Expert perspectives on ECCOR for acute hypoxemic respiratory failure: consensus of a 2022 European roundtable meeting.

Background: By controlling hypercapnia, respiratory acidosis, and associated consequences, extracorporeal CO removal (ECCOR) has the potential to facilitate ultra-protective lung ventilation (UPLV) strategies and to decrease injury from mechanical ventilation. We convened a meeting of European intensivists and nephrologists and used a modified Delphi process to provide updated insights into the role of ECCOR in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and to identify recommendations for a future randomized controlled trial.

Results: The group agreed that lung protective ventilation and UPLV should have distinct definitions, with UPLV primarily defined by a tidal volume (V) of 4-6 mL/kg predicted body weight with a driving pressure (ΔP) ≤ 14-15 cmHO.

Travel mode preferences among German commuters over the course of COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way how the people live, work and move, and naturally the transport sector became one of the most affected by this global crisis. Beyond the sudden fall of mobility at the beginning of the pandemic, it is important to understand how people are regaining trust in travelling, even if it is still unpredictable if and when the transport sector will recover to the pre-pandemic levels. This study focuses on the analysis of commuting trips and the changes of travel mode preferences over the first eight months of the pandemic in Germany.

Synthesis and Characterization of Nanocrystalline Boron-Nitride Thin Films by Ion Milling and Thermal Treatment for Tribological Coatings: An Approach to Quantifying the Growth Dynamic Process.

Hexagonal boron-nitride nanoparticle coating was deposited on AISI 1045 steel surface. The deposition process included a transformation of B-containing thin organic film into nanocrystalline BN using two methods: thermal annealing at 450-850 °C and reactive ion etching in Ar/N plasma. The film structure, phases, and film morphology of deposited nanoparticles of boron nitride on AISI 1045 steel were characterized by XPS, XRD, and EDS.

Data for: Terrain units, land use/cover, and gross primary productivity of the largest fluvial basin in the Brazilian Amazonia/Cerrado ecotone: The Araguaia River Basin.

Integrity of most of tropical wetlands is threatened because they are often considered freely available resources of land and water. The Araguaia River Basin is one of the Brazilian basins most influenced by tropical seasonal floods, in addition to being rich in biodiversity and providing diverse ecosystem services. Here, we propose the analysis of the landscape of Araguaia Basin in terms of terrain units, rainfall, land use/cover and gross primary productivity (GPP).

Exploring Monitoring Systems Data for Driver Distraction and Drowsiness Research.

Driver inattention is a major contributor to road crashes. The emerging of new driver monitoring systems represents an opportunity for researchers to explore new data sources to understand driver inattention, even if the technology was not developed with this purpose in mind. This study is based on retrospective data obtained from two driver monitoring systems to study distraction and drowsiness risk factors.

Drowsiness and distraction while driving: A study based on smartphone app data.

Introduction: Due to the negative impact on road safety from driver drowsiness and distraction, several studies have been conducted, usually under driving simulator and naturalistic conditions. Nevertheless, emerging technologies offer the opportunity to explore novel data. The present study explores retrospective data, which was gathered by an app designed to monitor the driver, which is available to any driver owning a smartphone.

Driving simulator experiments to study drowsiness: A systematic review.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the USA estimated that the effects of drowsiness while driving led to approximately 72,000 crashes, 44,000 injuries, and 800 deaths in 2013. Keeping this in mind, the risk and injuries of drowsy driving remain a major safety issue that clearly needs to be studied. Our purpose was to conduct a systematic review of international literature including studies on driving behavior associated to drowsy and fatigued drivers.

Effects of Thermal Variables of Solidification on the Microstructure, Hardness, and Microhardness of Cu-Al-Ni-Fe Alloys.

