bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Theory study of gas–water relative permeability in roughened fractures
Authors: Lei Gang , Wang Cai , Wu Zisen , Wang Huijie , Li Weirong 
Published: February 2018

It has been shown that gas–water relative permeability in fracture or fractured porous media plays an important role in determination of flow characteristics for gas–water two-phase flow. The accurate prediction of gas–water two-phase flow in fracture or fractured media is hence highly important. In most recent analytical models for gas–water relative permeability in fracture, the fracture is conceptualized as smooth wall. Reliable characterization of roughened fracture surface is severely limited. The analytical models for gas–water two-phase relative permeability in roughened fracture are scarce, thus, it is desirable to develop an analytical model for gas–water relative permeability in fracture with roughened surface. The goal of this work is to present an analytical model for gas–water relative permeability in roughened fracture. The rough surface topography of roughened fracture can be addressed by fractal theory. In addition, the proposed model is modified by considering the influence of tortuosity to study the gas–water relative permeability in fractured porous media. The proposed gas–water relative permeability is found to be a function of the structural parameters of roughened fracture. The predictions of relative permeability by the proposed model have similar variation trend with available experimental data, which verifies the theoretical models. We also conduct several sensitivity studies. These proposed analytical models provides a more realistic representation of gas–water two-phase flow in roughened fracture and fractured porous media, and gives rise to more reliable gas–water relative permeability curves that can be used for analyzing gas–water two-phase flow characteristic in fractured reservoirs.
The engineering challenges of CO2 storage
Authors: Harding Frances C , James Alan T , Robertson Hazel E 
Published: February 2018

The permanent underground storage of large quantities of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from thermal energy and industrial plant is widely recognised as a fundamental tool which can help to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. To achieve this effectiveness, it will require widespread global deployment in a new industry which would rival the current oil and gas industry in its scale and ambition. Many of the technologies for carbon dioxide storage are the adaptations of oil and gas technology, but there are some important differences. These arise from:  1. the thermodynamic properties of carbon dioxide,  2. the essential requirement for long-term storage site integrity,  3. the absence of an established and mature business model for the industry and  4. the contrasting regulatory environments between carbon capture and storage and oil and gas extraction. Whilst the underground injection of carbon dioxide can truly be considered a proven technology, there are a range of engineering challenges to achieve this in a safe and cost effective manner. This paper sets out to explore some of these challenges and concludes with a view of what next steps are required to progress carbon dioxide storage effectively within the UK.  • The challenges of injecting carbon dioxide into offshore subsurface reservoirs:    ^ Arrival processing (heating before injection)    ^ Injectivity assessment – how many wells?    ^ Platform or subsea?    ^ Well design for long service operations and monitoring  • The challenges of forecasting reservoir and injection performance within porous and permeable storage reservoirs:    ^ Issues influencing carbon dioxide storage capacity    ^ Assuring storage site containment integrity    ^ Geology and engineering – uncertainty and risk  • Where has the industry got to and what are the practical next steps?
A 13-Year-Old Presenting With Recurrent Angioma Serpiginosum
Authors: Bishara Michael , Jiaravuthisan Michael , Weinstein Miriam 
Published: February 2018

Background: Angioma serpiginosum (AS) is a rare vascular abnormality consisting of proliferation and dilation of superficial blood vessels in the skin. AS typically presents in the first 2 decades of life and remains stable with time. Case Summary: We report the case of a 13-year-old female with an acquired, recurrent erythematous lesion with serpiginous borders on her left upper arm. Over several years, the lesion reappeared then disappeared 12 to 15 times. At one point, she developed a tender red nodule within the lesion; consequently, a biopsy was taken, revealing dilated telangiectatic vessels in the dermal papillae with mild, focal extravasation of erythrocytes. Conclusion: This case demonstrates a lesion with suggestive clinical and histological features of AS. However, this may be the first case of recurrent AS with a symptomatic episode. This case may contribute to the expanding clinical spectrum of this interesting disease entity.
Management and Outcome of Prosthetic Vascular Graft Infections: A Single Center Experience
Authors: Elens Maxime , Dusoruth Muzhakkir , Astarci Parla , Mastrobuoni Stefano , Bosiers Michel J. , Nardella Jane , Lacroix Valérie , Possoz Julien , Verhelst Robert 
Published: February 2018

