Dynamic Translation Research Articles

Translation Methods of Internet Buzzwords and Their Application

In recent years, Internet buzzwords, as an important field presenting Chinese cultural characteristics, have become difficult to translate because of their unique connotations and forms, and how to improve the acceptability of their translations. This paper takes the "Top Ten Internet Phrases of 2021" released by the National Center for Language Resources Monitoring and Research as an example, summarizes the common translation methods of Internet buzzwords, and analyzes the use of Internet buzzwords by college students through the data obtained from a questionnaire to provide countermeasures and suggestions for future dynamic translation.

A fast in-place interpreter for WebAssembly

WebAssembly (Wasm) is a compact, well-specified bytecode format that offers a portable compilation target with near-native execution speed. The bytecode format was specifically designed to be fast to parse, validate, and compile, positioning itself as a portable alternative to native code. It was pointedly not designed to be interpreted directly. Instead, design considerations at the time focused on competing with native code, utilizing optimizing compilers as the primary execution tier. Yet, in JIT scenarios, compilation time and memory consumption critically impact application startup, leading many Wasm engines to later deploy faster single-pass (baseline) compilers. Though faster, baseline compilers still take time and waste code space for infrequently executed code. A typical interpreter being infeasible, some engines resort to compiling Wasm not to machine code, but to a more compact, but easy to interpret format. This still takes time and wastes memory. Instead, we introduce in this article a fast in-place interpreter for WebAssembly, where no rewrite and no separate format is necessary. Our evaluation shows that in-place interpretation of Wasm code is space-efficient and fast, achieving performance on-par with interpreting a custom-designed internal format. This fills a hole in the execution tier space for Wasm, allowing for even faster startup and lower memory footprint than previous engine configurations.

A Study on the Correlation between English Translation and Rural E-commerce under the Background of Cross-border E-commerce

In the rural areas of China, the use of e-commerce to develop rural undertakings has become a brand-new exploration model. In its e-commerce development, cross-border transactions are increasing day by day, and the problem of English communication barriers is becoming more and more prominent. Therefore, in order to promote the development of cross-border e-commerce in rural areas, it is necessary to strengthen cross-border transactions, break down language barriers and implement English translation. Based on the SWOT analysis of the current situation of cross-border e-commerce in rural areas and the "dynamic equivalence translation theory", this paper considers the demand relationship of English translation in the development of e-commerce in rural areas, and finds that talents and capital are the main factors that affect the translation ability. Only by truly strengthening human resources and capital investment can we promote the development of English translation and expand the space for cross-border e-commerce in rural areas.

OnSRAM: Efficient Inter-Node On-Chip Scratchpad Management in Deep Learning Accelerators

Hardware acceleration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads has gained widespread popularity with its potential to deliver unprecedented performance and efficiency. An important challenge remains in how AI accelerators are programmed to sustain high utilization without impacting end-user productivity. Prior software optimizations start with an input graph and focus on node-level optimizations, viz. dataflows and hierarchical tiling, and graph-level optimizations such as operation fusion. However, little effort has been devoted to inter-node on-chip scratchpad memory (SPM) management in Deep Learning (DL) accelerators, whose significance is bolstered by the recent trends in complex network topologies and the emergence of eager execution in DL frameworks. We characterize and show that there exists up to a 5.2× performance gap in DL inference to be bridged using SPM management and propose OnSRAM, a novel SPM management framework integrated with the compiler runtime of a DL accelerator. We develop two variants, viz. OnSRAM-Static, which works on static graphs to identify data structures that can be lucratively held on-chip based on their size, liveness and significance, and OnSRAM-Eager, which targets an eager execution model (no graph) and uses a history-based speculative scheme to hold/discard data structures. We integrate OnSRAM with TensorFlow and analyze it on multiple accelerator configurations. Across a suite of 12 images, objects, and language networks, on a 3 TFLOP system with a 2 MB SPM and 32 GBps external memory bandwidth, OnSRAM-Static and OnSRAM-Eager achieve 1.02–4.8× and 1.02–3.1× reduction in inference latency (batch size of 1), over a baseline with no SPM management. In terms of energy savings, we observe average reductions of 1.51× (up to 4.1×) and 1.23× (up to 2.9×) for the static and eager execution scenarios, respectively.

