Interfacial areas and gas hold-ups in bubble columns and packed bubble columns at elevated pressures

Interfacial areas and gas hold-ups have been determined at pressures up to 1.85 MPa in a bubble column with a diameter of 85.5 mm and for superficial gas velocities between 1 and 10 cm s−1. In some experiments the bubble column was packed with glass cylinders of length 5.0 mm and diameter 4.0 mm. The interfacial areas were determined by the chemical method using the model reaction between CO2 and aqueous diethanolamine (DEA) and hold-ups by observation of height differences.\ud \ud The interfacial areas in the packed bubble column are unaffected by pressure. The gas hold-ups as well as the interfacial areas in the bubble column increase with increasing operating pressure. The magnitude of the pressure influence depends on the superficial gas velocity. The positive influence of pressure on the gas hold-ups and the interfacial in the bubble column originates from the formation of smaller bubbles at the gas distributor

Здійснення колективного управління авторськими і суміжними правами

Стаття присвячена основним тенденціям розвитку національного законодавства про колективне управління майновими правами суб’єктів авторського права і суміжних прав. Виявлення суперечностей між національним та міжнародним законодавством, розробка пропозицій подолання цих суперечностей та внесення пропозицій щодо створення та діяльності в Україні єдиної організації, яка б опікувалась проблемами захисту авторських і суміжних прав, справедливо контролювала не тільки збір, а й розподіл відрахувань за авторськими і суміжними правами, що б і поліпшило захист прав її учас­ників.Статья посвящена основным тенденциям развития национального законодатель­ства о коллективном управлении имущественными правами субъектов авторского права и смежных прав. Выявлению противоречий между национальным и международ­ным законодательством, разработка предложений о преодолении этих противоречий и внесение предложений о создании и деятельности в Украине единой организации, которая бы опекалась проблемами защиты авторских и смежных прав, и которая бы справедливо контролировала не только сбор, но и распределение отчислений по авторским и смежным правам, в следствии чего и улучшилась бы защита прав ее участни­ков.The article is dedicated to the main national legislation trends which is regulated relations in the sphere of the collective management of copyrights and related rights of subjects’ copyrights and related rights. Detection of collision between national and international legislation, elaboration of suggestions for theirs overcoming. Also making a motion about creat­ing and working the single collective management of copyrights and related rights in Ukraine for monitoring not only collection but also distribute royalties. Thus the defence of subjects’ copyrights and related rights would be improved

Dealing with uncertainties in environmental burden of disease assessment

Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) combine the number of people affected by disease or mortality in a population and the duration and severity of their condition into one number. The environmental burden of disease is the number of DALYs that can be attributed to environmental factors. Environmental burden of disease estimates enable policy makers to evaluate, compare and prioritize dissimilar environmental health problems or interventions. These estimates often have various uncertainties and assumptions which are not always made explicit. Besides statistical uncertainty in input data and parameters – which is commonly addressed – a variety of other types of uncertainties may substantially influence the results of the assessment. We have reviewed how different types of uncertainties affect environmental burden of disease assessments, and we give suggestions as to how researchers could address these uncertainties. We propose the use of an uncertainty typology to identify and characterize uncertainties. Finally, we argue that uncertainties need to be identified, assessed, reported and interpreted in order for assessment results to adequately support decision making

Mild hypoglycemia is independently associated with increased mortality in the critically ill

