Heart and lungs protection technique for cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass

Cardioplegic cardiac arrest with subsequent ischemic-reperfusion injuries can lead to the development of inflammation of the myocardium, leucocyte activation, and release of cardiac enzymes. Flow reduction to the bronchial arteries, causing low-flow lung ischemia, leads to the development of a pulmonary regional inflammatory response..

Heart and lungs protection technique for cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass

Cardioplegic cardiac arrest with subsequent ischemic-reperfusion injuries can lead to the development of inflammation of the myocardium, leucocyte activation, and release of cardiac enzymes. Flow reduction to the bronchial arteries, causing low-flow lung ischemia, leads to the development of a pulmonary regional inflammatory response..

ДИЗАЙН МЕХАНИЗМА КООРДИНАЦИИ ИГРОКОВ В ДИНАМИЧЕСКОЙ ИГРЕ С ЦЕЛЬЮ МАКСИМИЗАЦИИ ЭФФЕКТИВНОСТИ СИСТЕМЫ ИХ ВЗАИМОДЕЙСТВИЯ

Quite often within the activity subjects are compelled to interact with other subjects of one system. And this interaction can have antagonistic character in spite of the fact that they are within one system, and game by which interaction in systems is described, isn’t game with the zero sum. In the article the mechanism which allows to change interaction of players from antagonism to cooperation is offered.Нередко в рамках своей деятельности те или иные субъекты вынуждены взаимодействовать с другими субъектами одной системы. И это взаимодействие может иметь антагонистический характер, несмотря на то, что они находятся в рамках одной системы, и игра, которой описывается взаимодействие в системы, не является игрой с нулевой суммой. В статье предлагается механизм, который позволяет изменить взаимодействие игроков с антагонизма на кооперацию

Conformal and Affine Hamiltonian Dynamics of General Relativity

The Hamiltonian approach to the General Relativity is formulated as a joint nonlinear realization of conformal and affine symmetries by means of the Dirac scalar dilaton and the Maurer-Cartan forms. The dominance of the Casimir vacuum energy of physical fields provides a good description of the type Ia supernova luminosity distance--redshift relation. Introducing the uncertainty principle at the Planck's epoch within our model, we obtain the hierarchy of the Universe energy scales, which is supported by the observational data. We found that the invariance of the Maurer-Cartan forms with respect to the general coordinate transformation yields a single-component strong gravitational waves. The Hamiltonian dynamics of the model describes the effect of an intensive vacuum creation of gravitons and the minimal coupling scalar (Higgs) bosons in the Early Universe.Comment: 37 pages, version submitted to Gen. Rel. Gra

ИНТИМАЛЬНАЯ САРКОМА ЛЕГОЧНОЙ АРТЕРИИ, ПРОТЕКАЮЩАЯ ПОД МАСКОЙ ТРОМБОЭМБОЛИИ ЛЕГОЧНОЙ АРТЕРИИ: РЕЗУЛЬТАТЫ ХИРУРГИЧЕСКОГО ЛЕЧЕНИЯ

