Initiatives to reduce postoperative surgical site infections of the head and neck cancer surgery with a special emphasis on developing countries

Introduction: Surgery in patients with head and neck cancers is frequently complicated by multiple stages of procedure that includes significant surgical removal of all or part of an organ with cancer, tissue reconstruction, and extensive neck dissection. Postoperative wound infections, termed ‘surgical site infections’ are a significant impediment to head and neck cancer surgery and recovery, and need to be addressed. Areas Covered: Up to 10-45% of patients undergoing head-and-neck cancers surgery develop SSIs. SSIs can lead to delayed wound healing, increased morbidity and mortality as well as costs. Consequently, SSIs need to be avoided where possible, as even the surgery itself impacts on patients’ subsequent activities and their quality of life, which is exacerbated by SSIs. Several risk factors for SSIs need to be considered to reduce future rates, and care is also needed in the selection and duration of antibiotic prophylaxis. Expert commentary: Head and neck surgeons should give personalized care, especially to patients at high risk of SSIs. Such patients include those who have had chemoradiotherapy and need reconstructive surgery, and patients from lower and middle-income countries and from poorer communities in high income countries who often have high levels of co-morbidity because of resource constraints

Gamma-tocotrienol alters protein expression of HepG2 cell line

Gamma-tocotrienol (GTT) has been shown to exhibit significant antitumor activity in a variety of tumor cells. Previous findings have demonstrated that GTT had antiprolifera-tive effects on a liver cancer cell line (HepG2) with an IC50 value of 170μM. In this study, two dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) was used to determine changes in protein expression in HepG2 cell line following treatment with GTT. The ultimate aim is to identify the possible molecular mechanisms involved in GTT antitumor activity. This study is focused on obtaining a 2DE protein profile for HepG2 cell line with and without GTT treatment. In the preliminary analysis of the resulting 2DE profiles, 18 protein spots were found to be differentially expressed in cells treated with GTT. This observa-tion is confirmed by extending the analysis to a larger sample size. By studying the effects of GTT treatment on differential protein expression in HepG2 cells the underly-ing mechanisms involved in the antitumor activity of GTT may be elucidate

Applicability of solute balance technique in estimating recharge: a case study of a paved and non-paved area of the Eastern Niger Delta, Nigeria

No Abstract. Global Journal of Geological Sciences Vol. 4(1) 2006: 7-1

Steerable array antenna using a 2 × 2 butler matrix for 5G applications

© 2015, Penerbit UTM Press. All rights reserved.This paper presents the design of a beam steerable array antenna based on branch line coupler (BLC) at 28 GHz frequency band for fifth generation (5G) wireless applications. The array is designed using Rogers RT/duroid 5880 substrate material of 0.254 mm thickness and dielectric constant of 2.2. The designed antenna has six elements array and is fed by a BLC which serves as a beamformer to obtain the beam scanning ranging from -16 to +16 degrees. The maximum gain of 14.5 dBi and a wideband that cover from 25.2 GHz to 32 GHz was obtained by measurement. The proposed antenna is applicable to 28 GHz frequency band proposed for 5G wireless communications. All simulated and measured results are clearly presented

Aerial additive manufacturing with multiple autonomous robots

Additive manufacturing methods 1–4 using static and mobile robots are being developed for both on-site construction 5–8 and off-site prefabrication 9, 10. Here we introduce a new method of additive manufacturing, referred to as Aerial Additive Manufacturing (Aerial-AM), that utilizes a team of aerial robots inspired by natural builders 11 such as wasps who use collective building methods 12, 13. We present a scalable multi-robot 3D printing and path planning framework that enables robot tasks and population size to be adapted to variations in print geometry throughout a building mission. The multi-robot manufacturing framework allows for autonomous 3D printing under human supervision, real-time assessment of printed geometry and robot behavioural adaptation. To validate autonomous Aerial-AM based on the framework, we develop BuilDrones for depositing materials during flight and ScanDrones for measuring print quality, and integrate a generic real-time model-predictive-control scheme with the Aerial-AM robots. In addition, we integrate a dynamically self-aligning delta manipulator with the BuilDrone to further improve manufacturing accuracy to 5mm for printing geometry with precise trajectory requirements, and develop four cementitious-polymeric composite mixtures suitable for continuous material deposition. We demonstrate proof-of-concept prints including a cylinder of 2.05m with a rapid curing insulation foam material and a cylinder of 0.18m with strutural pseudoplastic cementitious material, a light-trail virtual print of a dome-like geometry, and multi-robot simulations. Aerial-AM allows manufacturing in-flight 2 and offers future possibilities for building in unbounded, at height, or hard to access locations