ated by the same surgeons. This indicates that there is patient-related heterogeneity driving variability independent of surgeon factors.Background context Many different pain and functional outcomes are used to determine progress after surgical intervention for Lumbar Spinal Stenosis (LSS); it is unknown how these different outcomes correlate, or whether timing of pain measurement is important. BMS-1166 Purpose The goal was to determine whether method and timing of pain measurement is important in the context of LSS surgical outcomes. Study design/setting Cohort Study. Patient sample Lumbar Spinal Stenosis (LSS) patients (N=21) OUTCOME MEASURES Self-report Measures. Methods Each patient completed the 36-item Short Form (SF-36), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), and Swiss Spinal Stenosis Questionnaire (SSSQ) 1 week pre-surgery and 6 months post-surgery. Objective function was measured using the Self-Paced Walking Test (SPWT). Low back and leg pain were assessed by Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) both immediately before the SPWT (pre-walking pain) and at the symptom-limited endpoint (provoked pain). Pain was also assessed before and after surgery using the ps.Background context Understanding the scope of the volume and costs of lumbar fusions and discectomy procedures, as well as identifying significant trends within the Medicare system, may be beneficial in enhancing cost-efficiency and care delivery. However, there is a paucity of studies which analyze recent trends in lumbar fusion volume, utilization, and reimbursements. Purpose This study seeks to define the costs of lumbar fusions and discectomy procedures and identify trends and variations in volume, utilization, and surgeon and hospital reimbursement rates in the Medicare system between 2012 and 2017. Study design Retrospective database study PATIENT SAMPLE Medicare Part A and Part B claims submitted for lumbar spine procedures from 2012 to 2017, as documented in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Physician and Other Supplier Public Use Files. Outcome measures Procedure numbers and payments per episode. Methods This cross-sectional study tracked annual Medicare claims and payments to spine decrease of 11.4% (CAGR, -0.7%). Mean Medicare payments for lumbar discectomy and microdiscectomy procedures nominally increased by 16.3% from $517 in 2012 to $601 in 2017, equivalent to an inflation-adjusted increase of 6.9% (CAGR, 3.1%). Conclusions This current study found the volume and utilization of lumbar fusions have increased since 2012, while lumbar discectomy and microdiscectomy volume and utilization have fallen. Medicare payments to hospitals and surgeons for lumbar fusions have either declined or not kept pace with inflation, and reimbursements for lumbar discectomy and microdiscectomy to hospitals have risen at a disproportionate rate compared to surgeon payments. These trends in Medicare payments, especially seen in decreasing allocation of reimbursements for surgeons, may be the effect of value-based cost reduction measures, especially for high-cost orthopedic and spine surgeries.Motivation Alternative splicing makes significant contributions to functional diversity of transcripts and proteins. Many alternatively spliced gene isoforms have been shown to perform specific biological functions under different contexts. In addition to gene-level expression, the advances of high-throughput sequencing offer a chance to estimate isoform-specific exon expression with a high resolution, which is informative for studying splice variants with network analysis. Results In this study, we propose a novel network-based analysis framework to predict isoform-specific functions from exon-level RNA-Seq data. In particular, based on exon-level expression data, we firstly propose a unified framework, referred to as Iso-Net, to integrate two new mathematical methods (named MINet and RVNet) that infer co-expression networks at different data scenarios. We demonstrate the superior prediction accuracy of Iso-Net over the existing methods for most simulation data, especially in two extreme cases sample size is very small and exon numbers of two isoforms are quite different. Furthermore, by defining relevant quantitative measures (e.g., Jaccard correlation coefficient) and combining differential co-expression network analysis and GO functional enrichment analysis, a co-expression network analysis framework is developed to predict functions of isoforms and further, to discover their distinct functions within the same gene. We apply Iso-Net to study gene isoforms for several important transcription factors in human myeloid differentiation with the exon-level RNA-Seq data from three different cell lines. Availability and implementation Iso-Net is open source and freely available from https//github.com/Dingjie-Wang/Iso-Net.The production of membrane proteins of high purity and in satisfactory yields is crucial for biomedical research. Due to their involvement in various cellular processes, membrane proteins have increasingly become some of the most important drug targets in modern times. Therefore, their structural and functional characterization is a high priority. However, protein expression has always been more challenging for membrane proteins than for soluble proteins. In this review, we present four of the most commonly-used expression systems for eukaryotic membrane proteins. We describe the benefits and drawbacks of bacterial, yeast, insect and mammalian cells. In addition, we describe the different features (growth rate, yield, post-translational modifications) of each expression system, and how they are influenced by the construct design and modifications of the target gene. Cost-effective and fast-growing E. coli is mostly selected for the production of small, simple membrane proteins that, if possible, do not require post-translational modifications but has the potential for the production of bigger proteins as well. Yeast hosts are advantageous for larger and more complex proteins but for the most complex ones, insect or mammalian cells are used as they are the only hosts able to perform all the post-translational modifications found in human cells. A combination of rational construct design and host cell choice can dramatically improve membrane protein production processes.