Nonselective debridement and antimicrobial cleansing of a venting ductal breast carcinoma

Supracondylar femur fractures above a total knee replacement are rare injuries that may be challenging to treat. We present a case of an elderly woman whose supracondylar femur fracture was not deemed amenable to conventional treatment. This patient underwent fixation of her femur fracture above a total knee replacement using an Ilizarov external fixator. The fixator was removed at 10 weeks, at which time the fracture was solidly healed. At the most recent follow-up, the patient is 19 months postinjury. She is fully weight bearing without walking aids and has a knee range of motion of 0 degree to 110 degrees.     

Substituent Effect on the Reactivity of Alkylated Triphenyl Phosphorothionates in Oil Solution in the Presence of Iron Particles

The effect of the substituent attached to the phenyl rings on the reactivity of alkylated triphenyl phosphorothionates (t-butyl TPPT (b-TPPT) and p-nonyl TPPT (n-TPPT)) in oil solution at high temperature (423 and 473 K) was investigated by means of Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The FT-IR and NMR results show that the alkylated TPPTs were highly thermally stable and did not completely decompose in oil, even upon heating at 423 K for 168 h and at 473 K for 72 h, with and without steel filings and iron particles (both metallic iron and iron oxide particles). The reaction of alkylated TPPTs was found to start with the scission of the P=S bond to yield alkylated triphenyl phosphate. The kinetics of the thermo-oxidative reaction was slower when steel filings and iron particles were added to the oil solutions during the heating experiments. The reactivity of the unsubstituted molecule (TPPT) was higher than that of alkylated TPPTs at 423 K, while at 473 K TPPT and n-TPPT were more reactive than b-TPPT. In the case of the experiments performed at 473 K in the presence of steel filings or metallic iron or iron oxide particles, the reactivity of the alkylated TPPT molecules decreased with the length of the alkyl chain bound to the phenyl rings. The XPS results show that a reaction layer consisting of carbon, oxygen, phosphorus and iron was formed on the 100Cr6 steel filings immersed for 72 h in oil solutions containing alkylated TPPTs and heated at 473 K. Sulphur was neither detected on the surface nor in the composition vs depth profile. During the heating experiments, the base oil (PAO) was oxidized. At 423 K, the alkylated TPPTs had a strong antioxidant effect, which was found to be more pronounced upon increasing the length of the alkyl chain bound to the phenyl rings. At 473 K, the TPPTs did not inhibit the oxidation of the base oil as effectively as at 423 K.     

The Statutory Homelessness System in England: A Fair and Effective Rights-Based Model?

The statutory homelessness system, first established by the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977, is an important but frequently criticised element of the British welfare state. Drawing upon a survey of 2053 ‘statutorily homeless’ families in England, this paper applies a utility-maximising conceptual framework to demonstrate that (a) the statutory homelessness system is on the whole ‘fair’ with respect to the housing needs that it addresses, and (b) ‘effective’, in that it can bring about significant net gains in the welfare of those households its assists. These encouraging findings are relevant not only to current concerns about the future direction of homelessness policy in England, but also to policy debates in many countries across the developed world where there are calls to develop a ‘rights-based’ approach to addressing homelessness.     

Ecommerce interface colour and consumer decision making: Two routes of influence

This article reports an empirical study of the effects of interface colour (blue vs. grey) on ecommerce decision making. Participants viewed a set of products and information on the attributes of each and then made a series of purchase decisions that provided the basis for individual rankings of this set. Results support two proposed ‘routes of influence’. In the first, interface colour influences the cognitive capacities and strategies of consumers. This was evident as participants considered more attributes in the grey interface condition. Importantly, this was not mediated by participants' affective state. In the second, interface colour exerts influence via participants' aesthetic judgements. This was evident at a product‐specific level—with colour‐related differences in product selection decisions mediated (for two product alternatives) by participants' assessments of product aesthetics. There was also some support for a product‐generic effect of interface colour—with product aesthetics tending to be more influential in the grey condition. Overall, the results demonstrate the multifacetted nature of the influence of interface colour on consumer decision making in retail environments. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 2011;     

Interactions between serotypes of dengue highlight epidemiological impact of cross-immunity

Dengue, a mosquito-borne virus of humans, infects over 50 million people annually. Infection with any of the four dengue serotypes induces protective immunity to that serotype, but does not confer long-term protection against infection by other serotypes. The immunological interactions between serotypes are of central importance in understanding epidemiological dynamics and anticipating the impact of dengue vaccines. We analysed a 38-year time series with 12 197 serotyped dengue infections from a hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. Using novel mechanistic models to represent different hypothesized immune interactions between serotypes, we found strong evidence that infection with dengue provides substantial short-term cross-protection against other serotypes (approx. 1–3 years). This is the first quantitative evidence that short-term cross-protection exists since human experimental infection studies performed in the 1950s. These findings will impact strategies for designing dengue vaccine studies, future multi-strain modelling efforts, and our understanding of evolutionary pressures in multi-strain disease systems.     

Luminescence nanothermometry with alkyl-capped silicon nanoparticles dispersed in nonpolar liquids

Silicon nanoparticles (Si NPs) with a diameter size ranging from 4 to 8 nm were successfully fabricated. They exhibit a visible photoluminescence (PL) due to the quantum confinement effect. Chemical functionalization of these Si NPs with alkyl groups allowed to homogeneously disperse them in nonpolar liquids (NPLs). In comparison to most of literature results for Si NPs, an important PL peak position variation with temperature (almost 1 meV/K) was obtained from 303 to 390 K. The influence of the liquid viscosity on the peak positions is also presented. These variations are discussed considering energy transfer between nanoparticles. The high PL thermal sensitivity of the alkyl-capped Si NPs paves the way for their future application as nanothermometers.     

Dielectric Thermoscopy Characterization of Water Contaminated Grease

The temperature dependence on the dielectric properties of water-contaminated grease is investigated in this article. The purpose of this investigation was to identify the dielectric properties that could be measured to differentiate varying levels of water contamination in calcium sulfonate complex (CaS-X) grease with three different test cells with the purpose of eventually developing a grease condition sensor. Measuring the change in dielectric constant over a small temperature change yielded useful estimations of water content and amount of grease where the added water content ranged from 0.22% to about 5.5%. Additionally, other parameters such as incomplete fill/coverage of the sensors were investigated as a prestudy. The results from this set of experiments show that the measurement has potential to be developed into a condition monitoring sensor in the future.     

Drop mass transfer in a microfluidic chip compared to a centrifugal contactor

A model system was developed for enabling a multiscale understanding of centrifugal‐contactor liquid–liquid extraction. The system consisted of Nd(III) + xylenol orange in the aqueous phase buffered to pH = 5.5 by KHP, and dodecane + thenoyltrifluroroacetone (HTTA) + tributyphosphate (TBP) in the organic phase. Diffusion constants were measured for neodymium in both the organic and aqueous phases, and the Nd(III) partition coefficients were measured at various HTTA and TBP concentrations. A microfluidic channel was used as a high‐shear model environment to observe mass transfer on a droplet scale with xylenol orange as the aqueous‐phase metal indicator; mass‐transfer rates were measured quantitatively in both diffusion and reaction limited regimes on the droplet scale. The microfluidic results were comparable to observations made for the same system in a laboratory scale liquid–liquid centrifugal contactor, indicating that single drop microfluidic experiments can provide information on mass transfer in complicated flows and geometries. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 60: 3071–3078, 2014