Restenose nach endovaskulärer Therapie im femoropoplitealen Stromgebiet - Häufigkeit und Restenosepattern in Abhängigkeit von der Art des endovaskulären Eingriffs

Restenose nach endovaskulärer Therapie im femoropoplitealen Stromgebiet - Häufigkeit und Restenosepattern in Abhängigkeit von der Art des endovaskulären Eingriff

PREPARING PARENTS OF PEDIATRIC PALLIATIVE CARE PATIENTS FOR THE END-OF-LIFE-PROCESS: A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL PEDIATRIC END-OF-LIFE-CARE GUIDELINES

End of life care is part of palliative care and is provided for individuals at their last days of life. The main focus in end-of-life care is on symptom control and management to allow patients to die peacefully and comfortably, while taking into account the psychological status of patients and their caregivers. Pediatric end-of-life-care is a form of end-of-life-care provided to patients 18 years of age and younger. At end-of-life, there are many decisions that parents are forced to take that has to do with artificial nutrition and hydration, code status, and treating new infections. Often those decisions are uninformed. Without specific guidance from the interdisciplinary teams composed of oncologists, palliative care teams, and registered nurses caring for the pediatric patients, parents will not be able to take the right decisions that is in their children’s best interest. At AUBMC, pediatric hematology/oncology nurses are not equipped with the appropriate knowledge to provide care for end-of-life patients and there are no guidelines for end-of-life care. Hence, this project is meant to help nurses prepare parents to deal with decisions related to the end-of-life process. Method: Content analysis of three international guidelines related to end-of-life care was conducted including: The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) guidelines, the National Institute for health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines. The content of the three international guidelines were analyzed and tabulated for the purpose of developing an evidence-based, customized one that fits the Lebanese culture. Results: Six constructs were extrapolated from the three guidelines that will help improve the quality of end-of-life-care, to include: (1) communicating with the child and parents regarding disease prognosis, (2) integrating parents and the child in the decision-making process, (3) identifying the signs of a dying child, (4) designing an individualized advanced plan of care, (5) developing a treatment plan at the end-of-life, and (6) managing symptoms. Conclusion: Adapting the developed guidelines will increase the nurse’s knowledge with regards to end-of-life-care that would eventually empower parents to take decisions at end-of-life that has to do with their child’s code status, artificial nutrition and hydration, and many more, that would have a positive impact on the child’s quality of care at end-of-life

Gouvernance institutionnelle et croissance économique dans la région MENA : entre des chocs externes et des crises politiques

L’objectif de ce papier est d’étudier l’effet de la gouvernance des institutions sur la croissance économique à travers un échantillon de 17 pays dans la région MENA durant la période 2002-2018. On estime un panel dynamique à l’aide de l’approche GMM en système et en deux étapes de (Blundell et Bond, 1998). Les résultats montrent que les indicateurs de gouvernance n’exercent pas d'influence significative sur la croissance économique dans la région MENA. Ce résultat s’explique par les effets néfastes des soulèvements du « printemps arabes » dans certains pays de la région MENA qui ont révélé une corruption omniprésente, en particulier dans le secteur politique, ce qui déstabilise la croissance économique. La région présente aussi une grande vulnérabilité envers des chocs exogènes, tels que les crises mondiales, financiers et politiques, ce qui a eu un impact négatif sur ses perspectives de la croissance économique

Alternating metastable/stable pattern in the mercuric iodide crystal formation outside the ostwald rule of stages

We report a reaction-diffusion system in which two initially separated electrolytes, mercuric chloride (outer) and potassium iodide (inner), interact in a solid hydrogel media to produce a propagating front of mercuric iodide precipitate. The precipitation process is accompanied by a polymorphic transformation of the kinetically favored (unstable) orange, (metastable) yellow, and (thermodynamically stable) red polymorphs of HgI2. The sequence of crystal transformation is confirmed to agree with the Ostwald Rule of Stages. However, a region is found of initial inner iodide concentration, where a stationary pattern of alternating metastable/stable crystals is formed. A theoretical model based on reaction diffusion coupled to a special nucleation and growth mechanism is proposed. Its numerical solution is shown to reproduce the experimental results. © 2014 American Chemical Society

Chemical waves in heterogeneous media

Formation of precipitation patterns and wave propagation in excitable media have attracted considerable scientific interest in the context of nonlinear chemical kinetics because of a new approach to micro and nanofabrication, in addition to some biological aspects. All precipitation patterns share common morphological characteristics, namely the formed patterns are stationary and no dynamical patterns can be observed in these classical precipitation systems (e.g., Liesegang phenomenon). However, it has been recently shown that in several circumstances dynamic patterns (chemical waves) can exist in purely inorganic precipitation systems similar to the well-known and studied (excitable) waves in Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. In this study, we show how to fine-tune the pattern characteristics in precipitation systems, such as the wavelength and the pattern morphology by changing the concentrations of the reagents, and we demonstrate chemical waves on a moving 3D spherical precipitation layer. We show that such precipitation waves have anomalous transport property, specifically superdiffusive nature, and it can be controlled by the initial concentration of the inner electrolyte. Moreover, we present several precipitation systems in which chemical wave propagation inside a moving precipitation layer can emerge. This observation points out the generality and robustness of similar behavior in diffusion-precipitation systems. (Figure Presented). © 2014 American Chemical Society

News Interviews: Clayman and Heritage’s The News Interview

News interviews: Clayman and Heritage’s ‘The News Interview

Structure-Activity Relationship of Polyoxopalladates as Hydrogenation Catalysts & Synthesis and Structural Characterization of Thallium-Containing Polyoxometalates

Polyoxometalates (POMs) are a well-known class of discrete, anionic, metal-oxo clusters comprising early transition metals in high oxidation states. The structural and compositional variety is unmatched, and hence, such compounds are of interest in many different areas such as catalysis, medicine, magnetism and materials science. However, POMs exclusively based on d8 metal centers (PdII, PtIII, and AuIII) as addenda have undergone a recent renaissance – in particular polyoxopalladates(II). These noble metal-based heterogeneous catalysts represent a promising platform. The first part of this work focuses on investigating the structure-activity relationship of polyoxopalladates as hydrogenation catalysts (industrial project with ExxonMobil Chemical Europe Inc.). The second part of this thesis focuses on the synthesis of novel thallium-containing POMs (academic project)