Laparoscopy in Trauma Patients

The burden of major trauma, predominantly blunt in nature, continues to rise in most countries. More often the young are affected with lifelong debilitating consequences. Minimally invasive techniques, such as laparoscopic procedures, have become standard for the treatment of many surgical conditions, being able to minimize the impact of surgery, to reduce postoperative pain, time in hospital, time to recover, and to improve cosmetic outcomes

Laparoscopic drainage of an intramural duodenal haematoma: a novel technique and review of the literature

Intramural Duodenal Haematoma (IDH) is an uncommon complication of blunt abdominal trauma. IDH's are most often treated non-operatively. We describe laparoscopic treatment of an IDH after failed conservative management. To our knowledge, successful laparoscopic drainage of an IDH in an adult has not been described previously in the literature

Perfusion Computed Tomography in Traumatic Brain Injury

Introduction: Almost 50 years ago, computed tomography (CT) revolutionized the management of traumatic brain injury (TBI) by imagining intracranial hematomas. This allowed prompt and accurate selection of patients who would benefit from surgical evacuation. Since then, unenhanced CT has been the gold standard imaging modality for patients with acute TBI. Today, multidetector CT can track intravenous contrasts flowing through brain creating maps that depict the speed and the amount of blood at capillary level. This imaging modality takes the name of perfusion CT. Perfusion CT is routinely used during the hyperacute phase of patients suffering from stroke to diagnose areas of penumbra (poorly perfused but still viable brain tissue) that may benefit from revascularization. Here, we summarize the current status of the research on the role of perfusion CT in patients suffering from TBI

Integrated Generation of High-dimensional Entangled Photon States and Their Coherent Control

We demonstrate the generation of high-dimensional entangled photon pairs with a Hilbert-space dimensionality larger than 100 from an on-chip nonlinear microcavity, and introduce a coherent control scheme using standard telecommunications components

Quantification of the Lewis Basicities and Nucleophilicities of 1,3,5-Tris(dialkylamino)benzenes

AbstractEquilibrium constants for the formation of Wheland complexes from 1,3,5‐tris(dialkylamino)benzenes and benzhydrylium ions (Ar2CH+) have been determined photometrically in dichloromethane solution at 20 °C. The Lewis basicity of the ring carbons increases in the series trimorpholinobenzene<tripiperidinobenzene<tripyrrolidinobenzene. Wheland complexes, which are formed with equilibrium constants 102<K/M−1<106 in the reactions of triaminobenzenes with carbenium ions, show temperature‐dependent dynamic 1H NMR spectra, due to rapid reverse reactions and recombination at different positions of the triaminobenzenes. Since the rates of the formation of the Wheland complexes are too high to be measured directly, they were calculated as the product of photometrically determined equilibrium constants and the rate constants for the reverse reactions, which were derived from the dynamic 1H NMR spectra. The experimentally determined equilibrium and rate constants were in good agreement with the results of DFT calculations using the SMD solvent model. The calculations show that in all cases the Wheland complexes are thermodynamically more stable than the ammonium ions formed by attack of the benzhydrylium ions at the amino group of the title compounds, which explains the exclusive formation of Wheland complexes in thermodynamically controlled reactions. With nucleophilicity parameters in the range 10<N<15 the triaminobenzenes have comparable nucleophilic reactivities as enamines, silyl ketene acetals as well as stabilized phosphonium and sulfonium ylides

Universal N-partite d-level pure-state entanglement witness based on realistic measurement settings

Entanglement witnesses are operators that are crucial for confirming the generation of specific quantum systems, such as multipartite and high-dimensional states. For this reason, many witnesses have been theoretically derived which commonly focus on establishing tight bounds and exhibit mathematical compactness as well as symmetry properties similar to that of the quantum state. However, for increasingly complex quantum systems, established witnesses have lacked experimental achievability, as it has become progressively more challenging to design the corresponding experiments. Here, we present a universal approach to derive entanglement witnesses that are capable of detecting the presence of any targeted complex pure quantum system and that can be customized towards experimental restrictions or accessible measurement settings. Using this technique, we derive experimentally optimized witnesses that are able to detect multipartite d -level cluster states, and that require only two measurement settings. We present explicit examples for customizing the witness operators given different realistic experimental restrictions, including witnesses for high-dimensional entanglement that use only two-dimensional projection measurements. Our work enables us to confirm the presence of probed quantum states using methods that are compatible with practical experimental realizations in different quantum platforms

