A theory is presented that predicts both static liquid hold-up and capillary rise in a randomly packed bed of spherical particles. It exploits the experimental observation that the liquid that is ...retained in a packed bed after drainage is primarily present in the form of pendular liquid bonds between touching spheres. By considering this drained state as a network of liquid pendular bonds at critical percolation, the predictions for static liquid hold-up and for capillary rise follow naturally. The predictions for both phenomena agree well with experimental data.
Rapid bioassay is very important for immediate and near-term consequence management, which includes identifying contaminated individuals and providing necessary medical intervention during a ...radiological or nuclear emergency. This paper reports the application of a newly developed bioassay technique for 90Sr in urine on a field deployable instrument, the Triathler®. Performance of this field technique for sensitivity, accuracy and repeatability is evaluated against bioassay criteria (ANSI N13.30). This field technique offers the following analytical merits: (1) minimum detectable activity of 121 Bq l−1 when 20 ml of urine is used; (2) relative bias of 11.1 % and relative precision of 3.2 % at the level of 45 Bq per 20 ml of urine and (3) sample turnaround time of less than 1 h. The technique meets the requirements for emergency bioassay when a committed effective dose of 0.5 Sv is used as the action dose threshold for medical intervention. Sample throughput can be significantly improved if this technique is automated.
Conjugated linoleic acid pork research Dugan, M.E.R; Aalhus, J.L; Kramer, J.K.G
The American journal of clinical nutrition,
06/2004, Letnik:
79, Številka:
6S
Journal Article, Conference Proceeding
Recenzirano
The driving force behind most conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) research in swine has been related to potential improvements in animal production. Early work that used rodent models indicated that ...feeding CLA could potentially reduce body fat, increase lean content, increase growth rate, and improve feed conversion efficiency. Producer-backed funding organizations were, therefore, receptive to proposals to extend this research to pigs, and many studies have been completed worldwide. In general, improvements in body composition were found, but evidence indicating that CLA improves growth rate or feed conversion was limited. Inclusion of CLA into pig diets was, however, shown to increase muscle marbling fat and fat hardness, and both of these characteristics have the potential to increase carcass value. Currently, Badische Anilin- & Soda-Fabrik AG (BASF) has the international marketing license to include synthetic CLA in animal feeds, but to date this practice is not approved in Canada or the United States. If and when approval is granted, the next step in realizing CLA's economic potential would be to seek approval for claiming CLA enrichment in pork and pork products. Given the ability of swine to accumulate relatively high amounts of CLA in their tissues, pork and pork products could become an important vehicle for delivery of physiologically significant amounts of CLA to consumers.
Analog-to-digital converters that maximize the information rate between the quantized channel output sequence and the channel input sequence are designed for discrete-time channels with ...intersymbol-interference, additive noise, and for independent and identically distributed signaling. Optimized scalar quantizers with Λ regions achieve the full information rate of log 2 (Λ) bits per channel use with a transmit alphabet of size Λ at infinite signal-to-noise ratio; these quantizers, however, are not necessarily uniform quantizers. Low-precision scalar and two-dimensional analog-to-digital converters are designed at finite signal-to-noise ratio, and an upper bound on the information rate is derived. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the designed quantizers over conventional quantizers. The advantage of the new quantizers is further emphasized by an example of a channel for which a slicer (with a single threshold at zero) and a carefully optimized channel input with memory fail to achieve a rate of one bit per channel use at high signal-to-noise ratio, in contrast to memoryless binary signaling and an optimized quantizer.
