Grease lubricated spiral groove gyro bearings Final report

Grease lubricated spiral groove bearings suitable for spin axis of gyros in automatic pilot

Research and development of high-performance axial-flow turbomachinery. Volume 3 - Design of backup gas bearings

Gas lubricated bearing system for turbine compresso

High performance turboalternator and associated hardware. 3. Design of backup gas bearings

Turboalternator gas bearing system for spacecraft electric power productio

瑪麗醫院進行腹腔鏡腎臟切除術的早期經驗

OBJECTIVE: To report our early experience of laparoscopic nephrectomy. DESIGN: Prospective data collection. SETTING: Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong. PATIENTS: Transperitoneal laparoscopic nephrectomies were performed on 40 patients between July 1997 and December 2002. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Demographic and perioperative data including operating time, blood loss, postoperative pain score, analgesic requirement, complications, time to resume oral intake, ambulatory state, and length of hospital stay. RESULTS: Laparoscopic nephrectomy was performed for 21 solid renal masses, five transitional cell carcinomas, and 14 non-functioning kidneys. Seven (17.5%) patients had previous abdominal surgery. The mean body mass index of the patients was 23.9 kg/m(2) and the mean operating time was 229 minutes. The mean estimated blood loss was 370 mL, and two patients required conversion to open surgery because of intra-operative bleeding. Other complications include diaphragmatic injury, port-site bleeding, chyle leakage, bleeding peptic ulcer, and myocardial ischaemia. The postoperative mean analgesic requirement was 26 mg of morphine sulphate equivalent. The mean time for patients to resume oral diet and full ambulation was 1.3 and 2.8 days, respectively, and the mean length of hospital stay was 6.7 days. The mean diameter of the solid renal tumour was 4.1 cm and the surgical margins of all resected specimen for malignant tumours were negative. CONCLUSION: Laparoscopic nephrectomy is a safe and efficacious approach for resection of benign non-functioning kidneys and malignant renal tumours.published_or_final_versio

Development of a Bonner Sphere neutron spectrometer from a commercial neutron dosimeter

Bonner Spheres have been used widely for the measurement of neutron spectra with neutron energies ranged from thermal up to at least 20 MeV . A Bonner Sphere neutron spectrometer (BSS) was developed by extending a Berthold LB 6411 neutron-dose-rate meter. The BSS consists of a 3He thermal-neutron detector with integrated electronics, a set of eight polyethylene spherical shells and two optional lead shells of various sizes. The response matrix of the BSS was calculated with GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulation. The BSS had a calibration uncertainty of ± 8.6% and a detector background rate of (1.57 ± 0.04) × 10−3 s−1. A spectral unfolding code NSUGA was developed. The NSUGA code utilizes genetic algorithms and has been shown to perform well in the absence of a priori information.postprin

Opioid therapy for chronic non-cancer pain: guidelines for Hong Kong

published_or_final_versio

Dental and periodontal status of 12-year-old Dai school children in Yunnan Province, China: a cross-sectional study

published_or_final_versio

Resource Planning for Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) Control Programs: Feasibility Study of the Tool for Integrated Planning and Costing (TIPAC).

<p>Resource Planning for Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) Control Programs: Feasibility Study of the Tool for Integrated Planning and Costing (TIPAC)</p

Three Spin Spiky Strings in beta-deformed Background

We study rigidly rotating strings in $\beta$-deformed $AdS_5\times S^5$ background with one spin along AdS$_5$ and two angular momenta along $S^5$. We find the spiky string solutions and present the dispersion relation among various charges in this background. We further generalize the result to the case of four angular momenta along $AdS_5 \times S_{\gamma}^5$.Comment: 12 pages, minor corrections, added references, to appear in JHE

Altered thymic differentiation and modulation of arthritis by invariant NKT cells expressing mutant ZAP70

Various subsets of invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells with different cytokine productions develop in the mouse thymus, but the factors driving their differentiation remain unclear. Here we show that hypomorphic alleles of Zap70 or chemical inhibition of Zap70 catalysis leads to an increase of IFN-gamma-producing iNKT cells (NKT1 cells), suggesting that NKT1 cells may require a lower TCR signal threshold. Zap70 mutant mice develop IL-17-dependent arthritis. In a mouse experimental arthritis model, NKT17 cells are increased as the disease progresses, while NKT1 numbers negatively correlates with disease severity, with this protective effect of NKT1 linked to their IFN-gamma expression. NKT1 cells are also present in the synovial fluid of arthritis patients. Our data therefore suggest that TCR signal strength during thymic differentiation may influence not only IFN-gamma production, but also the protective function of iNKT cells in arthritis