Postoperative Radiographic Early-Onset Adjacent Segment Degeneration after Single-Level L4-L5 Posterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion in Patients without Preoperative Severe Sagittal Spinal Imbalance.

Study Design: Retrospective study.

Purpose: To investigate the relationship between preoperative total spinal sagittal alignment and the early onset of adjacent segment degeneration (ASD) after single-level posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) in patients with normal sagittal spinal alignment.

Overview Of Literature: Postoperative early-onset ASD is one of the complications after L4-L5 PLIF, a common surgical procedure for lumbar degenerative disease in patents without severe sagittal imbalance.

Factors associated with bone metabolism in patients with cervical ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament accompanied with diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis.

Introduction: Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) and ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) are both characterized as ossification in paravertebral ligaments and sometimes present simultaneously, however, the bone metabolism in patients with cervical OPLL accompanying/not accompanying DISH has not well been studied. Thus, a retrospective analysis was performed to understand any differences in bone metabolism in these patients.

Methods: Male patients who underwent surgery for OPLL were divided into two groups based on the presence or absence of DISH (OD and O group, respectively).

Correlation between particle size/domain structure and magnetic properties of highly crystalline FeO nanoparticles.

Highly crystalline single-domain magnetite FeO nanoparticles (NPs) are important, not only for fundamental understanding of magnetic behaviour, but also for their considerable potential applications in biomedicine and industry. FeO NPs with sizes of 10-300 nm were systematically investigated to reveal the fundamental relationship between the crystal domain structure and the magnetic properties. The examined FeO NPs were prepared under well-controlled crystal growth conditions using a large-scale liquid precipitation method.

The aging micromechanisms of alumina matrix composite (AMC) used in total hip arthroplasty.

Background: The aim of the present study is to simulate and better understand the long-term interplay between alumina matrix composite (AMC) femoral head and aqueous environment. In particular, we focused on clarifying the role of alumina grains on zirconia phase stability and mechanical equilibrium in AMC head during aging processes in a clinically-relevant time frame.

Methods: The tested AMC head consists of an alumina matrix (82 vol.

Solid-state photoelectron transfer in powdery nanocomposites comprised of a sensitiser, photoacid generators and silica nanoparticles.

The dry beads milling of a mixture of 9,10-dipropoxyanthracene (DPA) as an electron donor and surface-modified silica nanoparticles was conducted in the absence or in the presence of a photoacid generator (PAG) as an electron acceptor to give powdery nanocomposites. Fluorescence measurements indicated no mechanochemical change in the crystal structure of DPA after the nanohybridisation. The co-milling with PAG resulted in solid-state fluorescence quenching, whereas quenching efficiency was considerably dependent on the nature of PAG.

Core-shell structures of silica-organic pigment nanohybrids visualized by electron spectroscopic imaging.

Energy-filtering electron transmission spectroscopy observation has been achieved to elucidate the nanostructures of powdery nanohybrids, which were produced by the dry mechanical milling of organic pigments and silica nanoparticles. The hybrids possess core-shell structures, irrespective of the levels of aggregation of primary particles, whereas hollow sites of aggregates of primary silica particles were filled with the pigment, leading to the locally concentrated distribution of the pigment to reduce the surface areas of the hybrids. The results imply that nanohybridization is referred to as the buildup method, although mechanical tools and procedures are quite the same as those for the conventional breakdown method.