Whole body spiral CT in primary diagnosis of patients with multiple trauma in emergency situations

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of a fast whole body helical CT scanner for primary diagnosis in trauma patients. METHODS: 27 severely injured patients (9 women, 18 men; mean age 43 years) were first examined with a helical CT scanner allowing for digital radiograms up to a length of 1024 mm and continuous helical scans of up to 70 seconds (slice thickness 3 to 10 mm, pitch factor up to 2). The primary CT diagnosis was verified either by x-ray after the CT examination or during the subsequent days, by abdominal ultrasound, by additional CT scans in the following days, and by clinical follow-up. RESULTS: CT showed all clinically relevant injuries of the head, spine, chest, abdomen and pelvis. The diagnosis and classification of vertebral fractures was performed immediately. 4% of the fractures of the extremities and the ribs were not seen primarily. 6% of the injuries were outside the CT scan field. CONCLUSION: Helical CT is a reliable and fast method to obtain vital information and to improve management planning in severely injured patients. It reduces the number of conventional x-ray examinations. In certain cases, additional x-rays of extremity fractures may be required.     

Distributed detection with multiple sensors I. Advanced topics

Following the foundational work that established basic ideas for optimum distributed defection schemes using multiple sensors (as reviewed in Part I of this two-part review), further work on distributed detection has developed many useful and interesting extensions of the basic concepts. These more recent developments parallel those that arose from the early work on centralized, classical signal detection, resulting in new ideas of asymptotically optimum nonparametric, robust, and sequential centralized detection. Recent developments on these topics in the setting of distributed signal detection are reviewed in the present paper. Results in these directions are important in practice because they allow cases of modeling uncertainty to be addressed, and they provide more efficient detection schemes by optimizing more general performance criteria     

A focused two-dimensional air-coupled ultrasonic array for non-contact generation

Air-coupled ultrasonic sources are relatively inefficient because the high impedance mismatch at the air/solid boundary means that most of the input energy (in air) is reflected at this boundary. The objective of this research is to increase efficiency—specifically an increase in ultrasonic signal amplitude—by designing and building a focused, 2D-array of electrostatic transducers (individual diameters of 38 mm). The operating frequency of this array is in the range of 50–100 kHz; this range is selected for civil infrastructure applications. Numerical simulations are used to design an array by modeling the pressure field in air, and then optimizing an array consisting of 20 transducers to create a line-source. An array is then built (following this design) and the emitted pressure field (in air) of the as built array is measured with a microphone and compared to the pressure field predicted by the numerical model. Finally, the as built focused array is used as an ultrasonic source, and its robustness is verified by comparing the numerical simulation of a transient line-load on an elastic half-space with (completely non-contact) experimentally measured values. There is excellent agreement between these two representations, which confirms the possibility of developing a completely non-contact, scanning ultrasonic system in the 50–100 kHz range.     

SEMANOL (73) a metalanguage for programming the semantics of programming languages

Summary SEMANOL is a practical programming system for writing readable formal specifications of the syntax and semantics of programming languages. SEMANOL is based on a theory of semantics which embraces algorithmic (operational) and extensional (input/output) semantics. Specifications for large contemporary languages have been constructed in the formal language, SEMANOL (73), which is a readable high-level notation. A SEMANOL (73) specification can be executed (by an existing interpreter program); when given a program from the specified language, and its input, the execution of the SEMANOL (73) specification produces the program's output. The demonstrated executability of SEMANOL (73) provides important practical advantages. This paper includes discussions of the theory of semantics underlying SEMANOL, the syntax and semantics of the SEMANOL (73) language, the use of the SEMANOL (73) language in the SEMANOL method for describing programming languages, and the contrast between the Vienna definition method (VDL) and SEMANOL.     

Influence of hydrogen chemisorption on the magnetism of thin nickel films

Thin nickel films (thickness d = 13 × 10^-10 m) were prepared by evaporation on quartz substrates and were studied by means of ferromagnetic resonance spectroscopy under ultrahigh vacuum conditions (p < 2 × 10^-8 Pa).Since the ferromagnetic resonance data were found to change reversibly with hydrogen pressure and temperature, chemisorption isotherms could be derived which are in good agreement with well-known thermodynamic data.The results are discussed according to the ferromagnetic resonance theory of thin films. The magnetic properties are shown to be mainly influenced during chemisorption by changes in the magnetization. Each hydrogen atom adsorbed diminishes the magnetization of the sample by the contribution of one nickel atom.     