HighlightsThe article describes a rare case of surgical treatment of pulmonary artery intimal sarcoma. The authors analyzed the causes for incorrect diagnosis of pulmonary embolism in detail, and proposed alternative options for distinguishing the diseases under consideration. Moreover, the authors analyzed different surgical treatment modalities of intracardial sarcomas, and demonstrated the prospect of using molecular hydrogen as a component of an anesthetics during surgical interventions with cardiopulmonary bypass. AbstractThe article describes a rare clinical case of a patient with pulmonary artery sarcoma. The absence of specific symptoms of sarcoma, as well as features of developing cardiovascular and respiratory failure, characteristic of pulmonary embolism, contributed to the incorrect diagnosis. The article analyzes the main problems of primary diagnostics, and proposes new parameters for evaluating manifesting symptoms and the results of additional examination, which should improve the results of surgical treatment of malignant tumors.Основные положенияВ статье представлен редкий случай хирургического лечения интимальной саркомы легочной артерии. Детально проанализированы причины гипердиагностики тромбоэмболии легочной артерии, а также предложены альтернативные варианты дифференциальной верификации рассматриваемых заболеваний. Рассмотрены возможные варианты хирургического лечения сарком внутрикардиальной локализации. Кроме этого, продемонстрирована перспектива применения молекулярного водорода в качестве компонента анестезиологического пособия при выполнении оперативных вмешательств в условиях искусственного кровообращения. РезюмеВ статье описано редкое клиническое наблюдение пациентки с саркомой легочной артерии. Отсутствие специфических симптомов саркомы, а также особенности развивающейся сердечно-сосудистой и дыхательной недостаточности, характерные для тромбоэмболии легочной артерии, способствовали постановке неправильного диагноза. В работе проанализированы основные проблемы первичной диагностики, а также предложены параметры оценки манифестирующих симптомокомплексов и результатов объективных методов обследования, что в свете повышенной онкологической настороженности позволит улучшить результаты хирургического лечения злокачественных заболеваний сердца

Воздействие высокой концентрации оксида азота на оксигенаторы аппаратов искусственного кровообращения (экспериментальное исследование)

The aim of the study. To study the effect of high nitric oxide concentrations on hollow polypropylene fibers of oxygenators.Materials and methods. The study was conducted in two stages. At the first stage, we evaluated the stability of oxygenator membrane made of hollow polypropylene fibers after six hours of exposure to air-oxygen mixture containing NO at 500 parts per million, or 500 pro pro mille (ppm) concentration, using mass spectrometry and infrared spectroscopy. At the second stage, an experiment with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) was conducted on 10 pigs. In the study group (n=5) animals sweep gas was supplied to the oxygenator as an air-oxygen mixture with NO at 100 ppm. In the control group animals (n=5) an air-oxygen mixture was used without NO. The CPB lasted for 4 hours, followed by observation for 12 hours. NO, NO2 (at the inlet and outlet of the oxygenator), and the dynamics of methemoglobin were evaluated. After weaning of animals from CPB, the oxygenators were tested for leakproofness, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was performed.Results. The oxygenator made of polypropylene hollow fibers retained its gas transfer parameters after six hours of exposure to air-oxygen mixture containing NO at 500 ppm. Based on IR-Fourier spectroscopy findings, NO did not affect structural integrity of polypropylene membranes. NO added to gas mixture at 100 ppm did not increase NO2 to toxic level of 2 ppm in 91% of control tests during 4 hours CPB in pigs; mean value was 1.58 ± 0.28 ppm. Methemoglobin concentration did not exceed the upper limit of permissible level (3%), and there were no statistically significant differences with the control group. All tested oxygenators have passed the leakproofness test. According to SEM findings, larger amounts of fibrin deposits were found in the control group oxygenators vs study group.Conclusion. There were no negative effects of NO at 500 ppm concentration on the oxygenator membrane made of hollow polypropylene fibers. NO at 100 ppm in a gas-mixture supplied to oxygenators did not lead to an exceedance of safe NO2 and methemoglobin concentrations in an animal model. Reduced fibrin deposits on hollow fibers of polypropylene oxygenator membranes were observed when with NO at a level of 100 ppm was added to a gas mixture.  Цель исследования. Изучить воздействие высоких концентраций оксида азота на полипропиленовые полые волокна оксигенаторов.Материалы и методы. Исследование провели в два этапа. На первом этапе с помощью масс-спектрометрии и инфракрасной спектроскопии выполнили оценку стабильности мембраны оксигенатора из полых волокон полипропилена после шестичасового воздействия воздушно-кислородной смеси, содержащей NO в концентрации 500 пропромилле, или 500 частей на миллион – parts per million (ppm). На втором этапе провели эксперимент на 10 свиньях с подключением аппарата искусственного кровообращения (ИК). Животным основной группы (n=5) в оксигенатор подавали воздушно-кислородную смесь, содержащую NO в концентрации 100 ppm. Животным контрольной группы (n=5) в оксигенатор подавали воздушно-кислородную смесь без NO. Процедура ИК длилась 4 часа, затем следовало наблюдение в течение 12 часов. Оценивали NO, NO2 (на входе и выходе из оксигенатора), динамику метгемоглобина. После отключения от ИК оксигенаторы тестировали на герметичность, а также выполняли сканирующую электронную микроскопию (СЭМ).Результаты. Оксигенатор из полипропиленовых полых волокон сохранял свои газотранспортные характеристики после шестичасового воздействия воздушно-кислородной смеси с добавлением NO в концентрации 500 ppm. По данным ИК-Фурье спектроскопии показали, что NO не влияет на структуру мембран из полипропилена. Добавление NO в дозировке 100 ppm во время 4 часов ИК у свиней не сопровождалось повышением концентрации NO2 до токсичного уровня 2 ppm в 91% измерений: среднее значение составило 1,58 ± 0,28 ppm. Концентрация метгемоглобина не превышала верхнего  предела  допустимых  значений  (3%),  не  обнаружили  каких-либо статистически значимых различий при сравнении с группой контроля. Все исследуемые оксигенаторы выдержали тестирование на герметичность. По результатам СЭМ оксигенаторы группы контроля характеризовались большим количеством отложений фибрина, чем оксигенаторы основной группы.Заключение. Негативного воздействия NO в концентрации 500 ppm на мембраны оксигенаторов из полых волокон полипропилена не обнаружили. Подача в оксигенатор NO в концентрации 100 ppm NO2 не приводила к превышению безопасного содержания NO2 и метгемоглобина в эксперименте на животных. Выявили снижение образования отложений фибрина на полых волокнах мембран оксигенаторов из полипропилена при подаче NO в концентрации 100 ppm