Instability Missed by Flexion-Extension Radiographs Subsequently Identified by Alternate Imaging in L4-L5 Lumbar Degenerative Spondylolisthesis.

Cross-sectional preoperative and intraoperative imaging study of L4-L5 lumbar degenerative spondylolisthesis (LDS). To determine if alternate imaging modalities would identify LDS instability that did not meet the criteria for instability based on comparison of flexion and extension radiographs. Pain may limit full flexion and extension maneuvers and thereby lead to underreporting of true dynamic translation and angulation in LDS. Alternate imaging pairs may identify instability missed by flexion-extension. Consecutive patients scheduled for surgery for single-level L4-L5 LDS had preoperative standing radiographs in the lateral, flexion, and extension positions, supine computed tomography (CT) scans, and intraoperative fluoroscopic images in the supine and prone positions after anesthesia but before incision. Instability was defined as translation ≥3.5mm or angulation ≥11° between the following pairs of images: (1) flexion-extension; (2) CT-lateral; (3) lateral-intraoperative supine; (4) lateral-intraoperative prone; and (5) intraoperative supine-prone. Of 240 patients (mean age 68y, 54% women) 15 (6%) met the criteria for instability by flexion-extension, and 225 were classified as stable. Of these 225, another 84 patients (35% of total enrollment) were reclassified as unstable by comparison of CT-lateral images (21 patients) and by lateral-intraoperative images (63 patients). Nine of the 15 patients diagnosed with instability by flexion-extension had fusion (60%), and 68 of the 84 patients reclassified as unstable by other imaging pairs had fusion (81%) ( P =0.07). The 84 reclassified patients were more likely to undergo fusion compared with the 141 patients who persistently remained classified as stable (odds ratio=2.6, 95% CI: 1.4-4.9, P =0.004). Our study provides evidence that flexion and extension radiographs underreport the dynamic extent of LDS and therefore should not be solely relied upon to ascertain instability. These findings have implications for how instability should be established and the extent of surgery that is indicated.

Strategies and tactics in simultaneous translation

The role and characteristics of simultaneous translation (ST) in the general system of translation are very wide, and deeper knowledge and skills are required from the simultaneous translator. The translator uses a simultaneous interpretation of different types of interpretation, in particular, semantic translation from serial translation and different forms and methods. The translation is also a unique bridge that connects these cultures. Whether it is a written translation or an oral translation, to a certain degree it creates an exchange and acquaintance of cultures. Every language reflects the worldview, psyche, and identity of that nation. It gives a heavier task for the translator when performing the translation. Today, simultaneous translation is widely used in meetings of heads of state and international conferences. It is natural that the main topic of such simultaneous translation processes is about politics and the political environment in the neighboring and international arena. In carrying out political translation, an experienced translator always takes into account the hidden ambiguity in the speaker’s speech. This is because, in the political context of a country, a word that has a positive meaning often has a negative meaning when it is simultaneously translated into another language. It is no coincidence that "Politics is an art." After all, various political metaphors and euphemisms are often used in politics. Therefore, on the one hand, in the process of simultaneous translation, the translator works with traditional phrases, the practical, auxiliary essence of which is clear to him. On the other hand, he works with the message the politician is sending and therefore has to clearly understand to whom it is actually addressed. A knowledgeable interpreter of the political context and subtleties of diplomatic language allows the translator to clearly convey all the emphasized aspects of the message and, if necessary, to add that emotional-expressive tone to the text. This article analyses the presentation of political vocabulary in the Arabic-Uzbek combination of simultaneous translation, the Arabic units of address used in the process of simultaneous translation on a political topic for heads of state and officials in Arab states through various examples and evidence. Simultaneous translation, strategy, the semantic-stylistic structure of communication, dynamic, statistical, waiting strategy, and serial translation.

