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Los diferentes usos y manejos de suelo utilizados por el ser humano, ha llevado a los ecosistemas a experimentar cambios tanto positivos en algunos, y negativos en otros, en donde los organismos del suelo entran a tallar una gran acción sobre la calidad del suelo. El objetivo de esta investigación es conocer la calidad del suelo en los diferentes usos y manejo por medio de la macrofauna como indicador biológico. El trabajo fue realizado en el campo experimental de la Facultad de Ingeniería Agronómica UNE, ubicada en la Ciudad Minga Guazú Ruta 02 km 26, donde una vez obtenida las muestras de suelo según el uso y manejos parcela (A) Bosque Natural; (B) Agrícola Mecanizado; (C) Sistema Integración Agrícola Pecuaria; (D) Pastura y (E) Cultivo Perenne para el cual se realizó una extracción consistente en monolito de 25 cm2 de abertura y 20 cm de profundidad, seguidamente se trasladó al Laboratorio de Fitopatología para la identificación y clasificación de los organismos (macrofauna) donde arrojó como resultado la clasificación de la macrofauna en los tipos detritívoros, omnívoros, herbívoros y depredadores; donde la abundancia para las parcelas E(cultivo perenne), D(pastura) y A(bosque natural) se han encontrado cantidades superiores de organismos detritívoros, además la parcela A(bosque natural) presenta mayor biomasa comparada a las demás, por medio de esta macrofauna las parcelas A (bosque natural), C (sistema de integración agrícola pecuaria) y E (cultivo perenne) son calificada de alta calidad, sin embargo, las parcelas B (agrícola mecanizado) y D (pastura) dieron suelos con baja calidad. Así la calidad del suelo como indicador biológico por medio de la macrofauna difiere conforme a diferentes uso y manejo.

Business organizations are in an environment of constant changes to which it is essential to adapt to remain in the market. At the same time they must keep up with competitiveness, which leads them to realize the importance of pleasing the client for the achievement of business objectives; for this reason, the purpose of this study is to identify the quality of services and the level of satisfaction of ANDE customers in the city of Salto del Guaira. The level of research was descriptive. The clients of the ANDE of the city of Salto del Guaira constituted the population, from which a sample number of 58 people was randomly selected, through a simple random sampling. The data collection instrument was a form with open and closed questions that serves to detect the level of customer satisfaction, called Servqual Scale, which was analyzed and it could be deduced that the majority of customers surveyed marked option 3 of each item. This option corresponding to the “moderately satisfied” statement implies a medium level of customer dissatisfaction, that is, a customer who is not entirely sure of his satisfaction with the service received is a customer dissatisfied with the company, whether for small details in the care or service they have used. Concerning modern equipment, the clarity of the material elements, the physical facilities, the majority of respondents answered feeling moderately satisfied, at 50%, 75%, and 72% respectively. Likewise, in terms of the sufficiency of materials, 80% of the clients expressed feeling dissatisfied, as in obtaining the expected service and in the equality in the care received. About convenient schedules, 20% dissatisfied, 20% dissatisfied, and 40% moderately satisfied; thus noticing the minority of customers who feel satisfied or very satisfied with the services used. The present investigation is completed by accepting the hypothesis raised since most of the Company’s clients responded that they feel moderately satisfied concerning the survey questions, and this demonstrates the lack of satisfaction with the quality of the services received.

Plexopathy may be caused by diverse pathologies, including trauma, nerve entrapment, neoplasm, inflammation, infection, autoimmune disease, hereditary disease, and idiopathic etiologies. For patients presenting with brachial or lumbosacral plexopathy, dedicated plexus MRI is the most appropriate initial imaging modality for all clinical scenarios and can identify processes both intrinsic and extrinsic to the nerves. Other imaging tests may be appropriate for initial imaging depending on the clinical scenario. This document addresses initial imaging strategies for brachial and lumbosacral plexopathy in the following clinical situations: nontraumatic plexopathy with no known malignancy, traumatic plexopathy (not perinatal), and plexopathy occurring in the context of a known malignancy or posttreatment syndrome. The American College of Radiology Appropriateness Criteria are evidence-based guidelines for specific clinical conditions that are reviewed annually by a multidisciplinary expert panel. The guideline development and revision include an extensive analysis of current medical literature from peer reviewed journals and the application of well-established methodologies (RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method and Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation or GRADE) to rate the appropriateness of imaging and treatment procedures for specific clinical scenarios. In those instances where evidence is lacking or equivocal, expert opinion may supplement the available evidence to recommend imaging or treatment.

