BACKGROUND Ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt insertion remains the mainstay of treatment for hydrocephalus despite a high rate of complications. The predictors of shunt malfunction have been studied mostly in pediatric patients. In this study, we report our 11-year experience with VP shunts in adult patients with hydrocephalus. We also assess the various factors affecting shunt survival in a deve...

Background: Shunting procedures specifically ventriculoperitoneal shunts are the main line of treatment for management of hydrocephalus despite available new techniques and systems of shunting. Associated complications should be recognized and managed properly,but the most recognized complications are shunt obstruction which its prevalence through surgical approach is discussed here. Two approa...

Endoscopic bilateral stenting has been increasingly performed for advanced hilar obstruction. As disease progresses, stent malfunction eventually occurs. However, endoscopic reintervention is difficult in these patients. We aimed to evaluate a suitable reintervention procedure for stent malfunction after stent-in-stent (SIS) deployment for malignant hilar obstruction.Among 52 patients with bila...

The twiddler syndrome is an uncommon cause of pacemaker malfunction, in which twisting or rotating of the device in its pocket results in lead retraction or coiling and subsequent malfunction of an implanted devices such as a pacemaker, an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT).  This report describes a rare case of twiddler syndrome after implant...

(-)-Tulipalin B and (+)-6-tuliposide B were confirmed to inhibit MurA in vitro. However, contrary to fosfomycin, these compounds showed potent inhibitory activities against MurA overexpressing Escherichia coli, especially in the presence of UDP-GlcNAc. These observations suggest that these compounds induced bacterial cell death not through a MurA malfunction, but in such a MurA-mediated indirec...

BACKGROUND ShuntCheck (Neuro Diagnostic Devices, Inc., Trevose, Pennsylvania) is a new device designed to detect cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow in a shunt by sensing skin temperature downstream from a region of CSF cooled by an ice cube. OBJECTIVE To understand its accuracy and utility, we evaluated the use of this device during routine office visits as well as during workup for suspected shu...

In order to reduce the tailpipe particulate matter emissions of Diesel engines, Diesel particulate filters (DPFs) are commonly used. Initial studies using a conductometric soot sensor to monitor their filtering efficiency, i.e., to detect a malfunction of the DPF, are presented. The sensors consist of a planar substrate equipped with electrodes on one side and with a heater on the other. It is ...

Ataxia is a neurological symptom characterized by abnormal movement, due to cerebellar malfunction. Although the cause of the malfunction varies, from mutations in calcium or potassium channels to progressive degeneration of cerebellar tissue, the neurological symptoms of cerebellar-related ataxia are similar. In this short review we present a model that portrays the olivo-cerebellar system as ...

Ataxia is a neurological symptom characterized by abnormal movement, due to cerebellar malfunction. Although the cause of the malfunction varies, from mutations in calcium or potassium channels to progressive degeneration of cerebellar tissue, the neurological symptoms of cerebellar-related ataxia are similar. In this short review we present a model that portrays the olivo-cerebellar system as ...

We present a data storage scheme for sensor networks that achieves the targets of encryption and distributed storage simultaneously. We partition the data to be stored into numerous pieces such that at least a specific number of them have to be brought together to recreate the data. The procedure for creation of partitions does not use any encryption key and the pieces are implicitly secure. Th...