IEA SHC Task 42 / ECES Annex 29 WG A1: Engineering and Processing of PCMs, TCMs and Sorption Materials

An overview on the recent results on the engineering and characterization of sorption materials, PCMs and TCMs investigated in the working group WG A1 "Engineering and processing of TES materials" of IEA SHC Task 42 / ECES Annex 29 (Task 4229) entitled "Compact Thermal Energy Storage" is presented

TOpic: rare and special cases, the real "Strange cases"

Introduction: The bladder hernia represents approximately 1-3% of all inguinal hernias, where patients aged more than 50 years have a higher incidence (10%). Many factors contribute to the development of a bladder hernia, including the presence of a urinary outlet obstruction causing chronic bladder distention, the loss of bladder tone, pericystitis, the perivesical bladder fat protrusion and the obesity

Impact of age on outcome after colorectal cancer surgery in the elderly - a developing country perspective

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a major source of morbidity and mortality in the elderly population and surgery is often the only definitive management option. The suitability of surgical candidates based on age alone has traditionally been a source of controversy. Surgical resection may be considered detrimental in the elderly solely on the basis of advanced age. Based on recent evidence suggesting that age alone is not a predictor of outcomes, Western societies are increasingly performing definitive procedures on the elderly. Such evidence is not available from our region. We aimed to determine whether age has an independent effect on complications after surgery for colorectal cancer in our population.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A retrospective review of all patients who underwent surgery for pathologically confirmed colorectal cancer at Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi between January 1999 and December 2008 was conducted. Using a cut-off of 70 years, patients were divided into two groups. Patient demographics, tumor characteristics and postoperative complications and 30-day mortality were compared. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed with clinically relevant variables to determine whether age had an independent and significant association with the outcome.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 271 files were reviewed, of which 56 belonged to elderly patients (≥ 70 years). The gender ratio was equal in both groups. Elderly patients had a significantly higher comorbidity status, Charlson score and American society of anesthesiologists (ASA) class (all p < 0.001). Upon multivariate analysis, factors associated with more complications were ASA status (95% CI = 1.30-6.25), preoperative perforation (95% CI = 1.94-48.0) and rectal tumors (95% CI = 1.21-5.34). Old age was significantly associated with systemic complications upon univariate analysis (p = 0.05), however, this association vanished upon multivariate analysis (p = 0.36).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Older patients have more co-morbid conditions and higher ASA scores, but increasing age itself is not independently associated with complications after surgery for CRC. Therefore patient selection should focus on the clinical status and ASA class of the patient rather than age.</p

Automatic summarization of voicemail messages using lexical and prosodic features

This article presents trainable methods for extracting principal content words from voicemail messages. The short text summaries generated are suitable for mobile messaging applications. The system uses a set of classifiers to identify the summary words with each word described by a vector of lexical and prosodic features. We use an ROC-based algorithm, Parcel, to select input features (and classifiers). We have performed a series of objective and subjective evaluations using unseen data from two different speech recognition systems as well as human transcriptions of voicemail speech

Novel Building Materials

The proper choice of building envelope material may optimize building energy efficiency and indoor-outdoor comfort conditions in the built environment, together with its environmental sustainability. Therefore, a deep and multidisciplinary understanding of building envelopes and the new potentialities associated to building materials is needed in order to design green and smart constructions. In this perspective, the present chapter concerns, firstly, basics of building physics about hygro-thermal, acoustics, and lighting performance of the built environment. Then the main building material properties and the key traditional and innovative typologies are assessed with a specific focus on energy efficiency and environmental sustainability targets. © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Comparison of lipid and lipoprotein values of wrestlers and soccer players [Güreşçiler ve futbolcuların lipit ve lipoprotein değerlerinin karşılaştırılması]

Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the lipid and lipoprotein values of wrestlers and soccer players. Materials and Methods: A total of 35 subjects, 17 male wrestlers who are sporting for 11.5 years and 18 male soccer player students who are sporting for 11.9 years, participated in this study. Triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels were determined by Hitachi 717 autoanalyzer. To determine the differences between the wrestlers and the soccer players the independent t-test was performed. Results: There was a significant difference in body weight and body mass index between the wrestlers and the soccer players (p0.05). On the other hand, TC and LDL-C values of the wrestlers were significantly higher than soccer players (p<0.05). The HDL-C values of the soccer players were significantly higher the wrestlers (p<0.05). The ratio TC/HDL-C of the wrestlers was markedly higher than soccer players (p<0.05). Conclusion: TC, TG, HDL-C, and LDL-C values of the soccer players were in better ranges than wrestlers. This situation can be caused by the effect of different sports branches as well as the training differences. The lipid and lipoprotein values of the wrestlers and soccer players showed that they do not carry a risk of cardiovascular disease. In addition, it can be recommended that wrestlers should do jogging or aerobic training in their daily regular training. © Turk J Pharm Sci, Published by Galenos Publishing House