AN INVESTIGATION ON THERMAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PREMIXED COUNTERFLOW FLAMES USING MICRO-THERMOCOUPLES

Hydrogen addition is known to improve the stability of highly strained hydrocarbon premixed flames. Since the flame temperature is an important factor associated with extinction, it is of interest to study the thermal characteristics of the hydrogen-doped flames near extinction. Temperature profiles of highly strained lean-premixed pure CH4 and CH4/H2 flames were measured in a counterflow configuration at strain rates far from and close to extinction. Point temperature measurements were made utilizing a micro-thermocouple probe. To improve the measurements, the thermocouple support design was enhanced and corrections were made for measurement errors where appropriate. Trends observed in experimental and modeling temperature profiles with changes in fuel composition and strain rate, agree favorably. However, there are some discrepancies between the measured and predicted absolute temperatures. Factors contributing to these discrepancies and the methods to reduce the thermocouple measurement errors are discussed

Ultrasound-guided out-of-plane (OOP) adductor canal continuous catheter placement compared to in-plane (IP) placement in total knee arthroplasty: a randomized, single blinded, pilot clinical trial

Background: Adductor canal continuous catheters (ACCCs) have largely replaced femoral nerve continuous catheters for providing analgesia after total knee arthroplasty. Both have similar analgesic efficacy, but ACCCs preserve quadricep strength and facilitate patient mobility more quickly. We hypothesized that placing the ACCC using an out of-plane (OOP) technique would decrease pain scores and opioid use due to parallel alignment with the saphenous nerve when compared to the in-plane (IP) technique. Methods: Sixty-nine patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty were randomized to either the IP or OOP technique for ultrasound-guided ACCC. The primary outcomes of the investigation were hospital length of stay, total opioid consumption, and average post-operative pain score. Secondary outcomes included total ondansetron consumption, total acetaminophen consumption, and the incidence of anti-emetic drug use. Results: There were no significant differences between the IP and the OOP groups for any of the measured variables: hospital length of stay, pre-operative pain score, average post-operative pain score, total opioid consumption, total ondansetron consumption, total acetaminophen consumption, and the incidence of anti-emetic drug administration. Conclusion: The OOP ACCC technique did not provide superior analgesia or decrease opioid consumption when compared to the IP ACCC technique. Both techniques can be used interchangeably for analgesia status-post TKA

Orthogonality Effects in Relativistic Models of Nucleon Knockout Reactions

We study the effect of wave function orthogonality in the relativistic treatment of the nucleon removal reactions (gamma, p) and (e, e' p). The continuum wave function describing the outgoing nucleon is made orthogonal to the relevant bound states using the Gram-Schmidt procedure. This procedure has the advantage of preserving the asymptotic character of the continuum wave function and hence the elastic observables are unaffected. The orthogonality effects are found to be negligible for (e, e' p) reactions for missing momenta up to 700 MeV/c. This holds true for both parallel and perpendicular kinematics. By contrast the orthogonalization of the wave functions appears to have a more pronounced effect in the case of (gamma, p) reactions. We find that the orthogonality effect can be significant in this case particularly for large angles. Polarization of the outgoing protons and photon asymmetry show more sensitivity than the cross sections. If the orthogonality condition is imposed solely on this one hole state the effects are usually smaller.Comment: LaTeX, 7 postscript figure

Single-Prolonged Stress Impairs Prefrontal Cortex Control of Amygdala and Striatum in Rats

Medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), amygdala, and striatum neurocircuitry has been shown to play an important role in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) pathology in humans. Clinical studies show hypoactivity in the mPFC and hyperactivity in the amygdala and striatum of PTSD patients, which has been associated with decreased mPFC glutamate levels. The ability to refine neurobiological characteristics of PTSD in an animal model is critical in furthering our mechanistic understanding of the disease. To this end, we exposed male rats to single-prolonged stress (SPS), a validated model of PTSD, and hypothesized that traumatic stress would differentially activate mPFC subregions [prelimbic (PL) and infralimbic (IL) cortices] and increase striatal and amygdalar activity, which would be associated with decreased mPFC glutamate levels. in vivo, neural activity in the subregions of the mPFC, amygdala, and striatum was measured using manganese-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MEMRI), and glutamate and N-acetylaspartate (NAA) levels in the mPFC and the dorsal striatum (dSTR) were measured using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) longitudinally, in rats exposed to SPS or control conditions. As hypothesized, SPS decreased MEMRI-based neural activity in the IL, but not PL, cortex concomitantly increasing activity within the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and dorsomedial striatum (dmSTR). 1H-MRS studies in a separate cohort revealed SPS decreased glutamate levels in the mPFC and increased NAA levels in the dSTR. These results confirm previous findings that suggest SPS causes mPFC hypoactivation as well as identifies concurrent hyperactivation in dmSTR and BLA, effects which parallel the clinical neuropathology of PTSD

Influence of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels on absorption of nutrients by plants

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