Hem-o-lok Clip Found in Common Bile Duct after Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy and Common Bile Duct Exploration: A Clinical Analysis Of 8 Cases

Currently laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) and common bile duct exploration (LCBDE) has become the standard surgical procedure for cholecystolithiasis and choledocholithiasis. During the operation cystic duct and vessels are usually controlled by Hem-o-lok clips. However, recently we found clips dropping into CBD in 8 patients during fiberoptic choledochoscope 2-3 months after operation. Therefore, there is risk that clip can migrate during postoperative period, which probably lead to hemorrhage and bile leakage after LC if this occurs within postoperative few days, or even cause recurrent stone in CBD. So, using of Hem-o-lok clips may be not a safe method to control vessels and cystic duct during LC. To our knowledge, this condition has not previously been reported. In our view, other more effective and safe method ligating cystic duct and gallbladder vessels, such as effective and convenient thread knotting method, should be investigated

Abdominal Multiple Splenosis Mimicking Liver and Colon Tumors: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Splenosis is not an uncommon disease. However, it is often misdiagnosed as malignant tumors, and then the patients underwent unnecessary operations. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to diagnose it prior to operation. We report a rare case of a 49-year-old female patient with liver and colon splenosis, misdiagnosed as liver and colon tumors, and summarize experience how to diagnose it preoperatively according to literatures. We come to conclusion that in patients who ever underwent splenectomy especially owning to trauma, and were found mass in abdomen, clinicians must consider the existence of splenosis, and take some measures, such as scintigraphy with (99m) Tc labelled heat-denatured erythrocyte rather than biopsy, to diagnose it correctly to prevent unnecessary operations

COX-2 Expression and Tumor Angiogenesis in Thyroid Carcinoma Patients among Northeast Chinese Population-Result of a Single-Center Study

Objective: Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), one of the rate-limiting enzymes in the metabolism of arachidonic acid which is reported to be involved in the pathogenesis of many human tumors. As well, Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is well known to be involved in the infiltration and metastasis of many kinds of cancers. The aim of this study was to further elucidate the clinicopathologic significance of the immunohistochemical expressions of COX-2 and VEGF in thyroid carcinoma

Accelerated wet aging study of flax-reinforced UPR composites

The plain and satin fabrics were weaved with 66.67 tex flax yarns. With flax fabric as the reinforcement and Unsaturated Polyester Resin (UPR) as the matrix, composites of two, three and four layers were fabricated respectively by the Vacuum Assisted Resin Infusion (VARI) technique. The wetting capability of the composites was tested firstly. The wetting rate illustrated that the weight of the composites were fast increased when immersed in the water. And the impact property of the composites after saturated in the water for different duration time was tested. The impact property of the four-layer plain fabrics composites was decreased after immersing in water for one-, two-and three-month. After reaching the minimum impact property, the impact property was found recovered after six-month water immersion. For the two- and three-layer plain fabrics specimens, the impact property was increased in the whole experiment process. For the two-layer satin fabrics specimens, the impact property was increased initially for one-month, decreased for two-month and three-month and increased instead for six-month after water immersion. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) confirmed that the enhancement effect of the wet flax fibre may be over-weighed by the degradation effect of the materials. The results indicated that the materials had experienced some forms of physical damage and/or chemical degradation. The weakening of bonding between fibre and matrix and softening of matrix material were also reasons of the decreased composite property

From human-human collaboration to human-robot collaboration: automated generation of assembly task knowledge model

Task knowledge is essential for robots to proactively perform collaborative assembly tasks with a human partner. Representation of task knowledge, such as task graphs, robot skill libraries, are usually manually defined by human experts. In this paper, different from learning from demonstrations of a single agent, we propose a system that automatically constructs task knowledge models from dual-human demonstrations in the real environment. Firstly, we track and segment video demonstrations into sequences of action primitives. Secondly, a graph-based algorithm is proposed to extract structure information of a task from action sequences, with task graphs as output. Finally, action primitives, along with interactive information between agents, temporal constraints, are modelled into a structured semantic model. The proposed system is validated in an IKEA table assembly task experiment

Advances of digital twins for predictive maintenance

Digital twins (DT), aiming to improve the performance of physical entities by leveraging the virtual replica, have gained significant growth in recent years. Meanwhile, DT technology has been explored in different industrial sectors and on a variety of topics, e.g., predictive maintenance (PdM). In order to understand the state-of-the-art of DT in PdM, this paper focuses on the recent advances of how DT has been deployed in PdM, especially on the challenges faced and the opportunities identified. Based on the relevant research efforts recognised, we classify them into three main branches: 1) the frameworks reported for application, 2) modelling methods, and 3) interaction between the physical entity and virtual replica. We intend to analyse the techniques and applications regarding each category, and the perceived benefits of PdM from the DT paradigm are summarized. Finally, challenges of current research and opportunities for future research are discussed especially concerning the issue of framework standardisation for DT-driven PdM, needs for high-fidelity models, holistic evaluation methods, and the multi-component, multi-level model issue

Use of amino-naphthoquinones for production of antimicrobial textiles

This study described a method for enhancing the durability of amino-naphthoquinones embedded on cotton fabrics by creating aldehyde groups in the molecular structure of cotton cellulose. These aldehyde groups undergo intermolecular coupling with the amino group to form imines whereby naphthoquinones are covalently bonded to the cotton cellulose. The results suggest that these antibacterial compounds are tightly bound to the cotton fabric and impart to the fabric antibacterial properties, which retain their antibacterial activity after 15 laundry cycles. Such type of antimicrobial finish can find wide application in the health and hygiene textile sector

Evidence of hydroxyl radical created by DBD plasma in water and its application in dye wastewater remediation

Dye wastewater remediation becomes a global concern. In this paper DBD plasma technology was used for water treatment. To find the evidence of hydroxyl radical created by DBD plasma in water, crystal violet (CV) was used as the radical indictor. The results showed that the hydroxyl radicals can survive longer in water solution than in gaseous state. Water increased the dye decoloration efficiency. Then CV and Methyl Orange (MO) solutions were chosen as dye wastewater. During plasma discharge, a large number of strong hydroxyl radicals in water attacked the dye molecules, resulting in the bleaching of the solution. The color groups of the CV and MO dye were effectively decomposed by plasma. The decoloration rate of the dye solutions was promoted with the increasing of plasma treatment time. 0.1 % CV solution needed 2 min to fade and 0.1 % MO solution needed 3 min to fade at the discharge condition of 100 W and 8 mm. The energy yields obtained in this investigation were 0.24 g/kWh for MO dye and 0.36 g/kWh for CV dye

A new textile sizing prepared by the hemp core cellulose ethers

As the key process of weaving, sizing is one of the processes which are of great costly and serious pollution in the whole cotton-textile production. Great efforts have been made to study new kinds of sizing to reduce costs and environment pollution. In this paper, hemp cellulose ethers of Methyl cellulose (MC) ether and Hydroxypropyl methyl (HPMC) cellulose ether further were used as a kind of textile sizing. The results indicated that the MC and HPMC blended by 1:1 of sizing efficiency was similar to thos e of PVA. After sizing with this new kind of size, the breaking strength and elongation at break could replace sizing property of PVA, even extending beyond PVA. Compared to COD in the desizing wastewater of 30240 mg/L of PVA, the COD of hemp cellulose ether sizing was very small of 13235.2 mg/L. Therefore, it is concluded that the hemp core ether is a new and environment-friendly textile sizing, which has low cost and contributes a healthier ecosyste