Background: Prosthetic vascular graft infection (PVGI) remains a severe and challenging complication in vascular surgery with high morbidity and mortality rates. Incidence has been reported between 1% and 6%. The aim of this study was to report our experience in terms of general and surgical management as well as outcome, over 15 years. Methods: A retrospective consecutive study was conducted of all patients treated in our department for PVGI between January 2000 and December 2015. We analyzed all data relative to primary operation, duration interval between initial surgery and infections signs, infection site, type of microorganism involved, and surgical treatment modality, as well as evaluation of short- and long-term results. Results: Sixty-two patients were admitted for PVGI. Primary revascularization procedures consisted of a peripheral bypass in 42 (68%) patients and an aortic bypass in the remaining 20 (32%) patients. Median interval between primary procedure and reintervention was 3 months (interquartile range 17 [IQR 17]) in the peripheral group and 48 months (IQR 70.5) in the aortic group. Complete excision of the prosthetic graft was carried out in 85% of the cases. Thirty-day mortality was 0% and 9.5% in the aortic and peripheral group, respectively. The overall survival rate was 62.3% at 2-years, 46.4% in the aortic group, and 69.7% in the peripheral group. Conclusions: Prosthetic vascular graft infection needs a multidisciplinary management with appropriate antibiotherapy, radical removal of the infected graft, and in situ reconstruction. This strategy gives satisfactory results in terms of mortality, morbidity, patency rates, and infection control.
Lower hippocampal subfields volume in relation to anxiety in medication-overuse headache
Authors: Chen Zhiye , Chen Xiaoyan , Liu Mengqi , Ma Lin , Yu Shengyuan 
Published: February 2018

Background Hippocampus (HIP) was an important limbic structure, and concurrent emotion disorders may occur in medication-overuse headache patients. The aim of this study is to investigate altered HIP and HIP subfields volume in relation with the anxiety in medication-overuse headache patients using a state-of-the-art hippocampal segment method. Results The current study presented that a significant lower HIP and HIP subfields volume were identified in medication-overuse headache compared with that in normal controls except right HIP tail, bilateral parasubiculums, and HIP fissure. The left HIP and right subiculum presented negative correlation with headache variables, and the right subiculum, Cornu Ammonis 4, granule cell layer of dentate gyrus, bilateral Cornu Ammonis 1, molecular layer, and whole HIP presented negative correlation with Hamilton Anxiety Scale score, which were further confirmed by the linear regression analysis with the exclusion of psychological variables and headache variables, respectively. Conclusions The lower HIP and HIP subfields volume were identified in medication-overuse headache patients, and negatively related with anxiety condition. The potential mechanism for the comorbidity medication-overuse headache and anxiety might be interpreted as the reciprocal causation relationship and co-occurrence relationship.
Osteochondral Allograft Transplantation of the Knee in Patients with an Elevated Body Mass Index
Authors: Wang Dean , Rebolledo Brian J. , Dare David M. , Pais Mollyann D. , Cohn Matthew R. , Jones Kristofer J. , Williams Riley J. 
Published: February 2018

