Study Design Retrospective comparative study. Objective A narrow spinal canal is an important risk factor for predicting a spinal cord injury (SCI); however, the radiologic parameters have not been fully established. The authors conducted a comparative study to forecast SCI risk by determining a predictive spinal canal diameter (SCD) cutoff value from magnetic resonance image (MRI) in the Korea...

We extend the Charge-Displacement (CD) analysis, already successfully employed to describe the nature of intermolecular interactions [L. Belpassi et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 132, 13046 (2010)] and various types of controversial chemical bonds [L. Belpassi et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 130, 1048 (2008); N. Salvi et al., Chem. Eur. J. 16, 7231 (2010)], to study the charge fluxes accompanying electron e...

PURPOSE To determine the dose of contrast medium and the imaging strategy sufficient to detect diffusion of low-molecular-weight gadolinium-containing contrast media into normal intervertebral disks. METHODS In 11 rabbits, sequential MR images were obtained of the spine for 120 minutes after intravenous injection of gadopentetate dimeglumine in doses of 0.1 to 2.8 mmol/kg. Images were inspect...

Study Design Single-center, retrospective study. Objective Suboptimal concentrations of vitamin D have been linked to hip and knee osteoarthritis in large, population-based cohort studies. We sought to examine the association of vitamin D levels with intervertebral disk disease. Methods From January 2010 through May 2011, 91 consecutive, eligible adult spine surgery patients who had undergone c...

Degeneration of the intervertebral disk and its treatments are currently intensely investigated topics. Back pain is a condition whose chronic and debilitating nature combined with its prevalence make it a major health issue of substantial socioeconomic importance. Although researchers, and even sometimes clinicians, focus on the degenerated disk as the problem, to most patients, pain is the fa...

A multicomponent indicator displacement assay (MIDA) based on an organometallic receptor and three dyes can be used for the identification and quantification of nucleotides in aqueous solution at neutral pH.

PURPOSE AND METHODS Postmyelography CT studies of 84 patients with 114 thoracic herniated disks were reviewed for endplate irregularity, sclerosis, and/or disk-space calcification that could suggest a migratory path of the herniated fragment. RESULTS Abnormal straight or curvilinear densities (the "nuclear trial sign") were present at the level of the disk or endplate in 46% of the cases. MR ...

We examine the capability of mean square displacement (MSD) analysis to extract reliable values of the diffusion coefficient D of a single particle undergoing Brownian motion in an isotropic medium in the presence of localization uncertainty. The theoretical results, supported by simulations, show that a simple unweighted least-squares fit of the MSD curve can provide the best estimate of D pro...

Exogenous environmental changes are known to affect the intrinsic characteristics of biological organizms. For instance, the synthesis rate of the morphogen decapentaplegic (Dpp) in a Drosophila wing imaginal disc has been found to double with an increase of 5.9°C in ambient temprerature. If not compensated, such a change would alter the signaling Dpp gradient significantly and thereby the deve...

The evidence for character displacement as a widespread response to competition is now building. This progress is largely the result of the establishment of rigorous criteria for demonstrating character displacement in the animal literature. There are, however, relatively few well-supported examples of character displacement in plants. This review explores the potential for character displaceme...