No pancreatic reconstruction technique after PD was found to be applicable to all kinds of pancreatic remnants in our systematic review and meta-analysis. Some new approaches such as binding PJ and modified PG will be considered for study in the future.

Longer fusions were associated with increased morbidity. Age >65 was associated with increased morbidity/mortality, while females were associated with increased morbidity but decreased mortality. Idiopathic scoliosis had decreased morbidity. Degenerative ASD cases had higher comorbidity indices, potentially due to older age. This study is clinically useful for patient education, surgical decision-making, and optimizing patient outcomes.

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Therapeutic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.

BackgroundFew studies have provided nationwide estimates of patient characteristics and procedure-related complications, or examined postsurgical outcomes for patients with cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) comparatively with respect to surgical approach. The objective of this study is to identify patients at risk for morbidity and mortality directly related with the selected approach, report an overall nation-wide complication rate for each approach against which surgeons can compare themselves, and direct future research to improve patient outcomes.

Patients with sagittal spinal malalignment associated with significant cervical compensatory lordosis are at increased risk of realignment failure at 2-year follow-up. Assessment of the degree of cervical compensation may be helpful in preop evaluation to assist in realignment outcome prediction.

A novel ultra-high-frequency (UHF) RFID reader antenna with 2 dimensional (2D) beam-scanning capability and a wide 3 dB axial ratio (AR) beamwidth of over 136 • is presented. The proposed antenna consists of three concentric metal rings, each having a branch wire to stimulate circular polarization (CP) and a separate feed. The antenna is able to perform a 2D beam-scan with a relatively stable gain (9-11 dBic) from 0 • to 360 • in azimuth, and-40 • to 40 • in zenith. The minima of the antenna's AR beamwidth follows the peak gain direction, giving an equivalent 3 dB AR beamwidth of 136 • for every phi cut, wider than current state-of-the-art [1]. Moreover, the proposed antenna array presents a 50Ω impedance with no impedance matching network, and requires only two phase shifters to steer, significantly reducing the design complexity. The antenna's-10 dB return loss bandwidth is from 843 MHz to 880 MHz, covering the lower band UHF RFID frequencies in the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) region.