Objective To characterize the graft survivorship and clinical outcomes of osteochondral allograft transplantation (OCA) of the knee in patients with an elevated body mass index (BMI). Design Prospective data on 38 consecutive patients with a BMI ≥30 kg/m2 treated with OCA from 2000 to 2015 were reviewed. Complications, reoperations, and patient responses to validated outcome measures were examined. Failures were defined by any removal/revision of the allograft or conversion to arthroplasty. Results Thirty-one knees in 31 patients (mean age, 35.4 years [range, 17-61 years]; 87% male) met the inclusion criteria. Mean BMI was 32.9 kg/m2 (range, 30-39 kg/m2). Mean chondral defect size was 6.4 cm2 (range, 1.0-15.3 cm2). Prior to OCA, 23 patients (74%) had undergone previous surgery to the ipsilateral knee. Mean duration of follow-up was 4.1 years (range, 2-11 years). After OCA, 5 knees (13%) underwent conversion to unicompartmental (1) or total (4) knee arthroplasty. Two- and 5-year graft survivorship were 87% and 83%, respectively. At final follow-up, clinically significant improvements were noted in the pain (49.3-72.6) and physical functioning (52.9-81.3) subscales of the Short Form–36 ( P ≤ 0.001), International Knee Documentation Committee subjective form (43.5-67.0; P = 0.002), Knee Outcome Survey–Activities of Daily Living (58.2-80.4; P = 0.002), and overall condition subscale of the Cincinnati Knee Rating System (4.7-6.9; P = 0.046). Conclusions OCA can be a successful midterm treatment option for focal cartilage defects of the knee in select patients with a BMI ≥30 kg/m2.
Dexmedetomidine use during epiduroscopy reduces fentanyl use and postoperative nausea and vomiting: A single-center retrospective study
Authors: Suzuki Takashi , Inokuchi Ryota , Hanaoka Kazuo , Suka Machi , Yanagisawa Hiroyuki 
Published: February 2018

Objectives: Minimally invasive epiduroscopy has recently been reported as an effective treatment procedure for chronic and intractable low back pain. However, no study has determined safe anesthetics for monitored anesthesia care during epiduroscopy. We aimed to compare and evaluate conventional monitored anesthesia care drugs with dexmedetomidine. Methods: A retrospective study including all patients who underwent epiduroscopy at the JR Tokyo General Hospital from April 2011 to March 2016 was designed. The epiduroscopy procedures were performed under anesthesia with dexmedetomidine plus fentanyl (dexmedetomidine group) or droperidol plus fentanyl (neuroleptanalgesia group). Patients who received analgesics other than fentanyl, another analgesic combined with fentanyl, any sedative other than dexmedetomidine or droperidol, or who had incomplete data were excluded. We compared (1) the type and dose of medication during the epiduroscopy and (2) the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting. Results: We identified 45 patients (31 and 14 in the dexmedetomidine and neuroleptanalgesia groups, respectively) with a mean age of 69.0 years. The two groups had comparable characteristics, such as age, sex, body mass index, the American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status, analgesics used in the clinic, comorbidities, history of smoking, and the duration of anesthesia. The dexmedetomidine group received a significantly lower fentanyl dose during surgery (126 ± 14 vs 193 ± 21 µg, mean ± standard deviation, p = 0.014) and exhibited a significantly lower incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting (1 vs 3, p = 0.047) than the neuroleptanalgesia group. Conclusion: This study involved elderly patients, and the use of dexmedetomidine in monitored anesthesia care during epiduroscopy procedures in these patients may reduce the required fentanyl dose during surgery and the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting. This strategy may help prevent respiratory depression and aspiration.
Virtual stone clinic – the future of stone management?
Authors: Smith Thomas , Blach Ola , Baker Stephanie , Newman Leanne , Guest Katherine , Symes Andrew 
Published: February 2018