Spine infection is both a clinical and diagnostic imaging challenge due to its relatively indolent and nonspecific clinical presentation. The diagnosis of spine infection is based upon a combination of clinical suspicion, imaging evaluation and, when possible, microbiologic confirmation performed from blood cultures or image-guided percutaneous or open spine biopsy. With respect to the imaging evaluation of suspected spine infection, MRI without and with contrast of the affected spine segment is the initial diagnostic test of choice. As noncontrast MRI of the spine is often used in the evaluation of back or neck pain not responding to conservative medical management, it may show findings that are suggestive of infection, hence this procedure may also be considered in the evaluation of suspected spine infection. Nuclear medicine studies, including skeletal scintigraphy, gallium scan, and FDG-PET/CT, may be helpful in equivocal or select cases. Similarly, radiography and CT may be appropriate for assessing overall spinal stability, spine alignment, osseous integrity and, when present, the status of spine instrumentation or spine implants. The American College of Radiology Appropriateness Criteria are evidence-based guidelines for specific clinical conditions that are reviewed annually by a multidisciplinary expert panel. The guideline development and revision include an extensive analysis of current medical literature from peer reviewed journals and the application of well-established methodologies (RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method and Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation or GRADE) to rate the appropriateness of imaging and treatment procedures for specific clinical scenarios. In those instances where evidence is lacking or equivocal, expert opinion may supplement the available evidence to recommend imaging or treatment.

In the United States, acute low back pain, with or without radiculopathy, is the leading cause of years lived with disability and the third ranking cause of disability-adjusted life-years. Uncomplicated acute low back pain and/or radiculopathy is a benign, self-limited condition that does not warrant any imaging studies. Imaging is considered in those patients who have had up to 6 weeks of medical management and physical therapy that resulted in little or no improvement in their back pain. It is also considered for those patients presenting with red flags, raising suspicion for a serious underlying condition, such as cauda equina syndrome, malignancy, fracture, or infection. The American College of Radiology Appropriateness Criteria are evidence-based guidelines for specific clinical conditions that are reviewed annually by a multidisciplinary expert panel. The guideline development and revision include an extensive analysis of current medical literature from peer reviewed journals and the application of well-established methodologies (RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method and Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation or GRADE) to rate the appropriateness of imaging and treatment procedures for specific clinical scenarios. In those instances where evidence is lacking or equivocal, expert opinion may supplement the available evidence to recommend imaging or treatment.

Potentially clinically important incidental/unexpected extraspinal findings occur with sufficient frequency in cross-sectional imaging of the spine to warrant the radiologist's careful consideration, regardless of whether the interpreter is a neuroradiologist, a musculoskeletal radiologist, an emergency radiologist, or a generalist. Awareness of the commonly encountered incidentalomas and the anatomy contained within the field of view of cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine cross-sectional imaging examinations, respectively, assists radiologists in their efficient and accurate analysis. This article familiarizes radiologists with some of the potential relevant extraspinal findings that may be encountered, and recommends an extraspinal search pattern for each spinal segment.

Myelopathy is a clinical diagnosis with localization of the neurological findings to the spinal cord, rather than the brain or the peripheral nervous system, and then to a particular segment of the spinal cord. Myelopathy can be the result of primary intrinsic disorders of the spinal cord or from secondary conditions, which result in extrinsic compression of the spinal cord. While the causes of myelopathy may be multiple, the acuity of presentation and symptom onset frame a practical approach to the differential diagnosis. Imaging plays a crucial role in the evaluation of myelopathy with MRI the preferred modality. The American College of Radiology Appropriateness Criteria are evidence-based guidelines for specific clinical conditions that are reviewed annually by a multidisciplinary expert panel. The guideline development and revision include an extensive analysis of current medical literature from peer reviewed journals and the application of well-established methodologies (RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method and Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation or GRADE) to rate the appropriateness of imaging and treatment procedures for specific clinical scenarios. In those instances where evidence is lacking or equivocal, expert opinion may supplement the available evidence to recommend imaging or treatment.

