Traumatic diaphragmatic hernias: retrospective analysis

AIMS: This study classifies cases of traumatic diaphragmatic hernias (TDH) in patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Coimbra University Hospitals (HUC) from 1990 to 2004. METHODS: Retrospective analysis of 34 cases of TDH, studying anatomical location, place and time of diagnosis, complementary tests aiding diagnosis, herniated organs, associated traumatism, morbidity and mortality. RESULTS: Twenty-eight male and six female patients with an average age of 40.5 years +/- 20.5, average SAPS score 38.8. Average length of stay was 19.1 +/- 13.6 days, all suffered from closed traumatism and were put on artificial ventilation. The left-side diaphragm was more frequently affected (94.1%) then the right. Diagnosis in 19 cases was made up in the first six hours following the diagnosis of traumatism, in four cases within 12 hours and in the remaining cases between 48 hours and 16 years after traumatism. In 13 patients the diagnosis was established intra-operatively. The stomach was typically one of the herniated organs. The most frequently associated lesions at the thoracic level were pulmonary contusion, haemothorax and pneumothorax, and at the abdominal level, haemoperitoneum and splenic lesion. The rates for complications and mortality were 55.8% and 11.7% respectively. CONCLUSIONS: TDH mainly occurs on the left side through closed thoraco-abdominal trauma following road traffic accidents. This group of patients, on average younger than others admitted to ICU, presents a longer average hospitalisation period, but has lower rates of mortality and lower SAPS severity scores. The most commonly herniated organ was the stomach and the most frequently encountered lesions were cranial-encephalic, splenic and pleural traumatisms. Pre-operative diagnosis of diaphragmatic injuries is difficult and a high index of clinical suspicion is needed after thoraco-abdominal trauma. This diagnosis should always be considered a possibility in cases of closed thoraco-abdominal traumas

Marine Operations with the SWORDFISH Autonomous Surface Vehicle

IEEE Robótica 2007 - 7th Conference on Mobile Robots and Competitions, Paderne, Portugal 2007This paper describes the design and development of the Swordfish Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV) system. The work focuses the sensors, actuators, communications and C4I of an unmanned vehicle for marine operations. SWORDFISH is an autonomous surface vehicle used as the central communications link between air, undersea, and terrestrial robotic vehicles of a network centric operation. It is used as a test bed platform for deployment and testing of advanced control and operational concepts for multi-vehicles systems. This new unmanned marine vehicle was done in the context of the PISCIS project. The PISCIS project concerns the development, test and evaluation of new vehicles and new concepts of operation for networked vehicle systems in oceanographic data collection. The PISCIS system includes two autonomous underwater vehicles, the Swordfish ASV, an acoustic navigation system, acoustic and radio communications and a distributed command and control system

Caracterização físico-química de misturas de óleos vegetais para fins alimentares.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-03-11T23:27:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 reverdagrodesensus.pdf: 471915 bytes, checksum: 6684ed577c06cdb37397b04560fa8a02 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-10201

Structural analysis of Ti1−xSixNy nanocomposite films prepared by reactive magnetron sputtering

Nanocomposite thin films consisting of both nanosized solid solutions or nanosized polycrystalline materials embedded in various amorphous matrix materials thus provide a grate potential for future mechanical devices. In this paper we report on the preparation of films resulting from additions of Si to TiN matrix by r.f. reactive magnetron sputtering. Structural properties such as growing characteristics (type of matrix, texture and grain size) will be analysed in some detail. Conventional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), together with both symmetric and asymmetric mode X-ray diffraction (XRD) experiments were used for this characterisation. The atomic composition of the samples was obtained by Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS). The analysis will be carried out as a function of the Si content in the Ti1-xSixNy matrix and several relations will be made regarding important parameters such as texture evolution, grain sizes, but most specially by the type of matrix developed. Regarding the results, all samples develop a double fcc phase with lattice parameters of 4.30 Å and 4.17 Å, corresponding to cubic TiN and most likely to a cubic lattice of SiNx, respectively. Although no significant changes in texture were observed till Si compositions up to 10.6 at. %, the arrangement in atoms planes seem to vary. Results show that an asymmetric arrangement is developed in samples of small Si additions. This arrangement becomes more isotropic with the increase of Si contents, which we attribute to the increase in the SiNx content. In fact this increase leads also to the development of a small amorphous tissue of Si3N4 for large Si additions.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the ‘Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia’ (FCT) during the course of this research under project n PBICT/P/CTM/1962/95 and also the French CNRS Institution and the Portugese ICCTI Institution through CNRS/ICCTI Programs (N: 5522-1998 and 7087-1999)

Melon prdutivity under different soil coverings and irrigation system in Petrolina - PE

The objective of this work was to evaluate the influence of irrigation system and soil cover on yield of yellow melon in Petrolina / PE. The experiment was carried out in the period from April 09, 2016 to June 8, 2016 and was conducted at the Petrolina campus in the IF Sertão - PE rural area, with a randomized complete block design, 2 x 2 x 3 plot scheme, (One and two lines of drippers per row of plants), and the subsubparcels, three soil cover (black mulching cover), two plots of hybrids (Gladial and 10/00), subplots, two irrigation systems, Cover with mulching grey and without soil cover) and six replicates. Mulching efficiency (MPP) was studied in the soil cover and irrigation system located with drippers for the production of yellow hybrid melon 10/00 and Gladial under field conditions. It was verified the statistical influence of the soil cover on melon productivity

Desempenho reprodutivo de bovinos na sub-região dos Paiaguas do Pantanal Mato-Grossense. II. Efeito da suplementação mineral sobre índices reprodutivos de novilhas.

Foi estudado o efeito da suplementação mineral sobre o desempenho reprodutivo de novilhas neloradas em pastagem nativa, no Pantanal Mato-Grossense