Sudden cardiac event on a sea-going ship and recognition of a work-related accident

Objectives. Evaluation of the effect of selected work environment factors on a sea-going ship on the occurrence of a sudden cardiac event and its recognition as a work-related accident. Background. Sudden cardiac events, myocardial infarction in particular, among crews of seagoing ships are the most frequent reasons for fatal morbid events. In more than 20% of such cases, conditions and organization of work at sea are found to be of essential importance. Problems with certification are related with the assessment of the significance and impact of specific work environment factors overlapping with classic genetic and environmental factors of diseases of atherosclerotic origin. Material and methods. The analysis embraced medical documentation on the state of health and working conditions at sea concerning 30 crewmembers of Polish sea-going vessels, who had suffered from sudden cardiac events in the years 1998–2009. The impact of selected work environment factors on the legitimacy of legal recognition of the event as a work-related accident was analysed by Fisher’s test and multi-factorial regression. Results. The presence of classic genetic and environmental risk factors of cardiovascular events was confirmed in all persons examined. A significant effect on destabilization of the disease, deterioration of health, and the occurrence of a sudden circulation event was shown to be strictly related with isometric and dynamic effort, particularly with heat discomfort in the maritime work environment. This satisfied the legal criteria for recognition of a work-related accident in half of the cases examined. Conclusions. Isometric and dynamic effort associated with work under heat stress conditions may be regarded as a decisive causative factor for a sudden cardiac event and the recognition of a work-related accident at sea. (Int Marit Health 2011; 62, 2: 110–115

Reanimacje i rewitalizacje : relacje ustne jako czynnik innowacji w badaniach historycznych : głosy w dyskusji

Tekst jest zapisem głównych tez wystąpień wygłoszonych podczas debaty, która odbyła się na Wydziale Humanistycznym Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu 14 listopada 2019 roku. W moderowanej przez Marcina Stasiaka dyskusji udział wzięli: Piotr Filipkowski, Marta Kurkowska-Budzan oraz Tomasz Rakowski. Punktem wyjścia dla rozmowy były teksty panelistów dotyczące kondycji historii mówionej i jej roli w badaniach dziejów najnowszych w Polsce. Kluczowym elementem rozważań stał się potencjał relacji ustnych w proponowaniu obrazów przeszłości odmiennych od utrwalonych w narracjach profesjonalnych historyków akademickich.The paper is a summary of speeches delivered during the debate held on the Faculty of Humanities at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń on 14th November 2019. The discussion was anchored in panelists’ recent texts concerning state of art in Polish oral history and its significance in contemporary history academic research. The key problem discussed was ability of oral history to create innovative, fresh images of the past – especially in the field of professional, academic historiography

Development of a spray-ejector condenser for the use in a negative CO2 emission gas power plant

One promising solution for developing low-emission power technologies is using gaseous fuel combustion in pure oxygen when the exhaust gas mixture is composed of H2O and CO2, and where CO2 is separated after steam condensation. The paper presents the results of computational analyses providing to the Spray-Ejector Condenser (SEC) development, which is one of the crucial components of the negative CO2 gas power plant (nCO2PP) cycle development. The proposed design of the ejector-condenser to ensure the high effectivity of vapor condensation and CO2 compression with preparation to separation, ready for application in gas power cycle, is a novelty of this research. Different computational techniques leading to the development and better understating of ejector operation were applied. The main operating conditions in the characteristic connected with the developed nCO2pp cycle points were investigated to evaluate the impact of the operating conditions on SEC performances. The amount of motive water needed for the cooling purpose is susceptible to the inlet water pressure and temperature and strongly affects the generated pressure of the suction stream. The preliminary results confirm that the SEC's basic design and geometrical dimensions can be applied in the negative CO2 power plant cycle. Results from CFD modeling give the possibility to investigate the turbulent flow of water/steam/CO2 mixture together with the condensation process occurring at this same time. It is found that the average droplet diameter and motive water supplying method significantly effects the condensation intensity. The further direction of the presented computational research activities and results is to test various designs of Spray-Ejector Condensers that will enable the evaluation of the direct contact condensation process and develop the final geometrical design. © 2023 The AuthorsDevelopment of a spray-ejector condenser for the use in a negative CO2 emission gas power plantpublishedVersio

Sonographic and Elastographic Features of Extra- and Intrathyroidal Ectopic Thymus Mimicking Malignancy: Differential Diagnosis in Children