Objectives: Increasing demands on the urology outpatient department at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) have posed a significant challenge on the provision of a timely service for patients with stone disease. This study aimed to evaluate the patient outcomes and waiting times achieved with a newly implemented virtual stone clinic (VSC). Materials and methods: All new stone referrals received between August 2016 to January 2017 at BSUH were discussed in the VSC. Patients were reviewed within seven days of referral by a multidisciplinary team led by a consultant stone surgeon. A prospectively collected database was generated with primary outcomes including discharge to primary care, need for further diagnostics, re-review at VSC, direct booking for treatment and referral to a traditional outpatient stone clinic. Waiting times between the VSC and previously used outpatient stone clinic were also compared. Results: A total of 526 cases were reviewed in the VSC. One-quarter of patients were discharged following initial VSC review with a further two-thirds discharged after re-review. Treatment was offered to 101 patients, primarily in the form of lithotripsy (65%). Eighty-six patients required formal outpatient clinic appointments. Waiting lists for stone appointments were cleared within two months of implementation of the VSC. Outcomes were very favourable, with only three patients requiring emergency admission for management of their stone disease. Conclusion: The VSC model provides a clinically and cost-effective method of managing patients with urinary tract stones with significantly reduced waiting times and overall improved patient satisfaction. Level of evidence: Not applicable for this multicentre audit.
Prospects for Precision Medicine in Glomerulonephritis Treatment
Authors: Liu Yulu Cherry , Chun Justin 
Published: February 2018

Background: Glomerulonephritis (GN) consists of a group of kidney diseases that are categorized based on shared histopathological features. The current classifications for GN make it difficult to distinguish the individual variability in presentation, disease progression, and response to treatment. GN is a significant cause of end-stage renal disease (ESRD), and improved therapies are desperately needed because current immunosuppressive therapies sometimes lack efficacy and can lead to significant toxicities. In recent years, the combination of high-throughput genetic approaches and technological advances has identified important regulators contributing to GN. Objectives: In this review, we summarize recent findings in podocyte biology and advances in experimental approaches that have opened the possibility of precision medicine in GN treatment. We provide an integrative basic science and clinical overview of new developments in GN research and the discovery of potential candidates for targeted therapies in GN. Findings: Advances in podocyte biology have identified many candidates for therapeutic targets and potential biomarkers of glomerular disease. The goal of precision medicine in GN is now being pursued with recent technological improvements in genetics, accessibility of biologic and clinical information with tissue biobanks, high-throughput analysis of large-scale data sets, and new human model systems such as kidney organoids. Conclusion: With advances in data collection, technologies, and experimental model systems, we now have vast tools available to pursue precision medicine in GN. We anticipate a growing number of studies integrating data from high-throughput analysis with the development of diagnostic tools and targeted therapies for GN in the near future.
Blood Transfusion and Postoperative Infection in Spine Surgery: A Systematic Review
Authors: Fisahn Christian , Schmidt Cameron , Schroeder Josh E. , Vialle Emiliano , Lieberman Isador H. , Dettori Joseph R. , Schildhauer Thomas A. 
Published: February 2018

Study Design: Systematic review. Objectives: Allogeneic blood transfusion-related immunomodulation may relatively suppress the immune system, heightening the risk of infection following spine surgery. This systematic review seeks to determine whether allogeneic blood transfusion increases the risk of postoperative infection and whether there are any factors that modify this association. Methods: PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and reference lists from included studies were searched from inception to April 20, 2017 to identify studies examining the risk of infection following allogeneic blood transfusion in adult patients receiving surgery for degenerative spine disease. Results: Eleven retrospective cohort or case-control studies, involving 8428 transfusion patients and 43 242 nontransfusion patients, were identified as meeting the inclusion criteria. Regarding surgical site infection (SSI), the results were mixed with roughly half reporting a significant association. There was an association between allogeneic transfusion and urinary tract infection (UTI) and any infection, but not respiratory tract infection. There was no statistical modifying effect of lumbar versus thoracic surgery on the association of allogeneic transfusion and SSI, though subgroup analyses in 3 of 4 studies reported a statistical association between transfusion and postoperative infections, including SSI, UTI, and any infection within the lumbar spine. Conclusions: This systematic review failed to find a consistent association between allogeneic transfusion and postoperative infection in spine surgery patients. However, these studies were all retrospective with a high or moderately high risk of bias. To properly examine this association an observational prospective study of sufficient power, estimated as 2400 patients, is required.
Enhancer dysfunction in leukemia
Authors: Bhagwat Anand S. , Lu Bin , Vakoc Christopher R. 
Published: February 2018