Se ha visto la necesidad de asociar dos rubros en un mismo espacio y tiempo por el auge de la ganadería y sin desconocer lo que genera los rubros agrícolas (soja-maíz y otros) de importancia comercial, donde producir en la misma superficie forrajes para ganado en un periodo del año y también cultivar especie agrícola para el mejor aprovechamiento de los recursos sería un sistema de producción con integración agrícola pecuaria. Así determinar el rendimiento en ensilaje (estado harinoso) y el rendimiento de grano del maíz asociado con las diferentes especies de Brachiaria. Se desarrolló en el Campo experimental de la Facultad de Ingeniería Agronómica de la Universidad Nacional del Este ubicado en la ciudad de Minga Guazú departamento del Alto Paraná, Paraguay. Se utilizó el diseño de bloques completos al azar, con siete tratamientos T1: Maíz (Testigo), T2: Brachiaria ruziziensis asociado con maíz, T3: Brachiaria ruziziensis, T4: Brachiaria decumben asociado con maíz, T5: Brachiaria decumbens, T6: Brachiaria brizantha asociado con maíz y T7: Brachiaria brizantha y 4 repeticiones. La producción de maíz no fue afectada por la asociación de especies por lo que no presentaron diferencias significativas entre los tratamientos. Aun así, se puede demostrar un incremento en el rendimiento en ensilaje (maíz picado con especies de Brachiaria) en las parcelas asociadas en comparación al testigo (sembrado 27 diciembre) T1 44.046 Kg/ha, T2 47.963 Kg/ha, T4 45.467 Kg/ha, T6 49.675 Kg/ha son 5.629 kg/ha equivalente a 12,7 % a más que el testigo. Además, en rendimiento de grano de maíz T1 5.582 Kg/ha, T2 7.386 Kg/ha, T4 6.738 Kg/ha, T6 6.664 Kg/ha aumento en 1.082 kg/ha y 1.804 kg/ha lo que correspondería a un 19,3 % y 32,3 %. La asociación de maíz con especies forrajeras, es una buena alternativa para el establecimiento de pasturas y brindar cobertura al suelo, así también permite una buena producción de maíz en ensilaje y granos en el mismo espacio y tiempo. Por el incremento de la productividad por área, sería una alternativa en un establecimiento optar por la integración agrícola y pecuaria.

Black phosphorus (BP) has emerged as a promising two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor for applications in electronics, optoelectronics, and energy storage. As is the case for many 2D materials, the fabrication of large-area BP thin films remains a considerable challenge. Here, we report the assembly of BP nanosheets into compact thin films using the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique. The overlapping stacking between BP nanosheets is suppressed when the nanosheets are surrounded by fullerene C60 molecules due to physisorption. This allows for the fabrication of large-area BP films (20 mm × 18 mm) with a homogenous nanosheet distribution and negligible oxidation. The fabricated films show measurable absorption up to 2.3 μm. We use these films as active layers to demonstrate mm-sized BP heterojunction photodetectors with mA W-1 scale responsivities from the visible to the near-infrared. Photodetector internal quantum efficiencies at 660 nm and 808 nm are 5% and 1%, respectively.

espanolActualmente la medicion de la calidad del diseno arquitectural de software es un topico importante para los ingenieros de software. Sin embargo, algunas metricas de calidad aun no estan definidas, como lo son las metricas para medir el factor de flexibilidad y de herencia de implementacion de una arquitectura de clases, enfocadas en metodos abstractos. En este trabajo de investigacion se propone un conjunto de cinco metricas de calidad, tres de ellas son para medir el factor de herencia de implementacion, las cuales son: Factor de Herencia de Implementacion (FHI), Factor de Herencia de Implementacion por Jerarquia de Clases (FHIJ) y Factor Herencia de Implementacion de una Arquitectura de Clases (FHIAC); las dos restantes son para medir el factor de flexibilidad, estas son: Factor de Flexibilidad de Clase (FFC) y Factor Medio de Flexibilidad de Clases(FMFC). EnglishCurrently measuring the quality of architectural software design is an important topic for software engineers. However, some quality metrics are not yet defined such as the metrics for measuring the flexibility and implementation inheritance factor for a class architecture focused on abstract methods. In this research, a set of five quality metrics is proposed; three of them are to measure the inheritance implementation factor, which are: Implementation Inheritance Factor (FHI), Implementation Inheritance Factor by Class Hierarchy (FHIJ) and Implementation Inheritance Factor of a Class Architecture (FHIAC); the remaining two are to measure the flexibility factor, these are: Class Flexibility Factor (FFC) and Average Class Flexibility Factor (FMFC).