Thyroid nodules with ultrasound (US) cancer risk features and extra-thyroid lesions suggesting malignant lymph nodes, require prompt diagnosis, especially in children. The US pattern of intrathyroidal ectopic thymus (IET) can strongly suggest papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). The extra-thyroid ectopic thymic tissue (EET) can mimic pathological lymph nodes in US. The aim of the study has been to demonstrate US features and diagnostic methods, allowing finally to confirm the presence of IET and EET in children. The US and elastographic features of 16 ectopic thymic tissue (ET) lesions were analyzed so as to describe the typical characteristics of ET and to define the best method to differentiate ET and malignant lesions. Among 16 analyzed lesions, 11 lesions were IET, and 5 were EET adjacent to the thyroid connective tissue capsule. Most of IET were located in the middle part of the right lobe and were fusiform or oval in shape. All the lesions were solid, hypoechoic, and heterogeneous with bright internal echoes. Among IET, 73% of lesions had well- or very well-defined margins. In strain elastography of IET lesions, the strain ratio was similar in all lesions, and its value ranged from 0.95 to 1.09. Despite the low prevalence of IET and cervical EET, clinicians and radiologists should be aware of US characteristics of such lesions. The confirmation of their benign character is absolutely required. Elastography is a useful tool to initially differentiate PTC and IET. However, due to high risk of malignancy in thyroid lesions in children, similarity of US features of PTC and IET, and due to the possibility of malignancy in ET, only cytological evaluation provides definitive diagnosis

CD40L and IL-4 stimulation of acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells results in upregulation of mRNA level of FLICE--an important component of apoptosis.

The use of cancer vaccines based on dendritic cells (DC) presenting tumor antigens can be a promising tool in the treatment of leukemia. The functional characteristics of leukemia derived DC is still to be elucidated. CD40 promotes survival, proliferation and differentiation of normal B cells. CD40 triggering was used to enhance the poor antigen-presenting capacity of leukemic B-cells. Since it is still unclear whether CD40 ligation drives neoplastic B-cells to apoptosis or not, we assessed the mRNA expression of FLICE, FAS, FADD and TRADD - important components of apoptosis machinery, using real-time PCR in acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells before and after CD40 and IL-4 stimulation. ALL cells stimulated with CD40L/IL-4 expressed dendritic cell phenotype at mRNA and protein levels (upregulation of main costimulatory and adhesion molecules noted in real-time RT PCR and flow cytometry); they also expressed higher amounts of mRNA for FLICE, TRADD and FADD after CD40L/IL-4 stimulation. However differences statistically significant comparing cells cultured with CD40L/IL-4 and medium alone regarded only FLICE. Concluding, we showed upregulation of important elements of apoptosis at mRNA level in ALL cells after CD40 ligation

Ogólnopolski Program Leczenia Ciężkiego Niedoboru Hormonu Wzrostu u Osób Dorosłych oraz u Młodzieży po Zakończeniu Terapii Promującej Wzrastanie

Growth hormone (GH) has been used in the treatment of short stature in children with GH deficiency (GHD) for 60 years, and for about 30 years also in the treatment of adults with GHD, in whom such treatment is carried out due to metabolic indications. In Poland, GH treatment is reimbursed only in children with GHD, while so far it has not been refunded in adults with GHD. There are two groups of adults (or adolescents after growth completion) with GHD, who require GH therapy: patients with GHD that occurred in childhood (childhood-onset GHD — CO-GHD) and patients with GHD acquired in adulthood (adulthood-onset GHD — AO-GHD). This review presents a brief outline of the history of GH treatment in humans, the latest data on the causes and symptoms of GHD in adults, and the complications of untreated GHD. Current recommendations regarding diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of GH therapy in adults are also discussed. Moreover, the review paper presents the objectives, assumptions, and plans of implementation of the “National Treatment Program for Severe Growth Hormone Deficiency in Adults and Adolescents after Completion of the Growth Promoting Therapy”, as well as the expected health and economic effects of introduction of GH treatment in adults with GHD in Poland.Od 60 lat hormon wzrostu (ang. growth hormone – GH) znajduje zastosowanie w terapii niskorosłych dzieci z niedoborem GH (GH deficiency – GHD), zaś od około 30 lat również w terapii osób dorosłych z GHD, u których leczenie to prowadzone jest ze wskazań metabolicznych. W Polsce leczenie GH podlega refundacji jedynie u dzieci z GHD, natomiast jak dotąd nie było refundowane u osób dorosłych z GHD. Osoby dorosłe (lub młodzież po zakończeniu procesu wzrastania) z GHD, które wymagają terapii GH, kwalifikuje się do 2 grup: GHD, który wystąpił w wieku dziecięcym (childhood-onset GHD – CO-GHD) oraz GHD nabyty w wieku dorosłym (adult-onset GHD – AO-GHD). W pracy przedstawiono krótki zarys historii leczenia GH u ludzi, omówiono najnowsze dane dotyczące przyczyn i objawów GHD u osób dorosłych oraz powikłania nieleczonego GHD. Omówiono aktualne zalecenia dotyczące diagnostyki oraz leczenia i monitorowania terapii GH u osób dorosłych. W podsumowaniu zaprezentowano cele, założenia oraz schemat realizacji „Ogólnopolskiego Programu Leczenia Niedoboru Hormonu Wzrostu u Osób Dorosłych oraz Młodzieży po zakończeniu Terapii Promującej Wzrastanie”, jak również spodziewane efekty zdrowotne i ekonomiczne wprowadzenia leczenia GH u osób dorosłych z GHD w Polsce

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Alliages à Haute Entropie à propriétés mécaniques améliorées

