Effects of High-Frequency Chest Wall Oscillation on Acute Exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of high-frequency chest wall oscillation for sputum expectoration and hospital length of stay in patients with acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The improvements in pulmonary function and oxygenation were also investigated.

Patients And Methods: This systematic review and meta-analysis followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.

In Vivo Evaluation of the Effects of Sintering Temperature on the Optical Properties of Dental Glass-Ceramics.

In prosthodontics, the ability of glass-ceramics to express the optical properties of natural teeth is an important goal of esthetic restorations. Dental restorations do not merely need to be similar in color to natural teeth; proper optical properties, such as opalescence, transparency, etc., must be combined in order to achieve excellent esthetic effects.

Near-infrared light device can improve intravenous cannulation in critically ill children.

Background: Vascular access in critically ill children can be a real challenge for medical staff.

Methods: To evaluate the effectiveness of a near-infrared light vein-viewing device for critically ill children, 60 pediatric inpatients were enrolled in a randomized prospective observation trial for intravenous cannulation. The patients' demographic data, mean time required to find the first available vessel, first-attempt success rate, mean number of attempts per patient, and the total time taken on the attempts per patient were compared.

[Nursing approaches to improve extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) care in a pediatric intensive care unit].

Background: Medical technology advances have led to the increasingly frequent use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) in intensive care unit applications. Four of the 26 patients treated using ECMO in 2009 at our hospital were under 18 years of age. Limited nurse experience with ECMO and resultant nursing staff nervousness / pressure when using this technique encouraged us to establish an ad hoc group to explore ECMO care and related issues.

PID tuning rules for SOPDT systems: review and some new results.

PID controllers are widely used in industries and so many tuning rules have been proposed over the past 50 years that users are often lost in the jungle of tuning formulas. Moreover, unlike PI control, different control laws and structures of implementation further complicate the use of the PID controller. In this work, five different tuning rules are taken for study to control second-order plus dead time systems with wide ranges of damping coefficients and dead time to time constant ratios (D/tau).