Diaspirin cross-linked hemoglobin fails to improve left ventricular diastolic function after fluid resuscitation from hemorrhagic shock

In severe hemorrhagic shock, left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction is an early sign of cardiac failure due to compromised myocardial oxygenation. Immediate fluid replacement or, in particular, administration of a hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier (diaspirin cross-linked hemoglobin; DCLHb) improves myocardial oxygenation; therefore, positive effects on LV diastolic function could be expected. The effects of fluid resuscitation from severe hemorrhagic shock with DCLHb were investigated in 20 anesthetized domestic pigs. After generation of a critical left anterior descending coronary artery stenosis (narrowing of the artery until disappearance of reactive hyperemia after a 10-second complete vessel occlusion), hemorrhagic shock (mean arterial blood pressure 45 mm Hg) was induced within 15 min by controlled blood withdrawal and maintained for 60 min. Fluid resuscitation consisted of replacement of the plasma volume withdrawn during hemorrhage by infusion of either 10% DCLHb (DCLHb group, n = 10) or 8% human serum albumin (HSA) oncotically matched to DCLHb (HSA group, n = 10). After completion of resuscitation, an observation period of 60 min elapsed. Measurements of central hemodynamics, myocardial oxygenation, and LV Stolic function were performed at baseline, after induction of critical coronary artery stenosis, after 60 min hemorrhagic shock, immediately after resuscitation, and 60 min later. While 5 out of 10 animals treated with died within the first 20 min after fluid resuscitation from acute LV pump failure, all DCLHb-treated animals survived until the end of the protocol (p < 0.05). Despite superior myocardial oxygenation due to augmentation of the arterial O-2 content as well as of coronary perfusion pressure, no beneficial effects on LV diastolic function were observed after infusion of DCLHb. Peak velocity Of LV pressure decrease (dp/dt(min)) did not reveal significant differences between the two groups. Immediately after completion of fluid resuscitation with DCLHb, the time constant of LV diastolic relaxation (tau) was prolonged when compared with HSA-treated animals (p < 0.05), indicating retardation of early LV diastolic relaxation. Our data suggest that DCLHb fails to improve LV diastolic function after fluid resuscitation from severe hemorrhagic shock. However, positive effects on myocardial perfusion. and oxygenation result in a significant reduction of the mortality of severe hemorrhagic shock. Copyright (C) 2001 S.Karger AG, Basel

Investigation of the phenomenon of the big comet of 1858

Various aspects of the large comet of 1858 including the luminosity of the core and the shape, intensity and position of the tail with respect to the sun and stars are described and then compared with the large comet of 1744 described by Heinsius and Halley's comet of 1835. The purpose of these observations is to try to gain a clearer understanding of the nature of the polar force from the sun acting on the comet. This force is said to differ from the usual force of gravity

Die Wertschöpfungskette unverpackter Lebensmittel Perspektiven und Herausforderungen

The concept of „unpackaged shopping“ aims at reducing waste along the entire value chain. Our project focusses on analysing the value chain of unpackaged food with regard to potentials, barriers and opportunities to expand the concept. The first results revealed that there are several challenges for “unpackaged shopping” to be observed, which can be grouped under six perspectives: supply, marketing, “inside”, “outside”, environment, and branch. For instance, the producers and suppliers are hesitant to change packaging processes due to a lack of demand, wholesalers are faced with potential additional cost for deposit systems, stores are having difficulties finding appropriate products and customers are struggling with the additional efforts of "unpackaged shopping". These challenges come along with cultural, social and psychological barriers such as changes in daily routines of delivery, selling and buying. Within the project solutions shall be developed that are compatible and feasible to all stages of the value chain