Enabling non-isocentric dynamic trajectory radiotherapy by integration of dynamic table translations

Objective. The purpose of this study is to develop a treatment planning process (TPP) for non-isocentric dynamic trajectory radiotherapy (DTRT) using dynamic gantry rotation, collimator rotation, table rotation, longitudinal, vertical and lateral table translations and intensity modulation and to validate the dosimetric accuracy. Approach. The TPP consists of two steps. First, a path describing the dynamic gantry rotation, collimator rotation and dynamic table rotation and translations is determined. Second, an optimization of the intensity modulation along the path is performed. We demonstrate the TPP for three use cases. First, a non-isocentric DTRT plan for a brain case is compared to an isocentric DTRT plan in terms of dosimetric plan quality and delivery time. Second, a non-isocentric DTRT plan for a craniospinal irradiation (CSI) case is compared to a multi-isocentric intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) plan. Third, a non-isocentric DTRT plan for a bilateral breast case is compared to a multi-isocentric volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) plan. The non-isocentric DTRT plans are delivered on a TrueBeam in developer mode and their dosimetric accuracy is validated using radiochromic films. Main results. The non-isocentric DTRT plan for the brain case is similar in dosimetric plan quality and delivery time to the isocentric DTRT plan but is expected to reduce the risk of collisions. The DTRT plan for the CSI case shows similar dosimetric plan quality while reducing the delivery time by 45% in comparison with the IMRT plan. The DTRT plan for the breast case showed better treatment plan quality in comparison with the VMAT plan. The gamma passing rates between the measured and calculated dose distributions are higher than 95% for all three plans. Significance. The versatile benefits of non-isocentric DTRT are demonstrated with three use cases, namely reduction of collision risk, reduced setup and delivery time and improved dosimetric plan quality.

YeSQL

The diversity and complexity of modern data management applications led to the extension of the relational paradigm with syntactic and semantic support for User-Defined Functions (UDFs). Although well-established in traditional DBMS settings, UDFs have become even more central in many applications spanning data science, data analytics, etc. Still, a critical limitation of UDFs, which to some extent has turned data scientists towards NoSQL systems, is the impedance mismatch between their evaluation and relational processing. We present YeSQL, an SQL extension with rich UDF support along with a pluggable architecture to easily integrate it with either server-based or embedded database engines. We currently support UDFs written in Python, which are fully integrated with relational queries as scalar functions, aggregators, or table returning functions. Key novel characteristics of YeSQL include easy implementation of complex algorithms, tracing JIT compilation of Python UDFs, and seamless integration with a database engine. Our demonstration will showcase (a) the usability and expressiveness of our approach, and (b) that our techniques of minimizing context switching between the relational engine and the Python VM are very effective and achieve significant speedups in common, practical use cases.

HCFTL: A Locality-Aware Flash Translation Layer for Efficient Address Translation

In modern solid-state drives (SSDs), a flash translation layer (FTL) is the core engine performing the logical-to-physical address translations. However, the increasing capacity of SSDs requires a large DRAM space to hold the mapping table in a page-level FTL. Due to the limited size of built-in DRAM, existing FTL schemes selectively cache some active mapping entries in DRAM, while store the entire mapping table on flash. However, the low cache hit ratio introduced by the traditional mapping entry eviction policy degrades the access performance of SSDs. In this article, we propose a novel FTL, hot-clusterity FTL (HCFTL), to improve the hit ratio of cached mapping table (CMT) of SSDs with limited cache space. HCFTL clusters mapping entries, which are newly evicted from the cache, into dynamic translation pages (DTPs). Reading entries from DTPs will increase the CMT hit ratio due to spatial and temporal localities. Because the logical page numbers (LPNs) in a DTP are not consecutive, we introduce two different efficient index structures to speedup the lookup of mapping entries in DTPs. Furthermore, to make the DTP index highly accurate, we additionally allocate an auxiliary cache to buffer the mapping entries newly evicted from CMT, and produce dynamic pages with minimum difference between the maximal and the minimal LPNs of entries in those pages. Our experiments show that HCFTL can improve the CMT hit ratio by up to 41.1% and decrease the system response time by up to 33.3%, compared to baseline FTL schemes.

