Zinc whisker growth from electroplated finishes – a review

Electroplated zinc finishes have been associated with the electronics industry for many years as a result of their excellent corrosion resistance and relatively low cost. They are normally applied onto ferrous products to provide corrosion protection in a range of different environments. However, the formation of spontaneously grown whiskers on zinc-electroplated components, which are capable of resulting in electrical shorting or other damaging effects, can be highly problematic for the reliability of long life electrical and electronic equipment. The growth of zinc whiskers has been identified as the cause of some electrical and electronic failures in telecommunications and aerospace-based applications, with consequences ranging from mild inconvenience to complete system failures. Investigators have been striving to address the problems induced by whisker growth since 1940s. However, most research effort has been focused on tin whiskers, especially following European Union environmental legislation that restricted the use of lead (Pb), which when alloyed with tin (3–10% by weight) provided effective tin whisker mitigation. Compared with tin whisker research, much less attention has been paid to zinc whiskers. A number of mechanisms to explain zinc whisker growth have been proposed, but none of them are widely accepted and some are in conflict with each other. The aim of this paper is to review the available literature in regard to zinc whiskers, to discuss the reported growth mechanisms, to evaluate the effect of deposition parameters and to explore potential mitigation methods. This paper presents a chronologically ordered review of zinc whisker-related studies from 1946 to 2013. Some important early research, which investigated whisker growth in tin and cadmium, as well as zinc, has also been included

The impact of intellectual disabilities on elite sports performance

Athletes with intellectual disabilities (ID) were re-introduced into the Paralympics in London 2012. As part of this development a classification system had to be established evidencing the impact this impairment has on elite sports performance. This review examines the research behind this issue. Firstly it examines the limited literature comparing the standards reached by top-level athletes with ID with those without disabilities, and then moves on to look at the research demonstrating differences in both the cognitive and physical skills needed for elite performance. The article then reviews the factors that may be implicated to account for this disparity, from a range of perspectives. A case is made for the importance of looking at this area in terms of the potential for the transferability of research findings from this group to talent identification in mainstream athletes and the benefits of integrating neuropsychological concepts and approaches to understanding the cognitive components behind the development of particular skills associated with high-level performance in specific sports

Automated Non-Sterile Pharmacy Compounding: A Multi-Site Study in European Hospital and Community Pharmacies with Pediatric Immediate Release Propranolol Hydrochloride Tablets.

Pharmacy compounding, the art and science of preparing customized medications to meet individual patient needs, is on the verge of transformation. Traditional methods of compounding often involve manual and time-consuming processes, presenting challenges in terms of consistency, dosage accuracy, quality control, contamination, and scalability. However, the emergence of cutting-edge technologies has paved a way for a new era for pharmacy compounding, promising to redefine the way medications are prepared and delivered as pharmacy-tailored personalized medicines. In this multi-site study, more than 30 hospitals and community pharmacies from eight countries in Europe utilized a novel automated dosing approach inspired by 3D printing for the compounding of non-sterile propranolol hydrochloride tablets. CuraBlend <sup>®</sup> excipient base, a GMP-manufactured excipient base (pharma-ink) intended for automated compounding applications, was used. A standardized study protocol to test the automated dosing of tablets with variable weights was performed in all participating pharmacies in four different iterative phases. Integrated quality control was performed with an in-process scale and NIR spectroscopy supported by HPLC content uniformity measurements. In total, 6088 propranolol tablets were produced at different locations during this study. It was shown that the dosing accuracy of the process increased from about 90% to 100% from Phase 1 to Phase 4 by making improvements to the formulation and the hardware solutions. The results indicate that through this automated and quality controlled compounding approach, extemporaneous pharmacy manufacturing can take a giant leap forward towards automation and digital manufacture of dosage forms in hospital pharmacies and compounding pharmacies

Surgical treatment of patients with acute cholecystitis: Tokyo Guidelines

Cholecystectomy has been widely performed in the treatment of acute cholecystitis, and laparoscopic cholecystectomy has been increasingly adopted as the method of surgery over the past 15 years. Despite the success of laparoscopic cholecystectomy as an elective treatment for symptomatic gallstones, acute cholecystitis was initially considered a contraindication for laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The reasons for it being considered a contraindication were the technical difficulty of performing it in acute cholecystitis and the development of complications, including bile duct injury, bowel injury, and hepatic injury. However, laparoscopic cholecystectomy is now accepted as being safe for acute cholecystitis, when surgeons who are expert at the laparoscopic technique perform it. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy has been found to be superior to open cholecystectomy as a treatment for acute cholecystitis because of a lower incidence of complications, shorter length of postoperative hospital stay, quicker recuperation, and earlier return to work. However, laparoscopic cholecystectomy for acute cholecystitis has not become routine, because the timing and approach to the surgical management in patients with acute cholecystitis is still a matter of controversy. These Guidelines describe the timing of and the optimal surgical treatment of acute cholecystitis in a question-and-answer format

