STUDY DESIGN A cross-sectional study design was used. OBJECTIVE The objective was to examine the influences of body anthropometrics, axial disc area, and lifting strength on disc degeneration and to compare these with the effects of lifetime physical demands and age. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Although recent studies have shown that heredity is a dominant factor in disc degeneration, the co...

Accurately detection of retinal landmarks, like optic disc, is an important step in the computer aided diagnosis frameworks. This paper presents an efficient method for automatic detection of the optic disc’s center and estimating its boundary. The center and initial diameter of optic disc are estimated by employing an ANN classifier. The ANN classifier employs visual features of vessels and th...

Three-dimensional L4-L5 finite element (FE) models of three disc heights (9.5mm, 11.5mm, and 13.5mm) and three disc wedge angles (5o, 8 o, and 10 o) were developed to investigate their effect on L4-L5 lumbar motion segment under pure axial compressive loading. The FE predictions indicated that the axial disc displacement and the posterior disc bulge increased greatly with an increase in the ave...

We investigate the accretion disc structure in the strongly Comptonised spectra seen at high luminosities from galactic black holes (variously termed the very high or steep power law dominant state). We use simultaneous ASCA-RXTE data on two such spectra from the black hole transient XTE J1550-564 to constrain the disc and Comptonized luminosity. The broad bandpass of the data gives robust esti...

BACKGROUND To investigate large cup-to-disc ratios (CDR) in children and to determine the relationship between parental CDR and clinical characteristics associated with glaucoma. METHODS Two hundred thirty six children aged 6 to 12 years with CDR ≥ 0.6 were enrolled in this study. Subjects were classified into two groups based on parental CDR: disc suspect children with disc suspect (CDR ≥0.6...

STUDY DESIGN An in vitro biomechanical study using aged human and adolescent porcine discs. OBJECTIVES To find the leakage pathway and effect of needle gauge on the degree of disc injury post anular puncture. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Spinal needles are widely used for minimal invasive disc surgeries and disc degeneration/regeneration research. Applications of anular puncture require diffe...

Congenital abnormalities of the optic disc are not so rare. The etiology for the most of them is unknown. Visual acuity of affected eye may be minimally or severely affected, depending on the extent of lesion. All of these conditions can be unilateral or bilateral. Children who have unilateral optic disc abnormalities generally present during the preschool years with sensory esotropia. Visual a...

STUDY DESIGN Measurement and normalization of disc geometry parameters for several animal models used in disc research. OBJECTIVES To compare normalized values of disc geometry to the human disc geometry to aid in the selection and interpretation of animal model studies. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Animal models are widely used to study intervertebral disc degeneration and to evaluate disc t...

An interaction between a star-disc system and another star will perturb the disc, possibly resulting in a significant modification of the disc structure and its properties. It is still unclear if such an encounter can trigger fragmentation of the disc to form brown dwarfs or gas giant planets. This paper details high resolution Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations investigating the...