Aluminum bronze is a complex group of copper-based alloys that may include up to 14% aluminum, but lower amounts of nickel and iron are also added, as they differently affect alloy characteristics such as strength, ductility, and corrosion resistance. The phase transformations of nickel aluminum-bronze alloys have been the subject of many studies due to the formations of intermetallics promoted by slow cooling. In the present investigation, quaternary systems of aluminum bronze alloys, specifically Cu-10wt%Al-5wt%Ni-5wt%Fe (hypoeutectoid bronze) and Cu-14wt%Al-5wt%Ni-5wi%Fe (hypereutectoid bronze), were directionally solidified upward under transient heat flow conditions.

The Effect of Plasma Nitriding on the Fatigue Behavior of the Ti-6Al-4V Alloy.

The Ti-6Al-4V alloy is widely used in the manufacture of components that must have low density and high corrosion resistance and fatigue strength. The fatigue strength can be improved by surface modification. The aim of this study was to determine the influence of plasma nitriding on the fatigue behavior of a Ti-6Al-4V alloy with a lamellar microstructure (Widmanstätten type).

Cerrado ecoregions: A spatial framework to assess and prioritize Brazilian savanna environmental diversity for conservation.

The Brazilian Cerrado is the second largest biome in Latin America, extending over more than 200 million ha and hosts some of the most intensive agricultural activities for grain and beef production in the world. Because of the biodiversity richness and high levels of endemism, Cerrado is considered one of world's hotspot for biodiversity conservation. The objectives of this study are three-fold: to present a comprehensive division of Cerrado into different ecoregions that reflect the environmental heterogeneity within the biome; to analyze the ecoregions in terms of biophysical characteristics, protected areas, environmental liability in riparian permanent protection areas along watercourses, and priorities for biodiversity conservation; and to rank the ecoregions in terms of endangerment for biodiversity conservation and restoration.

Left atrium and pulmonary artery compression due to aortic aneurysm causing heart failure symptoms.

Patients with thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) are mostly asymptomatic and TAA is rarely related to heart failure (HF). We report the case of an 80-year-old female patient, with type A TAA without dissection, with right pulmonary artery and left atrium compression, who presented with HF, preserved ejection fraction and acute pulmonary edema.

Exploring clinical metrics to assess the health impact of traffic injuries.

In order to allow a deep knowledge of the nonfatal injuries, recently the European Commission adopted the maximum abbreviated injury scale classification which is based on medical diagnosis. This classification will open the door to a new source of information based on international hospital data such as diagnosis-related group and international classification of diseases. In this study, we seek to explore these clinical metrics, which are used to describe the diagnosis and the medical treatment, and to infer consequences of crashes mainly through the costs and severity.

Risk factors affecting injury severity determined by the MAIS score.

Objective: Traffic crashes result in a loss of life but also impact the quality of life and productivity of crash survivors. Given the importance of traffic crash outcomes, the issue has received attention from researchers and practitioners as well as government institutions, such as the European Commission (EC). Thus, to obtain detailed information on the injury type and severity of crash victims, hospital data have been proposed for use alongside police crash records.

Reporting road victims: Assessing and correcting data issues through distinct injury scales.

Introduction: The most common measurement for road accidents relies in police reports; however, there is a high portion of underreporting and misclassification, mainly concerning elderly causalities, urban accidents, slightly injured, users of two-wheeled vehicles, and car occupants.

Methods: In order to assess these issues, road accidents occurring in the Porto Metropolitan Area, Portugal, covering a 6-year period (2006-2011) were analyzed based on police and hospital datasets. By linking hospital data with police data, it is possible to evaluate the misclassification of the victims' severity by the police regarding the maximum abbreviated injury scale (MAIS) classification.

A note on modeling road accident frequency: a flexible elasticity model.

Count data models and their variants have been widely applied in accident modeling. The traditional log-linear function is used to represent the relationship between explanatory variables and the dependent variable (accident frequency). However, this function assumes constant elasticity for the estimation parameters, which is a limitation in the analysis of the effects of explanatory variables on accident risk.