Technical Development of a New Semispherical Radiofrequency Bipolar Device (RONJA): Ex Vivo and In Vivo Studies

The aim of this study is to inform about the development of a new semispherical surgical instrument for the bipolar multielectrode radiofrequency liver ablation. Present tools are universal; however they have several disadvantages such as ablation of healthy tissue, numerous needle punctures, and, therefore, longer operating procedure. Our newly designed and tested semispherical surgical tool can solve some of these disadvantages. By conducting an in vivo study on a set of 12 pigs, randomly divided into two groups, we have compared efficiency of the newly developed instrument with the commonly used device. Statistical analysis showed that there were no significant differences between the groups. On average, the tested instrument RONJA had shorter ablation time in both liver lobes and reduced the total operating time. The depth of the thermal alteration was on average 4 mm larger using the newly tested instrument. The new radiofrequency method described in this study could be used in open liver surgery for the treatment of small liver malignancies (up to 2 cm) in a single application with the aim of saving healthy liver parenchyma. Further experimental studies are needed to confirm these results before clinical application of the method in the treatment of human liver malignancies

A National Spinal Muscular Atrophy Registry for Real-World Evidence.

BACKGROUND: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a devastating rare disease that affects individuals regardless of ethnicity, gender, and age. The first-approved disease-modifying therapy for SMA, nusinursen, was approved by Health Canada, as well as by American and European regulatory agencies following positive clinical trial outcomes. The trials were conducted in a narrow pediatric population defined by age, severity, and genotype. Broad approval of therapy necessitates close follow-up of potential rare adverse events and effectiveness in the larger real-world population. METHODS: The Canadian Neuromuscular Disease Registry (CNDR) undertook an iterative multi-stakeholder process to expand the existing SMA dataset to capture items relevant to patient outcomes in a post-marketing environment. The CNDR SMA expanded registry is a longitudinal, prospective, observational study of patients with SMA in Canada designed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of novel therapies and provide practical information unattainable in trials. RESULTS: The consensus expanded dataset includes items that address therapy effectiveness and safety and is collected in a multicenter, prospective, observational study, including SMA patients regardless of therapeutic status. The expanded dataset is aligned with global datasets to facilitate collaboration. Additionally, consensus dataset development aimed to standardize appropriate outcome measures across the network and broader Canadian community. Prospective outcome studies, data use, and analyses are independent of the funding partner. CONCLUSION: Prospective outcome data collected will provide results on safety and effectiveness in a post-therapy approval era. These data are essential to inform improvements in care and access to therapy for all SMA patients

2D non-linear seismic response of the Dinar basin,TURKEY

Due to copyright restrictions, the access to the full text of this article is only available via subscription.Local geological conditions generate significant amplification of ground motion and concentrated damage during earthquakes. The highly concentrated damages at the edges of the Dinar basin during occurred earthquakes at regions close to rock outcrop bring up the effect of the inclined bedrock effect on the dynamic behavior of the basin with 2D geometry. In this study, first the idealized 2D model of the basin based on the results of the underground explorations and geologic investigations is proposed. Results show that Dinar basin has an asymmetric 2D geometry with two different bedrock angles at edges. Then, a numerical study using finite difference based nonlinear code which utilizes appropriate static and dynamic boundary conditions, and includes hysteresis damping formulation based on the user defined degradation curves is conducted using real earthquake motions of different strength and frequency content. The constructed model is subjected to the collection of 16 earthquakes with different PGA's of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 g, four motions for each PGA. It was seen that the dynamic behavior of the basin is broadly affected by the two dimensional bedrock. The results indicates the higher effect of the 6° bedrock inclination at east part on the amplification with respect to the steeper 20° bedrock slope at the west. Also, the results show the insignificant effect of the bedrock at the depth more than 150 m on the amplification of the east edge. While the effect of the 6° bedrock angle at the east part continues until 1500 m from the outcrop, it affects the amplification until 700 m from the outcrop at the west part with 20° bedrock angle

An experimental study of free liquid surface motion in stirred tanks - paper I2.1

We consider the liquid flow in a stirred tank with a rotary mechanical impeller as a highly complex, multicomponent dynamical system exhibiting unstable (pseudo-stationary) dynamic behaviour. Within the variety of the flow components in a stirred tank, large-scale low-frequency pseudo-periodic fluctuations that substantially influence mixing characteristics of the stirred vessel are frequently encountered. These flow fluctuations \u2013 instabilities \u2013 are associated to recurrent fast liquid jets originating at the vessel bottom and ascending along the baffles and the tank wall. In this paper we develop a statistical and non-linear dynamic analysis of the free liquid surface motion in the stirred vessels and investigate on the occurrence of local macro-swells of the liquid surface near a baffle. The experiments were carried out in three standard flat-bottomed cylindrical mixing vessels with four radial wall baffles (inner diameter, T, of 0.29 m, 0.50 m, and 1 m, respectively). Water was used as a working liquid. The filling height was equal to the tank diameter. Pitched blade turbines (PBT) of diameter equal to T/3 with six blades (pitch angle 45\ub0) pumping towards the vessel bottom were used for stirring. The impeller off-bottom clearance was T/3 in all tanks. The impeller speed was varied from 300 rpm to 450 rpm in the smallest tank, from 200 rpm to 400 rpm in the medium-size tank and from 126 rpm to 220 rpm in the large one. The data analysis of experimental time series initiated with statistical and spectral analysis of the measured time series in order to reveal basic features of the surface motion (mean values, variance, probability density function, autocorrelation functions, etc.) and to detect the presence of the low-frequency components of the measured signals related to the macro vortex