PRShare: A Framework for Privacy-preserving, Interorganizational Data Sharing

We consider the task of interorganizational data sharing, in which data owners, data clients, and data subjects have different and sometimes competing privacy concerns. One real-world scenario in which this problem arises concerns law-enforcement use of phone-call metadata: The data owner is a phone company, the data clients are law-enforcement agencies, and the data subjects are individuals who make phone calls. A key challenge in this type of scenario is that each organization uses its own set of proprietary intraorganizational attributes to describe the shared data; such attributes cannot be shared with other organizations. Moreover, data-access policies are determined by multiple parties and may be specified using attributes that are not directly comparable with the ones used by the owner to specify the data. We propose a system architecture and a suite of protocols that facilitate dynamic and efficient interorganizational data sharing, while allowing each party to use its own set of proprietary attributes to describe the shared data and preserving the confidentiality of both data records and proprietary intraorganizational attributes. We introduce the novel technique of Attribute-Based Encryption with Oblivious Attribute Translation (OTABE) , which plays a crucial role in our solution. This extension of attribute-based encryption uses semi-trusted proxies to enable dynamic and oblivious translation between proprietary attributes that belong to different organizations; it supports hidden access policies, direct revocation, and fine-grained, data-centric keys and queries. We prove that our OTABE-based framework is secure in the standard model and provide two real-world use cases.

Model-based translation of DNA damage signaling dynamics across cell types

Interindividual variability in DNA damage response (DDR) dynamics may evoke differences in susceptibility to cancer. However, pathway dynamics are often studied in cell lines as alternative to primary cells, disregarding variability. To compare DDR dynamics in the cell line HepG2 with primary human hepatocytes (PHHs), we developed a HepG2-based computational model that describes the dynamics of DDR regulator p53 and targets MDM2, p21 and BTG2. We used this model to generate simulations of virtual PHHs and compared the results to those for PHH donor samples. Correlations between baseline p53 and p21 or BTG2 mRNA expression in the absence and presence of DNA damage for HepG2-derived virtual samples matched the moderately positive correlations observed for 50 PHH donor samples, but not the negative correlations between p53 and its inhibitor MDM2. Model parameter manipulation that affected p53 or MDM2 dynamics was not sufficient to accurately explain the negative correlation between these genes. Thus, extrapolation from HepG2 to PHH can be done for some DDR elements, yet our analysis also reveals a knowledge gap within p53 pathway regulation, which makes such extrapolation inaccurate for the regulator MDM2. This illustrates the relevance of studying pathway dynamics in addition to gene expression comparisons to allow reliable translation of cellular responses from cell lines to primary cells. Overall, with our approach we show that dynamical modeling can be used to improve our understanding of the sources of interindividual variability of pathway dynamics.

YeSQL

The diversity and complexity of modern data management applications have led to the extension of the relational paradigm with syntactic and semantic support for User-Defined Functions (UDFs). Although well-established in traditional DBMS settings, UDFs have become central in many application contexts as well, such as data science, data analytics, and edge computing. Still, a critical limitation of UDFs is the impedance mismatch between their evaluation and relational processing. In this paper, we present YeSQL, an SQL extension with rich UDF support along with a pluggable architecture to easily integrate it with either server-based or embedded database engines. YeSQL currently supports Python UDFs fully integrated with relational queries as scalar, aggregator, or table functions. Key novel characteristics of YeSQL include easy implementation of complex algorithms and several performance enhancements, including tracing JIT compilation of Python UDFs, parallelism and fusion of UDFs, stateful UDFs, and seamless integration with a database engine. Our experimental analysis showcases the usability and expressiveness of YeSQL and demonstrates that our techniques of minimizing context switching between the relational engine and the Python VM are very effective and achieve significant speedups up to 68x in common, practical use cases compared to earlier approaches and alternative implementation choices.

