1,721,036 research outputs found
A biomechanical study of top screw pullout in anterior scoliosis correction constructs
No full textTop screw pullout is a significant problem in anterior scoliosis correction, with rates of 5-15% reported in the literature. The Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Brisbane currently has a series of 125 patients with scoliosis treated by thoracoscopic anterior fusion, instrumentation and correction between April 2000 and August 2007. In this series 11 top screws are known to have pulled out (a rate of 8.8%), with six occurring in the first week, and all within 6 weeks, suggesting that the problem is one of excessive static force rather than fatigue.\ud
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This thesis describes a biomechanical investigation into the mechanics of vertebral body screw pullout in anterior scoliosis surgical constructs. Previous biomechanical studies of vertebral body screws have evaluated their resistance to either straight pullout or cephalo-caudad compression forces, however the aim of this study was to assess screw resistance to more realistic loading conditions, namely pullout of initially angled screws, and pullout where the motion path is an arc rather than a straight axial pullout, as would be expected in a single rod anterior construct.\ud
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The first series of experiments involved straight and angled pullout tests using synthetic bone. In the angled tests, both locked and free-to-pivot configurations were tested. The second series of experiments tested the effect of cephalo-caudad pre-compression (the actual deformity correction step performed during surgery) on subsequent axial pullout strength. A third series of experiments performed arc pullouts using synthetic bone, and the final series of experiments tested the pullout resistance of a newly proposed screw position configuration against the standard screw positioning using ovine lumbar vertebrae. \ud
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Synthetic bone testing revealed that for initially angled pullout, resistance is greatest as the screw angle approaches 0 (ie a direct axial pullout). Cephalo-caudad pre-compression reduced subsequent pullout strength for cases where a staple was not used under the screw head, but if a staple was used the pre-compression did not decrease pullout force significantly. Arc pullout resistance was greatest when the screw was angled at 10 cephalad, and the mean pullout strength for the proposed screw configuration using ovine lumbar vertebrae (1864N) was almost double that of the standard screw positioning (993N). \ud
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The clinical implication of this study is that top screw pullout resistance can be maximised by placing the top screw as close as possible to the top endplate and the bottom screw as close as possible to the bottom endplate, although this will have detrimental effects on the pullout of the second screw should the top screw pull out. Screw angulation is a less important factor but any angulation should be in a cephalad direction and around 10º in magnitude. The experimental results also suggest that the use of a staple may play a role in preventing cephalo-caudad pre-compression forces from reducing screw resistance to subsequent pullout forces
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Exoplanet atmospheres at high resolution through a modest-size telescope. Fe II in MASCARA-2b and KELT-9b with FIES on the Nordic Optical Telescope
No full textGround-based, high-resolution spectrographs are providing us with an
unprecedented view of the dynamics and chemistry of the atmospheres of planets
outside the Solar System. While there is a large number of stable and precise
high-resolution spectrographs on modest-size telescopes, it is the
spectrographs at observatories with apertures larger than 3.5 metres that
dominate the atmospheric follow-up of exoplanets. In this work, we explore the
potential of characterising exoplanetary atmospheres with FIES, a
high-resolution spectrograph at the 2.56 metre Nordic Optical Telescope. We
observed two transits of MASCARA-2 b (also known as KELT-20 b) and one transit
of KELT-9 b to search for atomic iron, a species that has been recently
discovered in both neutral and ionised forms in the atmospheres of these
ultra-hot Jupiters using large telescopes. Using a cross-correlation method, we
detect a signal of Fe II at the and level in the
transits of MASCARA-2 b. We also detect Fe II in the transit of KELT-9 b at the
level. Although we do not find any significant Doppler shift in the
signal of MASCARA-2 b, we do measure a moderate blueshift (3-6 km/s) of the
feature in KELT-9 b, which might be a manifestation of high-velocity winds
transporting Fe II from the planetary dayside to the nightside. Our work
demonstrates the feasibility of investigating exoplanet atmospheres with FIES,
potentially unlocking a wealth of additional atmosphere detections with this
and other high-resolution spectrographs mounted on similar-size telescopes.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted to A&
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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