Method for Simultaneous Monitoring of Uterine Contractions and Abdominal Pushing in a Childbirth

Effective and safe labour requires good cooperation of all the physiological systems. A proper synchronization of uterine and abdominal muscles is necessary for labour progression. Therefore, a new method for simultaneous monitoring of uterine activities and parturient’s pushing efforts is presented. A high sampled, rectified electrohysterographic signal is divided into a low, uterine passband (0.1-3.00Hz) and a high, muscular (40-100Hz) one. The time-dependent mean frequencies arse estimated for each passband separately. At the moments of uterine contraction the time-dependent LOW mean frequency was locally increased. During parturient’s pushing effort the HIGH mean frequency was increased in the manner typical for the skeletal muscles. It seems that the proposed method would be less sensitive to a measuring noise than the previously published RMS based estimators. Moreover, the proposed method enables to monitor fatigue of a uterus or abdominal muscles during the prolonged 2nd stage of a labour. It can be helpful to make a decision of Caesarean section

Novel Coumarin-Thiadiazole Hybrids and Their Cu(II) and Zn(II) Complexes as Potential Antimicrobial Agents and Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors

A series of coumarin-thiadiazole hybrids and their corresponding Cu(II) and Zn(II) complexes were synthesized and characterized with the use of spectroscopic techniques. The results obtained indicate that all the coumarin-thiadiazole hybrids act as bidentate chelators of Cu(II) and Zn(II) ions. The complexes isolated differ in their ligand:metal ratio depending on the central metal. In most cases, the Zn(II) complexes are characteristic of a 1:1 ligand:metal ratio, while in the Cu(II) complexes the ligand:metal ratio is 2:1. All compounds were tested as potential antibacterial agents against Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis) and Gram-negative (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) bacterial strains demonstrating activities notably lower than commercially available antibiotics. The more promising results were obtained from the assessment of antineurodegenerative potency as all compounds showed moderate acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibition activity

The ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC

ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is a general-purpose, heavy-ion detector at the CERN LHC which focuses on QCD, the strong-interaction sector of the Standard Model. It is designed to address the physics of strongly interacting matter and the quark-gluon plasma at extreme values of energy density and temperature in nucleus-nucleus collisions. Besides running with Pb ions, the physics programme includes collisions with lighter ions, lower energy running and dedicated proton-nucleus runs. ALICE will also take data with proton beams at the top LHC energy to collect reference data for the heavy-ion programme and to address several QCD topics for which ALICE is complementary to the other LHC detectors. The ALICE detector has been built by a collaboration including currently over 1000 physicists and engineers from 105 Institutes in 30 countries. Its overall dimensions are 161626 m3 with a total weight of approximately 10 000 t. The experiment consists of 18 different detector systems each with its own specific technology choice and design constraints, driven both by the physics requirements and the experimental conditions expected at LHC. The most stringent design constraint is to cope with the extreme particle multiplicity anticipated in central Pb-Pb collisions. The different subsystems were optimized to provide high-momentum resolution as well as excellent Particle Identification (PID) over a broad range in momentum, up to the highest multiplicities predicted for LHC. This will allow for comprehensive studies of hadrons, electrons, muons, and photons produced in the collision of heavy nuclei. Most detector systems are scheduled to be installed and ready for data taking by mid-2008 when the LHC is scheduled to start operation, with the exception of parts of the Photon Spectrometer (PHOS), Transition Radiation Detector (TRD) and Electro Magnetic Calorimeter (EMCal). These detectors will be completed for the high-luminosity ion run expected in 2010. This paper describes in detail the detector components as installed for the first data taking in the summer of 2008

Multi-strange baryon production in pp collisions at (s)^1/2 = 7 TeV with ALICE

See paper for full list of authors -A measurement of the multi-strange Xi- and Omega- baryons and their antiparticles by the ALICE experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is presented for proton-proton collisions at centre of mass energy of 7 TeV. The transverse momentum (pt) distributions were studied at mid-rapidity (|y| 6.0 GeV/c. We also illustrate the difference between the experimental data and model by comparing the corresponding ratios of (Omega-+Omega+)/(Xi-+Xi+) as a function of transverse mass

Transverse momentum spectra of charged particles in proton–proton collisions at √s=900 GeV with ALICE at the LHC

The inclusive charged particle transverse momentum distribution is measured in proton–proton collisions at s=900 GeV at the LHC using the ALICE detector. The measurement is performed in the central pseudorapidity region (|η|<0.8) over the transverse momentum range 0.15<pT<10 GeV/c. The correlation between transverse momentum and particle multiplicity is also studied. Results are presented for inelastic (INEL) and non-single-diffractive (NSD) events. The average transverse momentum for |η|<0.8 is 〈pT〉INEL=0.483±0.001 (stat.)±0.007 (syst.) GeV/c and 〈pT〉NSD=0.489±0.001 (stat.)±0.007 (syst.) GeV/c, respectively. The data exhibit a slightly larger 〈pT〉 than measurements in wider pseudorapidity intervals. The results are compared to simulations with the Monte Carlo event generators PYTHIA and PHOJET