Transient Gas Flow in a Porous Column

Implicit techniques have been used in fluid flow computations for many years. Such techniques generally permit large time steps to be used in the calculation and are unconditionally stable-a distinct advantage over explicit techniques. The most commonly used implicit technique is the alternating direction implicit (ADI) method of Peaceman and Rachford [l]. 2 ADI has been used quite successfully in both two and threedimensional viscous flow and heat transfer problems. ADI splits the equation into a sequence of multidimensional equations, each of which is solved by the inversion of a tridiagonal matrix. Hence, in two-dimensional problems, the equation is solved in one direction (row) as a tridiagonal matrix and then solved in the other direction (column) as a tridiagonal matrix with the updated values from the first direction solution. The strongly implicit procedure (SIP) is a fully implicit technique that does not require the equation to be split as in ADI. SIP has been used by Stone [2] and Weinstein, et al. [3] in calculating transport in both two and three dimensions. Bozema

Syndromics: A Bioinformatics Approach for Neurotrauma Research

Substantial scientific progress has been made in the past 50 years in delineating many of the biological mechanisms involved in the primary and secondary injuries following trauma to the spinal cord and brain. These advances have highlighted numerous potential therapeutic approaches that may help restore function after injury. Despite these advances, bench-to-bedside translation has remained elusive. Translational testing of novel therapies requires standardized measures of function for comparison across different laboratories, paradigms, and species. Although numerous functional assessments have been developed in animal models, it remains unclear how to best integrate this information to describe the complete translational “syndrome” produced by neurotrauma. The present paper describes a multivariate statistical framework for integrating diverse neurotrauma data and reviews the few papers to date that have taken an information-intensive approach for basic neurotrauma research. We argue that these papers can be described as the seminal works of a new field that we call “syndromics”, which aim to apply informatics tools to disease models to characterize the full set of mechanistic inter-relationships from multi-scale data. In the future, centralized databases of raw neurotrauma data will enable better syndromic approaches and aid future translational research, leading to more efficient testing regimens and more clinically relevant findings

Impaired respiratory function and associations with health-related quality of life in people with spinal cord injury

Study design: Follow-up measurement in a multicenter prospective cohort study. Objectives: To examine the prevalence of impaired respiratory function (pulmonary function and perceived respiratory function), the incidence of respiratory infection and the associations among these parameters in people with spinal cord injury (SCI) 5 years after initial inpatient rehabilitation. Second, we assessed associations between respiratory function and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Setting: Eight rehabilitation centers with specialized SCI units in the Netherlands. Methods: Measurements were performed 5 years after discharge of inpatient rehabilitation. Pulmonary function was determined by forced vital capacity (FVC) and perceived respiratory function by self-reported cough strength and dyspnea. HRQOL was measured using the Sickness Impact Profile 68 and the 36-item Short Form Health Survey. Results: One-hundred forty-seven people with SCI participated. Of this sample, 30.9% had impaired FVC, 35.9% poor or moderate cough strength, 18.4% dyspnea at rest and 29.0% dyspnea during activity. In the year before the measurements, 8.9% had had respiratory infection. FVC was associated with cough strength, but not with dyspnea. All respiratory function parameters were associated with social functioning, whereas other HRQOL domains were associated with dyspnea only. Conclusion: Five years after initial inpatient rehabilitation, impaired respiratory function and respiratory infection were common in people with SCI. More severely impaired respiratory function was associated with lower HRQOL