Potentially clinically important incidental/unexpected extraspinal findings occur with sufficient frequency in cross-sectional imaging of the spine to warrant the radiologist's careful consideration, regardless of whether the interpreter is a neuroradiologist, a musculoskeletal radiologist, an emergency radiologist, or a generalist. Awareness of the commonly encountered incidentalomas and the anatomy contained within the field of view of cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine cross-sectional imaging examinations, respectively, assists radiologists in their efficient and accurate analysis. This article familiarizes radiologists with some of the potential relevant extraspinal findings that may be encountered, and recommends an extraspinal search pattern for each spinal segment.

Invited for this month's cover are the collaborating groups of Dr. Margarita Suárez at Universidad de La Habana, Cuba, and Dr. Nazario Martín at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, together with groups at other institutions worldwide. The Front Cover shows a representation of the H

La forma tradicional de enseñar programación ha resultado ser ineficiente a la hora de motivar a las nuevas generaciones de ingenieros para encontrar su camino profesional. En la Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga se tomó la decisión de crear una estrategia para resolver este problema, con el objetivo de mejorar las métricas de desempeño sobre los alumnos y profesores, así como orientar el currículo hacia las tendencias específicas de la disciplina (apps, IoT, web, IA y videojuegos) y, por último, hacer una revisión de las herramientas, plataformas y lenguajes de programación que estaban en tendencia a nivel mundial para incluirlos en el plan docente en conjunto con una metodología de gamificación experimental diseñada por los mismos docentes. Como resultado, las calificaciones generales mejoraron, las tasas de deserción disminuyeron y la población estudiantil en general aumentó. The traditional way of teaching programming has proven to be ineffective in motivating new generations of engineers to find their career path. At the Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga, the decision was made to create a strategy to solve this problem, with the purpose of improving performance metrics on students and teachers, as well as guiding the curriculum towards specific trends in the discipline (apps, IoT, web, AI and videogames) and, finally, review the tools, platforms and programming languages that were trending worldwide to include them in the teaching plan jointly with an experimental gamification methodology designed by the teachers themselves. As a result, overall grades improved, dropout rates decreased, and the overall student population increased.

Image-guided percutaneous vertebroplasty is a procedure that can be used to treat painful osteoporotic and pathologic fractures of the spine and has been shown to be safe and effective in patients with osteoporotic fractures who are not responding to medical management. The indications and contraindications for vertebroplasty as well as patient selection will be discussed. Technical aspects of the vertebroplasty procedure include accurate needle placement followed by the fluoroscopically monitored injection of the acrylic bone cement. Vertebroplasty can be used in the treatment of complex situations including multiple vertebral fractures, severe vertebral compression fractures, and painful sclerotic fractures. The occurrence of procedure related complications can be minimized.

Postsurgical spine imaging actually commences with the preoperative and perioperative imaging examinations that are performed before and during the patient's surgical procedure, respectively. It is in this context that postsurgical spine imaging examinations are best evaluated with a better appreciation of the changes, sometimes dramatic, that can occur following spine surgery. Careful follow-up is the rule in spine surgery, and these patients will have multiple imaging examinations over time. Some studies are performed immediately due to possible complications or exacerbation of pain symptoms, whereas others are used to assess the status of a fusion procedure. In any case it is prudent to always be aware of the overlap between the "normal" or expected imaging findings in the postoperative spine and potential pathologic processes that are developing at the postsurgical site. Additionally, a basic understanding of common spine surgical techniques and approaches is paramount toward rendering a thoughtful analysis. In this chapter, the authors discuss these imaging findings in the setting of the most commonly performed spine surgeries and emphasize the importance of active communication between the radiologist and spine surgeon.

The experimental process was proposed in order to establish the viability of substituting part of the mineral fraction used at present (clayey material) by residues of combustion processes (ashes) of coal in thermoelectric, as an element to reduce the carbon footprint of the process of production of ceramic products, without altering the quality, properties and functionality of the final product. The study focuses on the specific case of a brick-making company in the metropolitan area of Cúcuta, and on the substitution of 10% of the raw material (clay) for ashes from the thermoelectric plant, for the production of ceramic blocks. The analyses carried out establish an energy saving derived from the use of 10% fly ash equivalent to 997.12Kg of Norte de Santander coal per burn. The results determine that, in the case of brick production, the annual reduction of emissions associated with the production process, with the use of ashes from the thermoelectric, would be 849.48 tons of CO2. Thus, the carbon footprint is reduced by 16.39kgCO2equiv/t finished product, which represents a decrease of 5.99% of the carbon footprint compared to the conventional process.

