No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Central venous catheterization for pressure monitoring and drug administration is often important in the anesthetic management of infants undergoing cardiovascular surgery. We examined the effects of patient age, weight, and central venous pressure and the experience of the anesthesiologist on the rate of successful catheterization and catheterization time of the internal jugular vein (IJV) in a prospective study. We studied 106 infants undergoing IJV catheterization for cardiovascular surgery over a 7-mo period at our institution. We catheterized the IJV by the high approach. The direct venipuncture or the Seldinger method was used according to the patient's weight. Overall successful catheterization rate was 97.2%, and the average catheterization time was 353 +/- 21 s (mean +/- SEM). Complications included arterial puncture in 12 cases (11.3%), hematoma formation in four cases (3.8%), and catheter malposition in two cases (1.9%), but pneumothorax was not observed. When a patient was younger than 3 mo or weighed less than 4.0 kg, successful catheterization rate decreased significantly to 81.3% and 78.6%, respectively. Catheterization time was inversely correlated with both age and weight, whereas central venous pressure did not affect either successful catheterization rate or catheterization time. We were unable to demonstrate that the experience of the anesthesiologist plays a significant role in the success or complication of the catheterization procedure. Our results indicate that IJV catheterization by the high approach is a reliable and useful technique in infants, and that the weight and age of the patient significantly influence the rate of successful catheterization.

No abstract

Recently, prediction of the wind environment around a high-rise building using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been carried out at the practical design stage. However, very few studies have examined the accuracy of CFD including the velocity distribution at pedestrian level. Thus, a working group for CFD prediction of the wind environment around a building was organized by the Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ). This group consisted of researchers from several universities and private companies. In the first stage of the project, the working group planned to carry out cross comparison of CFD results of flow around a single high-rise building model placed within the surface boundary layer and flow within a building complex in an actual urban area obtained from various numerical methods. This was done in order to clarify the major factors affecting prediction accuracy. This paper presents the results of this comparison.

No abstract

No abstract