Tritiation of amorphous and crystalline silicon using T <inf>2</inf> gas

Incorporation of tritium in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) and crystalline silicon (c-Si) at 250 °C using tritium (T 2) gas at pressures of up to 120 atm is reported. The tritium is stored in a surface layer which is approximately 150 and 10 nm for a-Si:H and c-Si, respectively. The concentration of tritium occluded in planar and textured c-Si is linearly dependent on the total surface area. The tritium is stable and the dominant tritium evolution occurs at temperatures above 300 °C. The concentration of tritium locked in a-Si:H and c-Si was 20 and 4 at. %, respectively. Self-catalysis appears to be important in the tritiation process. © 2006 American Institute of Physics

INGA 3D - creative transfer of competence in 3D footwear CAD to VET professionals

INGA 3D project - Creative Transfer of Competence in 3D Footwear CAD to VET Professionals aims to transfer and extend innovative software solutions and 3D technologies for Footwear Computer Aided Design. The project brings together universities, research and training centres, adult education providers and IT companies from Romania, Spain, Portugal, and UK. The project products introduce innovative solutions for e-learning in order to test and to validate new teaching methodologies and approaches suitable for vocational training. The INGA 3D training content, its supportive guide as well as the online learning platform was designed, developed, tested and evaluated in line with the best practices identified by partners in their institutions, countries and elsewhere in Europe. INGA 3D project contributes to developing skills and competencies of VET teachers, trainers, tutors, in order to face the future challenges raised by the necessity of adding to the current curricula in VET institutions ICT skill sets that will enable their graduates to work with highly specialized footwear CAD technologies

The employee as 'Dish of the Day’:human resource management and the ethics of consumption

This article examines the ethical implications of the growing integration of consumption into the heart of the employment relationship. Human resource management (HRM) practices increasingly draw upon the values and practices of consumption, constructing employees as the ‘consumers’ of ‘cafeteria-style’ benefits and development opportunities. However, at the same time employees are expected to market themselves as items to be consumed on a corporate menu. In relation to this simultaneous position of consumer/consumed, the employee is expected to actively engage in the commodification of themselves, performing an appropriate organizational identity as a necessary part of being a successful employee. This article argues that the relationship between HRM and the simultaneously consuming/consumed employee affects the conditions of possibility for ethical relations within organizational life. It is argued that the underlying ‘ethos’ for the integration of consumption values into HRM practices encourages a self-reflecting, self-absorbed subject, drawing upon a narrow view of individualised autonomy and choice. Referring to Levinas’ perspective that the primary ethical relation is that of responsibility and openness to the Other, it is concluded that these HRM practices affect the possibility for ethical being

Gastroduodenal ulcer with bleeding – a reconsideration of therapy

Spitalul Clinic de Urgență Sfântul Pantelimon, București, România, Al XI-lea Congres al Asociației Chirurgilor „Nicolae Anestiadi” din Republica Moldova și cea de-a XXXIII-a Reuniune a Chirurgilor din Moldova „Iacomi-Răzeșu” 27-30 septembrie 2011Introducere: Complicația hemoragică a ulcerului gastroduodenal cunoaște o incidența în creștere în ultimii ani. Studiul își propune reevaluarea atitudinii terapeutice în cazul ulcerului gastroduodenal hemoragic, cu stabilirea unor criterii de gravitate în care intervenția chirurgicală se impune. Material si metode: Studiul analizează retrospectiv un număr de 337 de pacienți cu diagnosticul de ulcer gastroduodenal hemoragic, internați și tratați în Clinica Chirurgie a Spitalului Clinic de Urgență „Sf. Pantelimon”, în decurs de 3 ani, în perioada ian. 2008 – dec. 2010. S-au analizat datele din foile de observație, protocoale operatorii, rezultate histopatologice. Rezultate: Majoritatea hemoragiilor digestive superioare de cauză ulceroasă au fost rezolvate cu tratament medicamentos (278 bolnavi). La restul de 59 de pacienți a fost necesar un tratament chirurgical, dintre care la 43 pacienți intervenția a fost impusă de pierderea de sânge ce amenință viața, iar la 16 pacienți intervenția a fost impusă de criteriile de gravitate/criteriile prognostice: repetarea sângerarii la scurt timp, criterii endoscopice de gravitate, grupa de sânge rară, etc. La 32 de bolnavi s- au practicat rezecții gastrice subtotale cu diferite tipuri de anastomoză iar în 27 de cazuri s-a practicat ulceroexcizie și hemostaza in situ. Concluzii: Evoluția ascendentă a terapiei farmacologice și endoscopice a scăzut semnificativ necesitatea intervențiilor chirurgicale. Intervenția chirurgicală rămâne mijloc terapeutic util în cazurile cu sângerare masivă și în cazurile neglijate terapeutic.As a complication of gastroduodenal ulcer, bleeding is more and more frequent. The study aims to reevaluate the therapeutic approach together with the development of criteria recommending surgery. Material and methods: The study evaluates 337 patients diagnosed with gastroduodenal ulcer, complicated with bleeding, between January 2008 and December 2010. Data was collected from patient charts, operative recordings, histopathological results. Results: The majority of upper GI bleeding, following the development of an ulcer was managed with medical therapy (278 patients). The remaining 59 patients required surgery, imposed in 43 cases by life threatening blood loss, and in 16 by gravity/prognostic criteria: frequent recurrence of bleeding, endoscopic gravity criteria, rare blood group, etc. Subtotal gastrectomy with various types of anastomosis was performed in 32 cases while in the remaining 27 cases we performed the excision of the lesion and in situ hemostasis. Conclusions: The evolution of pharmacological and endoscopic management significantly reduced the necessity for surgery. Surgery remains a useful therapeutic tool in cases with massive bleeding and in neglected cases

