Medication Complications in Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation.

The need for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy is a marker of disease severity for which multiple medications are required. The therapy causes physiologic changes that impact drug pharmacokinetics. These changes can lead to exposure-driven decreases in efficacy or increased incidence of side effects. The pharmacokinetic changes are drug specific and largely undefined for most drugs. We review available drug dosing data and provide guidance for use in the ECMO patient population

MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF GAS-COVERAGE FORMED BY IDEAL WELDING NOZZLE

S u m m a r y This article shows the model of body of gas-coverage that is formed by the shielding gas flowing out from so called standard welding nozzle. The meaning "standard nozzle" shall be understood as the welding nozzle of any shape ended with a straight, smooth, long section of a pipeline. The paper presents a short description of properties of the gas coverage in the generalised coordinates in which the key significance is attributed to the newly introduced value -"the number of mass current density". A construction of the abductive model of the gas coverage of protective gas jet is described in this work on the basis of series of the experimental research. Then, the discovered model is verified empirically for the standard nozzle. The solution presented in this paper replaces the hitherto existing in the old theory of gas-shielded arc welding model of "shielding gas outflow" with the model of body of gascoverage. Keywords: welding, gas shielding, shielding gas, gas coverage, welding nozzle, gas flow rate Model matematyczny gazoosłony kształtowanej z idealnej dyszy spawalniczej S t r e s z c z e n i e Opracowano model osłony łuku spawalniczego, kształtowanej przez wypływający gaz ochronny. W modelu przyjęto wzorcową dyszę spawalniczą -dowolną dyszę spawalniczą zakończoną prostoliniowym gładkim, długim jej odcinkiem. Przedstawiono właściwości obszaru chronionego we współrzędnych uogólnionych z uwzględnieniem nowego parametru "liczby ilości ruchu strumienia". Na podstawie wyników doświadczalnych przedstawiono budowę abdukcyjnego modelu obszaru chronionego osłony łuku spawalniczego. Następnie, model tzw. gazoosłony idealnej poddano weryfikacji doświadczalnej dla dyszy wzorcowej. Przedstawione rozwiązanie zastępuje dotychczasowy model "wypływu gazu osłonowego" modelem gazoosłony wzorcowej

Study on the Possibilities of Natural Use of Ash Granulate Obtained from the Combustion of Pellets from Plant Biomass

As a step towards the diversification of electricity and heat sources, the EU countries suggest the use of biomass. The combustion of biomass poses the problem of the use of ash produced in the process. There are fluctuations in the properties of energetic biomass, which results in high variability of ash obtained by combustion, especially in terms of specific conductivity (EC) (8.1–9.7 mS·cm−1), the total content of components and their bioavailability. The combustion of biomass leads to large fluctuations in the total content of carbon in the ash (13.6%–28.6%). In this way, waste material with very different biological properties and cation exchange capacity is obtained. Ash from the combustion of biomass is an alkalizing material, rich in Ca, K and Mg carbonates (4.5%). The high average bioavailability of Pb (87.4%), Cd (63.1%) and Zn (46.9%) present in the ash is an environmental problem. The mobility of these heavy metals was reduced by half by the addition of bentonite during the process of ash granulation. With high doses of ash (4.4% of the mass of substrate), there is a significant bioaccumulation of Cd in the roots of Begonia semperflorens and Thuja occidentalis (1.0–3.8 mg·kg−1). Another disturbing issue is that during the cultivation of these plants, Cr is bioaccumulated in the roots (0.5–3.8 mg·kg−1)

The Use of Waste Biomass from the Wood Industry and Municipal Sources for Energy Production

Biomass can be used for the production of energy from renewable sources. Because of social resistance to burning crop plants, mixtures and pellets made from or including waste materials are a good alternative. The mixtures analyzed, prepared from wood and municipal waste, were characterized for their calorific values, 7.4–18.2 MJ·kg−1. A result, over 15 MJ·kg−1 was obtained for 47% of the quantities of mixtures being composed. It has been demonstrated that wood shavings and sewage sludge have a stabilizing effect on the durability of pellets. The emissions of acidic anhydrides into the atmosphere from the combustion of pellets from waste biomass were lower for NO, NO2, NOx and H2S than emissions from the combustion of willow pellets. Obtained emission results suggest the need to further optimize the combustion process parameters

Corredores endémicos: Una herramienta útil para la vigilancia epidemiológica de la influenza Endemic corridors: a useful tool for the epidemiological surveillance of influenza

La vigilancia epidemiológica provee información actualizada y oportuna sobre los problemas de salud y sus condicionantes, lo que permite definir acciones de prevención y control. Para la detección de epidemias es útil disponer de corredores endémicos, que indican el número de casos esperados para un cuadro infeccioso en un momento determinado. Con datos de la sección Microbiología del Hospital de Niños "Dr. Pedro de Elizalde" acerca de pacientes internados con diagnóstico de infección respiratoria aguda baja (IRAB) entre el 1/1/96 y el 31/12/2002 se confeccionaron los corredores para influenza A (IA) por semanas epidemiológicas, correspondientes a un período de siete años. En ese período se internaron 10.473 niños con diagnóstico de IRAB y se identificó IA en 411 aspirados nasofaríngeos. Se calcularon la media y el intervalo de confianza de 95% para los límites superior e inferior de incidencia en períodos semanales, y se encontró que el pico estacional ocurre entre las semanas 25 y 32. Al analizar los datos del año 2003, se observó que el pico se produjo antes, entre las semanas 19 y 25, y con valores muy por encima de los esperados para esas semanas. En 2004 aparecen 2 picos, el primero en la semana 20 y sin superar los valores de fluctuación de la parte central de la curva, y el segundo en la semana 26.<br>Epidemiological surveillance provides updated information about health problems which allows for the establishment of health policy guidelines. The methods for detecting the epidemic frequency of disease require the systematic collection of data on the occurrence of specific diseases. Influenza has cyclic seasonal peaks and its endemic baseline rates are useful for identifying outbreaks: the comparison between baseline and current data supplies epidemiological evidence related to an ongoing outbreak. The upper and lower incidence curves were traced for the data referring to IA detection in the nasopharyngeal aspirates from children hospitalized for acute lower respiratory tract infection from 1996 to 2002. The arithmetic mean and the 95% confidence interval for upper and lower limits of weekly incidence were calculated. The highest incidence was observed between weeks 25 and 32. When analyzing the prepared endemic corridor, it was observed that the highest detection in 2003 occurred between weeks 19 and 25, whereas two peaks occurred in 2004 , the first starting at week 20, at a lower level than the normal epidemic peak, and the second at week 26