Endoscopic Management of Perforation of Right Hepatic Duct Following Non-Surgical Abdominal Trauma

Isolated bile duct injuries after blunt abdominal trauma are rare. Surgery is the usual mode of treatment. We report a patient with a right hepatic duct injury following blunt abdominal trauma who was managed successfully by endoscopic papillotomy

Utilisation of High Energy Propellant Waste in Manufacturing of Fired Clay Bricks to Enhance the Acoustic Properties

The disposal and waste management of solid high energy propellant (HEP) is a considerate conservational problem. HEP waste is currently disposed in open or confined burning which may cause environmental hazards. In this paper, we examined and discussed results on recycling of HEP waste into fired clay bricks baked in different orientation. HEP modified bricks with 1.5%, 3% and 5 wt. % HEP waste content were manufactured and tested, and then compared against virgin clay bricks without HEP content. The effect of directional orientation of bricks baked with varying HEP content on acoustic properties were experimented and discussed. The sound transmission loss decreases with increase in HEP waste due to formation of independently closed directional pores. The transmission loss of horizontally baked during firing of bricks is nearly 5dB lower than vertically baked bricks. Results of the experimental studies indicate that HEP waste can be utilised in fired clay bricks and different orientation baking further enhances the acoustic properties

Study on High Energy Propellant Waste in the Processing of Fired Clay Bricks

Utilisation of propellant waste in fabrication of bricks is not only used as efficient waste disposal method but also to get better functional properties. In the present study, high energy propellant (HEP) waste additive mixed with soil and fly ash in different proportions during manufacturing of bricks has been investigated experimentally. X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies were carried out to confirm the brick formation and the effect of HEP waste. Ceramic bricks were fabricated with HEP waste additive in proper proportions i.e. 0.5 wt %, 1.0 wt %, 1.5 wt %, 2.0 wt %, 2.5 wt %, 3 wt %, 3.5 wt %, and 4 wt % and then evaluated for water absorption capability and compressive strength. Compressive strength of 6.7 N/mm2, and Water absorption of 22 % have been observed from modified fired bricks impregnated with HEM waste additive. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies were carried out to analyze the effect of HEP waste additive on pore formation and distribution in the bricks. Further, the heat resulting from decomposition of propellants can cause a decrease in the energy required of baking process. The process of manufacturing of bricks with HEP waste additive is first of its kind till date

Detecting Determinacy in Prolog Programs: 22nd International Conference, ICLP 2006, Seattle, WA, USA, August 17-20, 2006. Proceedings

In program development it is useful to know that a call to a Prolog program will not inadvertently leave a choice-point on the stack. Determinacy inference has been proposed for solving this problem yet the analysis was found to be wanting in that it could not infer determinacy conditions for programs that contained cuts or applied certain tests to select a clause. This paper shows how to remedy these serious deficiencies. It also addresses the problem of identifying those predicates which can be rewritten in a more deterministic fashion. To this end, a radically new form of determinacy inference is introduced, which is founded on ideas in ccp, that is capable of reasoning about the way bindings imposed by a rightmost goal can make a leftmost goal deterministic

High-Efficiency p-i-n Photodetectors on Selective-Area-Grown Ge for Monolithic Integration

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We demonstrate normal incidence p-i-n photodiodes on selective-area-grown Ge using multiple hydrogen annealing for heteroepitaxy for the purpose of monolithic integration. An enhanced efficiency in the near-infrared regime and the absorption edge shifting to longer wavelength is achieved due to 0.14% residual tensile strain in the selective-area-grown Ge. The responsivities at 1.48, 1.525, and 1.55 μm are 0.8, 0.7, and 0.64 A/W, respectively, without an optimal antireflection coating. These results are promising toward monolithically integrated on-chip optical links and in telecommunications

Unusual Tumors Causing Extrahepatic Portal Venous Obstruction

Extrahepatic portal vein obstruction has been reported to be associated with tumors of liver, bile ducts and pancreas. We report two cases, one with gastric leiomyosarcoma and another with Non Hodgkin’s lymphoma, complicated by portal vein block and presenting with gastric variceal bleeding. Portal vein block in both cases was due to direct vascular infiltration. Development of portal hypertension posed difficulties in management

Phase diagram and upper critical field of homogenously disordered epitaxial 3-dimensional NbN films

We report the evolution of superconducting properties with disorder, in 3-dimensional homogeneously disordered epitaxial NbN thin films. The effective disorder in NbN is controlled from moderately clean limit down to Anderson metal-insulator transition by changing the deposition conditions. We propose a phase diagram for NbN in temperature-disorder plane. With increasing disorder we observe that as kFl-->1 the superconducting transition temperature (Tc) and minimum conductivity (sigma_0) go to zero. The phase diagram shows that in homogeneously disordered 3-D NbN films, the metal-insulator transition and the superconductor-insulator transition occur at a single quantum critical point at kFl~1.Comment: To appear in Journal of Superconductivity and Novel Magnetism (ICSM2010 proceedings

On tuning passive black-box macromodels of LTI systems via adaptive weighting

This paper discusses various approaches for tuning the accuracy of rational macromodels obtained via black-box identification or approximation of sampled frequency responses of some unknown Linear and Time-Invariant system. Main emphasis is on embedding into the model extraction process some information on the nominal terminations that will be connected to the model during normal operation, so that the corresponding accuracy is optimized. This goal is achieved through an optimization based on a suitably defined cost function, which embeds frequency-dependent weights that are adaptively refined during the model construction. A similar procedure is applied in a postprocessing step for enforcing model passivity. The advantages of proposed algorithm are illustrated on a few application examples related to power distribution networks in electronic system

Plasma proteome of brain-dead organ donors predicts heart transplant outcome

Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The AuthorsBackground: The pathophysiological changes related to brain death may affect the quality of the transplanted organs and expose the recipients to risks. We probed systemic changes reflected in donor plasma proteome and investigated their relationship to heart transplant outcomes. Methods: Plasma samples from brain-dead multi-organ donors were analyzed by label-free protein quantification using high-definition mass spectrometry. Unsupervised and supervised statistical models were used to determine proteome differences between brain-dead donors and healthy controls. Proteome variation and the corresponding biological pathways were analyzed and correlated with transplant outcomes. Results: Statistical models revealed that donors had a unique but heterogeneous plasma proteome with 237 of 463 proteins being changed compared to controls. Pathway analysis showed that coagulation, gluconeogenesis, and glycolysis pathways were upregulated in donors, while complement, LXR/RXR activation, and production of nitric oxide and reactive oxygen species in macrophages pathways were downregulated. In point-biserial correlation analysis, lysine-specific demethylase 3A was moderately correlated with any grade and severe PGD. In univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses myosin Va and proteasome activator complex subunit 2 were significantly associated with the development of acute rejections with hemodynamic compromise within 30 days. Finally, we found that elevated levels of lysine-specific demethylase 3A and moesin were identified as predictors for graft-related 1-year mortality in univariate analysis. Conclusions: We show that brain death significantly changed plasma proteome signature Donor plasma protein changes related to endothelial cell and cardiomyocyte function, inflammation, and vascular growth and arteriogenesis could predict transplant outcome suggesting a role in donor evaluation.Peer reviewe