Coarse Grained FPGA Overlay for Rapid Just-In-Time Accelerator Compilation

Coarse-grained FPGA overlays built around the runtime programmable DSP blocks in modern FPGAs can achieve high throughput and improved scalability compared to traditional overlays built without detailed consideration of FPGA architecture. These overlays can be mapped to using higher level compilers, achieving fast compilation, software-like programmability and run-time management, and high-level design abstraction. OpenCL allows programs running on a host computer to launch accelerator kernels which can be compiled at run-time for a specific architecture, thus enabling portability. However, prohibitive hardware compilation times in traditional design flows mean that the tools cannot effectively use just-in-time (JIT) compilation or runtime performance scaling on FPGAs. We present a methodology for runtime compilation of dataflow graphs expressed as OpenCL kernels onto coarse-grained overlays. The methodology benefits from the high level of abstraction afforded by using the OpenCL programming model, while the mapping to the overlay significantly reduces compilation and load times. Key characteristics of this work include highly performant DSP-optimized functional units that scale to large overlays on modern devices and the ability to perform automatic resource-aware kernel replication up to the size of the overlay. We demonstrate place and route times orders of magnitude better than traditional HLS flows, even when running on an embedded processor in the Xilinx Zynq.

Radiological Definitions of Sagittal Plane Segmental Instability in the Degenerative Lumbar Spine - A Systematic Review.

Systematic Review. To collect and group definitions of segmental instability, reported in surgical studies of patients with lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) and/or lumbar degenerative spondylolisthesis (LDS). To report the frequencies of these definitions. To report on imaging measurement thresholds for instability in patients and compare these to those reported in biomechanical studies and studies of spine healthy individuals.To report on studies that include a reliability study. This review was conducted according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Studies eligible for inclusion were clinical and biomechanical studies on adult patients with LDS and/or LSS who underwent surgical treatment and had data on diagnostic imaging. A systematic literature search was conducted in relevant literature databases. Full text screening inclusion criteria was definition of segmental instability or any synonym. Two reviewers independently screened articles in a two-step process. Data synthesis presented by tabulate form and narrative synthesis. We included 118 studies for data extraction, 69% were surgical studies with decompression or fusion as interventions, 31% non-interventional studies. Grouping the definitions of segmental instability according similarities showed that 24% defined instability by dynamic sagittal translation, 26% dynamic translation and dynamic angulation, 8% used a narrative definition. Comparison showed that non-interventional studies with a healthy population more often had a narrative definition. Despite a reputation of non-consensus, segmental instability in the degenerative lumbar spine can radiologically be defined as > 3mm dynamic sagittal translation.

Analyzing nested experimental designs-A user-friendly resampling method to determine experimental significance.

While hierarchical experimental designs are near-ubiquitous in neuroscience and biomedical research, researchers often do not take the structure of their datasets into account while performing statistical hypothesis tests. Resampling-based methods are a flexible strategy for performing these analyses but are difficult due to the lack of open-source software to automate test construction and execution. To address this, we present Hierarch, a Python package to perform hypothesis tests and compute confidence intervals on hierarchical experimental designs. Using a combination of permutation resampling and bootstrap aggregation, Hierarch can be used to perform hypothesis tests that maintain nominal Type I error rates and generate confidence intervals that maintain the nominal coverage probability without making distributional assumptions about the dataset of interest. Hierarch makes use of the Numba JIT compiler to reduce p-value computation times to under one second for typical datasets in biomedical research. Hierarch also enables researchers to construct user-defined resampling plans that take advantage of Hierarch's Numba-accelerated functions.

The lateral femoral notch sign and coronal lateral collateral ligament sign in magnetic resonance imaging failed to predict dynamic anterior tibial laxity

