Decision-making regarding total knee replacement surgery: a qualitative meta-synthesis

Knee osteoarthritis is a highly prevalent condition that can result in disability and reduced quality of life. The evidence suggests that total knee replacement surgery (TKR) is an effective intervention for patients with severe knee problems, but there is also an unmet need for this treatment in the UK. To help understand the reason for this unmet need, the aim of this study was to explore the factors that influence the decision-making process of TKR surgery by synthesising the available evidence from qualitative research on this topic

ATD-2 Integrated Arrival/Departure/Surface (IADS) System Specification - Phase 2

The purpose of this document is to capture the core capabilities developed in ATD-2 Phase 2

Improvement of dielectric loss of doped Ba0.5Sr0.5TiO3 thin films for tunable microwave devices

Al2O3-Ba0.5Sr0.5TiO3 (Al2O3-BST) thin films, with different Al2O3 contents, were deposited on (100) LaAlO3 substrate by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. The Al2O3-BST films was demosnstrated to be a suitable systems to fabricate ferroelectric thin films with low dielectric loss and higher figure of merit for tunable microwave devices. Pure BST thin films were also fabricated for comparison purpose. The films' structure and morphology were analyzed by X-ray diffractiopn and scanning electron microscopy, respectively; nad showed that the surface roughness for the Al2O3-BST films increased with the Al2O3 content. Apart from that, the broadening in the intensity peak in XRD result indicating the grain size of the Al2O3-BST films reduced with the increasing of Al2O3 dopant. We measured the dielctric properties of Al2O3-BST films with a home-made non-destructive dual resonator method at frequency ~ 7.7 GHZ. The effect of doped Al2O3 into BST thin films significantly reduced the dielectric constant, dielectric loss and tunability compare to pure BST thin film. Our result shows the figure of merit (K), used to compare the films with varied dielectric properties, increased with the Al2O3 content. Therefore Al2O3-BST films show the potential to be exploited in tunable microwave devices.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted & tentatively for Feb 15 2004 issue, Journal of Applied Physic

TAMEing ADPKD with metformin:safe and effective?

The biguanide metformin has been safely and widely used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus for decades. Preclinical studies have suggested that it may have a role in slowing disease progression in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. In this issue, Perrone et al. report results from the Trial of Administration of Metformin in PKD (TAME PKD) study, a phase 2 randomized controlled trial investigating the safety and tolerability of metformin in patients in the early stages of autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease. We discuss the implications of these findings and how they relate to a major phase 3 trial in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease that will start later in 2021

Ethylenediamine modified rice hull as a sorbent for the removal of Basic Blue 3 and Reactive Orange 16

The potential of ethylenediamine modified rice hull to remove both basic and reactive dyes from aqueous solutions was studied. Equilibrium sorption data could be fitted into Langmuir and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller isotherm models. Sorption was enhanced by 4.5- and 2.4-fold for Basic Blue 3 and Reactive Orange 16, respectively, in binary dye solutions compared to single dye solutions. Column studies revealed that breakthrough was bed-depth, flow-rate and influent-concentration dependent. Unusual breakthrough curves were obtained for Reactive Orange 16, with very rapid initial breakthrough followed by complete retention at low flow rate, influent concentration and high bed depth. The breakthrough curves of Basic Blue 3 followed the typical S shape of packed-bed systems. Theoretical breakthrough curves at different bed depths and flow rates generated by the two-parameter mathematical model agreed well with the experimental data of single dye solution of Basic Blue 3