In situ preservation of kidneys from non-heart-beating donors--a proposal for a standardized protocol

The growing success in renal transplantation has resulted in an increase in the need for donor organs. Procurement of kidneys from heart-beating (HB) donors is unlikely ever to meet this demand. Non-heart-beating (NHB) donors offer a yet untapped source of renal grafts. Cadaver kidneys from patients who have sustained cardiac standstill are often considered unsuitable for transplantation due to prolonged warm ischemia time. Using an emergency in situ perfusion technique it is possible to limit warm ischemic damage and to salvage these kidneys for transplantation. The procedure requires prompt action and cooperation of emergency service personnel. This report presents a protocol for the emergency in situ preservation procedure that can be practiced in most hospitals. At the University Hospital of Maastricht, The Netherlands, implementation of this procedure resulted in 20% more kidneys available for transplantation. Although NHB donor kidneys showed a higher rate of delayed function compared with a matched HB donor kidney population, there was no significant difference in long-term graft survival between the two groups.     

In-situ Crystallization of Highly Volatile Commercial Mold Flux Using an Isolated Observation System in the Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope

The in situ crystallization behavior of highly volatile commercial mold fluxes for medium carbon steels was investigated using the confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM) equipped with an optimized isolated observation system. The highly volatile compounds of the mold flux were suppressed during heating allowing direct observation in the CLSM. Cooling rates of 25, 50, 100, 400, and 800 K/min were incorporated and continuous cooling transformation (CCT) diagrams of 4 different commercial mold fluxes for medium carbon steels were developed. Identification of the crystalline phase was conducted with XRD and SEM–EDS analysis. A cuspidine crystalline was observed in all samples at various cooling rates. With higher basicity, CaF₂, and NaF, the crystallization of the fluxes was enhanced according to the CCT diagram. As the slag structure becomes depolymerized, the diffusion rate of the cathodic ions seems to increase.     

Suppression of cell creation through control of volume expansion

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - This study was carried out to investigate the morphological changes of polymers when the volume expansion of polymer-gas mixtures is suppressed. The...     

Reaction kinetics study of CdTe thin films during CdCl2 heat treatment

In order to investigate the effect of CdCl₂ heat treatment on the physical properties of CdTe thin films grown by a sputtering method, the CdTe thin films were coated with CdCl₂. The recrystallization, grain growth, randomization, and reaction kinetics were investigated by monitoring the phase transition of CdCl₂-heat-treated CdTe specimens during temperature ramp annealing or isothermal soaking by using in-situ time-resolved high-temperature X-ray diffraction. The results of annealing show that the recrystallizations of CdTe (1 1 1) and other planes do not occur simultaneously, but sequentially in terms of temperature. The results of isothermal soaking imply that the Avrami diffusion-controlled reaction model fits well with the experimental data. This proves that the CdCl₂ diffusion process is the dominant factor in the CdTe recrystallization mechanism.     

Comparison of indium purification between vacuum refining and electrowinning

Vacuum refining and electrowinning experiments of indium metal with 99.97% purity have been performed to compare the behavior of impurity metals during refining. When indium metal was vacuum refined at 1000°C and 1.32 × 10^–8 atm for one hour, the major impurity elements, Pb and Bi, were effectively removed while Al, Cu and Sn were not removed.During electrowinning, solution pH, temperature and NaCl concentration had negligible effects on the current efficiency of electrowinning from the chloride solutions in the experimental ranges. However, a high concentration of indium and NaCl was important in achieving high energy efficiency. By employing electrowinning, the impurity metals in the indium such as Bi, Pb, Al, Mg and Cd were removed while copper was not removed.     

