The Inspired Sinewave Technique: A Comparison Study With Body Plethysmography in Healthy Volunteers.

The inspired sinewave technique is a noninvasive method to measure airway dead space, functional residual capacity, pulmonary blood flow, and lung inhomogeneity simultaneously. The purpose of this paper was to assess the repeatability and accuracy of the current device prototype in measuring functional residual capacity, and also participant comfort when using such a device. To assess within-session repeatability, six sinewave measurements were taken over two-hour period in 17 healthy volunteers.

Modelling mixing within the dead space of the lung improves predictions of functional residual capacity.

Routine estimation of functional residual capacity (FRC) in ventilated patients has been a long held goal, with many methods previously proposed, but none have been used in routine clinical practice. This paper proposes three models for determining FRC using the nitrous oxide concentration from the entire expired breath in order to improve the precision of the estimate. Of the three models proposed, a dead space with two mixing compartments provided the best results, reducing the mean limits of agreement with the FRC measured by whole body plethysmography by up to 41%.

Compression therapy in patients with orthostatic hypotension: a systematic review.

Aim: Orthostatic hypotension is common, especially in the elderly, and it is strongly associated with discomfort and falls. Physicians may sometimes prescribe compression therapy, but the beneficial effect of this treatment in orthostatic hypotension is unclear. The aim of this review was to summarise all available evidence on the effect of four different levels of compression therapy in the treatment of orthostatic hypotension: knee-length, thigh-length, full-length and abdominal compression only.

Design-for-Six-Sigma for Development of a Bioprocess Quality-by-Design Framework.

Unlabelled: An initial quality-by-design (QbD) framework was assembled for biopharmaceutical product, process, and analytical development using the design-for-six-sigma (DFSS) methodology. This technique was both streamlined and efficient, which permitted development of a QbD framework with minimized team leader and member resources. DFSS also highly emphasized voice-of-the-customer, information considered crucial to development and implementation of a bioprocess QbD framework appropriate for current development needs of the organization and its regulatory environment.