Telematics Service for Home and Satellite Hemodialysis

Home hemodialysis (HD) for the treatment of end-stage renal disease was first implemented about 30 years ago. In this paper the application of telematics monitoring services for supporting patients who need home HD or satellite HD is described. Two modified HD machines were located in two renal units, and a central control station (CCS, UNIX workstation with multimedia PC terminal) was located in another room of the hospital. Bidirectional communication between the modified HD machines and the CCS was managed using ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) links. Nine patients had 150 HD sessions performed using these HD machines over a period of 5 months. This system, called the HOMER-D system, provided on-line, remote supervision of the HD machine-related functions and the clinical condition of the patients through measurement of blood pressure, pulse rate, PO₂ (pulse oxymetry), and ECG from the CCS. Any disturbances in the functioning of the HD machines were both visible and audible in the CCS, and the observer could give teleconsultation to the renal unit staff. No major dialysis-associated complications were observed; all data and alarms were transmitted correctly; and patients received adequate HD treatment.     

Effect of pulsed electric fields and high pressure on improved recovery of high-added-value compounds from olive pomace

Olive pomace is considered a solid by-product and a rich source of valuable compounds such as polyphenols, flavonoids with antioxidant properties, and proteins. Nonthermal technologies, which cause alterations to cell permeability, are being explored to assist conventional recovery techniques. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of pulsed electric fields (PEF) and high pressure (HP) on improved recovery yield of the high-added-value compounds or to shorten the extraction time of these compounds. Olive pomace (Tsounati cv) was pretreated with PEF (1.0 to 6.5 kV/cm, 0.9 to 51.1 kJ/kg, and 15 µs pulse width) or HP (200 to 600 MPa and 0 to 40 min). Evaluation of the intracellular compounds extracted via solid–liquid extraction (50% ethanol–water solution) was performed. More intense PEF and HP conditions resulted in a significant increase of the phenolic concentration up to 91.6% and 71.8%, respectively. The increased antioxidant capacity of each extract was correlated to phenolic compound concentration. The protein concentration that was achieved with PEF pretreatment was doubled; however, HP-pretreated extracts reached 88.1% higher yield than untreated for pressures up to 200 MPa. HP and PEF pretreatment decreased extraction completion time t₉₈ (needed time to recover the equal amount of phenolics and proteins of untreated after 60 min of conventional extraction) to 12 min and lower than 1 min, respectively. To conclude, both pretreatments are effective in improving the conventional extraction process for increased yield recovery of high-added-value compounds from olive pomace.     

Quantifying nonthermal inactivation of Listeria monocytogenes in European fermented sausages using bacteriocinogenic lactic acid bacteria or their bacteriocins: a case study for risk assessment

Listeria monocytogenes NCTC10527 was examined with respect to its nonthermal inactivation kinetics in fermented sausages from four European countries: Serbia-Montenegro, Hungary, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The goal was to quantify the effect of fermentation and ripening conditions on L. monocytogenes with the simultaneous presence or absence of bacteriocin-producing lactic acid bacteria (i.e., Lactobacillus sakei). Different models were used to fit the experimental data and to calculate the kinetic parameters. The best model was chosen based on statistical comparisons. The Baranyi model was selected because it fitted the data better in most (73%) of the cases. The results from the challenge experiments and the subsequent statistical analysis indicated that relative to the control condition the addition of L. sakei strains reduced the time required for a 4-log reduction of L. monocytogenes (t(4D)). In contrast, the addition of the bacteriocins mesenterocin Y and sakacin P decreased the t(4D) values for only the Serbian product. A case study for risk assessment also was conducted. The data of initial population and t(4D) collected from all countries were described by a single distribution function. Storage temperature, packaging method, pH, and water activity of the final products were used to calculate the inactivation of L. monocytogenes that might occur during storage of the final product (U.S. Department of Agriculture Pathogen Modeling Program version 7.0). Simulation results indicated that the addition of L. sakei strains significantly decreased the simulated L. monocytogenes concentration of ready-to-eat fermented sausages at the time of consumption.     

Mechanisms of superficial micropunctate corneal staining with sodium fluorescein: The contribution of pooling

Purpose

To establish if sodium fluorescein (SFL) dye accumulation within intercellular spaces on the ocular surface contributes to the appearance of superficial punctate corneal staining.

Methods

Thirteen subjects bilaterally wore PureVision™ lenses that had been pre-soaked in ReNu MultiPlus^® multipurpose solution. After 1 h of lens wear, corneal staining with SFL was assessed using a standard slit-lamp technique. Participants who presented with bilateral, corneal staining were selected for further evaluation. A randomly selected eye was rinsed with saline three times. Fellow eyes (control) received no rinsing. After each rinse, the appearance of SFL staining was recorded without any further instillation of the dye. To eliminate any confounding effects of staining due to residual fluorescein in the tear menisci, corneal staining was induced in freshly excised, isolated, rabbit eyes by topical administration of 0.001% PHMB and staining, rinsing and grading were performed as above.

Results

Nine out of 13 subjects presented with bilateral diffuse corneal staining (mean grade ± SD: 2.4 ± 0.7). The mean staining grades in test and control eyes respectively after each of the three rinses were (1) 2.41 ± 0.41, 2.25 ± 0.69 (p = 0.9); (2) 2.34 ± 0.79, 2.1 ± 0.83 (p = 0.8); and (3) 1.71 ± 0.65, 1.60 ± 0.79 (p = 0.6) there was no significant reduction in staining with rinsing (p > 0.05) and no difference was observed between test and control eyes at any sampling-point. Similar observations made in ex vivo rabbit eyes replicated these results.

Conclusions

Pooling or accumulation of SFL solution within intercellular spaces does not appear to contribute to the appearance of superficial micropunctate corneal staining.     

CDTD: A Large-Scale Cross-Domain Benchmark for Instance-Level Image-to-Image Translation and Domain Adaptive Object Detection

International Journal of Computer Vision - Cross-domain visual problems, such as image-to-image translation and domain adaptive object detection, have attracted increasing attentions in the last...     

Characterization, morphology and composition of biofilm and precipitates from a sulphate-reducing fixed-bed reactor

The characteristics of the biofilm and the solids formed during the operation of a sulphate-reducing fixed-bed reactor, fed with a moderately acidic synthetic effluent containing zinc and iron, are presented. A diverse population of delta-Proteobacteria SRB, affiliated to four distinct genera, colonized the system. The morphology, mineralogy and surface chemistry of the precipitates were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX). The XRD patterns observed are characteristic of amorphous solid phases. Peaks corresponding to crystalline iron sulphide, marcasite, sphalerite and wurtzite were also identified. SEM-EDX results confirm the predominance of amorphous phases appearing as a cloudy haze. EDX spectra of spots on the surface of these amorphous phases reveal the predominance of iron, zinc and sulphur indicating the formation of iron and zinc sulphides. The predominance of these amorphous phases and the formation of very fine particles, during the operation of the SRB column, are in agreement and can be explained by the formation pathways of metal sulphides at ambient temperature, alkaline pH and reducing conditions. Solids are precipitated either as (i) amorphous phases deposited on the bed material, as well as on surface of crystals, e.g. Mg(3)(PO(4))(2) and (ii) as rod-shaped solids characterized by a rough hazy surface, indicating the encapsulation of bacterial cells by amorphous metal sulphides.