Case Engineering (United States)

To explore the changes in the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel, European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel, and Pan Pacific Pressure Injury Alliance Clinical Practice Guideline for Prevention and Treatment of Pressure Ulcers/Injuries (CPG) nutrition recommendations and strategies for implementation. This continuing education activity is intended for physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and nurses with an interest in skin and wound care. After participating in this educational activity, the participant will:1. Synthesize the current evidence regarding nutrition approaches to medical conditions, including pressure injury prevention and treatment.2. Summarize the changes and recommendations in the 2019 edition of the CPG. Healthy diets provide essential nutrients needed to maintain healthy skin and prevent or manage pressure injuries. The 2019 Clinical Practice Guideline for Prevention and Treatment of Pressure Ulcers/Injuries published by the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel, European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel, and Pan Pacific Pressure Injury Alliance includes specific nutrition recommendations for patients with pressure injuries. The purpose of this CE/CME article is to explore the changes in the nutrition recommendations and strategies for implementation.

Fluorous nanoparticles enhances oxygen uptake as a PDT carrier for skin cancers.

Abstract The recovery of the double-crested cormorant Phalacrocorax auritus throughout North America has led to increased human–cormorant competition over fishery resources and has forced managers to evaluate cormorant effects and consider management alternatives at local and broader scales. We present a method for modeling local double-crested cormorant populations under varying levels of culling intensity based on a colony managed at Leech Lake, Minnesota, during 2005–2011. In this case study, the cormorant colony was evaluated under no, moderate, and intensive control rates and compared with the observed population response. Cormorant diets for fledged (adults and subadults) and nestling cormorants were described during 2004–2007 and 2010. Annual fish consumption and 95% confidence intervals were estimated from 1992 to 2011 using a bioenergetics model and Monte Carlo methods. Total feeding effort and fish consumption has been reduced by nearly 90% since cormorant control began in 2005 (consumption reduced from 20.01 kg/ha in 2004 to 1.98 kg/ha in 2011) and by 46–73% annually, depending on the number of birds arriving each spring and the applied culling intensity. Averaged across all years and periods, fledged cormorants consumed 0.75 kg·bird−1·d−1 and nestlings consumed 0.45 kg·bird−1·d−1. Respectively, average fledged and nestling diets were comprised of Yellow Perch Perca flavescens (61.0% and 77.4%), Coregonus spp. (12.3% and 9.4%), minnows Notropis spp. (9.9% and 2.2%), Trout-perch Percopsis omiscomaycus (4.1% and 0.4%), and Walleye Sander vitreus (4.6% and 3.6%), though considerable seasonal and temporal variability was observed. The bioenergetics model used to estimate total fish consumption was sensitive to this variability, which was strongly associated with the dynamics of the population of Cisco Coregonus artedi. Some fish population and fishery statistics were described by changes in cormorant predation pressure, but these relationships were compromised by other concurrent management activities. Received April 1, 2013; accepted August 20, 2013

Initiated in 2008, the Solar Energy Grid Integration Systems (SEGIS) program is a partnership involving the U.S. DOE, Sandia National Laboratories, private sector companies, electric utilities, and universities. Projects supported under the program have focused on the complete-system development of solar technologies, with the dual goal of expanding utility-scale penetration and addressing new challenges of connecting large-scale solar installations in higher penetrations to the electric grid. The Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), its partners, and Sandia National Laboratories have successfully collaborated to complete the work under the third and final stage of the SEGIS initiative. The SEGIS program was a three-year, three-stage project that include conceptual design and market analysis in Stage 1, prototype development and testing in Stage 2, and moving toward commercialization in Stage 3. Under this program, the FSEC SEGIS team developed a comprehensive vision that has guided technology development that sets one methodology for merging photovoltaic (PV) and smart-grid technologies. The FSEC team's objective in the SEGIS project is to remove barriers to large-scale general integration of PV and to enhance the value proposition of photovoltaic energy by enabling PV to act as much as possible as if it were at the very least equivalent to a conventional utility power plant. It was immediately apparent that the advanced power electronics of these advanced inverters will go far beyond conventional power plants, making high penetrations of PV not just acceptable, but desirable. This report summarizes a three-year effort to develop, validate and commercialize Grid-Smart Inverters for wider photovoltaic utilization, particularly in the utility sector.

We report on an experimental exploration of ex vivo measurements and real-time monitoring of the motions of heart wall for perfused rat hearts, by employing a surface-contact type of electromechanical probes based on piezoelectric transduction. In a hybrid experimental apparatus consisting of a conventional heart perfusion system and external electromechanical probing devices and circuitry, prototyped piezoelectric cantilever devices are calibrated and tested. We demonstrate that the external piezoelectric cantilevers are capable of monitoring the dynamic behavior of the isolated heart ex vivo, by measuring the motions of the heart wall. For typical rat hearts with heart rates in the range of ~150-250bpm (beats per minute), cantilevers with dimensions of t × w × L ≈ 130μm × (0.3-8)mm × (1-19)mm yield electrical signal of ~50-400mV. Measured data can also help identify signatures of various regimes (e.g., from healthy to fatigued, to expiring) in the dynamical evolution during the perfused heart's lifetime. Preliminary tests on parallel multichannel monitoring with probes positioned at multiple locations on heart surface prove to be valid and useful in obtaining information of regional displacement of heart wall.