La evasión fiscal o evasión de impuestos, conocida también como fraude fiscal, es la actividad ilícita en la que incurren personas o empresas cuando ocultan bienes o ingresos a las autoridades tributarias, o sobrevaloran los conceptos deducibles, con el fin de pagar menos impuestos de los que legalmente les corresponden. Cuando supera una cierta cuantía, se considera delito fiscal, pudiéndose sancionar con penas privativas de libertad, mientras que los fraudes de menor cuantía se tramitan como infracción administrativa, sancionándose con multas. La finalidad de la investigación fue conocer la situación de la ciudad de Curuguaty a nivel económico, por lo que cada vez más va en aumento las pequeñas empresas, la problemática o situación a conocer es si todas las pequeñas empresas pagan su impuesto al fisco y que causas producen la evasión.

Las cooperativas que logran su objetivo de ser eficientes, brindando servicios competitivos para sus socios, son aquellos que cuentan con un importante volumen de masa societaria. Las cooperativas han alcanzado niveles de captación y colocación de cifras muy importantes. La ciudad de Salto del Guairá cuenta con Cooperativas de Crédito y Ahorro, donde la investigación se centró en estudiar el riesgo financiero de las mismas, dicha ciudad es fronteriza y la economía no es estable. Debido a estos constantes cambios ha aumentado el nivel de morosidad y disminuido la captación de nuevos créditos lo cual es una de las bases importantes para la cooperativa. Se determinó los riesgos financieros indicando los factores que inciden en la morosidad de las mismas, ya que hay factores que son mismos de la naturaleza y no se podrán evitar, se analizó y se identificó los tipos de créditos más demandados en la ciudad de Salto del Guairá.

There is currently great concern about the processes that directly or indirectly contribute to the potential for global warming, such as stratospheric ozone depletion or acidification. In this context, and provided that treated water is a basic public utility in urban centers around the world as well as in some rural areas, its impact on the environment is of great interest. Therefore, this study applied the environmental methodology of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental loads of four potable water treatment plants (PWTPs) located in northeastern Colombia following the international guidelines delineated in ISO 14040. The different stages of the drinking water process were thoroughly assessed, from the catchment point through pumping to the distribution network. The functional unit was defined as 1 m3 of drinking water produced at the plant. The data were analyzed through the database Ecoinvent v.3.01, and modeled and processed in the software LCA-Data Manager. The results showed that in plants PLA-CA and PLA-PO, the flocculation process has the highest environmental load, which is mostly attributable to the coagulant agent, with a range between 47-73% of the total impact. In plants PLA-TON and PLA-BOS, electricity consumption was identified as the greatest impact source, with percentages ranging from 67 to 85%. Treatment processes and techniques, bioclimatic conditions and culturally driven consumption behavior varied from region to region. Furthermore, changes in treatment processes and techniques are likely to affect the environment during all stages of a plant’s operational cycle.

This work shows the experimental results obtained by using dip-coater to develop a sol-gel membrane or film on plastic fiber mixed with pH indicators. This will be used as recogni tion components. pH concentration was detected and quantified by use absorbance. Parameters considered to have a preparation control and membrane thickness are explained.

La importancia de la actualización contable de los profesionales contadores radica en mantenerse competitivo dentro del mercado laboral y brindar mejores servicios a sus clientes. Las actualizaciones contables son una herramienta que cuenta el profesional contador para hacer frente a los cambios y exigencias de la administración financiera, además de elevar su cualificación, por ende, esta investigación se realiza con el fin de conocer el influjo de la actualización contable en la competitividad laboral de los contadores.