Post-operative atrial fibrillation: a maze of mechanisms

Post-operative atrial fibrillation (POAF) is one of the most frequent complications of cardiac surgery and an important predictor of patient morbidity as well as of prolonged hospitalization. It significantly increases costs for hospitalization. Insights into the pathophysiological factors causing POAF have been provided by both experimental and clinical investigations and show that POAF is ‘multi-factorial’. Facilitating factors in the mechanism of the arrhythmia can be classified as acute factors caused by the surgical intervention and chronic factors related to structural heart disease and ageing of the heart. Furthermore, some proarrhythmic mechanisms specifically occur in the setting of POAF. For example, inflammation and beta-adrenergic activation have been shown to play a prominent role in POAF, while these mechanisms are less important in non-surgical AF. More recently, it has been shown that atrial fibrosis and the presence of an electrophysiological substrate capable of maintaining AF also promote the arrhythmia, indicating that POAF has some proarrhythmic mechanisms in common with other forms of AF. The clinical setting of POAF offers numerous opportunities to study its mechanisms. During cardiac surgery, biopsies can be taken and detailed electrophysiological measurements can be performed. Furthermore, the specific time course of POAF, with the delayed onset and the transient character of the arrhythmia, also provides important insight into its mechanisms

Plasma-wall interaction studies within the EUROfusion consortium: Progress on plasma-facing components development and qualification

This work has been carried out within the framework of the EUROfusion Consortium and has received funding from the Euratom research and training programme 2014-2018 under grant agreement No 633053. The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission.The provision of a particle and power exhaust solution which is compatible with first-wall components and edge-plasma conditions is a key area of present-day fusion research and mandatory for a successful operation of ITER and DEMO. The work package plasma-facing components (WP PFC) within the European fusion programme complements with laboratory experiments, i.e. in linear plasma devices, electron and ion beam loading facilities, the studies performed in toroidally confined magnetic devices, such as JET, ASDEX Upgrade, WEST etc. The connection of both groups is done via common physics and engineering studies, including the qualification and specification of plasma-facing components, and by modelling codes that simulate edge-plasma conditions and the plasma-material interaction as well as the study of fundamental processes. WP PFC addresses these critical points in order to ensure reliable and efficient use of conventional, solid PFCs in ITER (Be and W) and DEMO (W and steel) with respect to heat-load capabilities (transient and steady-state heat and particle loads), lifetime estimates (erosion, material mixing and surface morphology), and safety aspects (fuel retention, fuel removal, material migration and dust formation) particularly for quasi-steady-state conditions. Alternative scenarios and concepts (liquid Sn or Li as PFCs) for DEMO are developed and tested in the event that the conventional solution turns out to not be functional. Here, we present an overview of the activities with an emphasis on a few key results: (i) the observed synergistic effects in particle and heat loading of ITER-grade W with the available set of exposition devices on material properties such as roughness, ductility and microstructure; (ii) the progress in understanding of fuel retention, diffusion and outgassing in different W-based materials, including the impact of damage and impurities like N; and (iii), the preferential sputtering of Fe in EUROFER steel providing an in situ W surface and a potential first-wall solution for DEMO.European Commission; Consortium for Ocean Leadership 633053; Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia as the Center of Excellence has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2 under grant agreement No. 739508, project CAMART

Progress from ASDEX Upgrade experiments in preparing the physics basis of ITER operation and DEMO scenario development

An overview of recent results obtained at the tokamak ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) is given. A work flow for predictive profile modelling of AUG discharges was established which is able to reproduce experimental H-mode plasma profiles based on engineering parameters only. In the plasma center, theoretical predictions on plasma current redistribution by a dynamo effect were confirmed experimentally. For core transport, the stabilizing effect of fast ion distributions on turbulent transport is shown to be important to explain the core isotope effect and improves the description of hollow low-Z impurity profiles. The L-H power threshold of hydrogen plasmas is not affected by small helium admixtures and it increases continuously from the deuterium to the hydrogen level when the hydrogen concentration is raised from 0 to 100%. One focus of recent campaigns was the search for a fusion relevant integrated plasma scenario without large edge localised modes (ELMs). Results from six different ELM-free confinement regimes are compared with respect to reactor relevance: ELM suppression by magnetic perturbation coils could be attributed to toroidally asymmetric turbulent fluctuations in the vicinity of the separatrix. Stable improved confinement mode plasma phases with a detached inner divertor were obtained using a feedback control of the plasma β. The enhanced D α H-mode regime was extended to higher heating power by feedback controlled radiative cooling with argon. The quasi-coherent exhaust regime was developed into an integrated scenario at high heating power and energy confinement, with a detached divertor and without large ELMs. Small ELMs close to the separatrix lead to peeling-ballooning stability and quasi continuous power exhaust. Helium beam density fluctuation measurements confirm that transport close to the separatrix is important to achieve the different ELM-free regimes. Based on separatrix plasma parameters and interchange-drift-Alfvén turbulence, an analytic model was derived that reproduces the experimentally found important operational boundaries of the density limit and between L- and H-mode confinement. Feedback control for the X-point radiator (XPR) position was established as an important element for divertor detachment control. Stable and detached ELM-free phases with H-mode confinement quality were obtained when the XPR was moved 10 cm above the X-point. Investigations of the plasma in the future flexible snow-flake divertor of AUG by means of first SOLPS-ITER simulations with drifts activated predict beneficial detachment properties and the activation of an additional strike point by the drifts