COMPARATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF DIFFERENT METHODS OF TREATMENT OF CHRONIC COMPLICATED HEMORRHOIDS

Introduction. In recent years, a method of surgical treatment of hemorrhoids by the method of ligation of hemorrhoidal arteries under Doppler control (THD technique), as well as with additional rectoanal reconstruction (HAL-RAR) has been developed and widely used. The aim of the study. The aim of our study was to compare methods of treatment of chronic complicated hemorrhoids stage II-III: classical Milligan-Morgan surgery, staple mucopexy according to Longo, as well as a combined technique: Doppler desarterization by HAL-RAR with additional removal of the external anodermal component. Materials and methods. In the clinic of coloproctology of Military medical: Clinical Center of the Southern Region of Odessa performed an analysis of three groups of patients for the period from 2011 to 2021, who underwent hemorrhoidectomy for complicated forms of hemorrhoids (bleeding, nodular prolapse, mucosal prolapse, anal fissure). All patients suffered from chronic complications of stage II or III hemorrhoids, with one or more of the above complications. Selected cases are divided into three groups: Group I (control) operations on Milligan-Morgan — 240 patients, including -64 women and 176 men; Distribution by age from 18 to 75 years; Group II staple hemorrhoidopexy for Longo — 276 patients, including 89 women and 115 men. Distribution by age from 18 to 72 years; Combined interventions using the wireless Doppler surgical complex Wi-3 HAL-RAR and additional removal of excess anoderm (from January 2019 to May 2021) operated on 53 patients, including 31 (58%) men and 22 (42%) women . Distribution by age from 28 to 62 years. Results and discussion. According to our data: bed day ranged from 1 to 8 days, mostly it was lower in group III — 1.3 (± 0.4) bed per day compared to 3.1 (± 0.8) in group II and 4.8 (± 1,7) in group III resorptive fever was not observed; the highest pain syndrome for VASH (average 7 points) in the group of patients of group I — compared with patients from group II (average 4 points) and patients of group III (average 2 points); the highest number of early postoperative complications was found in the group of patients operated on Milligan- Morgan: 1) acute urinary retention was observed in 43 cases (18%) of group I, compared with 38 cases (14%) of group II. The lowest number of cases of urinary retention was observed in group III — 2 cases (4%) (p <0.05). 2) postoperative bleeding from the wound was significantly more common in group I — 9 cases (3.75%), compared with group II — 6 cases (2.5%). No postoperative bleeding was observed in group III. 3) resorptive fever was most common in group I — 43 cases (18%) compared with group II - 33 cases (12%). Resorptive fever did not occur in group III (p<0.05). In all patients using the combined intervention HAL-RAR + excision of the external component of the anoderm, the pain was acquired by taking nonspecific anti-inflammatory drugs without the use of narcotic analgesics. No complications were observed. All patients noted no reduction in quality of life in the postoperative period. Conclusions. 1. Surgical treatment of hemorrhoids by the combined method of HAL-RAR + excision of the external component is a simple and effective method that in the postoperative period reduces the patient’s stay in the hospital, relatively lower in pain and the frequency of early postoperative complications. 2. HAL-RAR technology with excision of the outer component of the anoderm can be the operation of choice in the surgical treatment of chronic complicated hemorrhoids stage II-III.

Common-Mode Voltage Harmonic Reduction in Variable Speed Drives Applying a Variable-Angle Carrier Phase-Displacement PWM Method

Electric variable speed drives (VSD) have been replacing mechanic and hydraulic systems in many sectors of industry and transportation because of their better performance and reduced cost. However, the electric systems still face the issue of being considered less reliable than the mechanical ones. For this reason, researchers have been actively investigating effective ways to increase the reliability of such systems. This paper is focused on the analysis of the common-mode voltage (CMV) generated by the operation of the VSDs which directly affects to the lifetime and reliability of the complete system. The method is based on the mathematical description of the harmonic spectrum of the CMV depending on the PWM method implementation. A generalized PWM method where the carriers present a variable phase-displacement is developed. As a result of the presented analysis, the CMV reduction is achieved by applying the PWM method with optimal carrier phase-displacement angles without any external component and/or passive filtering technique. The optimal values of the carrier phase-displacement angles are obtained considering the minimization of the CMV total harmonic distortion. The resulting method is easily implementable on mostly off-the-shelf mid-range micro-controller control platforms. The strategy has been evaluated in a scaled-down experimental setup proving its good performance.

Are there any changes in strength after the application of Kinesio taping in lateral epicondylalgia?