La maquila es un régimen de inversión a través del cual se producen localmente en Paraguay bienes y servicios de exportación con beneficios para los inversionistas nacionales y extranjeros como el de las tasas diferenciadas de tributos. Esta investigación se presenta bajo el título “Impacto laboral que produjo una industria maquiladora en sus funcionarios, en la ciudad de Salto del Guairá” y consistió en la recolección y análisis de datos de la empresa para determinar el impacto que ha producido en la ciudad como fuente de empleo a nivel social y económico. Se prevé asimismo dar respuesta a la interrogante acerca de la capacidad productiva de la empresa y las condiciones laborales en cuanto la seguridad social y las remuneraciones percibidas.En Salto del Guairá una firma brasilera dio apertura a una empresa bajo el régimen de maquila y produce implementos y artículos de limpieza para el hogar, utilizando mano de obra local para que una vez acabado el producto sea exportado al Brasil. Actualmente la maquiladora emplea a 44 personas, los cuales participaron de la investigación cuyo objetivo fue estudiar el impacto laboral que produjo una industria maquiladora.

Spanish Abstract: Para toda empresa prestadora del servicio de agua potable es importante conocer el modo como los usuarios demandan el servicio, el caudal neto entregado, su distribucion en el tiempo y el rango de caudales en los que se consume la mayor parte del volumen de agua entregado. Igualmente, es importante contar con curvas caracteristicas y patron de consumo reales para cada tipo de usuario, que permitan determinar los consumos netos reales diarios para cada habitante, incorporando en este analisis variables adicionales asociadas a las costumbres de consumo y re-uso de la poblacion, y su impacto directo en los consumos de los usuarios. El presente trabajo se centra en estimar el consumo neto per capita de agua en usuarios de tipo residencial de la ciudad de Bogota, y a partir de la determinacion caracteristicas y habitos de re-uso de agua de la poblacion, determinar la influencia de este re-uso en los consumos diarios de cada habitante y su impacto potencial en el uso racional del recurso. English Abstract: For every company that provides drinking water service (Utility), it is important to know how users demand the service, the net flow delivered, its distribution over time and the range of flows in which most of the volume of water delivered is consumed. Likewise, it is important to have real characteristic curves and consumption patterns for each type of user, which allow to determine the daily net daily intakes for each settler, incorporating in this analysis additional variables associated with the habits of consumption and re-use of the population , and its direct impact on users' consumption. The present work focuses on estimating the per capita net consumption of water in residential users of the Bogota City, and from the determination of characteristics and habits of re-use of water of the population, determine the influence of this re-use in the daily consumption of each settler and its potential impact on the rational use of the resource.

Myelographic contrast media of various types have been used over the past 100 years. Many of the early contrast agents had significant toxicities. Gas myelography was tried, but the contrast between gas and soft tissue is poor. Pantopaque, an oil-based iodinated medium was successfully used for decades, but was not compatible with computed tomography (CT) scanning because it was viscous, insoluble, and caused streak artifact. The development of water-soluble agents allowed even distribution in the subarachnoid space and excellent depiction of spinal anatomy on post-myelographic CT scanning. Although invasive, myelography will remain a useful tool for the foreseeable future.

1. To understand the value and importance of radiologic anatomy as it pertains to cervical spine biopsy 2. To review the indications and contraindications for cervical spine biopsy 3. To learn image-guided coaxial cervical spine biopsy approaches and techniques

1. To introduce and describe several pathologic entities with imaging manifestations in the spine that simulate spine infection 2. To learn to identify and discriminate these mimics from spine infection 3. To understand the utility of image-guided percutaneous spine biopsy when indicated to assess for possible spine infection

1. To review the radiologic anatomy that is pertinent toward the safe performance of thoracic spine biopsy 2. To review the indications and contraindications for thoracic spine biopsy 3. To learn image-guided percutaneous thoracic spine biopsy approaches and techniques

Sacral insufficiency fractures are a common cause of severe low back pain and immobilization in patients with osteoporosis or cancer. Diagnosis is often delayed due to the relative insensitivity of conventional radiography. Current management options range from analgesia and physical therapy to surgical fixation. Advances in interventional neuroradiological techniques using sacroplasty have resulted in a safe and effective percutaneous treatment option for patients with minimal associated morbidity. Recently, coccygeoplasty for treating coccyx subluxation/fracture has been described.

1. To review the clinical evaluation of suspected spine infection 2. To learn the role of image-guided percutaneous spine biopsy during clinical management 3. To introduce specific biopsy techniques and tools for the proper performance of image-guided percutaneous spine biopsy

1. To understand the critical role that proper patient preparation plays in image-guided percutaneous spine or rib biopsy 2. To optimize patient screening practices 3. To improve patient safety by the appropriate application of key patient safety initiatives such as “time-out,” hand hygiene, and patient education