A randomized trial comparing treatments for varicose veins

Supported by a grant from the Health Technology Assessment Programme of the National Institute for Health Research (06/45/02). The Health Services Research Unit is funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorate. We thank Janice Cruden for her secretarial support and data management; Gladys McPherson and the programming team at the Centre for Healthcare Randomised Trials; Tracey Davidson, Lynda Constable, Jackie Ellington, Laura Elliott, and Yvonne Fernie for help with scoring the Aberdeen Varicose Vein Questionnaire; Luke Vale and Laura Ternent, our original economists in the group; members of the Project Management Group for their ongoing advice and support of the trial; members of the study team (Graeme MacLennan, Maria Prior, and Denise Bolsover) who contributed to the behavioral recovery component of the trial; the independent members of the trial steering committee (Alun Davies [chair], Ian Loftus, and Jane Nixon) and the data and safety monitoring committee (Gerry Stansby [chair], Winston Banya, and Marcus Flather); and the staff members at recruitment sites (see the Supplementary Appendix) who facilitated recruitment, treatment, and follow-up of trial participants.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Phase composition reproportioning of the plasma dynamic synthesisproduct of the zinc-bismuth-oxygen system

This article shows the possibility of obtaining nanosized materials based on zinc oxide and bismuth oxide by plasma dynamic synthesis. The main research in the article is the results on the influence of the precursors mass on the products phase composition of the Zn-Bi-O system. X-ray phase analysis allowed to establish the possibility of zinc oxide and bismuth oxide synthesis in one short cycle of the coaxial magnetoplasma accelerator. Changing the metal bismuth batch weight allows to adjust the bismuth oxide content in the final product. Transmission electron microscopy confirms the presence of zinc oxide phases in the bismuth oxide shell in the obtained material. Evaluation of the bismuth oxide shell thickness by determining the average size of the coherent scattering region showed that it is 30 nm