Immediate postoperative respiratory complications after coronary surgery

The influence of anesthesia, surgical procedure and special conditions of open-heart surgery upon respiratory function alterations is analyzed. Hypoxemia (present even in non-complicated open heart surgery) can be due to alveolar hypoventilation, ventilation-perfusion mismatch or shunt. The origin of atelectasias (present in 50-92% of patients) and pleural effusion (42-87%) is discussed. Phrenic nerve damage is usually secondary to thermal injury. Other less common complications are discussed. The influence of age, smoking and previous pulmonary diseases on respiratory complications is analyzed. Respiratory care after heart surgery (as time and requisites of extubations) and results of different methods (CPAP, PEEP, incentive inspirometry) are reviewed.     

Influence of pigment properties on UV‐curing efficiency

The curable formulations containing monomer‐diacrylate, photoinitiator‐p‐methoxybenzoyldiphenylphosphine oxide/benzyldimethylketal, additive reactive‐triethylamine, and inorganic thermoresistant pigments‐white, red, green, and blue were cured by UV exposure films. A series of experiments was carried out to investigate the relationship between the particle size distribution of the inorganic pigment and the colorimetric and mechanical properties of the UV acrylic curable coatings. Pendulum hardness and appearance of the films depend on the content and particle size distribution of the pigment. Optimal particle size distribution and pigment content were established to obtain the best films concerning their pendulum hardness and chromatic parameters. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 104: 247–252, 2007     

Fuel-rich catalytic combustion of methane in zero emissions power generation processes

A novel catalytic combustion concept for zero emissions power generation has been investigated. Catalysts consisting of Rh supported on ZrO₂, Ce-ZrO₂ or -Al₂O₃ were prepared and tested under fuel-rich conditions, i.e. for catalytic partial oxidation (CPO) of methane. The experiments were performed in a subscale gas-turbine reactor operating at 5 bar with exhaust gas-diluted feed mixtures.

The catalyst support material was found to influence the light-off temperature significantly, which increased in the following order Rh/Ce-ZrO₂ < Rh/ZrO₂ < Rh/-Al₂O₃. The Rh loading, however, only had a minor influence. The high activity of Rh/Ce-ZrO₂ is probably related to the high dispersion of Rh on Ce-ZrO₂ and the high oxygen mobility of this support compared to pure ZrO₂. The formation of hydrogen was also found to increase over the catalyst containing ceria in the support material.     

A Solution for the Finite Journal Bearing and its Application to Analysis and Design: II

This second in a series of papers is a continuation of the work described in Part I. Performance curves for β = 360°, 180°, 120° and 60° bearings are given for L/D values of 1/2 and 1/4 thereby extending the solutions to encompass both the L/D ratios and bearing arcs most widely used in practice. A problem illustrating the effect of L/D ratio on journal misalignment shows that the shortest bearing is not necessarily the one most capable of tolerating the maximum misalignment.     

Prognostic factors in the acute lymphoid and myeloid leukemias of infants

The age boundaries and prognostic factors that define the infant leukemias are still controversial. We therefore analyzed event-free survival according to age group in 96 children treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and 51 treated for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) before the age of 2 years. The study population was registered in consecutive institutional trials of multiagent chemotherapy conducted between 1980 and 1994. Among infants with ALL, event-free survival was significantly poorer in the 0- to 6-month-old group than in patients treated between 6 and 12 months of age (P = 0.03), whose outcome was in turn inferior to that in the 12- to 18-month and 18- to 24-month age groups (P = 0.013). Leukemic cells from ALL patients younger than 12 months had a significantly higher frequency of 11q23/MLL abnormalities, as well as better growth in stromal cell culture, compared to lymphoblasts from the older groups (P < 0.01). The only independent predictor of adverse prognosis among infants diagnosed with ALL before age 12 months was the presence of an 11q23/MLL rearrangement (P = 0.03). These findings contrast sharply with results for the AML cohort, whose event-free survival did not vary significantly by age group (P = 0.58). Male sex (P = 0.01) and leukocyte count > or = 50 x 10(9/l) (P = 0.04), but not 11q23 abnormalities, were independently associated with a poorer outcome for children with AML younger than 12 months at diagnosis. Thus, in very young children with ALL (but not AML), the rearrangement status of the 11q23/MLL region supersedes age group as a determinant of treatment outcome.     

Encoding conditions and the list-strength effect.

The list-strength effect occurs when "strong" items within a list are remembered at the expense of "weak" items within that same list. Two experiments (using 185 college student Ss) showed that variably encoded words were remembered better than words repeated with the same encoding context, whether memory was measured by free recall, frequency estimates, or recognition d'. However, there was little or no evidence from any of the measures that the variably encoded words were recollected in the mixed lists at the expense of the similarly encoded words. This pattern held even though, in Exp 2, there was a list-strength effect on free recall, when list strength was manipulated by increasing the number of presentations of a word. It is concluded that the free recall results could not be accommodated by the model of memory postulated by R. M. Shiffrin et al (see record 1990-13917-001) to account for the effects of list strength. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Biomimetic Membrane System Composed of a Composite Interpenetrating Hydrogel Film and a Lipid Bilayer

A simple way to form an interpenetrating hydrogel (IPH) by combining a layer‐by‐layer polyelectrolyte membrane with agarose is reported. The formed IPH membrane is more robust and easily manipulated compared to a polyelectrolyte membrane with the same number of layers. The IPH has good diffusion characteristics and retains the advantageous surface charge from the polyectrolyte composition that facilitates the adsorption of a stable lipid bilayer. The stable adsorption of a lipid bilayer on the IPH creates a biomimetic membrane system that is optimized for utilization in a diffusion chamber.     

Phase Transfer Catalysis in Phosphorus Chemistry

Phase-transfer catalysis (PTC) has been widely used for the synthesis of organic compounds for more than three decades. The scope and mechanistic features of PTC have been the aim of numerous studies. This review focuses on the application of phase transfer catalysis in synthesis of phosphorus compounds.