Energy-based modelling of adhesive wear in the mixed lubrication regime

Adhesive wear in dry contacts is often described using the Archard or Fleischer model. Both provide equations for the determination of a wear volume, taking the load, the sliding path and a set of material parameters into account. While the Fleischer model is based on energetic approaches, the Archard formulation uses an empirical factor-the wear coefficient-describing the intensity of wear. Today, a numerical determination of the wear coefficient is already possible and both approaches can be deduced to a local accumulation of friction energy. The aim of this work is to enhance existing energy-based wear models into the mixed lubrication regime. Therefore, the pressure distribution within the contact area will be determined numerically taking real surface topographies into account. The emerging contact area will be divided into one part of solid and a second part of elastohydrodynamically lubricated (EHL) contacts. Based on the resulting pressure and shear stress distribution, the formation of micro cracks within the loaded volume will be described. Determining a critical number of load cycles for each asperity, a locally resolved wear coefficient will be derived and the local wear depth calculated

Multilayered printed circuit boards inspected by X-ray laminography

Technique produces high resolution cross-sectional radiographs with close interplane spacing for inspecting multilayer boards to be used in providing circuitry routing and module structural support

A clone-free, single molecule map of the domestic cow (Bos taurus) genome.

BackgroundThe cattle (Bos taurus) genome was originally selected for sequencing due to its economic importance and unique biology as a model organism for understanding other ruminants, or mammals. Currently, there are two cattle genome sequence assemblies (UMD3.1 and Btau4.6) from groups using dissimilar assembly algorithms, which were complemented by genetic and physical map resources. However, past comparisons between these assemblies revealed substantial differences. Consequently, such discordances have engendered ambiguities when using reference sequence data, impacting genomic studies in cattle and motivating construction of a new optical map resource--BtOM1.0--to guide comparisons and improvements to the current sequence builds. Accordingly, our comprehensive comparisons of BtOM1.0 against the UMD3.1&nbsp;and Btau4.6 sequence builds tabulate large-to-immediate scale discordances requiring mediation.ResultsThe optical map, BtOM1.0, spanning the B. taurus genome (Hereford breed, L1 Dominette 01449) was assembled from an optical map dataset consisting of 2,973,315 (439 X; raw dataset size before assembly) single molecule optical maps (Rmaps; 1 Rmap = 1 restriction mapped DNA molecule) generated by the Optical Mapping System. The BamHI map spans 2,575.30&nbsp;Mb and comprises 78 optical contigs assembled by a combination of iterative (using the reference sequence: UMD3.1) and de novo assembly techniques. BtOM1.0 is a high-resolution physical map featuring an average restriction fragment size of 8.91&nbsp;Kb. Comparisons of BtOM1.0 vs. UMD3.1, or Btau4.6, revealed that Btau4.6 presented far more discordances (7,463) vs. UMD3.1 (4,754). Overall, we found that Btau4.6 presented almost double the number of discordances than UMD3.1 across most of the 6 categories of sequence vs. map discrepancies, which are: COMPLEX (misassembly), DELs (extraneous sequences), INSs (missing sequences), ITs (Inverted/Translocated sequences), ECs (extra restriction cuts) and MCs (missing restriction cuts).ConclusionAlignments of UMD3.1 and Btau4.6 to BtOM1.0 reveal discordances commensurate with previous reports, and affirm the NCBI's current designation of UMD3.1 sequence assembly as the "reference assembly" and the Btau4.6 as the "alternate assembly." The cattle genome optical map, BtOM1.0, when used as a comprehensive and largely independent guide, will greatly assist improvements to existing sequence builds, and later serve as an accurate physical scaffold for studies concerning the comparative genomics of cattle breeds

Mission activities planning for a Hermes mission by means of AI-technology

Mission Activities Planning is a complex task to be performed by mission control centers. AI technology can offer attractive solutions to the planning problem. This paper presents the use of a new AI-based Mission Planning System for crew activity planning. Based on a HERMES servicing mission to the COLUMBUS Man Tended Free Flyer (MTFF) with complex time and resource constraints, approximately 2000 activities with 50 different resources have been generated, processed, and planned with parametric variation of operationally sensitive parameters. The architecture, as well as the performance of the mission planning system, is discussed. An outlook to future planning scenarios, the requirements, and how a system like MARS can fulfill those requirements is given