PurposeTo investigate the relationship between the lateral femoral notch sign as well as the coronal lateral collateral ligament (LCL) sign and anterior tibial translation using the GNRB arthrometer in patients with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries.MethodsForty-six patients with ACL injuries were retrospectively included from May 2020 to February 2022; four patients were excluded due to incomplete data. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were reviewed for the lateral femoral notch sign and the coronal LCL sign. The GNRB arthrometer was used to evaluate the dynamic anterior tibial translation of the knee, and the side-to-side differences (SSDs) in tibial translation between the injured knee and healthy knee were calculated at different force levels. Two types of slopes for displacement-force curves were acquired.ResultsSix patients (14.3%) had the positive lateral femoral notch sign (notch depth > 2.0 mm), and 14 patients (33.3%) had the positive coronal LCL sign. The SSD of the anterior tibial translations under different loads as well as the slopes of displacement-force curves were the same in the positive and negative notch sign groups (p all > 0.05) and between the positive and negative coronal LCL sign groups (p all > 0.05). Meanwhile, the measured notch depth and notch length were also not significantly correlated with the anterior tibial translation SSD in the GNRB.ConclusionThe presence of the lateral femoral notch sign and the coronal LCL sign did not indicate greater dynamic tibial laxity as measured using the GNRB.

Bioethical Aspects of Translational Medicine

The development of modern medicine is associated with the dynamic translation (transfer) of basic medicine data to clinical research and further on to clinical practice. It is pointed out that research and development in the sphere of genetics and biotechnology, which are of particular significance during the COVID-19 pandemic, are of paramount importance in this regard. The concept of “translational distance” is analyzed as a measure of uncertainty, namely, the number and the size of logical leaps in course of transition from animal model trials to the first stages of human subject research. Translational research ethics has become a revolutionary, diverse, and distinct field of biomedical ethics. When studying the issue, special consideration is given to the critical blocks in translation as well as the characteristic features, types, and phases of translational research. It is emphasized that addressing the issue of minimizing irreducible uncertainty so that research participants could participate in research is a key component of ethical research. In view of the fact that the most important condition for the successful implementation of translational medicine is the adherence to the principles of bioethics when overcoming translational distances is analyzed taking into account the benefit-risk balance. As the development of translational medicine is significantly influenced by the legislation and the practice of its application, the national peculiarities of the attitude of different countries to the issues of ethics and the resolution thereof are studied, including the differences between the continental and the Anglo-Saxon legal families. Along with the formation of a general approach to the choice of a regulatory model in the sphere under consideration, the acceleration of circulation of the information related to science, research and technology, as well as the rapid obsolescence of innovations, should not be overlooked. At the same time, one should pay attention to the existing biological and other risks.

The software design of Gridap: A Finite Element package based on the Julia JIT compiler

We present the software design of Gridap, a novel finite element library written exclusively in the Julia programming language, which is being used by several research groups world-wide to simulate complex physical phenomena such as magnetohydrodynamics, photonics, weather modeling, non-linear solid mechanics, and fluid-structure interaction problems. The library provides a feature-rich set of discretization techniques for the numerical approximation of a wide range of mathematical models governed by Partial Differential Equations (PDEs), including linear, nonlinear, single-field, and multi-field equations. An expressive API allows users to define PDEs in weak form by a syntax close to the mathematical notation. While this is also available in previous frameworks, the main novelty of Gridap is that it implements this API without introducing a domain-specific language plus a compiler of variational forms. Instead, it leverages the Julia just-in-time compiler to build efficient code, specialized for the concrete problem at hand. As a result, there is no need to use different languages for the computational back-end and the user front-end anymore, thus eliminating the so-called two-language problem. Gridap also provides a low-level API that is modular and extensible via the multiple-dispatch paradigm of Julia and provides easy access to the main building blocks of the library if required. The main contribution of this paper is the detailed presentation of the novel software abstractions behind the Gridap design that leverages the new software possibilities provided by the Julia language. The second main contribution of the article is a performance comparison against FEniCS. We measure CPU times needed to assemble discrete systems of linear equations for different problem types and show that the performance of Gridap is comparable to FEniCS, demonstrating that the new software design does not compromise performance. Gridap is freely available at Github (github.com/gridap/Gridap.jl) and distributed under an MIT license. Program summaryProgram title: Gridap.jl (version 0.16)CPC Library link to program files:https://doi.org/10.17632/mh9vv7hrgf.1Developer's repository link:https://github.com/gridap/Gridap.jlLicensing provisions: MIT licenseProgramming language: JuliaSupplementary material: Source code of the Listings presented in this paper. Each Listing below indicates the name of its corresponding source file.Nature of problem: Computational simulation of a broad range of application problems governed by partial differential equations including linear, nonlinear, single field, and multi-physics problems. Gridap is currently being used by several research groups world-wide to simulate complex physical phenomena such as magnetohydrodynamics, photonics, weather modeling, non-linear solid mechanics, and fluid-structure interaction problems.Solution method: Arbitrary-order grad-, curl-, and div-conforming finite elements on n-cube and n-simplex meshes. Continuous and Discontinuous Galerkin methods. Newton-Raphson linearization. Krylov subspace iterative solvers. Sparse direct solvers.