BACKGROUND: In 1973, Dr. Kenzo Kase developed Kinesio taping from the hypothesis that this external component could aid the functions of muscles and other tissues. There are different studies on this issue, but none has completely clarified the research question. OBJECTIVE: To study the application of Kinesio taping in the variation of isometric muscle strength of the hand extension and grip, isokinetic strength of the pronation and supination movements, and the time it takes to reach that strength in patients with lateral epicondylalgia. METHODS: An analytical, experimental, randomized study was carried out with 104 subjects with lateral epicondylalgia. The subjects were randomly distributed among two groups: one received Kinesio taping and the other a placebo material. A pre- and post-intervention measurement was performed. The post-measurement was carried out 24 hours later so as to completely eliminate the fatigue effect produced by the first day measurements, as well as to ensure that the intervention was effective, and not immediate. The measurements were made using a dynamometer. RESULTS: No significant differences were found between the application of Kinesio taping and placebo material in subjects with lateral epicondylalgia regarding the variation of muscle strength in any of the study variables (p> 0.05 for all studied variables). CONCLUSIONS: Kinesio taping produces no change in strength after application and exerts an effect similar to that of a placebo.

Probabilistic Geomagnetic Storm Forecasting via Deep Learning

&lt;p&gt;By causing time variation in Earth's external magnetic field, geomagnetic storms can induce damaging currents in ground-based conducting infrastructure, such as power and communication lines.&amp;#160; The physical link between solar activity and Earth's magnetosphere, while complicated, provides the basis for attempts to forecast geomagnetic storms. Fortunately, we have abundant observational data of both the solar disk and solar wind, which are ameable to the application of data-hungry neural networks to the forecasting problem. To date, almost all neural networks trained for geomagnetic storm forecasting have utilized solar wind observations from the Earth-Sun first Lagrangian point (L1) or closer and have generated deterministic output without uncertainty estimates. Furthermore, existing models generate forecasts for indices that are also sensitive to induced internal magnetic fields, complicating the forecasting problem with another layer of non-linearity. In this work, we present neural networks trained on observations from both the solar disk and the L1 point. Our architecture generates reliable probabilistic forecasts over Est, the external component of the disturbance storm time index, showing that neural networks can learn measures of confidence in their output.&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;

CSMCSM

Many MANET research works are based on the popular informal definition that MANET is a wireless ad-hoc network that has neither infrastructure nor backbone and every network node is autonomous and moves depending on its mobility. Unfortunately, this definition pays no attention to the network servers that are essential in core-based, mission-critical, and military MANETs. In core-based MANETs, external intrusion detection systems (IDS) cannot detect internal Byzantine attacks; in addition, internal Byzantine fault tolerant (BFT) systems are unqualified to detect typical external wireless attack. Therefore, there is a real need to combine both internal and external mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) ID systems. Here, CSMCSM is presented as a two-level client server model for comprehensive security in MANETs that integrates internal and external attack detectors in one device. The internal component is based on a BFT consensus algorithm while the external component employs decision tree to classify the MANET attacks.

The External Component of National Economic Security

The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of the foreign trade component on the formation of national economic security. Transformations occurring in the world’s economic development, the deterioration of the global financial environment, and increasing geopolitical tensions have intensified the main risks to the development of the global economy in today’s conditions. Therefore, national governments are actively using a wide range of tools to ensure economic growth and the appropriate level of competitiveness of their respective economies while ensuring national security, which is relevant for the study of the external component of national economic security. To achieve the aim, general scientific and specific research methods are used, such as methods of analysis, abstraction and synthesis (in the study of protectionism as a policy and practice, instruments of neo-protectionism); methods of classification and systematic generalization (to systematize the forms of protectionism and neo-protectionism); economic and statistical methods (to assess the impact of foreign trade on the development of national economic security). It is demonstrated that the intensification of the risks to the development of the global economy has led to the transformation of trade policies, changes in the use of foreign trade regulation instruments, which affects the economic security of various countries as a major component of their national security. The modern trade and economic policy toolbox used by various countries to ensure national security is analyzed. A comparative analysis of the development of foreign trade of the EU and Ukraine has been carried out, and the features of the influence of the foreign trade component on the formation of economic security have been determined. It is demonstrated that, in the conditions of a global economic crisis, hidden forms of protectionism implemented at various levels of economic policy (global, regional, national), have spread. A classification of specific features and forms of neo-protectionism, that distinguish it from protectionism, is proposed. It is substantiated that global processes encourage national governments to implement deregulatory measures and improve the quality of institutions, while regulated economies contribute to the spread of corruption and grey areas in national economies.

