Tension pneumothorax precluding laparoscopic repair of diaphragmatic hernia

BACKGROUND: Central Europe and the Czech Republic are specific in the prevalence of obesity which has increased by 10-40% during the last 10 years. METHODS: In the Czech republic there is 30 years of experience of a comprehensive approach to obesity treatment which includes: dietary treatment; exercise; behavioral modification; drug treatment; and bariatric surgery. Each of these approaches has its place in complex obesity management. Since 1983 bariatric surgery has been established in the Czech Republic for the treatment of morbid obesity. Vertical banded gastroplasty (VBG), gastric banding, laparoscopic nonadjustable and adjustable gastric bandings have been used over the years. Since 1993 laparoscopic gastric banding has been the only method used in our department. RESULTS: The comprehensive approach for obesity treatment in the Czech Republic has resulted in the development of obesity management and research centers, regional obesity units, obesity out-patients clinics and weight reduction clubs. The surgical treatment is a well-established part of this system and the long-term results of surgical treatment are acceptable both in terms of weight loss and complication rate. There has been no statistical difference in weight loss results following VBG and laparoscopic gastric banding, but there is a significant decrease in morbidity, and shorter hospital stay associated with laparoscopic gastric banding. CONCLUSIONS: The surgical approach in obesity treatment has an important place in the comprehensive care of obese patients. Laparoscopic gastric banding in the hands of an experienced surgeon is a method with low morbidity, short hospital stay and long-term weight loss results which are fully comparable with the results of other surgical approaches.     

Ultrasonic feature-based classification of the interfacial condition in composite adhesive joints

The sensitivity of ultrasonic features to the condition of the adherend-adhesive interface in composite joints was studied. The inspected specimens represent different bonding characteristics due to the variety of surface pretreatments to the composite adherends. Each signal obtained from ultrasonic inspection of a specimen was characterized by a feature vector, consisting of features derived from both the time and frequency domain representations of the signal. Some of the features were found to be significantly sensitive to the interfacial characteristics of the joints. The sensitivity was verified by means of conventional statistical tests. The sensitivity of the features enabled the application of basic pattern recognition techniques for the classification of the joints according to the surface preparation of the adherends.     

Adults' conceptions of intelligence across the adult life span.

To examine whether young, middle-aged, and older adults view the concept of intelligent person as similar or different during adulthood, 140 adults of various ages rated how likely it would be for individuals of average and exceptional intelligence at 30, 50, and 70 yrs of age to be engaged in behaviors previously identified by adults as characterizing adult intelligence. Adults perceived more similarity between exceptionally intelligent prototypes of closer ages (i.e., 30 and 50 yrs; 50 and 70 yrs). Intelligence was perceived to consist of interest and ability to deal with novelty, everyday competence, and verbal competence (dimensions that were perceived to be differentially important for different-aged prototypes and by individuals of different ages). Participants' conceptions also included the idea that intelligence is malleable and that abilities differentially increase or decrease across the life span. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Shielding‐effectiveness modeling of carbon‐fiber/nylon‐6,6 composites

We have formulated a linear theory for the shielding effectiveness of composite matrix materials and have tested the theory for various amounts of ThermalGraph DKD X carbon fiber within nylon 6,6. The theory predicts that the most important parameters for the shielding effectiveness of a sample are the carbon‐fiber volume percentage and the frequency of the wave to be shielded. Although we expected the model to be valid at low filler‐loading levels, it actually performs remarkably, covering an electrical‐resistivity range of 10¹⁶ (at low filler‐loading levels) to 10¹ Ω cm (at high filler‐loading levels), well above the percolation threshold of electrical‐resistivity theory. The model performs much better than those reported in the literature and can be used to determine filler loadings needed to provide a certain level of shielding of electromagnetic waves. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 96: 62–69, 2005     

米尔斯坦堂

正AAP学院米尔斯坦堂是位于纽约州伊萨卡市久负盛名的康奈尔大学建筑艺术和规划学院(简称"AAP学院")近百年来新建的第一栋建筑。但新建筑并没有独立于学院原有建筑,而是设计为与原有建筑室内外各层面相接的综合体。约4 400m2的空间内包含了工作室、展廊、评图室以及第一个专属礼堂等学院特别需要的空间。学院原有的4栋建筑位于校园北部边     

Thermal Characterization of Fine Fibers Using an Improved Direct Electrical Heating Method

The transient electrothermal technique has been shown to be an important method for the thermal characterization of fine fibers. However, this study shows that the accuracy of this method hinges on the proper consideration of several sample parameters including the initial electrical resistance and the emissivity of the sample. Such consideration is verified through measurement of platinum samples with various lengths. A multi-level heating scheme is proposed to mitigate the high sensitivity to the initial sample electrical resistance resulting in a demonstrated precision uncertainty of \({<}3~\%\) . Using a recently expanded thermal model accounting for heretofore neglected heat losses, the emissivity of the sample may be measured simultaneously with thermal conductivity. The influence of the vacuum level is demonstrated by the results of measurements at two vacuum levels \({<}0.001\hbox { Pa}\) (diaphragm plus turbo pumps) and \({\sim } 2\hbox { Pa}\) (regular rotary vane pump). Neglecting these considerations can produce seemingly viable measurement results having significant bias error. Based on the characteristics of the expanded model, a new approach is presented that takes advantage of the simplicity of the reduced model, which neglects lateral heat losses from the sample, to obtain sample thermal properties that are independent of heat loss effects. Lastly, several experimental results validate the new model.     

Life cycle environmental assessment of lithium-ion and nickel metal hydride batteries for plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles

This study presents the life cycle assessment (LCA) of three batteries for plug-in hybrid and full performance battery electric vehicles. A transparent life cycle inventory (LCI) was compiled in a component-wise manner for nickel metal hydride (NiMH), nickel cobalt manganese lithium-ion (NCM), and iron phosphate lithium-ion (LFP) batteries. The battery systems were investigated with a functional unit based on energy storage, and environmental impacts were analyzed using midpoint indicators. On a per-storage basis, the NiMH technology was found to have the highest environmental impact, followed by NCM and then LFP, for all categories considered except ozone depletion potential. We found higher life cycle global warming emissions than have been previously reported. Detailed contribution and structural path analyses allowed for the identification of the different processes and value-chains most directly responsible for these emissions. This article contributes a public and detailed inventory, which can be easily be adapted to any powertrain, along with readily usable environmental performance assessments.     

Fresnel phasing of segmented mirror telescopes

Shack-Hartmann (S-H) phasing of segmented telescopes is based upon a physical optics generalization of the geometrical optics Shack-Hartmann test, in which each S-H lenslet straddles an intersegment edge. For the extremely large segmented telescopes currently in the design stages, one is led naturally to very large pupil demagnifications for the S-H phasing cameras. This in turn implies rather small Fresnel numbers F for the lenslets; the nominal design for the Thirty Meter Telescope calls for F=0.6. For such small Fresnel numbers, it may be possible to eliminate the lenslets entirely, replacing them with a simple mask containing a sparse array of clear subapertures and thereby also eliminating a number of manufacturing problems and experimental complications associated with lenslets. We present laboratory results that demonstrate the validity of this approach.     

雷文斯本学院新办公楼

雷文斯本学院以电子媒体与设计著称,其新办公楼坐落在格林威治半岛,位于总平面南北中轴线的右侧,O2建筑西南边界与之接壤,建筑面积21500m2。建筑新址非常特别,雷文斯本旨在满足21世纪学生们对于教育的新要求:希望获得更多的知识资源,希望随