Three phase 1 studies of eliglustat tartrate (Genz‐112638), an oral inhibitor of glucosylceramide synthase under development for treating Gaucher disease type 1 (GD1), evaluated the safety, ...tolerability, and pharmacokinetics in healthy volunteers after escalating single doses (n = 99), escalating multiple doses (n = 36), and food (n = 24). Eliglustat tartrate was well tolerated at single doses ≤20 mg/kg and multiple doses ≤200 mg bid, with 50 mg bid producing plasma concentrations in the predicted therapeutic range. No serious adverse events occurred. Mild to moderate events of nausea, dizziness, and vomiting increased in frequency with escalating single and multiple doses. Single doses ≥10 mg/kg caused mild increases in electrocardiogram PR, QRS, and QT/QTc intervals. Single‐dose pharmacokinetics showed dose linearity but not proportionality. Maximum plasma concentrations occurred at ∼2 hours, followed by a monophasic decline with a ∼6‐hour terminal half‐life. Unchanged drug in 8‐hour urine collections was <1.5% of administered doses. Food did not significantly affect the rate or extent of absorption. Multiple‐dose pharmacokinetics was nonlinear, showing higher than expected plasma drug concentrations. Steady state was reached ∼60 hours after bid dosing. Higher drug exposure occurred in slower CYP2D6 metabolizers. Based on favorable results in healthy participants, a phase 2 trial of eliglustat tartrate was initiated in GD1 patients.
Stone Treatment and Coagulopathy Klingler, H.C; Kramer, G; Lodde, M ...
European urology,
2003, 2003-Jan, 2003-1-00, 20030101, Letnik:
43, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Objective:
The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate treatment protocols and results of upper tract stone treatment in patients with clotting disorders.
Methods:
In a 6-year period, 6827 ...stone interventions (ESWL or endourologic procedures) were performed in 5739 patients. Thirty-five (0.61%) patients suffered from a variety of systemic clotting disorders or were anti-coagulated. Clotting disorders were corrected by specific therapy prior to any intervention. A total of 76 interventions were performed consisting of ESWL, ureteroscopy (URS), percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PNL), ureteric stenting or percutaneous nephrostomy.
Results:
All patients became stone-free within 3 months or had clinically insignificant residual fragments. Severe complications were observed in 10/76 (13.1%) interventions. ESWL was successful in 88.9% (16/18) of patients, but associated with a 33.3% (6/18) complication rate; 27.8% (5/18) of patients required auxiliary procedures. URS and PNL were successful in all cases and complications occurred in 0% (0/7) and 33% (1/3) of patients, respectively. Time to complete stone clearance after ESWL was 32.0±49.3 days compared with a mean of 19.4±28.6 days in a non-coagulopathy control group; no difference was observed for endourologic procedures. Average costs of treatment in patients undergoing ureteroscopy was higher in patients with coagulopathy (€ 4611 versus € 2342); however, the difference was less pronounced compared with ESWL (€ 6070 versus € 1731).
Conclusion:
Patients with coagulopathy have a higher rate of complications despite apparently normal clotting parameters during treatment and hospitalisation was prolonged. The efficacy of ESWL was lower in patients with coagulopathy and we currently favour endoscopic procedures for stone removal in this patient group.
Background
Low anterior resection syndrome (LARS) is associated with a severe negative impact on patients’ quality of life (QOL). In a recent prospective randomized controlled trial (RCT) by our ...group, early (“prophylactic”) use of transanal irrigation (TAI) following rectal resection for rectal cancer was shown to improve symptoms associated with LARS significantly compared with a group under supportive therapy (ST) within 1 and 3 months following closure of the protective ileostomy. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the outcome after 12 months when patients had the option to choose between the two therapeutic options and/or modify the regimen of TAI (volume and time).
Methods
In the RCT, 18 patients had been allocated to start with TAI following ileostomy closure, while 19 patients remained on ST only. Once the 3-month follow-up had been completed patients could choose between TAI or ST, respectively, and were invited for follow-up after 12 months. The maximum number of bowel movements during the day and the Wexner and LARS score as well as physical (PC) and mental (MC) component of the SF-36 questionnaire were evaluated. Furthermore, in patients who had changed their treatment arm, reasons for this decision were reported.
