Filamentous bulking is caused by the excessive growth of filaments over floc formers, and their competition was previously described using kinetic selection. However, recent studies reported that instead of kinetic selection, diffusion limitation inside the flocs may be the crucial factor in microbial selection. To clarify the roles of these factors in explaining filamentous bulking, a new conc...

This study was conducted to determine the safety and efficacy of injectable bulking agents. A total of 13 procedures were performed on 11 patients with faecal incontinence during 2002 to 2007. Patients with internal anal sphincter defect and low incontinence score (Cleveland score < 10) revealed improvement. Patients with higher incontinence score and external sphincter defect secondary to obst...

INTRODUCTION There are a myriad of treatment options available for patients suffering with the increasingly prevalent condition of stress urinary incontinence (SUI). The minimally invasive nature of periurethral bulking agents makes them an attractive proposition in the correctly selected patient. There is, however, limited data available on the medium to long term safety and efficacy of this p...

1 of 2 DESCRIPTION An 85-year-old lady returned to the urology clinic for review 10 months postcystoscopically guided proximal urethral Zuidex injection for the treatment of stress urinary incontinence. Zuidex is a combination of dextranomer and hyaluronic acid. It is used as a minimally invasive alternative to surgical stress urinary incontinence procedures. She had urinary urgency and a tende...

In this paper, a classifier is proposed and trained to distinguish between bulking and non-bulking situations in an activated sludge wastewater treatment plant, based on available image analysis information and with the goal of predicting and monitoring filamentous bulking. After selecting appropriate activated sludge parameters (filament length, floc fractal dimension and floc roundness), an L...

This paper is the first part of a series of two papers dealing with bulking: a quasi-order on cellular automata comparing space-time diagrams up to some rescaling. Bulking is a generalization of grouping taking into account universality phenomena, giving rise to a maximal equivalence class. In the present paper, we discuss the proper components of grouping and study the most general extensions....

In our previous study, growth factor (basic fibroblast growth factor [bFGF] or vascular endothelial growth factor)-immobilized polycaprolactone (PCL)/Pluronic F127 porous beads were fabricated by an isolated particle-melting/melt-molding particulate-leaching method. The growth factors were easily immobilized onto the pore surfaces of the PCL/F127 beads via heparin binding, and were continuously...