Leveraging HPC Profiling & Tracing Tools to Understand the Performance of Particle-in-Cell Monte Carlo Simulations

Large-scale plasma simulations are critical for designing and developing next-generation fusion energy devices and modeling industrial plasmas. BIT1 is a massively parallel Particle-in-Cell code designed for specifically studying plasma material interaction in fusion devices. Its most salient characteristic is the inclusion of collision Monte Carlo models for different plasma species. In this work, we characterize single node, multiple nodes, and I/O performances of the BIT1 code in two realistic cases by using several HPC profilers, such as perf, IPM, Extrae/Paraver, and Darshan tools. We find that the BIT1 sorting function on-node performance is the main performance bottleneck. Strong scaling tests show a parallel performance of 77% and 96% on 2,560 MPI ranks for the two test cases. We demonstrate that communication, load imbalance and self-synchronization are important factors impacting the performance of the BIT1 on large-scale runs.Comment: Accepted by the Euro-Par 2023 workshops (TDLPP 2023), prepared in the standardized Springer LNCS format and consists of 12 pages, which includes the main text, references, and figure

Current understanding of the human microbiome

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2018. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Nature Publishing Group for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Nature Medicine 24 (2018): 392–400, doi:10.1038/nm.4517.Our understanding of the link between the human microbiome and disease, including obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis and autism, is rapidly expanding. Improvements in the throughput and accuracy of DNA sequencing of the genomes of microbial communities associated with human samples, complemented by analysis of transcriptomes, proteomes, metabolomes and immunomes, and mechanistic experiments in model systems, have vastly improved our ability to understand the structure and function of the microbiome in both diseased and healthy states. However, many challenges remain. In this Review, we focus on studies in humans to describe these challenges, and propose strategies that leverage existing knowledge to move rapidly from correlation to causation, and ultimately to translation.Many of the studies described here in our laboratories were supported by the NIH, NSF, DOE, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.2018-10-1

The role of diet in the aetiopathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease

Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, collectively known as IBD, are chronic inflammatory disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. Although the aetiopathogenesis of IBD is largely unknown, it is widely thought that diet has a crucial role in the development and progression of IBD. Indeed, epidemiological and genetic association studies have identified a number of promising dietary and genetic risk factors for IBD. These preliminary studies have led to major interest in investigating the complex interaction between diet, host genetics, the gut microbiota and immune function in the pathogenesis of IBD. In this Review, we discuss the recent epidemiological, gene–environment interaction, microbiome and animal studies that have explored the relationship between diet and the risk of IBD. In addition, we highlight the limitations of these prior studies, in part by explaining their contradictory findings, and review future directions

Extradural autologous temporal muscle graft mimicking a meningioma: Case report

Meningiomas are the most common dural tumour, but there are also many other dural masses which mimic their appearances, such as neoplastic and non-neoplastic lesions. In this paper we report another mass which may mimic a dural lesion, namely a muscle graft harvested from the temporal site and left in situ, used to achieve haemostasis in a posttraumatic temporal extradural hematoma in a young male patient. Solid knowledge of differentiating neuroimaging characteristics of dural masses, as well as its corroboration with the patient’s medical history are extremely helpful in establishing an accurate diagnostic

Epidemiology, practice of ventilation and outcome for patients at increased risk of postoperative pulmonary complications

BACKGROUND Limited information exists about the epidemiology and outcome of surgical patients at increased risk of postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs), and how intraoperative ventilation was managed in these patients. OBJECTIVES To determine the incidence of surgical patients at increased risk of PPCs, and to compare the intraoperative ventilation management and postoperative outcomes with patients at low risk of PPCs. DESIGN This was a prospective international 1-week observational study using the ‘Assess Respiratory Risk in Surgical Patients in Catalonia risk score’ (ARISCAT score) for PPC for risk stratification. PATIENTS AND SETTING Adult patients requiring intraoperative ventilation during general anaesthesia for surgery in 146 hospitals across 29 countries. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The primary outcome was the incidence of patients at increased risk of PPCs based on the ARISCAT score. Secondary outcomes included intraoperative ventilatory management and clinical outcomes. RESULTS A total of 9864 patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The incidence of patients at increased risk was 28.4%. The most frequently chosen tidal volume (VT) size was 500 ml, or 7 to 9 ml kg1 predicted body weight, slightly lower in patients at increased risk of PPCs. Levels of positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) were slightly higher in patients at increased risk of PPCs, with 14.3% receiving more than 5 cmH2O PEEP compared with 7.6% in patients at low risk of PPCs (P < 0.001). Patients with a predicted preoperative increased risk of PPCs developed PPCs more frequently: 19 versus 7%, relative risk (RR) 3.16 (95% confidence interval 2.76 to 3.61), P < 0.001) and had longer hospital stays. The only ventilatory factor associated with the occurrence of PPCs was the peak pressure. CONCLUSION The incidence of patients with a predicted increased risk of PPCs is high. A large proportion of patients receive high VT and low PEEP levels. PPCs occur frequently in patients at increased risk, with worse clinical outcome