Results
Six patients were lost to follow-up (all in the ST group). One patient from the ST group started with TAI due to problems associated with LARS, bringing the total number of TAI patients to 19. Nine patients from the previous TAI arm changed to ST due to the long duration of the emptying process (
n
: 8) or pain during TAI (
n
: 1), respectively. After 12 months, the median volume of water used for irrigation was 600 ml (range 200–1000 ml). The ten patients who continued with TAI patients showed a lower number of defecation episodes per daytime (TAI median 3; 1–6, ST median 5; 2–10,
p
: 0.018) and per night (TAI median 0; 0–1, ST median 1; 0–5,
p
: 0.004) compared to the ST group. Although the LARS score was lower in patients who used TAI after 12 months (TAI median 18; 9–32, ST median 30; 3–39), this failed to reach the level of significance (
p
: 0.063). Evaluation of the Wexner score and the 36-item Short Form Health Survey as well as comparison of patients who remained on TAI (
n
: 9) versus those who had stopped TAI after 3 months (
n
: 9) failed to find any statistically significant difference between TAI and ST.
Conclusions
This follow-up study revealed that a considerable number of patients decided to stop TAI within 12 months. However, the number of bowel movements during the day were still lower when TAI was used than when patients had ST only.
Category
Randomized trial.
Registration number
DRKS00011752,
https://apps.who.int/trialsearch/
.
We present DFT calculations of methane activation and CH
x
(
x
=
0
–
3
) adsorption at a Rh{111} surface and compare our results with data for other elements. The activation mechanism has similar ...energetics as found for other transition metal surfaces, where the first and last steps are the most difficult. On Rh{111}, the CH dehydrogenation barrier is the highest. The CH radical is also the most stable fragment. The barrier that we find for the first methane activation step on Rh{111} is relatively low, lower than expected from comparing it with that step on Ru{0001} I.M. Ciobîcă, F. Frechard, R.A. van Santen, A.W. Kleyn, J.P.J. Hafner, J. Phys. Chem. B 104 (14) (2000) 3364–3369 or Ni{111} R.M. Watwe, H.S. Bengaard, J.R. Rostrup-Nielsen, J.A. Dumesic, J.K. Nørkov, J. Catal. 189 (1) (2000) 16–30 in terms of the Brønsted–Evans–Polanyi relation. Therefore, methane is likely more easily activated on Rh{111} than on Ru{0001} or Ni{111}. Adsorption on Rh{111} in general favors hollow sites, but the energy differences between sites are often
<
10
kJ
mol
−1
.
The electromigration process has the potential capability to move atoms one by one when properly controlled. It is therefore an appealing tool to tune the cross section of monoatomic compounds with ...ultimate resolution or, in the case of polyatomic compounds, to change the stoichiometry with the same atomic precision. As demonstrated here, a combination of electromigration and anti‐electromigration can be used to reversibly displace atoms with a high degree of control. This enables a fine adjustment of the superconducting properties of Al weak links, whereas in Nb the diffusion of atoms leads to a more irreversible process. In a superconductor with a complex unit cell (La2−xCexCuO4), the electromigration process acts selectively on the oxygen atoms with no apparent modification of the structure. This allows to adjust the doping of this compound and switch from a superconducting to an insulating state in a nearly reversible fashion. In addition, the conditions needed to replace feedback controlled electromigration by a simpler technique of electropulsing are discussed. These findings have a direct practical application as a method to explore the dependence of the characteristic parameters on the exact oxygen content and pave the way for a reversible control of local properties of nanowires.
Electron‐assisted atomic diffusion is used to displace atoms with high controllability. This enables a fine adjustment of the local properties of superconducting nanowires. This process is nearly reversible in Al, though less in Nb, and allows reversible switching from superconductor to insulator in La2−xCexCuO4. Feedback controlled electromigration can be, in some cases, advantageously replaced by electropulsing.
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