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

Relationship to nature and ecology in the work of Ernst Kreuder

The German writer Ernst Kreuder (1903–1972, Büchner Prize 1953), best known for his book Die Gesellschaft vom Dachboden (The Attic Pretenders, 1946), the very first book by a German author published in Germany after World War 2, is now one of the lesser known authors to both academic circles and the general public. The academic interest in Kreuder\u27s work has been focused primarily on his role as a postwar writer, either in connection with romantic tradition, social criticism or in the context of autobiography. This dissertation offers a new reading of Kreuder\u27s work in the intersection between literature and ecology. The fact that the relationship between man and nature from the ecological point of view was not the object of literary representation in German prose until the 1970s makes Kreuder one of the pioneers of the ecological approach in West German literature. The analysis of Kreuder\u27s works presented in this dissertation lies within the scope of a relatively new research paradigm in German literary studies, the “ecologically oriented” literary criticism, which has developed as a continuation of, and later parallel to, the Anglo-American Ecocriticism. This dissertation argues that, through the constant creation and reinvention of forms of literary representation of the relationship between man and nature, Kreuder developed in his works a conceptually sophisticated and aesthetically appealing ecologically oriented Weltanschauung, which manifests itself differently in his various works and culminates at the end of Kreuder\u27s literary career in his last novel, Der Mann im Bahnwärterhaus (The Man in the Signalman\u27s Cabin, 1974, posth.). Methodologically my research and interpretation is based on the discursive models developed by Hubert Zapf in the functional approach of the cultural ecology, which examines the ecological function of the fictional texts in the cultural context. The outcome of this research includes an appreciation of the ecological potential of Kreuder\u27s work, provides insight into strategies and techniques employed by Kreuder to express the ecological concepts, and positions Ernst Kreuder among the pioneers of the ecologically oriented literature. This ultimately contributes to a critical reexamination of the literary canon of 20th Century German literature