Nephrotoxic injury in fatal poisonings in children – etiology and pathological aspects

Introduction. The actual prevalence of toxic nephropathies in children is not fully known, because renal functional and structural changes caused by nephrotoxins are nonspecific. The objective of the study was to evaluate the aetiology and renal involvement in severe poisoning with lethal potential in children. Methods. We retrospectively analyzed a group of patients, aged between 0-18 years, with deaths due to acute intoxication, who were investigated at the National Institute of Legal Medicine “Dr. Mina Minovici” Bucharest, Romania, during a 9 years period. We analyzed the aetiology of deaths by poisoning in children, the aetiology and the frequency of nephrotoxic injury and the pathological aspects of nephrotoxic poisonings. Results. From a total of 69 children deaths due to acute intoxication, the most common cause of death was acute poisoning with carbon monoxide (23 cases). The other etiologies were represented by multidrug poisoning – 9 cases, organophosphorus intoxications – 9 cases, and intoxications with illicit drugs – 8 cases. Acute renal injury was present in 20 patients, mainly in acute multidrug poisoning. The most common aspect was tubular nephrosis in 15 cases, followed by the appearance of acute tubular necrosis in 10 cases, tubulo-interstitial nephritis in 1 case, and non-specific aspects with renal stasis in the remaining 6 cases. Conclusions. Kidney involvement in pediatric poisoning is rare, but when acute kidney injury occurs, the prognosis of the intoxication becomes severe. Renal injury was present in 30% of cases, either by direct kidney damage with acute tubular necrosis, or by association of haemodynamic, cardiogenic, or septic shock

Reflective practice – an objective of the career counselling and orientation process

The correlation of theory with practice in the educational process, materialized in various forms, one of which being the professional practice, brings with it a series of benefits for the students: from verifying and validating the knowledge to covering all the learning styles of students. It is also an important milestone in guiding student careers by facilitating reflexive approaches, with a significant contribution to the crystallization of the professional route. Having the study case as a central research method, this paper highlights the mentioned benefits of the professional practice. The sample consist of 100 respondents (students in the 3rd year of study), data processing being done in SPSS 20

Noninvasive Ventilation in Neuromuscular Diseases

Respiratory muscle weakness is the main contributor to respiratory imbalance in patients with neuromuscular diseases (NMD). In the advanced stages of the disease, patients develop a chronic respiratory failure due to muscle weakness, which is the principal cause of death among these patients. Respiratory muscle weakness ultimately causes alveolar hypoventilation, initially nocturnal, and later daytime respiratory failure. The signs and symptoms of early respiratory muscle weakness are discrete, namely: dyspnoea on effort, orthopnea, insomnia, frequent nocturnal awakenings, morning headache, loss of appetite, excessive daytime sleepiness, depression, anxiety, and marked fatigue. The management of respiratory failure in neuromuscular diseases requires the use of noninvasive ventilation (NIV) to assist the respiratory muscles in order to correct the alveolar hypoventilation and ameliorate gas exchange. NIV thus slows down the decline of forced vital capacity thereby improving the patient’s quality of life, physical activity and hemodynamics, normalization of blood gases, slight improvement in other physiological measures, and maximal mouth pressures and increases survival. NIV support should be offered to all patients who present with early signs of ventilatory failure as it is probably the most effective among treatments in prolonging life in neuromuscular patients

Analysis of reliability aspects of wind power generation in Romania using Markov models

Wind power has some characteristics that affect its integration into power systems: variability, unreliable accuracy of the output prediction, and the remote insertion into the network. A critical issue facing the integration of the wind power production is the reliable prediction of its contribution to meet the system's load demand. The authors propose to use tools specific for the reliability analysis of the systems, assuming discrete-time Markov processes, with a view to determine reliability index-type of characteristics for the wind power production

Expansion planning of distribution networks by heuristic algorithms.