Clinical and radiological outcomes of acute Rookwood type IIIB acromioclavicular joint dislocation: Mini-open tightrope technique versus hook plate

ObjectiveTreatment of acute Rookwood type III AC joint dislocation is still controversially discussed. ISAKOS suggested to subdivide type III AC joint injuries into type IIIA (stable) and type IIIB (unstable). The aim of this study was to compare clinical and radiographic outcomes between hook plate fixation and mini-open tightrope for the treatment of acute Rookwood type IIIB acromioclavicular joint dislocation. MethodsWe conducted a retrospective clinical study of 112 patients with acute Rookwood type IIIB acromioclavicular joint dislocation who were treated surgically using either mini-open TightRope or hook plate from 2013 to 2019. All patients were followed up for 12 months. Clinical outcomes were evaluated using Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the Constant-Murley Score (CMS). Radiological results were assessed with the coracoclavicular distance (CCD), the change in clavicular elevation (ΔCE) and horizontal translation. ResultsThe length of incision was significantly shorter in the mini-open TightRope group than that in hook plate group (6.62±0.60 vs. 2.58±0.43 p <0.001). Duration of surgery was significantly shorter in the mini-open TightRope group than that in hook plate group (30.12±6.65 vs. 53.33±12.03; p < 0.001). Total blood loss volume was significantly less in the mini-open TightRope group than in the hook plate group. (23.85±7.88 vs. 70.67±24.62, p < 0.001). VAS and CMS in mini-open TightRope group were better than that in hook plate group at 2 weeks after surgery (VAS: 2.19±0.92 vs. 3.30±1.51, p = 0.002 and CMS 69.80±5.61 vs. 57.53±9.24, p<0.001) and 3 month after surgery (VAS: 1.19±0.48 vs. 3.07±1.36, p<0.001 and CMS 89.30±4.47 vs. 83.20±12.11, p = 0.205). There was no statistically significant difference between two groups at 12 months follow-up including VAS, CMS, the CC distance,ΔCE and the degree of dynamic horizontal translation. There were 2 complications in the hook plate group including 1cut out and 1 superficial wound infection. ConclusionThe mini-open tightrope has better function and relieves pain in the early postoperative period compared to hook plate, and at the last follow up two groups have similar clinical and radiological outcomes. Mini-open TightRope fixation is a good option for the treatment of acute Rockwood types ⅢB AC joint dislocation.

GTOOLS, an open-source MATLAB program for processing high precision, relative gravity data for time-lapse gravity monitoring

gTOOLS is an open-source software for the processing of relative gravity data. gTOOLS is available in MATLAB and as a compiled executable to be run under the free MATLAB Runtime Compiler. The software has been designed for time-lapse (temporal) gravity monitoring. Although programmed to read the Scintrex CG-5 and CG-6 gravimeters output data files, it can be easily modified to read data files from other gravimeters. The software binds together single-task processing modules within a very simple user interface that is based on one text file. Gravity processing involves three modules: (a) gravimeter calibration; (b) automatic processing of gravity data to find adjusted gravity differences; and (c) post processing of results. Each module is optional and runs independently from the others. Data processing includes (a) averaging out the measurements noise, and correction for solid Earth tides, and ocean loading, and residual instrumental drift, and (b) calculate the residual instrumental drift and gravity differences between the base station and monitoring sites, and their uncertainties, by a weighted least square analysis of the gravity data. The software allows the automatic processing of a gravity campaign spanning multiple days in a single run. The software is tested on gravity data from 2015 eruption at Cotopaxi volcano, Ecuador.