Health status recovery at one year in children injured in a road accident: A cohort study

Despite the frequency of traumatic injuries due to road accidents and potential importance of identifying children at risk of impaired recovery one year after a road accident, there is a lack of data on long-term recovery of health status, except in children with severe traumatic brain injury. The aim of the present study was to evaluate predictive factors of recovery in children one year after road traffic injuries. The prospective cohort study was composed of children aged <16 years, admitted to public or private sector hospitals in the Rhône administrative area of France following a road accident. Recovery of health status one year after the accident and information concerning quality of life and the consequences of the accident for the child or family 1 year after the accident were collected by questionnaire, usually completed by the parents. Victims were in majority male (64.6%) and had mild or moderate injuries (81.9% with Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale (M-AIS) <3). One year after the accident, 75.0% of the mild-to-moderate and 34.8% of the severe cases estimated health status as fully recovered. After adjustment, severity score (M-AIS ≥ 3) and lower limb injury (AIS > 1) were associated with incomplete recovery of health status: weighted odds ratio (OR_w), 4.3 [95% confidence interval (95% CI), 1.3–14.6] and OR_w, 6.5 [95% CI, 1.9–21.7], respectively. Recovery status correlated significantly with quality of life physical scores (r = 0.46), especially body pain (r = 0.48) and role/social–physical (r = 0.50) and, to a lesser extent, quality of life psychosocial scores (r = 0.21). In a cohort of children injured in a road accident, those with high injury severity score and those with lower limb injuries are less likely to recover full health status by 1 year. Impaired health status was associated with a lower physical quality of life score at 1 year.     

Modeling of program, erase and retention characteristics of charge-trap gate all around memories

This paper describes the effect of geometry in charge-trap (CT) memory devices. We first theoretically analyze the impact of the curvature radius on the behavior of the gate current in Gate-All-Around devices, and then describe the change to make to planar model in order to fit the cylindrical devices characteristics. This model is used to simulate Nanocrystal and SONOS program, erase and retention behaviors. The dynamics enhancement during program/erase due to the bending of the active region in such cylindrical devices is explained. The scaling perspectives conclude this paper.     

An efficient reduced simulation of residual stresses in composite forming processes

An efficient simulation of thermal and mechanical models involved in thermosetting composites forming needs to overcome some numerical difficulties related to: (i) the multi-scale behaviour; (ii) the complex geometries involved needing too many degrees of freedom; (iii) the large time intervals where the solution has to be computed; (iv) the non-linearity of the involved evolution equations; (v) the numerous couplings… In this work, an efficient strategy based on a separated representation is proposed. This method enables to avoid the use of an incremental strategy and can lead to impressive computing time savings especially when the model involves fine meshes and very small time steps. The local non-linear chemical kinetics and its coupling with the global heat balance equation are naturally introduced in the separated representation algorithm. Moreover, the dependence of the thermal conductivity and the specific heat on the temperature and on the reaction advancement degree are also taken into account. Knowing the history of the temperature field, the separated representation is again used to solve the thermo-mechanical problem in order to determine the residual stresses.     

Efficient Geodesic Attribute Thinnings Based on the Barycentric Diameter

An attribute opening is an idempotent, anti-extensive and increasing operator, which removes from an image connected components which do not fulfil a given criterion. When the increasingness property is dropped, we obtain a—more general—attribute thinning. In this paper, we propose efficient grey scale thinnings based on geodesic attributes. Given that the geodesic diameter is time consuming, we propose a new geodesic attribute, the barycentric diameter to speed up the computation time. Then, we give the theoretical error bound between these two attributes, and we note that in practice, the barycentric diameter gives very similar results in comparison with the geodesic diameter. Finally, we present the algorithm with further optimisations, to obtain a 60× speed up. We illustrate the use of these thinnings in automated non-destructive material inspection: the detection of cracks. We discuss the advantages of these operators over other methods such as path openings or the supremum of openings with segments.     

