[Field 4. Environmental safety practice in the intensive care unit. French-speaking Society of Intensive Care. French Society of Anesthesia and Resuscitation].

Medical devices are known to carry risks from design to scrap. Accident reports in ICU show that medical device account for only 20% of accidents. Formation of users and providing a postmarketing incident reporting are thus essential in health institutions.

Bench testing of pressure support ventilation with three different generations of ventilators.

Objective: The new generations of intensive care ventilators tend to be more innovative and sophisticated than previous ones, but little is known about their respective performance for delivering pressure support ventilation (PSV) and how they compare to previous generations.

Design: Active lung model bench test.

Apparatus: Twenty-two commercially available ventilators classified into three categories: new generation ventilators (after 1993, n=7), previous generation (before 1993, n=6), and recent piston or turbine-based ventilators ( n=9).

[Perfusion instruments: analysis of product surveillance in 1998 and its on-the-job training. Subcommittee 4b for Product Surveillance].

Objectives: To analyze retrospectively the data base of the French national vigilance reporting system concerning infusion devices during the year 1998.

Methods: Each report has been reviewed and classified, except implantable catheter ports.

Results: The study included 309 reports.

Electronic Spectroscopy of Rhodium Mononitride.

We report the first observation of gas-phase electronic spectra for rhodium mononitride. The RhN molecules have been produced in the reaction of laser-ablated rhodium metal with ammonia. Many vibronic bands have been studied in the 400-700 nm region using laser-induced fluorescence.

The Electronic Structure and Spectrum of RhC: New Bands in the 400-500 nm Region, Interacting (2)Sigma(+) and (2)Pi States, and Deperturbation.

Rhodium monocarbide (RhC) molecules were generated using a laser ablation/supersonic molecular beam source. Laser-induced and dispersed-fluorescence (DF) techniques were used to study the visible spectrum between 400 and 530 nm. Rh(12)C/Rh(13)C isotope shifts, DF, and excited level lifetime measurements assisted in classifying the observed bands into three series: the known C(2)Sigma(+) <-- X(2)Sigma(+) system (short excited state lifetimes) and the two spin subsystems of a (2)Pi(i) <-- X(2)Sigma(+) transition (long excited state lifetimes).