TRC Companies (United States)

The purpose of the study is a comparative analysis of the effectiveness of ultrasonic cavitation in kidney malignancies. Materials and methods. The study included 42 patients aged 32–80 years with kidney tumors of stage T1a-T1b in order to compare the effectiveness of various methods of dissection of kidney tissue: 22 patients underwent laparoscopic resection using conventional mono- and bipolar electrosurgical instruments; 20 patients underwent laparoscopic resection of the kidney using an ultrasound cavitation device (Fotek, model «Actiton B»). Both groups were statistically comparable in terms of gender, age, and stage of the disease. In all cases, a clear cell renal cell carcinoma (100 %) was verified during histological examination in both groups. Results and conclusion. The method of kidney resection using ultrasound cavitation to dissect the renal parenchyma is more effective in terms of nephron conservation compared to the use of conventional electrosurgical instruments. There was also a lower volume of blood loss in the case of ultrasonic cavitation. The duration and radicality of surgery in both groups did not differ.

Background/Objectives: This pilot study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of applying the Beers criteria in the community pharmacy setting and aid pharmacists in identifying and emphasizing adverse effects from potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) for older adults. Methods: We applied a single-center retrospective study to collect demographic and outcome data in order to analyze dispensed PIMs for older adults. We used an evaluation tool to compare warnings between pharmacy dispensing software and the Beers criteria. Descriptive statistics were computed via standard statistical software. Results: Culled from a random selection of 215 patients, the medical records from 50 subjects ≥65 years old were reviewed, including 440 of their medications. Our data demonstrated that 96% of subjects were dispensed at least one PIM, with a total of 34 different PIMs distributed at varying frequencies. A comparative analysis indicated that 74% of dispensed medications had similar, but not identical, warning profiles presented in the dispensing software and Beers criteria. Anticholinergic burden of dispensed PIMs indicated that older adults were at risk of falls and delirium. By supplementing the dispensing software with Beers criteria, we were able to create clinical communication notes for providers, patients, and pharmacy students to emphasize the role pharmacists can play to minimize PIM's adverse effects on older adults. Conclusions: Our data indicates the feasibility of implementing the Beers criteria in the community pharmacy setting. Integrating the dispensing software warnings with Beers criteria created a structured intervention strategy to prevent potential adverse effects and develop clinical communication notes to emphasize a more engaging role that the community pharmacy setting can play to optimize therapeutic outcomes for older adults.

In Russia, the need for comprehensive development of information modeling technologies and automation of industrial processes is recognized at the federal level. This is especially relevant for large and high-tech industries in development, such as nuclear energy. Rosenergoatom JSC has approved plans to increase electric capacity through the construction of new NPP units. The implementation of large-scale infrastructure and energy projects requires fundamentally new approaches to the organizing construction and installation works (CIW). As a solution, integrated automation based on robotic complexes and information modeling technologies (IMT) is proposed. The proposed technological solution is based on several interrelated elements: digital design and as-built engineering models of the facility (DDIM and DEIM), as well as software and hardware complexes (SHC), including ground-based (walking robots) and aerial (drones) robotic platforms. These systems are integrated into a single loop that provides autonomous highresolution data collection (laser scanning, photographic documentation), integration of data into digital models and automatic fact-versus-actual analysis to identify deviations from the project. The successful application of this system has been demonstrated in the construction of the Baltic Chemical Complex. Robotic complexes have proven their effectiveness by identifying critical nonconformances at an early stage. It is proposed to extend the experience gained to the construction of NPP units, yielding a range of economic, technical, organizational and other benefits.

Modern DevOps practices have accelerated software delivery through automation, CI/CD pipelines, and observability tooling, but these approaches struggle to keep pace with the scale and dynamism of cloud-native systems.As telemetry volume grows and configuration drift increases, traditional, rule-driven automation often results in reactive operations, delayed remediation, and dependency on manual expertise.This paper introduces Cognitive Platform Engineering, a next-generation paradigm that integrates sensing, reasoning, and autonomous action directly into the platform lifecycle.This paper propose a four-plane reference architecture that unifies data collection, intelligent inference, policy-driven orchestration, and human experience layers within a continuous feedback loop.A prototype implementation built with Kubernetes, Terraform, Open Policy Agent, and ML-based anomaly detection demonstrates improvements in mean time to resolution, resource efficiency, and compliance.The results show that embedding intelligence into platform operations enables resilient, self-adjusting, and intent-aligned cloud environments.The paper concludes with research opportunities in reinforcement learning, explainable governance, and sustainable self-managing cloud ecosystems.

This paper examines the use of unstructured textual information from equipment inspection records to improve the quality of preventive maintenance and repair. It argues that conventional standards-based planning does not adequately capture expert knowledge about the actual technical condition of equipment, since a substantial part of such knowledge is embedded in textual descriptions that simultaneously reflect the inspection object, observed signs, condition assessment, and operating context. The study substantiates the need for a decision-support architecture capable of integrating regulatory and reference data, operational documentation, and knowledge extracted from inspection texts. Particular emphasis is placed on the architectural description of the system through the identification of the object of interest, stakeholders, their concerns, viewpoints, and corresponding architectural views. The paper also highlights that the consumers of decision-support results include multiple stakeholder groups, such as maintenance personnel, production units, resource planning services, and industrial safety services, whose roles and viewpoints must be coordinated within a unified architectural framework. To address this problem, an extension to the existing preventive maintenance system is proposed, including text entity extraction services, an ontology layer, an inference rule module, an explainability component, and a recommendation publishing mechanism. The proposed approach enables the formalization of expert knowledge, improves the transparency and reproducibility of recommendations, and enhances their practical applicability in maintenance and repair management.

Alpha-1-antitrypsin (А1АТ) deficiency is a genetically determined disease caused by a mutation in the SERPINA1 (serpin peptidase inhibitor, clade A) gene responsible for А1АТ synthesis. The clinical manifestations are bronchial asthma with fixed obstruction, panacinar emphysema or bronchiectasis, and liver damage. There are several types of SERPINA1 gene alleles: normal PiMM, deficient (with insufficient А1АТ secretion from the liver into the blood due to polymerization) PiSS and PiZZ, null (with complete absence of A1AT in the blood) PiNulNul, alleles with normal amount but impaired function of А1АТ, such as Pittsburgh. The aim of our work was to demonstrate the course of А1АТ deficiency in a patient at the age of 40. The peculiarity of the course of the disease in our patient is also the absence of liver damage, and such damage is usually a frequent manifestation of α 1-antitrypsin deficiency in the case of a mutation with the Pi*ZZ allele. Causative therapy with an α1-proteinase inhibitor was initiated and the patient’s clinical symptoms stabilized. Conclusion. It is important to inform physicians of various specialties about А1АТ deficiency in order to accelerate the initiation of necessary causative therapy, which helps improve the patient’s condition and prevent the development of severe complications.