Difficulties in Diagnosis and Therapy of Infective Endocarditis in Children and Adolescents-Cohort Study.

Despite the progress in management and prophylaxis measures, infective endocarditis (IE) is still a condition associated with high mortality rates and severe complications. Fortunately, the incidence of IE is much lower in children and adolescents, with only 0.05-0.

Outcomes for difficult-to-wean subjects after cardiac surgery.

Background: The need for prolonged mechanical ventilation (PMV) after cardiac surgery is still a common problem. We hypothesized that subjects who required PMV after a single surgery (either coronary artery bypass grafting or valve surgery) would have better outcomes than those who had experienced both revascularization and valve surgery.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the characteristics and outcomes for patients consecutively admitted to our weaning unit (WU) after cardiac surgery between December 2007 and August 2012.

Design and control of glycerol-tert-butyl alcohol etherification process.

Design, economics, and plantwide control of a glycerol-tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) etherification plant are presented. The reaction takes place in liquid phase, in a plug flow reactor, using Amberlyst 15 as a catalyst. The products' separation is achieved by two distillation columns where high-purity ethers are obtained and a section involving extractive distillation with 1,4-butanediol as solvent, which separates TBA from the TBA/water azeotrope.