High relaxivity trimetallic nitride (Gd3N) metallofullerene MRI contrast agents with optimized functionality.

Water-soluble poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) functionalized and hydroxylated endohedral trimetallic nitride metallofullerene derivatives, Gd(3)N@C(80)[DiPEG(OH)(x)], have been synthesized and characterized. The (1)H MRI relaxivities in aqueous solution were measured for the derivatives with four different molecular weights of PEG (350-5000 Da) at 0.35, 2.

A randomized comparison of a new flexible bipolar hemostasis forceps designed principally for NOTES versus a conventional surgical laparoscopic bipolar forceps for intra-abdominal vessel sealing in a porcine model.

Background: Current devices for hemostasis in flexible endoscopy are inferior to methods used during open or laparoscopic surgery and might be ineffective for natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery.

Objective: To compare new flexible bipolar forceps (FBF), designed principally for natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery, with laparoscopic bipolar forceps (LBF) for hemostasis of intra-abdominal porcine arteries.

Setting: Surgical laboratories in Europe and the United States.

Optimizing bipolar electrocoagulation for endoscopic hemostasis: assessment of factors influencing energy delivery and coagulation.

Background: Few data inform decisions on the optimal bipolar electrocoagulation (BPEC) technique.

Objectives: To assess how technical factors influence energy delivery and coagulation.

Design: Prospective, randomized study in experimental models: meat, live pig mesenteric arteries.

Students with an undisclosed hearing loss: a challenge for academic access, progress, and success?

It has been suggested that only 8% of postsecondary students in the United States who have a hearing loss have disclosed that hearing loss to their institutions. Consistent with this suggestion, two anonymous surveys of students enrolled in courses with the Open University in the United Kingdom suggested that there were roughly 9,000 students in the Open University itself and over 42,000 students in higher education across the United Kingdom as a whole who had a hearing loss that they had not disclosed to their institutions. These students tended to be older people with a relatively mild hearing loss that did not disrupt their communication with other students or their active engagement with learning activities.

Academic engagement in students with a hearing loss in distance education.

This investigation compared 267 students with a hearing loss and 178 students with no declared form of disability who were taking courses by distance learning in terms of their scores on an abbreviated version of the Academic Engagement Form. Students with a hearing loss obtained lower scores than students with no disability with regard to communication with other students, but some felt that communication was easier than in a traditional academic situation. Students who were postvocationally deaf had lower scores than students with no disability on learning from other students, but they obtained higher scores on student autonomy and student control.