Many new materials have been identified as being of potential interest to solid oxide fuel cell developers. Recent work has suggested that materials of the La2NiO4 composition possess sufficient activity to act as an effective cathode. Whilst there have been many studies of the transport properties of materials of this family the reactivity with electrolyte compositions has received relatively little attention. In this work we have investigated the compatibility of La2NiO4 + d (LNO) with LSGM and ceria gadolinium oxide (CGO) electrolytes. It is clear that under an air atmosphere LNO reacts readily with CGO electrodes with the formation of a higher order Ruddlesden–Popper (Lan + 1NinO3n + 1) phase as one of the reaction products. In contrast, there is no evidence of secondary phase formation with LSGM electrolytes from the obtained diffraction data over a period of 72 h at temperatures up to 1,273 K.

Robotic and computer assistance can bring significant benefits to endovascular procedures in terms of precision and stability, reduced radiation doses, improved comfort and access to difficult and tortuous anatomy. However, the design of current commercially available platforms tends to alter the natural bedside manipulation skills of the operator, so that the manually acquired experience and dexterity are not well utilized. Furthermore, most of these systems lack of haptic feedback, preventing their acceptance and limiting the clinical usability. In this paper a new robotic platform for endovascular catheterization, the CathBot, is presented. It is an ergonomic master-slave system with navigation system and integrated vision-based haptic feedback, designed to maintain the natural bedside skills of the vascular surgeon. Unlike previous work reported in literature, dynamic motion tracking of both the vessel walls the catheter tip is incorporated to create dynamic active constraints. The system was evaluated through a combined quantitative and qualitative user study simulating catheterization tasks on a phantom. Forces exerted on the phantom were measured. The results showed a 70% decrease in mean force and 61% decrease in maximum force when force feedback is provided. This research provides the first integration of vision-based dynamic active constraints within an ergonomic robotic catheter manipulator. The technological advances presented here, demonstrates that vision-based haptic feedback can improve the effectiveness, precision, and safety of robot-assisted endovascular procedures.

SummaryMonocyte subsets with differing functional properties have been defined by their expression of CD14 and CD16. We investigated these subsets in anti-neutrophil cytoplasm antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (AAV) and determined their surface expression of ANCA autoantigens. Flow cytometry was performed on blood from 14 patients with active AAV, 46 patients with AAV in remission and 21 controls. There was no change in the proportion of monocytes in each subset in patients with AAV compared with healthy controls. The expression of CD14 on monocytes from patients with active AAV was increased, compared with patients in remission and healthy controls (P < 0Á01).Patients with PR3-ANCA disease in remission also had increased monocyte expression of CD14 compared with controls (P < 0Á01); however, levels in patients with MPO-ANCA disease in remission were lower than active MPO-ANCA patients, and not significantly different from controls. There was a correlation between CD14 and both PR3 and MPO expression on classical monocytes in AAV patients (r 5 0Á79, P < 0Á0001 and r 5 0Á42, P < 0Á005, respectively). In conclusion, there was an increase in monocyte CD14 expression in active AAV and PR3-ANCA disease in remission. The correlation of CD14 expression with ANCA autoantigen expression in AAV may reflect cell activation, and warrants further investigation into the potential for increased CD14 expression to trigger disease induction or relapse.

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