Introduction: Severe hypoglycemia (blood glucose concentration (BG) < 40 mg/dL) is independently associated with an increased risk of mortality in critically ill patients. The association of milder hypoglycemia (BG < 70 mg/dL) with mortality is less clear.Methods: Prospectively collected data from two observational cohorts in the USA and in The Netherlands, and from the prospective GLUCONTROL trial were analyzed. Hospital mortality was the primary endpoint.Results: We analyzed data from 6,240 patients: 3,263 admitted to Stamford Hospital (ST), 2,063 admitted to three institutions in The Netherlands (NL) and 914 who participated in the GLUCONTROL trial (GL). The percentage of patients with hypoglycemia varied from 18% to 65% among the different cohorts. Patients with hypoglycemia experienced higher mortality than did those without hypoglycemia even after stratification by severity of illness, diagnostic category, diabetic status, mean BG during intensive care unit (ICU) admission and coefficient of variation (CV) as a reflection of glycemic variability. The relative risk (RR, 95% confidence interval) of mortality associated with minimum BG < 40, 40 to 54 and 55 to 69 mg/dL compared to patients with minimum BG 80 to 109 mg/dL was 3.55 (3.02 to 4.17), 2.70 (2.31 to 3.14) and 2.18 (1.87 to 2.53), respectively (all P < 0.0001). The RR of mortality associated with any hypoglycemia < 70 mg/dL was 3.28 (2.78 to 3.87) (P < 0.0001), 1.30 (1.12 to 1.50) (P = 0.0005) and 2.11 (1.62 to 2.74) (P < 0.0001) for the ST, NL and GL cohorts, respectively. Multivariate regression analysis demonstrated that minimum BG < 70 mg/dL, 40 to 69 mg/dL and < 40 mg/dL were independently associated with increased risk of mortality for the entire cohort of 6,240 patients (odds ratio (OR) (95% confidence interval (CI)) 1.78 (1.39 to 2.27) P < 0.0001), 1.29 (1.11 to 1.51) P = 0.0011 and 1.87 (1.46 to 2.40) P < 0.0001) respectively.Conclusions: Mild hypoglycemia was associated with a significantly increased risk of mortality in an international cohort of critically ill patients. Efforts to reduce the occurrence of hypoglycemia in critically ill patients may reduce mortality. © 2011 Krinsley et al. licensee BioMed Central Ltd.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Religious positions on climate change and climate policy in the United States

February 2006, a group of 86 evangelical leaders, under the auspices of the Evangelical Climate Initiative, challenged the Bush administration on global warming. Other religious groups and leaders in the USA, and other countries, have taken positions as well. As the US evangelical community seems to have a considerable influence on the views and policy of (Republican) national leaders, these developments are relevant for assessing US and international climate policy. Using argumentative discourse analysis, this paper analyzes the religious positions on climate change and climate policy in the United States, as evident in their communication in the media, opinion documents, and websites. Religious positions show a wide range of views, images, and discourses that deal with fundamental moral and ethical questions concerning climate change, stewardship and social justice. Our main conclusion is that both proponents and opponents of strict climate policy strongly value these concepts, but that they interpret them in different ways. A robust policy strategy (regarding support in the religious community) should pay careful attention to the effects of both climate change and climate policy on the poor in both developing nations and the USA itself.Keywords: environmental justice, equity, ethics, religion and environment, climate policy, United State

Impact of Polypharmacy on Health-Related Quality of Life in Dialysis Patients

INTRODUCTION: Dialysis patients are often prescribed a large number of medications to improve metabolic control and manage coexisting comorbidities. However, some studies suggest that a large number of medications could also detrimentally affect patients' health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Therefore, this study aims to provide insight in the association between the number of types of medications and HRQoL in dialysis patients. METHODS: A multicentre cohort study was conducted among dialysis patients from Dutch dialysis centres 3 months after initiation of dialysis as part of the ongoing prospective DOMESTICO study. The number of types of medications, defined as the number of concomitantly prescribed types of drugs, was obtained from electronic patient records. Primary outcome was HRQoL measured with the Physical Component Summary (PCS) score and Mental Component Summary (MCS) score (range 0–100) of the Short Form 12. Secondary outcomes were number of symptoms (range 0–30) measured with the Dialysis Symptoms Index and self-rated health (range 0–100) measured with the EuroQol-5D-5L. Data were analysed using linear regression and adjusted for possible confounders, including comorbidity. Analyses for MCS and number of symptoms were performed after categorizing patients in tertiles according to their number of medications because assumptions of linearity were violated for these outcomes. RESULTS: A total of 162 patients were included. Mean age of patients was 58 ± 17 years, 35% were female, and 80% underwent haemodialysis. The mean number of medications was 12.2 ± 4.5. Mean PCS and MCS were 36.6 ± 10.2 and 46.8 ± 10.0, respectively. The mean number of symptoms was 12.3 ± 6.9 and the mean self-rated health 60.1 ± 20.6. In adjusted analyses, PCS was 0.6 point lower for each additional medication (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: −0.9 to −0.2; p = 0.002). MCS was 4.9 point lower (95% CI: −8.8 to −1.0; p = 0.01) and 1.0 point lower (95% CI: −5.1–3.1; p = 0.63) for the highest and middle tertiles of medications, respectively, than for the lowest tertile. Patients in the highest tertile of medications reported 4.1 more symptoms than in the lowest tertile (95% CI: 1.5–6.6; p = 0.002), but no significant difference in the number of symptoms was observed between the middle and lowest tertiles. Self-rated health was 1.5 point lower for each medication (95% CI: −2.2 to −0.7; p < 0.001). DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: After adjustment for comorbidity and other confounders, a higher number of medications were associated with a lower PCS, MCS, and self-rated health in dialysis patients and with more symptoms

