Amorphous Phase in Palladium—Silicon Alloys

By rapid cooling from the melt, an amorphous phase has been obtained in palladium—silicon alloys containing 15 to 23 at.% Si. This phase is stable at room temperature and crystallization cannot be detected after one month at 250°C. With rates of heating greater than 20°C/min, rapid crystallization takes place at 400°C, with a heat release of approximately 1000 cal/mole. The electrical resistivity of an alloy containing 17 at.% Si at room temperature is 2.6 times that of the equilibrium alloy. The resistivity decreases linearly with decreasing temperature and is about 95% of the room-temperature value at 2°K. Various factors involved in the retention of amorphous phases in rapidly quenched liquid alloys are discussed

Advanced airway management for pre-hospital trauma patients

Poor airway management in severely injured patients is a source of significant morbidity and mortality and frequently identified as a cause of preventable death in this group of patients. Traditionally the majority of patients have not received definitive airway management until arrival at hospital and those patients who were sufficiently obtunded on scene to tolerate tracheal intubation without the use of drugs had a universally poor outcome. Pre-hospital Emergency Medicine (PHEM) is now a recognised medical subspecialty and is usually delivered by doctors and paramedics with specific training in this field. The development of this subspecialty has increased the practice of Pre-Hospital Emergency Anaesthesia (PHEA). Despite improvements in the delivery of PHEM and consequently of PHEA, controversy surrounding this intervention exists and it has failed to demonstrate an obvious survival benefit. This thesis sets out to further examine the practice of PHEA and attempt to establish why this intervention does not appear to be reducing mortality in patients who have sustained major trauma. I designed and developed studies to address a number of key questions including whether there is a requirement for PHEA, the potential benefit of it, and to identify areas of practice that can be improved. Through studies conducted at a local and national level I have been able to provide evidence that not only is PHEA an essential and beneficial intervention for a subset of major trauma patients, but also that there is a demand for this intervention which is not met by the current prehospital practice and infrastructure in the UK

Some investigations on the iodates of group IV A

Abstract not available.<p

Ministry and Mortar: Historic Preservation and the First Amendment After Barwick

On July 2, 1986, the New York Court of Appeals refused to exempt the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew in New York City from the city\u27s landmark preservation ordinance on the basis of the Free Exercise Clause of the first amendment. Although Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew v. Barwick involved a declaratory judgment action and the court based its decision on ripeness, it reaffirmed the constitutional standard for religious organizations announced six years earlier in Society for Ethical Culture v. Spatt. The court in Barwick relied on the Spatt court\u27s holding that application of the New York City preservation ordinance to religious property was constitutional unless the law,as applied, physically or financially prevents or seriously interferes with the charitable purpose. Thus, the Spatt court applied what was essentially a taking standard to religious groups because the court felt that preservation statutes regulated secular activities. In Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew v. Barwick, the court extended the Spatt holding to require a church to comply with landmark regulations even if it sought to renovate the worship building for continuing religious use. The New York Court of Appeals ruled that preservation statutes do not implicate the first amendment as long as they merely regulate church buildings and church property development. The court held that all constitutional claims by religious groups fall under the less stringent taking standard first applied in charitable, nonprofit cases. The Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, determined to prevent what it considered unjust infringements on religious freedom, unsuccessfully appealed to the United States Supreme Court

Iodine in drinking water from East African groundwater sources

Chronic deficiency has long been associated with development of iodine-deficiency disorders (IDDs). Drinking water, including groundwater, contributes to dietary iodine intake, and the prevalence of IDDs is widely reported. However, there are no minimum or maximum guideline concentrations for iodine in drinking water, and iodine is rarely analysed during traditional groundwater health studies. This study reviews the iodine content of drinking water sampled by the British Geological Survey, from groundwater sources in sixteen regions of Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi. Preliminary results reveal that iodine concentration is associated with the amount of total dissolved solids, and shows the strongest relationship with sulphate, uranium, strontium, sodium and fluoride. Drinking water sourced from boreholes and hand dug wells are shown to have elevated iodine concentrations relative to local rainfall and spring sources. Work is ongoing to investigate the relationships between iodine and other solutes in the groundwater, and to build a database of groundwater in East Africa

Apnoeic oxygenation for emergency anaesthesia of pre-hospital trauma patients

Background Efficient and timely airway management is universally recognised as a priority for major trauma patients, a proportion of whom require emergency intubation in the pre-hospital setting. Adverse events occur more commonly in emergency airway management, and hypoxia is relatively frequent. The aim of this study was to establish whether passive apnoeic oxygenation was effective in reducing the incidence of desaturation during pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia. Methods A prospective before-after study was performed to compare patients receiving standard care and those receiving additional oxygen via nasal prongs. The primary endpoint was median oxygen saturation in the peri-rapid sequence induction period, (2 minutes pre-intubation to 2 minutes post-intubation) for all patients. Secondary endpoints included the incidence of hypoxia in predetermined subgroups. Results Of 725 patients included; 188 patients received standard treatment and 537 received the intervention. The overall incidence of hypoxia (first recorded SpO2 < 90%) was 16.7%; 10.9% had SpO2 < 85%. 98/725 patients (13.5%) were hypoxic post-intubation (final SpO2 < 90% 10 minutes post-intubation). Median SpO2 was 100% vs. 99% for the standard vs. intervention group. There was a statistically significant benefit from apnoeic oxygenation in reducing the frequency of peri-intubation hypoxia (SpO2  95%, p = 0.0001. The other significant benefit was observed in the recovery phase for patients with severe hypoxia prior to intubation. Conclusion Apnoeic oxygenation did not influence peri-intubation oxygen saturations, but it did reduce the frequency and duration of hypoxia in the post-intubation period. Given that apnoeic oxygenation is a simple low-cost intervention with a low complication rate, and that hypoxia can be detrimental to outcome, application of nasal cannulas during the drug-induced phase of emergency intubation may benefit a subset of patients undergoing emergency anaesthesia.publishedVersio