The existing distribution networks are growing with complexity more and more, due to the gradual increase of power demand and variation of loads. This paper describes several heuristic algorithms applied to the optimal configuration of loop distribution network. Configuration problems are too complicated and time consumed to be solved. These problems are basically large-scaled combinatorial optimization problems, because an urban distribution system is usually large in scale and contain numerous sectionalizing switches to be operated. It is, therefore, difficult to rapidly obtain an exact optimal solution on real system

Water-Oil Partition Profiling of Ionized Drug Molecules Using Cyclic Voltammetry and a 96-Well Microfilter Plate System

Purpose. A new experimental set-up for studying partitioning of ionizable drugs at the interface between two immiscible electrolyte solutions (ITIES) by amperometry is presented. The method is quite general, as it can be applied to any charged drug molecule. Methods. The procedure is based on 96-well microfilter plates with microporous filters to support 96 organic liquid membranes. The new methodology is first validated using a series of tetra-alkylammonium ions and subsequently used to construct the ion partition diagrams of 3,5-N,N-tetramethylaniline and 2,4-dinitrophenol. The lipophilicity of these drugs was examined by potentiometry and cyclic voltammetry in the NPOE/water system. Results. Cyclic voltammetry resulted in potential-pH profiles of the studied drugs. When the aqueous phase pK a is already known, the logP NPOEof lipophilic drugs could be determined using a very little amount of solvents and drugs. The values of the partition coefficients for the neutral forms agree well with those obtained by potentiometry. Conclusions. The procedure based on commercially available 96-well microfilter plates is shown to be useful for determining logP of ionized drugs in a rapid and efficient wa

Pulmonary Effects of Passive Smoking Among Adults

Passive smoking, also known as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) or second-hand smoke (SHS) represents the involuntary inhaling of tobacco released by others in the ambient air. Passive smoking exposure occurs in homes, workplaces, and in other public places such as bars, restaurants, and recreation venues. It consists of a complex mixture of mainstream smoke exhaled by smokers and the smoke given off by the combustion of tobacco products. Non-smokers, being exposed to the same toxic substances as identified in mainstream tobacco smoke are, therefore, at an increased risk for serious adverse health effects. Although attention has centered mainly on the harmful effects of SHS exposure in the pediatric population, epidemiologic data from the last 20 years showed increased risks on various respiratory pathologies of the adult. Inhaling SHS causes injury to the respiratory tract, resulting in a high prevalence of respiratory symptoms, asthma, impairment of lung function and increased bronchial responsiveness. In adults, passive smoking is also associated with an increased risk of lung cancer, especially in those with high exposure. On the basis of recent publications, we propose a review of history, biologic basis and effects on different respiratory pathologies of the exposure to SHS in adults

TecHUB 4.0 - Technology and Entrepreneurship Education for Bridging the Gap in Smart Product Development

Additive manufacturing is a worldwide trend and has been successfully adopted in a wide variety of domains. With applications ranging from automotive, aerospace, military, consumer goods bioprinting and even wearable electronics, the need for trained workforce in additive manufacturing is in high demand. Academia all around the world is adapting to this new trend trying to develop new strategies in delivering suitable competences to their undergraduate, masters’ and PhD students. Such an initiative is the Erasmus+ project TecHUB 4.0 which brings together four complementary universities from Romania, United Kingdom and Poland. The main goal of the project is to bring together professors, industry specialists, researchers, managers, and entrepreneurs to deliver, using methods based on modern teaching technologies, especially on the use of web-based platforms and digital technologies – e-learning and interactive platforms, their knowledge to the young students wishing to become entrepreneurs in the additive manufacturing area. An Open Interactive Platform will be designed to be used equally by companies, by universities and by students, which will aggregate the demand and offer for internships developed in the scope of developing projects anchored in the day-to-day additive manufacturing business activity to solve concrete problems, but at the same time respecting all the economic constraints imposed on a business at beginning of its life