Examining the episodic-semantic interplay during future thinking – A reanalysis of external details

Traditional analyses of autobiographical construction have tended to focus on the ‘internal’or episodic details of the narrative. Contemporary studies employing fine-grained scoringmeasures, however, reveal the ‘external’ component of autobiographical narratives tocontain important information relevant to the individual’s life story. Here, we used therecently developed NExt scoring protocol to explore profiles of external details generated bypatients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) (n = 11) and semantic dementia (SD) (n = 13) on afuture thinking task. Voxel-based morphometry analyses of structural MRI were used todetermine the neural correlates of external detail profiles in each patient group. Overall,distinct NExt profiles were observed across past and future temporal contexts in AD and SDgroups, which involved elevations in external details, in the context of reduced internaldetails, relative to healthy Controls. Specifically, AD patients provided significantly moreGeneral Semantic details compared with Controls during past retrieval, whereas SpecificEpisode external details were elevated during future simulation. These increased externaldetails within future narratives related to grey matter integrity in medial and lateral frontalregions in AD. By contrast, SD patients displayed an elevation of Specific Episode, ExtendedEpisode, and General Semantic details exclusively during future simulation relative toControls, which related to integrity of medial and lateral parietal regions. Our findings suggestthat the compensatory external details generated during future simulation comprise an arrayof episodic and semantic details that vary in terms of specificity and self-relevance. Moreover,these profiles appear to be differentially affected depending on the locus of underlyingneuropathology in dementia. Adopting a fine-grained approach to external details providesimportant information regarding the interplay between episodic and semantic content duringfuture stimulation and highlights the differential vulnerability and preservation of distinctcomponents of the constructed narrative in clinical disorders.

Examining the episodic-semantic interplay during future thinking – A reanalysis of external details

Traditional analyses of autobiographical construction have tended to focus on the ‘internal’ or episodic details of the narrative. Contemporary studies employing fine-grained scoring measures, however, reveal the ‘external’ component of autobiographical narratives to contain important information relevant to the individual’s life story. Here, we used the recently developed NExt scoring protocol to explore profiles of external details generated by patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) (n = 11) and semantic dementia (SD) (n = 13) on a future thinking task. Voxel-based morphometry analyses of structural MRI were used to determine the neural correlates of external detail profiles in each patient group. Overall, distinct NExt profiles were observed across past and future temporal contexts in AD and SD groups, which involved elevations in external details, in the context of reduced internal details, relative to healthy Controls. Specifically, AD patients provided significantly more General Semantic details compared with Controls during past retrieval, whereas Specific Episode external details were elevated during future simulation. These increased external details within future narratives related to grey matter integrity in medial and lateral frontal regions in AD. By contrast, SD patients displayed an elevation of Specific Episode, Extended Episode, and General Semantic details exclusively during future simulation relative to Controls, which related to integrity of medial and lateral parietal regions. Our findings suggest that the compensatory external details generated during future simulation comprise an array of episodic and semantic details that vary in terms of specificity and self-relevance. Moreover, these profiles appear to be differentially affected depending on the locus of underlying neuropathology in dementia. Adopting a fine-grained approach to external details provides important information regarding the interplay between episodic and semantic content during future stimulation and highlights the differential vulnerability and preservation of distinct components of the constructed narrative in clinical disorders.

Global Spatial-Temporal Graph Convolutional Network for Urban Traffic Speed Prediction

Traffic speed prediction plays a significant role in the intelligent traffic system (ITS). However, due to the complex spatial-temporal correlations of traffic data, it is very challenging to predict traffic speed timely and accurately. The traffic speed renders not only short-term neighboring and multiple long-term periodic dependencies in the temporal dimension but also local and global dependencies in the spatial dimension. To address this problem, we propose a novel deep-learning-based model, Global Spatial-Temporal Graph Convolutional Network (GSTGCN), for urban traffic speed prediction. The model consists of three spatial-temporal components with the same structure and an external component. The three spatial-temporal components are used to model the recent, daily-periodic, and weekly-periodic spatial-temporal correlations of the traffic data, respectively. More specifically, each spatial-temporal component consists of a dynamic temporal module and a global correlated spatial module. The former contains multiple residual blocks which are stacked by dilated casual convolutions, while the latter contains a localized graph convolution and a global correlated mechanism. The external component is used to extract the effect of external factors, such as holidays and weather conditions, on the traffic speed. Experimental results on two real-world traffic datasets have demonstrated that the proposed GSTGCN outperforms the state-of-the-art baselines.