Abdominal wall reconstruction in abdominal wall endometriosis:A case report and literature review

Abdominal wall endometriosis (AWE) is a rare condition representing 1% of patients operated for endometriosis. We describe a case of a 26-year-old woman, with a history of cesarean delivery, who presented with cyclical pain and a subcutaneous mass in the lower abdomen. Where most AWE lesions may be surgically managed by a single surgeon, imaging revealed an unusually large lesion (13x4x10cm) involving the rectus abdominis muscle. Plastic, gynecologic and general surgeons combined their expertise to conduct AWE excision combined with mini-Abdominoplasty in a single procedure. After resection, a retrorectus mesh (Rives-Stoppa technique) reinforced the primarily closed posterior rectus sheath and an inlay mesh bridged the defect left in the anterior rectus sheath. The patient was discharged three days postoperatively, had minimal pain complaints and was satisfied with cosmetic results at one-month follow up. One year postoperatively, she gave uncomplicated vaginal birth. We conclude that, in select cases, management of a large, symptomatic AWE may benefit from a multidisciplinary approach, where symptom relief and an aesthetically pleasing result for the patient can be achieved in a single procedure. We distinctively describe double mesh repair as a viable consideration for reconstruction in AWE and review current considerations in mesh repair of the abdominal wall. Further studies into this topic are warranted.</p

Rapid ecosystem-scale consequences of acute deoxygenation on a Caribbean coral reef

Loss of oxygen in the global ocean is accelerating due to climate change and eutrophication, but how acute deoxygenation events affect tropical marine ecosystems remains poorly understood. Here we integrate analyses of coral reef benthic communities with microbial community sequencing to show how a deoxygenation event rapidly altered benthic community composition and microbial assemblages in a shallow tropical reef ecosystem. Conditions associated with the event precipitated coral bleaching and mass mortality, causing a 50% loss of live coral and a shift in the benthic community that persisted a year later. Conversely, the unique taxonomic and functional profile of hypoxia-associated microbes rapidly reverted to a normoxic assemblage one month after the event. The decoupling of ecological trajectories among these major functional groups following an acute event emphasizes the need to incorporate deoxygenation as an emerging stressor into coral reef research and management plans to combat escalating threats to reef persistence

Production of pions, kaons and protons in pp collisions at s=900\sqrt{s}=900 GeV with ALICE at the LHC

The production of $\pi^+$, $\pi^-$, $K^+$, $K^-$, p, and pbar at mid-rapidity has been measured in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 900$ GeV with the ALICE detector. Particle identification is performed using the specific energy loss in the inner tracking silicon detector and the time projection chamber. In addition, time-of-flight information is used to identify hadrons at higher momenta. Finally, the distinctive kink topology of the weak decay of charged kaons is used for an alternative measurement of the kaon transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) spectra. Since these various particle identification tools give the best separation capabilities over different momentum ranges, the results are combined to extract spectra from $p_{\rm T}$ = 100 MeV/$c$ to 2.5 GeV/$c$. The measured spectra are further compared with QCD-inspired models which yield a poor description. The total yields and the mean $p_{\rm T}$ are compared with previous measurements, and the trends as a function of collision energy are discussed.Comment: 24 pages, 18 captioned figures, 5 tables, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/388

Using RFID and Wi-Fi in Healthcare

Europe faces a considerable challenge in providing good quality health care in the forthcoming future as the aging population increases. The phenomenon also results in a considerable cost on society due to the dependency on the public health sector particularly because such individuals would not be able to contribute to the economy. On the other hand, younger persons would need to make alternative arrangements to assist their elderly parents or relatives, potentially affecting productivity. The project PervasIve Nursing And docToral Assistant (PINATA) seeks to tackle this matter through the merging of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) and semantic web technologies. PINATA utilises pervasive devices to aid doctors and nurses to focus on the patient and thus improve the quality of healthcare services. This project proves the significant importance of using wireless technology in healthcare. This paper focuses on the use of Wi-Fi and RFID in an effort to enable continuous and intelligent monitoring of patients' conditions remotely. Results show that the detection system performs well (over 80%) accuracy on fall detection and the manual readings mapped 100% with the results collected by the system over the Wi-Fi infrastructure discussed in this paper.peer-reviewe