergone at and either remained asymptomatic (control group; n = 25, follow-up of > 4 years) or required revision surgery for epifusional ( 22). L...

Most of the approaches to retrieve surface soil moisture (SSM) by optical and thermal infrared (TIR) spectroscopies are purposed calculate various characteristic bands/indices then establish regression relationship between them in combination with measurement data. However, due combined impact many factors, often shows nonlinearity. Moreover, single temporal image measured data not transplantab...

Aim: To provide an up-to-date review of the literature on skin-sparing mastectomy (SSM) for breast cancer (BC). The article also reviews the oncological safety, effects of radiotherapy (RT) on immediate breast reconstruction (IBR), the indications for preserving the nipple-areola complex (NAC) and the emerging role of allogenic grafts as adjuncts to implant in IBR. Methods: Review of the Englis...

Slipped-strand mispairing (SSM) has not been identified as a mechanism of phase variation in Escherichia coli. Using a reporter gene, we show that sequences that cause phase variation by SSM in Haemophilus influenzae also lead to phase variation when introduced onto the chromosome of E. coli, and the frequencies of switching are in the biologically relevant range. Thus, the absence of SSM-media...

Agricultural water use represents more than 70% of the world’s freshwater through irrigation inputs that are poorly known at field scale. Irrigation monitoring is thus an important issue for optimizing in particular with regards to scarcity semi-arid regions already facing. In this context, aim study develop and evaluate a new approach predict seasonal daily timing amounts The method based on s...

AIM To review evidence concerning the oncological safety of performing skin-sparing mastectomy (SSM) for invasive breast cancer and ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Furthermore, the evidence concerning RT in relation to SSM and the possibility of nipple preservation was considered. METHODS Literature review facilitated by Medline and PubMed databases. FINDINGS Despite the lack of randomised...

a model of the iranian wheat market is specified and fitted to data from 1981-2008. severaldiagnostic tests were employed in the analysis to determine the specification of the model. despitethe simplicity of the model and data problems, an examination of the econometric model leads toseveral conclusions with possible important policy implications for the wheat economy in iran.the general result...

This paper proposes a novel approach of skeletonization for both binary and gray-scale images based on the Skeleton Strength Map (SSM) calculated from Euclidean distance transform. The distance transform is firstly computed based on the boundary edges, and then its gradient vector field is calculated. After that, the isotropic diffusion is performed on the gradient vector field and the SSM is c...

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) simulation versus dry lab suturing practice at improving suturing performance in robotic surgery. Nineteen novice participants with no prior robotic suturing experience were randomized to two groups, VR simulation and dry lab, which consisted of inanimate training on a da Vinci Si surgical system. Each group unde...

To estimate integrated precipitable water vapour along with liquid water path and water vapour effective profile (i.e. standard atmospheric profile approximation), utilising the SSM/I and TMI radiometers, an operative procedure was developed and assessed. This procedure is based on a fast nonlinear physical inversion algorithm (PIn) developed by the authors. A large data-set of near-coincident ...