Volatile Analysis by Pyrolysis of Regolith for Planetary Resource Exploration

The extraction and identification of volatile resources that could be utilized by humans including water, oxygen, noble gases, and hydrocarbons on the Moon, Mars, and small planetary bodies will be critical for future long-term human exploration of these objects. Vacuum pyrolysis at elevated temperatures has been shown to be an efficient way to release volatiles trapped inside solid samples. In order to maximize the extraction of volatiles, including oxygen and noble gases from the breakdown of minerals, a pyrolysis temperature of 1400 C or higher is required, which greatly exceeds the maximum temperatures of current state-of-the-art flight pyrolysis instruments. Here we report on the recent optimization and field testing results of a high temperature pyrolysis oven and sample manipulation system coupled to a mass spectrometer instrument called Volatile Analysis by Pyrolysis of Regolith (VAPoR). VAPoR is capable of heating solid samples under vacuum to temperatures above 1300 C and determining the composition of volatiles released as a function of temperature

Reviewing a clinical decision aid for the selection of anticoagulation treatment in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation: applications in a US managed care health plan database

Purpose: The Clinical Decision Aid was created to assist in selecting anticoagulant therapies for patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation. The aid incorporates a patient's absolute risk for stroke and bleeding, relative stroke risk reduction, and increase in relative bleeding risk to identify the agent with the lowest net risk. We describe theoretical implications of utilizing the aid at a US managed care population level. Methods: This retrospective study used claims data from a large US managed care database including enrollees in commercial and Medicare Advantage plans. The distribution of patients across each possible combination of scores on the HAS-BLED scale (evidence of hypertension, abnormal renal or liver function, stroke, bleeding, labile INR, age >65 years, and drugs or alcohol abuse or dependence) and the CHADS-VASc scale (CHADS [congestive heart failure, hypertension, age ≥75 years, diabetes mellitus, prior stroke or transient ischemic attack or thromboembolism] with additional nonmajor stroke risk factors, including age 65-74 years, female sex, and vascular disease) was generated. We assessed the correlation between the HAS-BLED and CHADS-VASc scores and derived the optimal treatment options based on various bleeding ratios. Findings: Data from 48,260 patients were included in the analysis. The MAPD subset had a higher mean HAS-BLED score (2.17 vs 1.39; P < 0.001) and a higher mean CHADS-VASc score (3.35 vs 2.05; P < 0.001) than did the commercial subset. Pearson coefficients suggested a moderate to strong positive correlation between the HAS-BLED and CHADS-VASc scores among the commercial (0.730; P < 0.001) and MAPD (0.568; P < 0.001) enrollees. Based on a 2:1 bleeding-to-stroke risk ratio, 70.50% of patients would be recommended treatment with apixaban; 25.86%, no treatment; 3.62%, acetylsalicylic acid; and 0.01%, dabigatran 150 mg, if the Clinical Decision Aid were to be used for anticoagulant treatment selection. Implications: Evidence-based clinical decision-making tools utilizing risk assessment for recommending a treatment may be valuable for not only health care providers but also health care payers in optimizing care at the population level

Healthcare Costs Among Patients with Heart Failure: A Comparison of Costs between Matched Decedent and Survivor Cohorts

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