Correlation established between heat transfer and ultrasonic transmission properties of copper braze bonds

Measuring and correlating the thermal conductivity and ultrasonic transmission of seven hot-brazed-bonded copper plates established a relationship between heat transfer and ultrasonic transmission properties of the bonds. This relationship permits the prediction of heat transfer characteristics from ultrasonic transmission tests

Intra-articular somatostatin 14 reduces synovial thickness in rheumatoid arthritis: An ultrasonographic study

Sixteen patients with RA (3 males, 13 females), diagnosed according to RA revised criteria, were selected and entered the study. They underwent six intra-articular injections of 750 mcg of SST14 at 15-day intervals. The thickness of the synovial membrane (SM) was measured with a 5-MHz linear sound with longitudinal and transversal scanning carried out on the upper patellar cavity. The contralateral knee was also assessed together with the injected knee in order to ascertain any systemic effect of the drug. A significant reduction of SM thickness was observed already at the first control (T3) in 14 out of 16 patients. At the 5th and 6th injections (T5 and T6) the reduction was still significant but to a lower extent. In 8 out of 16 cases a reduction of SM thickness was observed in the contralateral knee. Analysis of these data clearly shows that the intra-articular injection of SST14 is able to reduce the thickness of SM in patients with RA, and indicates that SST14 may directly reduce synovitis. This particularity has been detected in our work with a non-invasive technique such as the joint ultra-sound (US). In conclusion, our work confirms the efficacy of SST14 in the control of RA synovial hypertrophy and the reliability of US technique in the measurement of SM thickness

Larger is Better: The Scale Effects of the Italian Local Healthcare Authorities Amalgamation Program

Consolidation is often considered as a means to lower service delivery costs and enhance accountability. This paper uses a prospective evaluation design to derive estimates of the potential cost savings that may arise from Local Healthcare Authorities (LHAs) amalgamation process, which is concerning the Itali an National Health System. We focus specifically on cost savings due to scale economies with reference to a particular subset of the production costs of the LHAs, i.e. the administrative costs together with the purchasing costs of both goods as well as non-healthcare related services. Our results demonstrate the existence of economies of scale linked to the size of the LHA population. Hence, the decision to reduce the number of LHAs may result in larger local health authorities that are more cost efficient, especially when the consolidation process concerns merging a large number of LHA

Rad-hard properties of the optical glass adopted for the PLATO space telescope refractive components

PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) is a medium sized mission (M3) selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) for launch in 2026. The PLATO payload includes 26 telescopes all based on a six-element refractive optical scheme. Some components will be eventually manufactured by S-FPL51, N-KZFS11 and S-FTM16 glass whose radiation resistance is partially or totally unknown. The radiation-resistance properties of such materials have been investigated by using a 60Co γ-rays source as probe. Each optical component has been characterized by a depth profile curve which describes the transmission loss as a function of the thickness in dependence of the impinging dose. A model to simulate the throughput of the whole instrument has been developed and used to verify the instrument performance considering different stellar spectra