BACKGROUND There is no study concerning safety and accuracy of pedicle screw placement in Marfan syndrome. The objective of this study is to investigate accuracy and safety of pedicle screw placement in scoliosis associated with Marfan syndrome. METHODS CT scanning was performed to analyze accuracy of pedicle screw placement. Pedicle perforations were classified as medial, lateral or anterior...

A field experiment was conducted during kharif season of 2010 and 2011 to investigate the optimization of nitrogen levels under different age of seedlings transplanted on growth, chlorophyll content, yield and economics of hybrid rice. Fifteen treatment combinations consisted of three levels of seedlings age (10, 20 and 30 days) and five levels of nitrogen viz. N0, N50, N100, N150 and N200 kg h...

Eucalypts is one of the main species used for commercial reforestation in the Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. This study aimed to evaluate the survival and early growth of eucalyptus trees in an area subject to sandy process after three years of growth. The Eucalyptus grandis seedlings were grown in a greenhouse, inoculated or not with the isolated ectomycorrhizal Pisolithus microcarpus (UFSC-...

Invasive shade tolerant species can have profound and long-lasting detrimental effects even on previously undisturbed forests. In North American forests, the invasive Acer platanoides is capable of dominating the understory where it could displace the native Acer saccharum. To understand the relative importance of various ecological factors in a forest understory on their establishment, we tran...

A method is presented that helps novice users understand the language expressions that a system can accept, even from unacceptable utterances made that may contain automatic speech recognition errors. We have developed a method that dynamically generates help messages, which can avoid further unacceptable utterances from being made, by estimating a users’ knowledge from their utterances. To imp...

A number of North American oaks are experiencing recruitment failure, with explanatory hypotheses including a range of consumer- or resource-based limitations. Using a factorial experiment with transplanted seedlings, we demonstrate how direct and indirect consumer effects prevent recruitment by Quercus garryana, a keystone savanna species of northwestern North America. Foremost, intense herbiv...

Some industry and policy actors are concerned about public opposition to civil drones, in particular because of their association with military drones. However, very little is understood about public reactions to the technology. Strategies to 'manage public acceptance' have so far relied upon several untested assumptions. We conducted public engagement activities to explore citizens' visions of...

We describe the use of the extrastimulus technique to define the range of sinus node (SN) effective refractoriness (SNERP) in the denervated transplanted human heart. SNERP could be successfully determined in 18 of 28 patients corresponding to 25 of 43 SN studies and ranged from 210 to 360 ms at a basic pacing cycle length of 500 ms (95 percent confidence limits: 252.5 to 296.2 ms), which is sh...

Native tree species are frequently unable to effectively grow in non-native cultivation scenarios. In the Loess Plateau, China, it is difficult find native oak (Quercus liaotungensis) seedlings black locust forests. Black an arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) tree, but ectomycorrhizal (ECM) tree. Plants highly depend on their symbiotic fungi take up water, nitrogen (N) and other nutrients. We hypothes...