Relationship between maximum clot firmness in ROTEM® and postoperative bleeding after coronary artery bypass graft surgery in patients using clopidogrel

Background: The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between maximum clot firmness (MCF) in rotational thromboelastometry (ROTEM®) and postoperative bleeding in patients on clopidogrel after emergency coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). Methods: This observational study recruited 60 patients posted for emergency CABG following unsuccessful primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) while on 600 mg of clopidogrel. The study population was divided into 2 groups on the basis of their MCF in the extrinsically activated thromboelastometric (EXTEM) component of the (preoperative) ROTEM® test: patients with MCF <50 mm (n = 16) and those with MCF �50 mm (n = 44). Postoperative chest tube drainage amount, need for blood product transfusion, postoperative complications, and duration of mechanical ventilation after CABG were recorded. Results: No significant differences were observed between the two groups regarding duration of surgery, cardiopulmonary bypass, and aortic cross-clamp time. Chest tube drainage at 6, 12, and 24 h after Intensive Care Unit admission were significantly higher in the patients with MCF below 50 mm. The need for blood product transfusion was higher in the group with MCF <50 mm. In patients who experienced postoperative bleeding of 1000 mL or more, the ROTEM® parameters of INTEM (Intrinsically activated thromboelastomery) and MCF, EXTEM and MCF, and HEPTEM (INTEM assay performed in the presence of heparinase) MCF (but not FIBTEM (Thromboelastometric assay for the fibrin part of the clot) values) were significantly lower than those with postoperative bleeding <1000 mL (P � 0.05). Conclusions: When platelet aggregometry is not available, the ROTEM® test could be useful for the prediction of increased risk bleeding after emergency CABG in patients who have received a loading dose of clopidogrel. © 2018 Annals of Cardiac Anaesthesia | Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow

FeCoCp3 Molecular Magnets as Spin Filters

Metallorganic molecules have been proposed as excellent spin filters in molecular spintronics because of the large spin-polarization of their electronic structure. However, most of the studies involving spin transport, have disregarded fundamental aspects such as the magnetic anisotropy of the molecule and the excitation of spin-flip processes during electron transport. Here, we study a molecule containing a Co and an Fe atoms stacked between three cyclopentadienyl rings that presents a large magnetic anisotropy and a S=1. These figures are superior to other molecules with the same transition metal, and improves the spin-filtering capacities of the molecule. Non-equilibrium Green's functions calculations based on density functional theory predict excellent spin-filtering properties both in tunnel and contact transport regimes. However, exciting the first magnetic state drastically reduces the current's spin polarization. Furthermore, a difference of temperature between electrodes leads to strong thermoelectric effects that also suppress spin polarization. Our study shows that in-principle good molecular candidates for spintronics need to be confronted with inelastic and thermoelectric effects

Designing and Implementing a Web-Based Full-Text Database on Persian Electronic Journals

By winter 2003 the Regional Library of Science and Technology (RLST) successfully completed the design and implementation of the Full-Text Database on Persian Electronic Journals. The main objective was to facilitate easy access to articles embodied in Persian journals without requiring the physical presence of the users. Small and medium-size libraries of Iran as well as those of other countries encounter ample problems and difficulties in their endeavor to add all the issues of a given journal to their holdings. This point clearly asserts that the existence of such a database can function a really important role in society. Due to the existence of the whole set of issues and volumes of different journals, this database will act as an invaluable source of Persian journals in the near future. In this article, foremost the term electronic journal will be defined. Steps will then be taken to design and implement the database

Film Colorization Using Texture Feature Coding and Artificial Neural Networks

Abstract—In this paper a novel method for machine-based black and white films colorization is presented. The kernel of the proposed scheme is a trained artificial neural network which maps the frame pixels from a grayscale space into a color space. We employ the texture coding method to capture the line/texture characteristics of each pixel as its most significant gray scale space feature, and using that feature, expect a highly accurate B/W to color mapping from the ANN. The ANN would be trained by the B/W-color pairs of an original reference frame. The experiments performed on some typical video footages show the advantages of the proposed method in both visual and mathematical aspects. Different color spaces are also tried to obtain the optimum colorization performance

ESTIMATION OF GAS HOLDUP AND INPUT POWER IN FROTH FLOTATION USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK

Multivariable regression and artificial neural network procedures were used to modeling of the input power and gas holdup of flotation. The stepwise nonlinear equations have shown greater accuracy than linear ones where they can predict input power, and gas holdup with the correlation coefficients of 0.79 thereby 0.51 in the linear, and R2=0.88 versus 0.52 in the non linear, respectively. For increasing accuracy of predictions, Feed-forward artificial neural network (FANN) was applied. FANNs with 2-2-5-5, and 2-2-3-2-2 arrangements, were capable to estimating of the input power and gas holdup, respectively. They were achieved quite satisfactory correlations of 0.96 in testing stage for input power prediction, and 0.64 for gas holdup predictio

Efficacy of Evidence Based Care on Care Quality of Mother and Infant in 3 Teaching Hospitals: A Protocol

Introduction: Reducing infant mortality rate during delivery is a priority in the world. Even with the existing activities that take place in hospitals, due to a lack of simple and effective methods, this mortality reduction trend is slow. The objects of this study were to apply and investigate the effects of WHO evidence-based guidelines for safe delivery on the quality of maternal and neonatal support. Materials and Methods: This is a semi-experimental study with external control. After forward and backward translation of WHO safe childbirth checklist, in an expert meeting irrelevant/infeasible items in the checklist were omitted or modified. Personnel performance on checklist items was evaluated by researchers who were present in the whole period of mother and neonate hospitalization in two phases. Intervention was done in two hospitals and one hospital was considered as control. At first, the instructions were provided for all the collaborating personnel in forms of pamphlets, posters and booklets and after two weeks second phase began by arranging an educational session for personnel. The data of these two phases is being compared. Discussion: If our prior assumption be proved, we anticipate improvements in some items of checklist .Some of these items are skin contact, breast feeding rate in first hour postpartum, hand hygiene, and mother's knowledge regarding the parturition during the time in which they are hospitalized together with a decrease in episiotomy infection/dehiscence prevalence. These changes can be regarded as an overall promotion in maternal/neonatal support