Encapsulation process sterilizes and preserves surgical instruments

Ethylene oxide is blended with an organic polymer to form a sterile material for encapsulating surgical instruments. The material does not bond to metal and can be easily removed when the instruments are needed

Process for preparing sterile solid propellants Patent

Using ethylene oxide in preparation of sterilized solid rocket propellants and encapsulating material

Practical approach to diastolic dysfunction in light of the new guidelines and clinical applications in the operating room and in the intensive care

There is growing evidence both in the perioperative period and in the field of intensive care (ICU) on the association between left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD) and worse outcomes in patients. The recent American Society of Echocardiography and European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging joint recommendations have tried to simplify the diagnosis and the grading of LVDD. However, both an often unknown pre-morbid LV diastolic function and the presence of several confounders—i.e., use of vasopressors, positive pressure ventilation, volume loading—make the proposed parameters difficult to interpret, especially in the ICU. Among the proposed parameters for diagnosis and grading of LVDD, the two tissue Doppler imaging-derived variables e′ and E/e′ seem most reliable. However, these are not devoid of limitations. In the present review, we aim at rationalizing the applicability of the recent recommendations to the perioperative and ICU areas, discussing the clinical meaning and echocardiographic findings of different grades of LVDD, describing the impact of LVDD on patients’ outcomes and providing some hints on the management of patients with LVDD

Direct and long-lasting effects elicited by repeated drug administration on 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations are regulated differently: Implications for the study of the affective properties of drugs of abuse

Several studies suggest that 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) may indicate a positive affective state in rats, and these vocalizations are increasingly being used to investigate the properties of psychoactive drugs. Previous studies, however, have focused on dopaminergic psychostimulants and morphine, whereas little is known about how other drugs modulate 50-kHz USVs. To further elucidate the neuropharmacology of 50-kHz USVs, the present study characterized the direct and long-lasting effects of different drugs of abuse, by measuring the number of 50-kHz USVs and their 'trill' subtype emitted by adult male rats. Rats received repeated administrations of amphetamine (2 mg/kg, i.p.), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, 7.5 mg/kg, i.p.), morphine (7.5 mg/kg, s.c.), or nicotine (0.4 mg/kg, s.c.), on either consecutive or alternate days (five administrations in total) in a novel environment. Seven days later, rats were re-exposed to the drug-paired environment, subjected to USVs recording, and then challenged with the same drug. Finally, 7 d after the challenge, rats were repeatedly exposed to the drug-paired environment and vocalizations were measured. Amphetamine was the only drug to stimulate 50-kHz USVs and 'trill' subtype emission during administration and challenge. Conversely, all rats emitted 50-kHz USVs when re-exposed to the test cage, and this effect was most marked in morphine-treated rats, and less evident in nicotine-treated rats. This study demonstrates that the direct and long-lasting effects of drugs on 50-kHz USVs are regulated differently, providing a better understanding of the usefulness of these vocalizations in the study of psychoactive drugs

Random Access in Massive MIMO by Exploiting Timing Offsets and Excess Antennas

Massive MIMO systems, where base stations are equipped with hundreds of antennas, are an attractive way to handle the rapid growth of data traffic. As the number of user equipments (UEs) increases, the initial access and handover in contemporary networks will be flooded by user collisions. In this paper, a random access protocol is proposed that resolves collisions and performs timing estimation by simply utilizing the large number of antennas envisioned in Massive MIMO networks. UEs entering the network perform spreading in both time and frequency domains, and their timing offsets are estimated at the base station in closed-form using a subspace decomposition approach. This information is used to compute channel estimates that are subsequently employed by the base station to communicate with the detected UEs. The favorable propagation conditions of Massive MIMO suppress interference among UEs whereas the inherent timing misalignments improve the detection capabilities of the protocol. Numerical results are used to validate the performance of the proposed procedure in cellular networks under uncorrelated and correlated fading channels. With $2.5\times10^3$ UEs that may simultaneously become active with probability 1\% and a total of $16$ frequency-time codes (in a given random access block), it turns out that, with $100$ antennas, the proposed procedure successfully detects a given UE with probability 75\% while providing reliable timing estimates.Comment: 30 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, submitted to Transactions on Communication

Random Access in Uplink Massive MIMO Systems: How to exploit asynchronicity and excess antennas

Massive MIMO systems, where the base stations are equipped with hundreds of antennas, are an attractive way to handle the rapid growth of data traffic. As the number of users increases, the initial access and handover in contemporary networks will be flooded by user collisions. In this work, we propose a random access procedure that resolves collisions and also performs timing, channel, and power estimation by simply utilizing the large number of antennas envisioned in massive MIMO systems and the inherent timing misalignments of uplink signals during network access and handover. Numerical results are used to validate the performance of the proposed solution under different settings. It turns out that the proposed solution can detect all collisions with a probability higher than 90%, at the same time providing reliable timing and channel estimates. Moreover, numerical results demonstrate that it is robust to overloaded situations.Comment: submitted to IEEE Globecom 2016, Washington, DC US

Poly(hydroxyalkanoate) production by Cupriavidus necator from fatty waste can be enhanced by phaZ1 inactivation

PHA production from waste oils or fats requires microorganisms that should be both excellent PHA producers and equipped with enzymatic activities allowing hydrolysation of triglycerides. Unfortunately, microbes with the combination of substrate-utilization and PHA production are not currently available, and the strategies to be adopted are the use of costly commercial enzymes, or genetic modification of microorganisms exhibiting high PHA product yields. In the present work, after a general investigation on the ability of Cupriavidus necator to grow on a number of fatty substrates, the possibility to enhance PHA production by limiting intracellular depolymerisation, was investigated. By knocking out the related phaZ1 gene, the construction of C. necator recombinant strains impaired in depolymerase (PhaZ1) activity was achieved. The polymer yield of the recombinant strain was finally compared to that of the parental C. necator DSM 545

Flight Test Experiment Design for Characterizing Stability and Control of Hypersonic Vehicles

A maneuver design method that is particularly well-suited for determining the stability and control characteristics of hypersonic vehicles is described in detail. Analytical properties of the maneuver design are explained. The importance of these analytical properties for maximizing information content in flight data is discussed, along with practical implementation issues. Results from flight tests of the X-43A hypersonic research vehicle (also called Hyper-X) are used to demonstrate the excellent modeling results obtained using this maneuver design approach. A detailed design procedure for generating the maneuvers is given to allow application to other flight test programs

Efficient Global Aerodynamic Modeling from Flight Data

A method for identifying global aerodynamic models from flight data in an efficient manner is explained and demonstrated. A novel experiment design technique was used to obtain dynamic flight data over a range of flight conditions with a single flight maneuver. Multivariate polynomials and polynomial splines were used with orthogonalization techniques and statistical modeling metrics to synthesize global nonlinear aerodynamic models directly and completely from flight data alone. Simulation data and flight data from a subscale twin-engine jet transport aircraft were used to demonstrate the techniques. Results showed that global multivariate nonlinear aerodynamic dependencies could be accurately identified using flight data from a single maneuver. Flight-derived global aerodynamic model structures, model parameter estimates, and associated uncertainties were provided for all six nondimensional force and moment coefficients for the test aircraft. These models were combined with a propulsion model identified from engine ground test data to produce a high-fidelity nonlinear flight simulation very efficiently. Prediction testing using a multi-axis maneuver showed that the identified global model accurately predicted aircraft responses