Targeting stopwords for quality assurance of SNOMED-CT.

Objective: We assess the potential of exploiting stopwords in biomedical concept names to complete the logical definitions of concepts that are not sufficiently defined.

Methods: Concepts containing stopwords are selected from the Disorder hierarchy of Systematized NOmenclature of MEDicine (SNOMED-CT). SNOMED-CT consists of two types of concepts: Fully Defined (FD) concepts which are sufficiently defined and Partially Defined (PD) concepts which are not sufficiently defined.

Blood oxygen saturation measured in the presence of a mixture of cyclopropane, sulfur hexafluoride, and ethane.

Some anesthetic gases interfere with the determination of blood O2 values. We evaluated, for its potential for such interference, a gas mixture containing (v/v) approximately 70% ethane, 20% sulfur hexafluoride, and 10% cyclopropane, as is currently used in trace amounts to determine ventilation-perfusion (v/Q) ratios. Normal human blood samples were first tonometered with control gas mixtures containing (v/v): (1) 20.

Operation Everest II: neuromuscular performance under conditions of extreme simulated altitude.

The force output of the ankle dorsiflexors was studied during a 40-day simulated ascent of Mt. Everest in a hypobaric chamber; both electrically activated and maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) were employed. The purpose of this study was to establish whether, under conditions of progressive chronic hypoxia, there was a decrease in muscle force output and/or increased fatigability.

Symptomatology during hypoxic exposure to flame-retardant chamber atmospheres.

Hypoxia was studied in 12 men during 63-h exposures to 17 and 13% O2, with the subjects serving as their own controls by repeating the measurements in 21% O2. All test atmospheres were contaminated with 0.9% CO2 to simulate the condition of living aboard submarines.

Operation Everest II: comparison of four instruments for measuring blood O2 saturation.

The bias and precision of four different methods for determining O2 saturation (SO2) were evaluated during a study of hypobaric hypoxia conducted with seven male subjects exposed progressively over a 40-day period to simulated altitudes from sea level (760 Torr) to 8,840 m (240 Torr). SO2 of arterial and mixed venous blood samples were measured with the Instrumentation Laboratory 282 CO-oximeter (CO-OX), the Radiometer ABL-300 (ABL), and the Lex-O2-Con-K (LEX). Noninvasive measurements of arterial SO2 were made with a Hewlett-Packard 47201A ear oximeter (EAR-OX).