Architectural Control of Freeze-Cast Ceramics Through Additives and Templating

The freezing of concentrated colloidal suspensions is a complex physical process involving a large number of parameters. These parameters provide unique tools to manipulate the architecture of freeze-cast materials at multiple length scales in a single processing step. However, we are still far from developing predictive models to describe the growth of ice crystals in concentrated particle slurries. In order to exert reliable control over the microstructural formation of freeze-cast materials, it is necessary to reach a deeper understanding of the basic relationships between the experimental conditions and the microstructure of the growing solid. In this work, we explore the role of several processing variables (e.g., composition of the suspension, freezing rate, and patterning of the freezing surface) that could affect the formulation strategies for the architectural manipulation of freeze-cast materials. We also demonstrate, using freeze-cast lamellar structures, that reducing the lamellar thickness by less than half increases the compressive strength by more than one order of magnitude.     

Is automatic disinfection between each endoscopy mandatory? Société Royale Belge de Gastro-entérologie

PURPOSE: The effects of chronic chloroquine administration on serum proteins and free amino acids of rabbits and the accompanying ultrastructural changes in the retina were investigated. METHODS: Thirty pigmented rabbits were injected intramuscularly with chloroquine diphosphate (14 mg/Kg bw). Fifteen rabbits served as control. Blood samples drawn after 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 12 months were assayed for serum proteins by Bio-analytic kits and horizontal electrophoretic technique. Free amino acids were determined by Beckman analyzer. Central retinal tissue was fixed in 4% glutaraldehyde, embedded in araldite CY212 and sectioned for ultrastructural examination. RESULTS: Histopathologic changes were apparent within three months, initially affecting the pigment epithelium and photoreceptors and later involving the remaining neuroretinal layers. Hypoproteinemia gradually developed mainly due to a sharp drop in albumin and alpha 1 and 2 globulin fractions, inspite of an increase in beta and gamma globulin fractions. The concentration of non-essential amino acids varied considerably from a depletion of taurine, aspartine, glutamine, tryptophan and arginine to an increase of serine, alanine, GABA and ornithine. The most outstanding effect was the disappearance of tyrosine and its return to normal value at the end of the experiment. CONCLUSION: The disturbances in protein pattern and free amino acid levels are an indication of chloroquine toxicity and may be implicated in the retinopathy.     

Pulmonary plasmacytoma. Apropos of a case. Review of the literature]

Thirty-six infants born at term who developed hyperbilirubinemia were assessed for developmental status at 2, 4, 6, 9 and 12 months of age according to a mental and psychomotor scale for 0-4 year old. The development quotient (DQ) of infants with hyperbilirubinemia were lower than controls, and the reduction was significant at 2 months of age (P = 0.03). When single component of DQ was compared, it was shown that the DQ score for social behavior was significantly lower in patients at 2 months of age than in control (P = 0.007), and except for motor, other four single DQ scores were lower in patients than in control and the reduction was significant in the DQ scores for adaptability and social behavior (P = 0.05, 0.032, respectively). Furthermore, no significant correlation was found between DQ and serum peak bilirubin value or duration of hyperbilirubinemia. The results indicate that hyperbilirubinemia may have a long term impact on mental development of infants. It is necessary to monitor all infants with hyperbilirubinemia, including full term infants with no severe complication.     

Object exploration and reactions to spatial and nonspatial changes in hooded rats following damage to parietal cortex or hippocampal formation.

Hooded rats with bilateral lesions of the anterior part of the hippocampal formation (HIP), anterior region of the posterior parietal cortex (APC), or posterior region of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) were compared with controls for their exploration of 5 objects in an open field, habituation of locomotion and object investigation, and response to spatial and nonspatial change. First, all groups displayed habituation of both locomotor and exploratory activity. Second, controls selectively reexplored displaced objects, and APC-lesioned rats reexplored all objects, whereas PPC- and HIP-lesioned rats failed to react to the spatial change. Third, a novel object induced reexploration in all groups. Results are consistent with the roles of the HIP and PPC in spatial information processing. Moreover, the APC and PPC are involved in attentional effortful processing and visuospatial information processing necessary for spatial representation, respectively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)