Abstract
Hematopoietic cancers are often initiated by deregulation of the transcriptional machinery. Prominent among such regulators are the sequence-specific DNA-binding transcription factors (TFs), which bind to enhancer and promoter elements in the genome to control gene expression through the recruitment of cofactors. Remarkably, perturbing the function of even a single TF or cofactor can modulate the active enhancer landscape of a cell; conversely, knowledge of the enhancer configuration can be used to discover functionally important TFs in a given cellular process. Our expanding insight into enhancer function can be attributed to the emergence of genome-scale measurements of enhancer activity, which can be applied to virtually any cell type to expose regulatory mechanisms. Such approaches are beginning to reveal the abnormal enhancer configurations present in cancer cells, thereby providing a framework for understanding how transcriptional dysregulation can lead to malignancy. Here, we review the evidence for alterations in enhancer landscapes contributing to the pathogenesis of leukemia, a malignancy in which enhancer-binding proteins and enhancer DNA itself are altered via genetic mutation. We will also highlight examples of small molecules that reprogram the enhancer landscape of leukemia cells in association with therapeutic benefit.
RETRACTED ARTICLE: Preoperative versus postoperative ultrasound-guided rectus sheath block for improving pain, sleep quality and cytokine levels in patients with open midline incisions undergoing transabdominal gynecological surgery: a randomized-controlled trial
Authors: Jin Feng , Li Zhe , Tan Wen-fei , Ma Hong , Li Xiao-qian , Lu Huang-wei 
Published: February 2018

Abstract
Background
Nerve block is usually performed before surgery because it inhibits reflection of the skin incision and reduces the amount of intraoperative anesthetic used. We hypothesized that performing rectus sheath block (RSB) after surgery would result in a longer duration of the analgesic effects and have a subtle influence on sleep time after surgery but that it would not decrease the perioperative cytokine levels of patients undergoing gynecological surgery.

Methods
A randomized, double-blinded, controlled trial was conducted from October 2015 to June 2016. Seventy-seven patients undergoing elective transabdominal gynecological surgery were randomly assigned to the following two groups: a general anesthesia group who received 0.5% ropivacaine hydrochloride RSB preoperatively and saline RSB postoperatively, and another group who received the opposite sequence. The objective of the trial was to evaluate the postoperative pain, sleep and changes in cytokine levels of patients during the postoperative 48 h.

Results
A total of 61 female patients (mean age: 50 years; range: 24–65 years) were included in the final study sample. There was no significant difference in the pain, consumption of oxycodone, or time to first administration of patient-controlled intravenous analgesia between the two groups. The postoperative sleep stages N2 and N3 were increased by 52.9 and 29.1 min per patient, respectively, in the preoperative RSB group compared with those in the postoperative group. The preoperative IL-6 concentration in the preoperative RSB group was lower than that in the same group at the end of surgery and 24 h postoperatively.

Conclusions
We concluded that preoperative RSB might preserve postoperative sleep by inhibiting the increase of IL-6 without shortening the analgesia time compared with postoperative RSB in female patients undergoing elective midline incision transabdominal gynecological surgery.

Trial registration
ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02477098, registered on 15 June 2015.
Block Copolymers of Aliphatic Polycarbonates: Combination of Immortal Epoxide/Carbon-dioxide Copolymerization and Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization of Vinyl Monomers
Authors: Mizuno Yuri , Nakano Koji 
Published: February 2018

Abstract
Aliphatic polycarbonate (APC) macroinitiators bearing an α-haloester terminal group were successfully prepared by cobalt-catalyzed epoxide/carbon-dioxide copolymerization in the presence of α-halocarboxylic acids as chain transfer agents. The atom transfer radical polymerization of vinyl monomers, such as methyl methacrylate and styrene, from the obtained APC macroinitiators gave the corresponding APC-block-polyalkylene copolymers.