autoTICI: Automatic Brain Tissue Reperfusion Scoring on 2D DSA Images of Acute Ischemic Stroke Patients

The Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction (TICI) score is an important metric for reperfusion therapy assessment in acute ischemic stroke. It is commonly used as a technical outcome measure after endovascular treatment (EVT). Existing TICI scores are defined in coarse ordinal grades based on visual inspection, leading to inter- and intra-observer variation. In this work, we present autoTICI, an automatic and quantitative TICI scoring method. First, each digital subtraction angiography (DSA) sequence is separated into four phases (non-contrast, arterial, parenchymal and venous phase) using a multi-path convolutional neural network (CNN), which exploits spatio-temporal features. The network also incorporates sequence level label dependencies in the form of a state-transition matrix. Next, a minimum intensity map (MINIP) is computed using the motion corrected arterial and parenchymal frames. On the MINIP image, vessel, perfusion and background pixels are segmented. Finally, we quantify the autoTICI score as the ratio of reperfused pixels after EVT. On a routinely acquired multi-center dataset, the proposed autoTICI shows good correlation with the extended TICI (eTICI) reference with an average area under the curve (AUC) score of 0.81. The AUC score is 0.90 with respect to the dichotomized eTICI. In terms of clinical outcome prediction, we demonstrate that autoTICI is overall comparable to eTICI.Comment: 10 pages; submitted to IEEE TM

Instability of Acylcarnitines in Stored Dried Blood Spots:The Impact on Retrospective Analysis of Biomarkers for Inborn Errors of Metabolism

Stored dried blood spots (DBS) can provide valuable samples for the retrospective diagnosis of inborn errors of metabolism, and for validation studies for newborn blood spot screening programs. Acylcarnitine species are subject to degradation upon long-term storage at room temperature, but limited data are available on the stability in original samples and the impact on acylcarnitine ratios. We analysed complete acylcarnitine profiles by flow-injection tandem mass spectrometry in 598 anonymous DBS stored from 2013 to 2017, at +4 degrees C during the first year and thereafter at room temperature. The concentrations of C2-, C3-, C4-, C5-, C6-, C8-, C10:1-, C10-, C12:1-, C12-, C14:1-, C14-, C16:1-, C16-, C18:2-, C18:1-, C18-, C5OH+C4DC-, C18:1OH-, and C16DC-carnitine decreased significantly, whereas a positive trend was found for free carnitine. Only the C4/C8-, C8/C10-, C14:1/C10- and C14:1/C16-carnitine ratios appeared robust for the metabolite instability. The metabolite instability may provoke the wrong interpretation of test results in the case of retrospective studies and risk the inaccurate estimation of cut-off targets in validation studies when only stored control DBS are used. We recommend including control DBS in diagnostic, retrospective cohort studies, and, for validation studies, we recommend using fresh samples and repeatedly re-evaluating cut-off targets