NASA Multidisciplinary Design and Analysis Fellowship Program

This report summarizes the results of a multi-year training grant for the development and implementation of a Multidisciplinary Design and Analysis (MDA) Fellowship Program at Georgia Tech. The Program funded the creation of graduate MS and PhD degree programs in aerospace systems design, analysis and integration. It also provided prestigious Fellowships with associated Industry Internships for outstanding engineering students. The graduate program has become the foundation for a vigorous and productive research effort and has produced: 20 MS degrees, 7 Ph.D. degrees, and has contributed to 9 ongoing Ph.D. students. The results of the research are documented in 32 publications (23 of which are included on a companion CDROM) and 4 annual student design reports (included on a companion CDROM). The legacy of this critical funding is the Center for Aerospace Systems Analysis at Georgia Tech which is continuing the graduate program, the research, and the industry internships established by this grant

Angiography in the management of massive lower gastrointestinal tract hemorrhage.

Initial stabilization of blood volume and immediate resuscitative measures should be used for lower gastrointestinal tract bleeding. Upper gastrointestinal tract lesions should be excluded with nasogastric intubation and upper endoscopy if the history or nasogastric aspirate suggests an upper gastrointestinal tract source. Proctosigmoidoscopy should be done to exclude mucosal disease, hemorrhoidal bleeding or local carcinoma. If all of these are negative and the patient is bleeding massively, we recommend arteriography with catheterization of the superior mesenteric, inferior mesenteric and celiac arteries. These procedures should be carried out within less than four hours. If a bleeding site is demonstrated, the use of local infusion of vasopressin for permanent control should be considered only in the poor risk patient in whom the operative risk is prohibitive. Massive hemorrhage from the lower gastrointestinal tract in an elderly population is usually due to diverticular bleeding and not to angiodysplasia. The bleeding site was more common in the right than in the left colon. Angiography has been proved to be an important diagnostic procedure to localize the site of the bleeding and has been invaluable in the surgical management of these patients