Hemodialysis‐induced bradycardia, “a plumbing issue”: Resolved with catheter repositioning

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is reported as leading cause of death in patients on chronic hemodialysis. Arrhythmias are proposed to be a major predisposing factor for SCD. However, triggers for potentially lethal arrhythmias are not well understood. Here we describe a case of 72‐year‐old man on chronic hemodialysis via permanent Central venous catheter (CVC) who was admitted for evaluation after unwitnessed fall. Within 10 minutes of his first routine dialysis session in the hospital, he had cardiac‐arrest. He was successfully resuscitated within 3 minutes. The next day, fifteen minutes into the dialysis session, he had bradycardia with telemetry demonstrating long sinus pause and he lost consciousness. After few minutes of Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) he regained pulse and consciousness. Further review of the chest X‐ray revealed the tip of CVC to be directly touching the distal Superior Vena Cava (SVC) wall. We felt the catheter tip may have migrated after the fall and now is irritating the Sinoatrial node and triggering bradyarrhythmia. Next day, the CVC was exchanged, and the tip was placed higher up in superior vena‐cava. After repositioning, we started him on dialysis under intensive monitoring, and he tolerated well without any arrhythmia. Subsequent dialysis was uneventful. We describe a case of recurrent symptomatic intra‐dialytic bradycardia due to abnormal positioning of CVC that resolved after the repositioning of the catheter. This case in addition to similar case in nondialysis settlings provides additional insights into mechanisms of fatal arrhythmias in hemodialysis patient having CVC.     

Comparison of mechanical properties of ground corn stover,switchgrass, and willow and their pellet qualities

Mechanical and physical properties of ground corn stover, switchgrass, and willow were measured and compared in addition to the quality of pellets. Biomass was size-reduced with two different screen sizes (3.175 and 6.35?mm) and conditioned to obtain samples at two different moisture contents (17.5 and 20% on wet basis). Ground switchgrass had the smallest and willow had the highest D₅₀ when size-reduced with the same screen size. Hydrostatic triaxial compression tests were performed using the cubical triaxial tester to determine the bulk modulus, compression index, and spring-back index at specific unloading pressures (20, 45, 70, and 95?kPa). The trends of pressure vs. volumetric strain and void ratio vs. natural log of pressure were similar for all three materials; however, the magnitudes were different. Willow, size-reduced with 3.175?mm screen size at 17.5% wet basis, had the highest bulk modulus among different conditions of all the three biomass. Pellet durability values for all the three materials were higher than 80%. Corn stover pellets formed with 3.175?mm screen size at 20% wet basis had the highest diametral tensile and axial compressive strengths among different conditions for all the three biomass, however the values were not significantly different (p?>?0.05).     

Bioprocess Scale-up for Acetohydroxamic Acid Production by Hyperactive Acyltransferase of Immobilized Rhodococcus Pyridinivorans

Catalysis Letters - In this study, Rhodococcus pyridinivorans cells containing hyperactive acyltransferase was immobilized on various macromolecules based-polymeric matrices and used to improve...     

Gate All Around Dopingless Nanotube TFET Biosensor with Si0.5Ge0.5 – Based Source

Silicon - Through this paper, we discuss how Tunnel Field Effect Transistors can be utilized for the detection of biomaterials hence acting as a biosensor. The device proposed is a 3-D Doping less...     

LSALSA: accelerated source separation via learned sparse coding

Machine Learning - We propose an efficient algorithm for the generalized sparse coding (SC) inference problem. The proposed framework applies to both the single dictionary setting, where each data...     

Application of ameliorated Harris Hawks optimizer for designing of low-power signed floating-point MAC architecture

Neural Computing and Applications - Recently established Harris Hawks optimization (HHO) has natural behaviour for finding an optimum solution in global search space without getting trapped in...     

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Towards understanding polyhydroxyalkanoates and their use

It is fact that Polymers and their products have changed the face of the world in all the field of the technology. They are the future of the coming up generation of the research of the world. But this is also fact that these synthetic non biodegradable polymers have created a tough situation for the living being for a healthy life. Polyhydroxyalkanoates are polyesters produced by bacteria as intracellular storage materials in response to a variety of nutritional and environmental conditions, such as nitrogen limitation Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are gaining increasing attention in the biodegradable polymer market due to their promising properties such as high biodegradability in different environments, not just in composting plants, and processing versatility. Indeed among biopolymers, these biogenic polyesters represent a potential sustainable replacement for fossil fuel-based thermoplastics. Most commercially available PHAs are obtained with pure microbial cultures grown on renewable feedstocks (i.e.glucose) under sterile conditions but recent research studies focus on the use of wastes as growth media.PHA can be extracted from the bacteria cell and then formulated and processed by extrusion for production of rigid and flexible plastic suitable not just for the most assessed medical applications but also considered for applications including packaging, moulded goods, paper coatings, non-oven fabrics, adhesives, films and performance additives. The present paper reviews the PHAs, their main properties, processing aspects, commercially available ones, as well as limitations and related improvements being researched,with specific focus on potential applications of PHAs in packaging.