Summary
Many osteoporosis-related vertebral fractures are unappreciated but their detection is important as their presence increases future fracture risk. We found height loss is a useful tool in ...detecting patients with vertebral fractures, low bone mineral density, and vitamin D deficiency which may lead to improvements in patient care.
Introduction
This study aimed to determine if/how height loss can be used to identify patients with vertebral fractures, low bone mineral density, and vitamin D deficiency.
Methods
A hospital database search in which four patient groups including those with a diagnosis of osteoporosis-related vertebral fracture, osteoporosis, osteopenia, or vitamin D deficiency and a control group were evaluated for chart-documented height loss over an average 3 1/2 to 4-year time period. Data was retrieved from 66,021 patients (25,792 men and 40,229 women).
Results
A height loss of 1, 2, 3, and 4 cm had a sensitivity of 42, 32, 19, and 14% in detecting vertebral fractures, respectively. Positive likelihood ratios for detecting vertebral fractures were 1.73, 2.35, and 2.89 at 2, 3, and 4 cm of height loss, respectively. Height loss had lower sensitivities and positive likelihood ratios for detecting low bone mineral density and vitamin D deficiency compared to vertebral fractures. Specificity of 1, 2, 3, and 4 cm of height loss was 70, 82, 92, and 95%, respectively. The odds ratios for a patient who loses 1 cm of height being in one of the four diagnostic groups compared to a patient who loses no height was higher for younger and male patients.
Conclusions
This study demonstrated that prospective height loss is an effective tool to identify patients with vertebral fractures, low bone mineral density, and vitamin D deficiency although a lack of height loss does not rule out these diagnoses. If significant height loss is present, the high positive likelihood ratios support a further workup.
Zeolites are relatively easy to synthesize under laboratory conditions, however mostly in the form of highly disperse powder which hampers their potential sorption applications. There are some ...methods which allow forming them into larger systems, but again, most of them are not good enough for real applications. We propose to use expanded glass aggregate as substrate for zeolites synthesis. It has been found that using optimal process conditions, such as: sodium and alumina source concentrations, time and temperature, the zeolite granules can be obtained. Structural and sorption properties of resulting product have been analyzed.
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•We examined the possibility of zeolite synthesis from expanded glass aggregate.•Sodium aluminate can be used as an additive regulating Si/Al molar ratio.•It is possible to obtain zeolite X, zeolite A, zeolite Na-P1 and hydrosodalite.•Microstructure of resulting materials has been analyzed.•Zeolitization products are characterized by high cation exchange capacity.
Summary
Height measurements are currently used to guide imaging decisions that assist in osteoporosis care, but their clinical reliability is largely unknown. We found both clinical height ...measurements and electronic health record height data to be unreliable. Improvement in height measurement is needed to improve osteoporosis care.
Introduction
The aim of this study is to assess the accuracy and reliability of clinical height measurement in a university healthcare clinical setting.
Methods
Electronic health record (EHR) review, direct measurement of clinical stadiometer accuracy, and observation of staff height measurement technique at outpatient facilities of the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics. We examined 32 clinical stadiometers for reliability and observed 34 clinic staff perform height measurements at 12 outpatient primary care and specialty clinics. An EHR search identified 4711 men and women age 43 to 89 with no known metabolic bone disease who had more than one height measurement over 3 months. The short study period and exclusion were selected to evaluate change in recorded height not due to pathologic processes.
Results
Mean EHR recorded height change (first to last measurement) was −0.02 cm (SD 1.88 cm). Eighteen percent of patients had height measurement differences noted in the EHR of ≥2 cm over 3 months. The technical error of measurement (TEM) was 1.77 cm with a relative TEM of 1.04 %. None of the staff observed performing height measurements followed all recommended height measurement guidelines. Fifty percent of clinic staff reported they on occasion enter patient reported height into the EHR rather than performing a measurement. When performing direct measurements on stadiometers, the mean difference from a gold standard length was 0.24 cm (SD 0.80). Nine percent of stadiometers examined had an error of >1.5 cm.
