Influence of socioeconomic factors on pregnancy outcome in women with structural heart disease

OBJECTIVE: Cardiac disease is the leading cause of indirect maternal mortality. The aim of this study was to analyse to what extent socioeconomic factors influence the outcome of pregnancy in women with heart disease.  METHODS: The Registry of Pregnancy and Cardiac disease is a global prospective registry. For this analysis, countries that enrolled ≥10 patients were included. A combined cardiac endpoint included maternal cardiac death, arrhythmia requiring treatment, heart failure, thromboembolic event, aortic dissection, endocarditis, acute coronary syndrome, hospitalisation for cardiac reason or intervention. Associations between patient characteristics, country characteristics (income inequality expressed as Gini coefficient, health expenditure, schooling, gross domestic product, birth rate and hospital beds) and cardiac endpoints were checked in a three-level model (patient-centre-country).  RESULTS: A total of 30 countries enrolled 2924 patients from 89 centres. At least one endpoint occurred in 645 women (22.1%). Maternal age, New York Heart Association classification and modified WHO risk classification were associated with the combined endpoint and explained 37% of variance in outcome. Gini coefficient and country-specific birth rate explained an additional 4%. There were large differences between the individual countries, but the need for multilevel modelling to account for these differences disappeared after adjustment for patient characteristics, Gini and country-specific birth rate.  CONCLUSION: While there are definite interregional differences in pregnancy outcome in women with cardiac disease, these differences seem to be mainly driven by individual patient characteristics. Adjustment for country characteristics refined the results to a limited extent, but maternal condition seems to be the main determinant of outcome

Incorporation of lipid nanosystems containing omega‑3 fatty acids and resveratrol in textile substrates for wound healing and anti‑inflammatory applications

In the present work, lipid nanosystems containing omega-3 fatty acid (nanostructured lipid carriers, NLCs) or omega-3 fatty acid and resveratrol (liposomes) were developed to improve cotton textile substrates as dressings with anti-inflammatory properties for wound healing applications. Lipid nanosystems were incorporated into woven, non-woven and knitted cotton substrates by exhaustion and impregnation. Based on physical–chemical characterization of the textile substrates, the textile structure and type of lipid nanosystems dictated the adsorption efficiency. In the case of NLCs, the woven substrate functionalized by exhaustion had a higher omega-3 release being the most promising for wound dressing application. Whereas for liposomes, the most adequate textile was the cationized knitted fabric functionalized by impregnation, that showed a more prolonged release profile of resveratrol.This work is financed by Project UID/CTM/00264/2019 of 2C2T - Centro de Ciencia e Tecnologia Textil, funded by National Founds through FCT/MCTES. The authors also acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for financial support in the framework of the Strategic Funding UID/Multi/04546/2013 and UID/FIS/04650/2019 in the ambit of the project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-032651, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), through COMPETE 2020, under Portugal 2020

Testing and evaluation program of lab. scale hybrid propulsion system

Abstract The objective of the present paper is to prove the validity design and fully automatically operation of HPS, seeking to achieve its safety, low cost, and flexibility. In the stage of preliminary design, a coupling between experimental and theoretical work has been done, making use of available laboratory facilities and software packages (thermo-chemical calculation), to fully demonstrate all operating conditions. The HPS design includes the solid fuel grain configuration, essential operating parameters, oxidizer feed through control devices, measuring tools with calibration system, data recording and operating system. Commercial fuel materials as Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and Polyethylene (PE) are used during experimental work to represent conventional generation fuel. Furthermore, new generation fuels as paraffin, beeswax, and paraffin with energetic additive metal (AL powder) are used. Gaseous oxygen is used as oxidizer. That may guide to design and fabricate high performance real rocket weapon or space propulsion system, targeting longer term storage and a propulsion system with available technology. The objective is extended to select appropriate ignition system (NiCr coil igniter) for laboratory firing of small-scale engine. One of the main problems (price, safety, available technology) of propulsion system today has been tackled. To that end, analysis has been established, to investigate the regression rate, solid fuel mass flow rate and combustion efficiency for each fuel grain group types.</jats:p

Beeswax Material: Non-Conventional Solid Fuel for Hybrid Rocket Motors

Traditional solid fuel for Hybrid Rocket Motor (HRM) is characterized as a low regression rate, aiming to develop a new generation of solid fuel material that combines at the same time good ballistic properties, easy manufacture, safe exhaust emission and low cost. Beeswax as bio-derived hydrocarbon fuel has been evaluated to be used as solid fuel in HRM. Firing tests are carried out at the average pre-chamber pressure of 2.90 bar, the oxidizer mass flow rate of 9.34 g/s and the regression rate of 1.5 mm/s at combustion efficiency reaches 60.3 %. Beeswax as pure solid fuel grain at 7 mm active channel port with 100 mm length is tested with gaseous oxygen (gO2) as oxidizer and it showed a regression rate at least three times as high as traditional hybrid propellant, such as Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and Polyethylene (PE)/gO2. This provides a promise for high performance parameters with a special regression rate to overcome the main drawbacks of traditional hybrid propellant. Experimental evaluation parameters (regression rate, fuel mass flow rate and combustion efficiency) are carried out for beeswax/gO2. Combustion shows fairly successful results for lab scale testing but it needs further enhancement, especially in combustion efficiency and theoretical studies for combustion efficiency.</jats:p

CURRENT DEMAND FOR WATER RESOURCES IN EGYPTIAN AGRICULTURE

Water is one of the most important inputs and elements of development, and the importance of water in Egypt is increasing due to the lack of resources and increased demand in recent periods, where rain is scarce and covers most of its deserts. The River Nile is the main water supplier in the Arab Republic of Egypt, where the share of the river about 55.5 billion cubic meters per year, and the problem is limited to the study of the current and future use of water, while Egypt suffers from the constant amount of water available to cover these uses, The high rates of Egyptian population growth, with Egypt's share of water remaining constant, and hence the problem of water shortage, is a threat to the national economy in general and the agricultural sector in particular. The aim of the  study is to use water for the time being and to work to increase the efficiency of water use in future years The study shows that the quantities of water used in irrigation for agricultural crops in Aswan fluctuated between the minimum and the decrease, ranging between a minimum of about 40.1 billion m3 in 2012 and a maximum of about 62.1 billion M3 in 2008 with an annual average of about 50.48 billion m3 during the same period. And the study of the equation of the general time trend for the quantities of water used for irrigating agricultural crops in Aswan and it shows that there is no mathematical picture suitable for the nature of the data and that the data revolve around the mean arithmetic