SUMMARY BackgroundDysregulation of the cyclic guanosine 3¢,5¢ monophosphate-nitric oxide system is in part responsible for portal hypertension in cirrhosis.

Haemoglobin (Hb) and Reticulocytes (Ret) are measured as indirect markers of doping in athletes. We studied the diurnal variation, the impact of exercise, fluid intake and ambient temperature in athletes on these parameters. Hourly venous blood samples were obtained from 36 male athletes of different disciplines (endurance (END) and non-endurance (NON-END)) over 12 h during a typical training day. Seven inactive subjects served as controls (CON). Hb and Ret were determined. A mixed model procedure was used to analyse the data. At baseline, Hb was similar for all groups, END showed lower Ret than NON-END and CON. Exercise showed a significant impact on Hb (+0.46 g/dl, p<0.001), the effect disappeared approximately 2 h after exercise. Hb decreased over the day by approximately 0.55 g/dl (p<0.01). There was no relevant effect on Ret. Fluid intake and ambient temperature had no significant effect. Hb shows significant diurnal- and exercise related variations. In an anti-doping context, most of these variations are in favour of the athlete. Blood samples taken after exercise might therefore provide reliable results and thus be used for the longitudinal monitoring of athletes if a timeframe for the re-equilibration of vascular volumes is respected.

Gas flaring is a disposal process widely used in the oil extraction and processing industry. It 1 consists in the burning of unwanted gas at the tip of a stack and due to its thermal characteristic and 2 the thermal emission it is possible to observe and to quantify it from space. Spaceborne observations 3 allows us to collect information across regions and hence to provide a base for estimation of emissions 4 on global scale. We have successfully adapted the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) 5 Nightfire algorithm for the detection and characterisation of persistent hot spots, including gas flares, 6 to the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) observations on-board the Sentinel-3 7 satellites. A hot event at temperatures typical of a gas flare will produce a local maximum in the 8 night-time readings of the shortwave and mid-infrared (SWIR and MIR) channels of SLSTR. The 9 SWIR band centered at 1.61 µm is closest to the expected spectral radiance maximum and serves as the 10 primary detection band. The hot source is characterised in terms of temperature and area by fitting 11 the sum of two Planck curves, one for the hot source and another for the background, to the radiances 12 from all the available SWIR, MIR and thermal infra-red channels of SLSTR. The flaring radiative 13 power is calculated from the gas flare temperature and area. Our algorithm differs from the original 14 VIIRS Nightfire algorithm in three key aspects: (1) It uses a granule-based contextual thresholding to 15 detect hot pixels, being independent of the number of hot sources present and their intensity. (2) It 16 analyses entire clusters of hot source detections instead of individual pixels. This is arguably a more 17 comprehensive use of the available information. (3) The co-registration errors between hot source 18 clusters in the different spectral bands are calculated and corrected. This also contributes to the SLSTR 19 instrument validation. Cross-comparisons of the new gas flare characterisation with temporally close 20 observations by the higher resolution German FireBIRD TET-1 small satellite and with the Nightfire 21 product based on VIIRS on-board the Suomi-NPP satellite show general agreement for an individual 22 flaring site in Siberia and for several flaring regions around the world. Small systematic differences 23 to VIIRS Nightfire are nevertheless apparent. Based on the hot spot characterisation, gas flares can 24 be identified and flared gas volumes and pollutant emissions can be calculated with previously 25 published methods.26and global concern. GF impacts the local environment [1] through: noise [2,3], visual pollution [4,5], 31 heat stress [4,6] and the emission of air pollutants like black carbon, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, 32 volatile organic compounds and acid rain precursors [7][8][9][10]. Flaring produces greenhouse gases (GHG) 33 and black carbon as the main by-products of the combustion. In terms of the global GHG budget 34 gas flaring produced an estimated yearly a...

Many patients in pre-hospital and emergency care are under the influence of alcohol. In addition, some of the more common pathological conditions can introduce a behaviour that can be mistaken to be related to alcohol inebriation. Fast quantitative determination of the breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) in emergency patients facilitates triage and medical assessment, but shallow expirations performed by non-cooperative patients reduce the measurement reliability. The aim of this study was to evaluate if breath alcohol analysis in non-cooperative patients can be improved with use of simultaneous measurement of the expired carbon dioxide (CO(2)). With prototypes of a handheld breath alcohol analyser based on infrared transmission spectroscopy the alcohol and CO(2) concentration in expired breath from 37 cooperative and non-cooperative patients were measured. The results show that enhanced breath sampling with use of a pump and estimation of the end expiratory BrAC with use of the ratio between the measured partial pressure of CO(2) (PCO2) and a reference value of the alveolar PCO2, provided adequate correlation with the blood alcohol concentration (BAC). This pre-clinical study has shown that breath alcohol analysis in shallow expirations from non-cooperative patients can be improved with use of CO(2) as a tracer gas.

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