Ultrasonic Cleaning and Re-use of HEPA Filters in Nuclear Fuel Manufacturing Facility

In the nuclear industry, High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters are used as an important engineering safeguard to prevent the potential release of airborne radioactive particulates into the environment during the plant operations. These filters have high efficiency (99.97%) in removing particulate matters in the sub-micron range and are widely used in the entire fuel cycle from the stage of mining/milling to nuclear waste management operations. Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) at Hyderabad manufactures nuclear fuel for all the commercial nuclear power reactors in the country.The fuel is in the form of high density Uranium dioxide (UO2) pellets clad in Zircalloy- 4 tubes. Many chemical and metallurgical processes are employed for the production of UO2 pellets starting from the raw material magnesium diuranate (MDU). HEPA filters are used for final filtration of off-gases from these processes as well as the working areas/plants. Each fully loaded HEPA filter contains around 3-5 kgs of uranium bearing fine powder, which needs to be recovered as it is a costly material. Normally, HEPA filters are used once-through, as suitable technique for nondestructive decontamination has not been developed. This has resulted in a large accumulation of loaded HEPA filters at NFC, which is a cause for concern. The reuse of the HEPA filt-ers depends on the extent of decontamination achieved. As the conventional cleaning techniques are found to be ineffective, the decontamination of HEPA filters presents a challenging problem. Therefore, development work was taken up at NFC to evolve a suitable decontamination technique for HEPA filters. A state-of-the-art ultrasonic decontamination technique using commercial acetone has been developed at NFC. The technique offers a suitable nondestructive method to ensure removal of uranium fines from the filter media completely and thereby rendering the HEPA filter suitable for reuse. The observations and results of this development work are presented in this paper

Priorities in Cardio-Oncology Basic and Translational Science

Despite improvements in cancer survival, cancer therapy–related cardiovascular toxicity has risen to become a prominent clinical challenge. This has led to the growth of the burgeoning field of cardio-oncology, which aims to advance the cardiovascular health of cancer patients and survivors, through actionable and translatable science. In these Global Cardio-Oncology Symposium 2023 scientific symposium proceedings, we present a focused review on the mechanisms that contribute to common cardiovascular toxicities discussed at this meeting, the ongoing international collaborative efforts to improve patient outcomes, and the bidirectional challenges of translating basic research to clinical care. We acknowledge that there are many additional therapies that are of significance but were not topics of discussion at this symposium. We hope that through this symposium-based review we can highlight the knowledge gaps and clinical priorities to inform the design of future studies that aim to prevent and mitigate cardiovascular disease in cancer patients and survivors.</p

Depression and loneliness in Jamaicans with sickle cell disease

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Sickle cell disease (SCD) is the commonest genetic disorder in Jamaica, and has life-long implications for those afflicted with it. It is well known that depression and loneliness may exist in those with chronic diseases, but the coexistence of depression and loneliness in people with sickle cell disease is not clear. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of and factors associated with depression and loneliness in the Jamaica Sickle Cell Cohort Study and its age and sex matched controls.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>277 patients with SCD and 65 controls were administered a questionnaire that studied demographics, disease severity, depression, and loneliness. Regression analyses were done to examine relationships between outcomes and associated variables.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Depression was found in 21.6% of patients and 9.4% in controls. Loneliness scores were also significantly higher in patients (16.9 ± 5.1) than in controls (14.95 ± 4.69). Depression was significantly associated with unemployment [OR = 2.9, p-value: < 0.001], whereas unemployment (p-value: 0.002), and lower educational attainment were significantly associated with loneliness.</p> <p>In patients with SCD, depression was significantly associated with being unemployed (OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.2,4.6, p-value:0.01), presence of a leg ulcer (OR = 3.8, 95% CI: 1.7, 8.4, p-value: 0.001), frequent visits (OR = 3.3, 95% CI: 1.2, 8.9, p-value: 0.019), and frequent painful crises (OR = 2.5, 95% CI: 1.1, 5.8, p-value: 0.035). Not being employed (Coef.: 2.0; p-value: 0.004) and higher educational attainment (tertiary vs. primary education, Coef.: -5.5; p-value: < 0.001) were significant associations with loneliness after adjusting for genotype.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Health workers need to actively look for and manage these problems to optimize their patients' total biopsychosocial care.</p

Polymorphism: an evaluation of the potential risk to the quality of drug products from the Farmácia Popular Rede Própria

Polymorphism in solids is a common phenomenon in drugs, which can lead to compromised quality due to changes in their physicochemical properties, particularly solubility, and, therefore, reduce bioavailability. Herein, a bibliographic survey was performed based on key issues and studies related to polymorphism in active pharmaceutical ingredient (APIs) present in medications from the Farm&#225;cia Popular Rede Pr&#243;pria. Polymorphism must be controlled to prevent possible ineffective therapy and/or improper dosage. Few mandatory tests for the identification and control of polymorphism in medications are currently available, which can result in serious public health concerns