Les Alliages à Haute Entropie (AHEs ou HEAs en anglais) sont un nouveau type d'alliages multi-élémentaires. Ils contiennent au moins cinq éléments de teneur comprise entre 5 et 35 at %. L'entropie de configuration élevée, qui est une raison du nom de cette famille d'alliages, ainsi que d'autres paramètres, tels que l'enthalpie de mélange, la différence de taille atomique, la différence d'électronégativité ou la concentration d'électrons de valence, stabilisent une solution solide plutôt que des composés intermétalliques. L'attention de la communauté scientifique a été attirée par les propriétés prometteuses et les microstructures intéressantes des HEAs.Dans ce travail, une nouvelle famille de HEAs Al-Cr-Fe-Mn-Mo a été étudiée. Les analyses microstructurales et chimiques ont été menées par DRX, spectrométrie Mössbauer, MEB, MET, EDX, EBSD. Dans un premier temps, des calculs basés sur une approche paramétrique ont été réalisés pour optimiser la composition chimique. Les compositions sélectionnées ont été préparées par mécanosynthèse dans différents types broyeurs. Les conditions optimisées garantissant une homogénéité chimique maximale de la poudre et une faible contamination par les matériaux des billes et des jarres ont été déterminées. Deux phases cubique centrée (cc) se forment pendant la mécanosynthèse avec les paramètres de maille 3,13 Å (cc#1) et 2,93 Å (cc#2). Le traitement thermique de la poudre entraîne plusieurs transformations de phase (la formation de la phase χ). Le recuit à 950 °C/1 h favorise l'augmentation de la fraction volumique de la phase cc#2, tandis que les cc#1 et χ disparaissent. Néanmoins, de petites fractions de carbures et d'oxydes ont été trouvées.Les échantillons massifs ont été fabriqués par frittage à chaud des poudres mécanosynthétisées. Les conditions de consolidation ont été évaluées et optimisées pour favoriser la formation de la phase cc et réduire la formation de carbures et d'oxydes résultant de la contamination. Les échantillons massifs optimisés présentent une phase majoritaire cubique centrée (> 95 % volumique) avec un paramètre de maille de 2,92 Å et une très petite quantité de carbures (M6C, M23C6) et d'oxydes (Al2O3). La phase cc est stable après recuit à 950 °C pendant 10 h. De plus, l'alliage présente une dureté très élevée jusqu'à 950 HV2N. Les essais de compression de l'échantillon massif optimisé, entre la température ambiante et 800 °C, révèlent des propriétés prometteuses, en particulier entre 600 et 700 °C. L'alliage présente un comportement fragile entre la température ambiante et 400 °C. Cependant, l'alliage commence à démontrer un certain degré de plasticité à 500 °C. À 600 °C, la limite d'élasticité est de 1022 MPa, tandis que la déformation à la rupture est d'environ 22 %.High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) are a new type of multicomponent alloys. They contain at least five elements with the content of each between 5 and 35 at. %. The high configuration entropy, which is the source of the name of the whole family of alloys, together with other parameters, such as mixing enthalpy, atomic size difference, electronegativity difference, or valence electron concentration, stabilize a solid solution instead of complex intermetallic compounds. Promising properties and interesting microstructures focus the attention of the scientific community to HEAs.In this work, the novel Al-Cr-Fe-Mn-Mo high entropy alloy family was studied. The microstructural and chemical analyses were performed by XRD, Mössbauer spectrometry, SEM, TEM, EDX, EBSD. In the first stage, parametric approach calculations were carried out to optimize the chemical composition of the alloy. The selected compositions were prepared by mechanical alloying in different devices. The optimized conditions that ensure maximum chemical homogeneity of powder and the small contamination from balls and vial materials were chosen. In most of the powders, two bcc phases form during mechanical alloying with the lattice parameters about 3.13 Å (bcc#1) and 2.93 Å (bcc#2). The heat treatment of powder results in several phase transformations (e.g., the formation of the χ phase). The annealing at 950 °C for 1 h promotes the significant increase of volume fraction of the bcc#2 phase, while the bcc#1 and χ disappear. Nevertheless, small fractions of carbides and oxides were found. The bulk samples were fabricated by hot press sintering of the optimized mechanically alloyed powders. The conditions of consolidation were evaluated and optimized to promote the formation of the bcc phase and reduce the formation of carbides and oxides resulting from the contamination during mechanical alloying and sintering. The optimized bulk samples present a major disordered body-centered cubic phase (> 95 % of volume fraction) with a lattice parameter of 2.92 Å and a very small fraction of carbides (M6C, M23C6) and oxides (Al2O3). The bcc phase is stable after annealing at 950 °C for 10 h. Moreover, the alloy presents very high hardness up to 950 HV2N. The compression tests of the optimized bulk sample from room temperature to 800 °C reveal promising properties, especially between 600 and 700 °C. The alloy shows brittle behavior between room temperature and 400 °C. However, the alloy starts to demonstrate some degree of plasticity at 500 °C. At 600 °C, the yield strength is 1022 MPa, while strain to failure is about 22 %