Clinical, haematological, metabolic and endocrine traits during the first three months of life of suckling simmentaler calves held in a cow-calf operation

Newborn suckling Simmentaler calves (10 males and 9 females) in a cow-calf operation were examined from birth up to the age of 3 months. The average daily gain from 47 to 120 kg was 0.86 kg. Except for higher average daily weight gains and insulin-like growth factor-I concentrations and lower thyroid hormone levels in male than female calves, there were no significant sex differences. Plasma glucose, total protein and immunoglobulin G concentrations increased on day 1 of life, thrombocyte number and plasma triglyceride concentrations rose during the first 7 days, whereas lymphocyte and monocyte percentage and plasma inorganic phosphorus, phospholipid, cholesterol and albumin concentrations increased during the first 14 or 21 days and then remained elevated. Eosinophil percentage increased after 3 weeks and insulin-like growth factor-I concentrations increased over the whole growth period. There were transient elevations of plasma glucagon concentrations up to day 14, of the activity of alkaline phosphatase transiently up to day 7 and of gamma-glutamyltransferase, aspartate aminotransferase and lactate dehydrogenase activities on day 1 of life. Plasma iron concentration transiently decreased up to day 28 and creatine kinase activity up to day 7. Total white blood cell number, neutrophil percentage, packed cell volume and concentrations of haemoglobin, calcium, magnesium (after a transient rise on day 1), non-esterified fatty acids, bilirubin, creatinine, triiodothyronine and thyroxine decreased from birth up to days 42, 56, 28, 28, 21, 84, 14, 14, 7, 14 and 7, respectively. Basophil percentage and concentrations of beta-hydroxybutyrate, urea and insulin did not exhibit significant age-dependent changes. The behaviour of most traits in the first weeks was the same in suckling calves under study as in non-suckling pre-ruminant calves. However, packed cell volume, red blood cell number, haemoglobin and plasma iron concentrations were higher, whereas glucose and insulin concentrations were lower than normally found in veal calves. On the other hand, concentrations of glucose, insulin and insulin-like growth factor-I in suckling calves in the third month of age were higher than can normally be measured in breeding calves.     

Human and clinical perspectives on leptin

The neurochemical coding of neurones located in ganglia of the nerve trunk accompanying the chicken ureter was analysed and quantified using NADPH-diaphorase reactivity and immunohistochemistry against tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), nitric oxide synthase (NOS), calbindin (CAL), vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP), neuropeptide Y (NPY), somatostatin (SOM), substance P (SP) and calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) in untreated or colchicine-treated preparation. Almost all neurones were either positive for TH (38%) or for SOM (60%). Only 4% of the neurones were both TH- and SOM-positive and 3% of the neurones exhibited neither TH nor SOM immunoreactivity. The relative numbers of NPY-, NOS-, CAL- and VIP-positive neurones were 57%, 28%, 14% and 7%, respectively. No SP- or CGRP-positive neurones were observed. All NADPH-diaphorase-positive neurones expressed NOS immunoreactivity. Only in some TH-positive neurones was NPY and/or NOS found. Four major subpopulations were found in the ureteric ganglia. The SOM-positive neurones were subdivided into SOM/NPY/NOS- (28% of all neurones), SOM/NPY- (18%) and SOM/CAL/NPY-positive neurones (14%). A subpopulation of these peptid- ergic neurones also contained VIP. About 35% of the neurones contained TH only. Neurones of all subpopulations (72% of the neurones), except most of the CAL-positive neurones, were encircled by dense plexus of varicose SP/CGRP-positive, presumably sensory nerve fibres. Dense plexus of VIP-positive fibres were observed around 89% of the neurones. The chemical coding of the neuronal subpopulations identified in the ganglia accompanying the chicken ureter resembled that observed in the ganglia of Remak's nerve but was remarkably different from that of the autonomic neurones described in mammalian species.