Conclusions
Clinical height measurements and EHR recorded height results are unreliable. Improvement in this measure is needed as an adjunct to improve osteoporosis care.
Although some investigations of the integral enthalpy of mixing of the binary Cu–In system have already been done, there is a lack of conformity of these data within the literature. Therefore the ...integral enthalpy of mixing was determined with a Calvet-type calorimeter. The measurements were performed at four different temperatures to determine the temperature dependence of the integral enthalpy of mixing.
Although some investigations of the integral enthalpy of mixing of the binary Cu–In system have already been done, there is a lack of conformity of these data within the literature. Therefore the ...integral enthalpy of mixing was determined with a Calvet-type calorimeter. The measurements were performed at four different temperatures to determine the temperature dependence of the integral enthalpy of mixing.
The Computing Center of the Institute of Physics (CC IoP) of the Czech Academy of Sciences serves a broad spectrum of users with various computing needs. It runs WLCG Tier-2 center for the ALICE and ...the ATLAS experiments; the same group of services is used by astroparticle physics projects the Pierre Auger Observatory (PAO) and the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). OSG stack is installed for the NOvA experiment. Other groups of users use directly local batch system. Storage capacity is distributed to several locations. DPM servers used by the ATLAS and the PAO are all in the same server room, but several xrootd servers for the ALICE experiment are operated in the Nuclear Physics Institute in Řež, about 10 km away. The storage capacity for the ATLAS and the PAO is extended by resources of the CESNET - the Czech National Grid Initiative representative. Those resources are in Plzen and Jihlava, more than 100 km away from the CC IoP. Both distant sites use a hierarchical storage solution based on disks and tapes. They installed one common dCache instance, which is published in the CC IoP BDII. ATLAS users can use these resources using the standard ATLAS tools in the same way as the local storage without noticing this geographical distribution. Computing clusters LUNA and EXMAG dedicated to users mostly from the Solid State Physics departments offer resources for parallel computing. They are part of the Czech NGI infrastructure MetaCentrum with distributed batch system based on torque with a custom scheduler. Clusters are installed remotely by the MetaCentrum team and a local contact helps only when needed. Users from IoP have exclusive access only to a part of these two clusters and take advantage of higher priorities on the rest (1500 cores in total), which can also be used by any user of the MetaCentrum. IoP researchers can also use distant resources located in several towns of the Czech Republic with a capacity of more than 12000 cores in total.
Abstract
Simulation of erosion wear and design optimization have been performed for a convective gas cooler with a helical coil. Based on the results of simulation of the standard gas cooler design ...with a flat baffle used in Shell gasification-based combined cycle unit, it is concluded that the particle impact angle is the main factor determining the erosion maximum. To reduce erosion, it is necessary to install a structural element instead of the flat baffle to align the flow path of ash particles at the inlet to the gas cooler. The results of simulation for various baffle shapes show that a hemispherical baffle is optimal. The use of a hemispherical baffle plate made it possible to align the ash particle flow path at the inlet to the gas cooler channels and reduce the maximum level of erosion by a factor of almost 4 compared to the standard geometry of the baffle plate.
The integral enthalpy of mixing of the ternary Au–Cu–Sn has been determined with a Calvet type calorimeter at 6 different cross sections at 1273
K. The substitutional solution model of ...Redlich–Kister–Muggianu was used for a least square fit of the experimental data in order to get an analytical expression for the integral enthalpy of mixing. The ternary extrapolation models of Kohler, Muggianu and Toop were used to calculate the integral enthalpy of mixing and to compare measured and extrapolated values. Additional calculations of the integral enthalpy of mixing using the Chou model have been performed. With the calculated data, the iso-enthalpy lines have been determined using the Redlich–Kister–Muggianu model. A comparison of the data has been made.
A review of different methods for determining thermodynamic quantities is given. The electromotive force (EMF) method with a liquid and solid electrolyte, the calorimetric and differential scanning ...calorimetry (DSC) methods, and vapour pressure experiments like the isopiestic and Knudsen effusion methods are discussed.
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