The Impact of Attenuated Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) Vaccine on the Efficacy of Subunit Classical Swine Fever Vaccine

Commercial pigs have been routinely injected with multiple vaccines that are either administered separately or co-administered at the same time for convenience, and to minimize pig stress. However, viruses, including attenuated and modified live virus (MLV) vaccines, can modulate host immune responses that could potentially impact the efficacy of co-administered vaccines. Here we report the effects of pre- and co-administered Chinese highly pathogenic porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) virus MLV, JXA1-R, on the efficacy of an emulsion-based classical swine fever virus (CSFV) subunit vaccine, KNB-E2. Immune responses to the CSFV and JXA1-R vaccines were evaluated by testing CSFV-specific and PRRSV-specific sera antibodies and then challenged with CSFV at 4 weeks post KNB-E2 vaccination. Pigs co-administered with JXA1-R vaccine and pigs vaccinated with JXA1-R two weeks before KNB-E2 vaccination had slightly lower CSFV-specific antibodies than pigs vaccinated with KNB-E2 alone at 3 weeks post KNB-E2 vaccination. However, both groups of JXA1-R/KNB-E2 vaccinated pigs were amply protected from CSF clinical symptoms upon challenge. The immunological responses affected by various multiple vaccination combinations in swine would be an interesting aspect for future investiga­tions

Study of hydrogen sulfide biosynthesis in synovial tissue from diabetes-associated osteoarthritis and its influence on macrophage phenotype and abundance

[Abstract] Type 2 diabetes (DB) is an independent risk factor for osteoarthritis (OA). However, the mechanisms underlying the connection between both diseases remain unclear. Synovial macrophages from OA patients with DB present a marked pro-inflammatory phenotype. Since hydrogen sulphide (H2S) has been previously described to be involved in macrophage polarization, in this study we examined H2S biosynthesis in synovial tissue from OA patients with DB, observing a reduction of H2S-synthetizing enzymes in this subset of individuals. To elucidate these findings, we detected that differentiated TPH-1 cells to macrophages exposed to high levels of glucose presented a lower expression of H2S-synthetizing enzymes and an increased inflammatory response to LPS, showing upregulated expression of markers associated with M1 phenotype (i.e., CD11c, CD86, iNOS, and IL-6) and reduced levels of those related to M2 fate (CD206 and CD163). The co-treatment of the cells with a slow-releasing H2S donor, GYY-4137, attenuated the expression of M1 markers, but failed to modulate the levels of M2 indicators. GYY-4137 also reduced HIF-1α expression and upregulated the protein levels of HO-1, suggesting their involvement in the anti-inflammatory effects of H2S induction. In addition, we observed that intraarticular administration of H2S donor attenuated synovial abundance of CD68+ cells, mainly macrophages, in an in vivo model of OA. Taken together, the findings of this study seem to reinforce the key role of H2S in the M1-like polarization of synovial macrophages associated to OA and specifically its metabolic phenotype, opening new therapeutic perspectives in the management of this pathology

Scalable and effective multi-level entangled photon states: A promising tool to boost quantum technologies

Multi-level (qudit) entangled photon states are a key resource for both fundamental physics and advanced applied science, as they can significantly boost the capabilities of novel technologies such as quantum communications, cryptography, sensing, metrology, and computing. The benefits of using photons for advanced applications draw on their unique properties: photons can propagate over long distances while preserving state coherence, and they possess multiple degrees of freedom (such as time and frequency) that allow scalable access to higher dimensional state encoding, all while maintaining low platform footprint and complexity. In the context of out of-lab use, photon generation and processing through integrated devices and off-the-shelf components are in high demand. Similarly, multi-level entanglement detection must be experimentally practical, i.e., ideally requiring feasible single-qudit projections and high noise tolerance. Here, we focus on multi-level optical Bell and cluster states as a critical resource for quantum technologies, as well as on universal witness operators for their feasible detection and entanglement characterization. Time-and frequency-entangled states are the main platform considered in this context. We review a promising approach for the scalable, cost-effective generation and processing of these states by using integrated quantum frequency combs and fiber-based devices, respectively. We finally report an experimentally practical entanglement identification and characterization technique based on witness operators that is valid for any complex photon state and provides a good compromise between experimental feasibility and noise robustness. The results reported here can pave the way toward boosting the implementation of quantum technologies in integrated and widely accessible photonic platforms