The incidence of DVT in hospitalized children is increasing. Those presenting with DVT typically have prior DVT, thrombophilia, or lower extremity disease. Our study suggests that children admitted with severe medical conditions who require a prolonged intensive care unit stay in addition to central venous access (especially via the femoral vein) should be considered candidates for DVT prophylaxis. A clinical probability scoring system alone cannot stratify patients sufficiently to forgo prophylaxis in hopes of a rapid clinical diagnosis. Childhood-specific level 1 trials aimed at determining guidelines for DVT prophylaxis are urgently required.

Five cases of successful endograft repair of thoracic aortic rupture have been demonstrated. This should encourage future studies to determine whether endovascular repair of thoracic aortic ruptures is a safe and feasible alternative to conventional open repair.

Thoracic endoluminal grafting with the Gore Excluder is a safe and feasible alternative to open graft repair and can be performed successfully with good results. Early data suggest an endoluminal approach to these disease entities may be favorable over classical resection and graft replacement.

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In the case of carotid atherosclerosis, to avoid unnecessary surgeries in asymptomatic patients, it is necessary to develop a technique to effectively differentiate symptomatic and asymptomatic plaques. In this paper, we have presented a data mining framework that characterizes the textural differences in these two classes using several grayscale features based on a novel combination of trace transform and fuzzy texture. The features extracted from the delineated plaque regions in B-mode ultrasound images were used to train several classifiers in order to prepare them for classification of new test plaques. Our CAD system was evaluated using two different databases consisting of 146 (44 symptomatic to 102 asymptomatic) and 346 (196 symptomatic and 150 asymptomatic) images. Both these databases differ in the way the ground truth was determined. We obtained classification accuracies of 93.1 and 85.3 %, respectively. The techniques are low cost, easily implementable, objective, and non-invasive. For more objective analysis, we have also developed novel integrated indices using a combination of significant features.

Neste trabalho foram estudadas as concentrações das PM 2.5 (partículas com diâmetro aerodinâmico de 2,5 µm ou menos) e das fontes de incremento das PM 2.5 , monitoradas numa área urbana residencial de Lahore, Pasquitão. Amostras de PM 2.5 em aerosol foram coletadas 2 dias por semana, num inetravlo de 12 h por dia, nas estações seca e húmida, usando um filtro de papel Zefluor TM contendo um amostrador de ar ambiente termo-elétrico (Thermo-Electron Corporation Reference Ambient Air Sampler, RAAS ) durante o inverno, os quais aumentam a concentração total de PM 2.5 quando, relativamente, menos dispersão aérea existe. As partículas de sulfato também aumentam a formação de neblina/nevoeiro em condições calmaria e humidade, reduzindo a visbilidade e aumentando a incidência de doenças respiratórias na cidade ao longo do ano.The work reported in this paper was carried out to study the trends of PM 2.5 (particles with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 µm or less) concentrations and source apportionment of PM 2.5 monitored at an urban residential site in Lahore, Pakistan. PM 2.5 aerosol samples were collected for 2 days in a week at 12 h interval in a day, both in dry and wet seasons, on Zefluor TM filter papers using Thermo-Electron Corporation Reference Ambient Air Sampler (RAAS). Total 310 samples were collected during the period under study, i.e., from November 2005 to December 2007. High PM 2.5 loads were observed in winter, which were approximately 4 times greater than those observed in the summer, spring, fall and monsoon seasons in the yearlong measurements. Source apportionment was performed on short duration analysis results of November 2005 to March 2006 using Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) model. The results derived from PMF model indicated that the major contributors to PM 2.5 in Lahore are: soil/road dust, industrial emissions, vehicular emissions and secondary aerosols. It is, therefore, concluded that in addition to local vehicular and industrial emissions, the city is also affected from trans-boundary air pollutants particularly due to secondary aerosols (especially SO 4 2-) during winter which increase PM 2.5 concentrations manifold when relatively less mixing height exists. The sulfate particles also facilitate in haze/fog formation during calm highly humid conditions, thus reduce visibility and increase the incidents of respiratory diseases encountered in the city every year.

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