PURPOSE To retrospectively evaluate factors leading to total hip arthroplasty (THA) in patients with subchondral insufficiency fractures (SIF) of the femoral head. METHODS. 5 men and 22 women aged 51 to 85 (mean, 72) years with SIF of the femoral head initially underwent conservative treatment. THA was later performed for 13 patients, as the hip pain became worse secondary to joint space narrow...

Sperm immobilizing (SIF) and sperm agglutinating factor (SAF) (already isolated in our laboratory) from Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli, respectively, have shown 100 % infertility in female mice. These microbial factors neither induce any abnormalities in the vaginal cell morphology nor do they affect structural integrity of vaginal epithelium. Therefore, the present study was carrie...

Fracture and failure characterization of materials have been a crucial issue regarding reliable structural design. Stress Intensity Factor (SIF) is one of the most commonly used material parameters for more purpose. This study utilized Compact Tension (CT) Specimen test to determine mode-I SIF of polycarbonate material. Force, displacement and images of the near crack tip region were simultaneo...

Yersinia enterocolitica is one of three pathogenic Yersinia species that share a tropism for lymphoid tissues. However, infection of an immunocompromised host is likely to result in a systemic infection, which is often fatal. Little is known about the bacterial proteins needed to establish such an infection. The genes that encode these virulence factors are likely to be active only during syste...

Detecting sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) offers a new approach for remote sensing photosynthesis. However, to analyse the response characteristics of SIF under different stress states, a long-term time-series comparative observation of vegetation under different stress states must be carried out at the canopy scale, such that the similarities and differences in SIF change law can be...

This study uses the droughts of 2011 in Texas and 2012 over the central Great Plains as case studies to explore the potential of satellite-observed solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) for monitoring drought dynamics. We find that the spatial patterns of negative SIF anomalies from the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment 2 (GOME-2) closely resembled drought intensity maps from the U.S. D...

OBJECTIVE Skin intrinsic fluorescence (SIF) reflects many factors, including the presence of certain advanced glycation end products. We investigated whether SIF was associated with coronary artery disease (CAD) in type 1 diabetes and whether this relationship was independent of renal disease. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS SIF was measured in 112 subjects from the Pittsburgh Epidemiology of Dia...

Soya-based infant formulas (SIF) containing soya flour were introduced almost 100 years ago. Modern soya formulas are used in allergy/intolerance to cows' milk-based formulas (CMF), post-infectious diarrhoea, lactose intolerance and galactosaemia, as a vegan human milk (HM) substitute, etc. The safety of SIF is still debated. In the present study, we reviewed the safety of SIF in relation to an...

BACKGROUND Vancouver, Canada recently opened a medically supervised injecting facility (SIF) where injection drug users (IDU) can inject pre-obtained illicit drugs. Critics suggest that the facility does not help IDU to reduce their drug use. METHODS We conducted retrospective and prospective database linkages with residential detoxification facilities and used generalized estimating equation...

BACKGROUND The Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT)/Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications(EDIC) studies have established multiyear mean hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) as predictive of microvascular complications in persons with type 1 diabetes. However, multiyear mean HbA1c is not always available in the clinical setting. Skin advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are tho...