THERMOPHORESIS OF PARTICLES IN GAS-PARTICLE TWO-PHASE FLOW WITH RADIATION EFFECT

The radiation effect on the thermophoresis of particles is analyzed for a gas-particle twophase laminar flow. Two-phase radiation by both gas and particles is considered; in addition, the thermal nonequilibrium between gas and particle is taken into account. It is concluded that the particle diffusion velocity as well as particle concentration depends strongly on the optical radius of gas or particle. In general, the radiation was found to decrease the particle diffusion. In case that gas as well as particle radiation exists, the deposition of particle is mainly influenced by the gas. The effects of parameters such as the optical radius, conduction to radiation parameter, thermal loading ratio, and wall emissivity on the cumulative collection efficiency E ( x ) are also considered. As the optical radius and tube wall emissivity increase, E ( x ) decreases. The increase in conduction to radiation parameter N and thermal loading ratio CL leads to an increase in E ( x ).     

Design, assembly and reliability of large die and fine-pitch Cu/low-k flip chip package

This paper reports the design, assembly and reliability assessment of 21 × 21 mm² Cu/low-k flip chip (65 nm node) with 150 μm bump pitch and high bump density. To reduce the stress from the solder bump pad to low-k layers, Metal Redistribution Layer (RDL) and Polymer Encapsulated Dicing Lane (PEDL) are applied to the Cu/low-k wafer. Lead-free Sn2.5Ag, high-lead Pb5Sn and Cu-post/Sn37Pb bumps are evaluated as the first-level interconnects. It is found that the flip chip assembly of high-lead bumped test vehicle requires the right choice of flux and good alignment between the high-lead solder bumps and substrate pre-solder alloy to ensure proper solder bump and substrate pre-solder alloy wetting. Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) standard reliability is performed on the test vehicle with different first-level interconnects, underfill materials and PEDL.By integrating PEDL to the Cu/low-k chip, the reliability performance of the flip chip package has been improved by almost two times. This paper has demonstrated Moisture Sensitivity Test-Level 2 (MST-L2) qualified large die and fine-pitch Cu/low-k flip chip package. The presented results are significant for the development of flip chip packaging technologies for future advanced Cu/low-k generations.     

Dynamic FOAF management method for social networks in the social web environment

Nowadays various researches have been conducted on the utilization of Friend-Of-A-Friend (FOAF) as the foundation of social network services. However, automatic update and dynamic management of FOAF for the social network services are difficult. Hereupon, we propose a novel method to overcome the above problems by applying FOAF and RDF Site Summary (RSS) to OnLine Analytical Processing (OLAP) system. The proposed method generates the OLAP cube by using the collected FOAF and RSS from the web, and then processes the generated OLAP cubes. The implemented result shows that foaf:interest of users has reached an average of 19 % increase in 4 weeks. In proportion to the increased foaf:interest change, the number of foaf:knows of users has grown to an average of 9 %. By using the suggested method, we can provide better services in coping up with the rapid change of user interests with the automatic application of FOAF.     

Flash synthesis of Magnéli phase (TinO2n-1) nanoparticles by thermal plasma treatment of H2TiO3

A flash synthesis method of titanium suboxides (TSO) Ti_nO_2n-1 nanoparticles with Magnéli phases by thermal plasma using rutile-phase metatitanic acid (H₂TiO₃) as the raw material was proposed and investigated, comparing with common sintering hydrogenation process of H₂TiO₃. TSO powders with diverse colors were prepared and characterized by means of XRD, SEM and TEM. The results showed Magnéli phase nanoparticles with perfect spherical shape and particle size of 20–100 nm were rapidly synthesized by thermal plasma treatment under Ar and Ar/H₂ atmospheres. Typical Magnéli phases of Ti₅O₉ and Ti₄O₇ with peacock blue color were formed under argon atmosphere. An increase of hydrogen content in the atmosphere made nano-H₂TiO₃ efficiently reduced to form a different TSO phases with diverse colors of dark blue to blue black. Notably, parts of nanoparticles were of carbon shell/Magnéli phase core structure. The UV–visible absorptivity and electric conductivity of samples were tested and the results indicate that thermal plasma is an efficient way to improve the optical and conductive properties of materials. But the electric resistivity of nano Magnéli phase powders still keep 10⁵–10⁶ Ω^.cm.