BACKGROUND The benefits of extreme lateral interbody fusion (XLIF) as a minimally invasive lumbar spinal fusion treatment for lumbar degenerative spondylolisthesis have been unclear. We sought to evaluate the invasiveness and tolerability of XLIF with percutaneous pedicle screws (PPS) compared with traditional open posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF). METHODS Fifty-six consecutive patien...

OBJECTIVE To obtain information on the socioeconomic, medical, and functional status of polio survivors, and to use these results as the preliminary data for establishing the middle-aged cohort of polio survivors. METHODS The subjects were recruited based on the medical records of multiple hospitals and centers. They were assessed through a structured questionnaire over the phone. Post-poliom...

Here we show the application of a commercially available photopatternable silicone (PPS) that combines advantages of both PDMS and SU-8 to address a critical need in material building blocks for bioMEMS. Using PPS we have demonstrated the ability to pattern free-standing mechanically isolated elastomeric structures on a silicon substrate, a feat challenging to approach using soft lithography-ba...

Peripersonal space (PPS) is the immediately surrounding body, conceptualised as a sensory-motor interface between body and environment. PPS size differs individuals contexts, with intrapersonal traits states, well social factors having determining role on of PPS. Testosterone plays an important in regulating social-motivational behaviour known to enhance dominance motivation implicit unconsciou...

BACKGROUND We physically interact with external stimuli when they occur within a limited space immediately surrounding the body, i.e., Peripersonal Space (PPS). In the primate brain, specific fronto-parietal areas are responsible for the multisensory representation of PPS, by integrating tactile, visual and auditory information occurring on and near the body. Dynamic stimuli are particularly re...

BACKGROUND Depressive symptoms and reduced quality of life (QOL) are parts of the chronic stress syndrome and predictive of adverse outcome in patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD). Chronic stress is associated with increased sensitivity for pain, which can be measured by algometry as Pressure Pain Sensitivity (PPS) on the sternum. AIM To evaluate if stress focus by self-measurement of P...

Intracellular protein degradation is an essential process in all life domains. While in all eukaryotes regulated protein degradation involves ubiquitin tagging and the 26S-proteasome, bacterial prokaryotic ubiquitin-like protein (Pup) tagging and proteasomes are conserved only in species belonging to the phyla Actinobacteria and Nitrospira. In Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the Pup-proteasome syst...

Pleural plaques (PPs) may be a risk factor for mortality from lung cancer in asbestos-exposed workers and are considered to be a marker of exposure. Diagnosing PPs is also important because asbestos-exposed patients should be offered a health surveillance that is mandatory in many countries. On the other hand PPs are useful for compensation purposes. In this study we aimed to evaluate the preva...

CONTEXT The spatial relationship of posterior palatal seal (PPS) width and vibrating lines varies among individuals. Such variability could be related to contour of the palate. AIMS The study was carried out to evaluate the relationship between PPS width of the patient intra-orally and cephalometric tracing of the same patient. Second part of the study was formulated to determine whether the ...

To study the effects of clinicians' slow rate on the speech of children who stutter with and without a concomitant phonological disorder, an A-B-A-B single case design was used with six clinician-child dyads, where B = Clinician's slow speech rate model. Two boys and one girl, aged 49-54 months, stuttering with disordered phonology (S + DP), were compared to three boys aged 42-50 months, stutte...