Sedation in the intensive care unit with remifentanil/propofol versus midazolam/fentanyl: a randomised, open-label, pharmacoeconomic trial.

Introduction: Remifentanil is an opioid with a unique pharmacokinetic profile. Its organ-independent elimination and short context-sensitive half time of 3 to 4 minutes lead to a highly predictable offset of action. We tested the hypothesis that with an analgesia-based sedation regimen with remifentanil and propofol, patients after cardiac surgery reach predefined criteria for discharge from the intensive care unit (ICU) sooner, resulting in shorter duration of time spent in the ICU, compared to a conventional regimen consisting of midazolam and fentanyl.

Observation of three-dimensional long-range order in small ion coulomb crystals in an rf trap.

Three-dimensional long-range ordered structures in smaller and near-spherically symmetric Coulomb crystals of (40)Ca(+) ions confined in a linear rf Paul trap have been observed when the number of ions exceeds approximately 1,000 ions. This result is unexpected from ground state molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, but found to be in agreement with MD simulations of metastable ion configurations. Previously, three-dimensional long-range ordered structures have only been reported in Penning traps in systems of approximately 50,000 ions or more.

MDSIMAID: automatic parameter optimization in fast electrostatic algorithms.

MDSIMAID is a recommender system that optimizes parallel Particle Mesh Ewald (PME) and both sequential and parallel multigrid (MG) summation fast electrostatic solvers. MDSIMAID optimizes the running time or parallel scalability of these methods within a given error tolerance. MDSIMAID performs a run time constrained search on the parameter space of each method starting from semiempirical performance models.

Coulomb bicrystals of species with identical charge-to-mass ratios.

Structures of cold bicomponent Coulomb systems of particles with identical charge-to-mass ratios and common oscillation frequency in a spherical harmonic potential are studied by molecular dynamics simulations with up to 10(6) particles. For most initial conditions and cooling rates, the final state becomes a completely mixed core surrounded by a set of nearly degenerated double shells of separate species. For an equal amount of the two species, it is found that the ground state for larger systems consists of a simple cubic structured core surrounded by outer double-shell structures.

Blood separation with two different autotransfusion devices: effects on blood cell quality and coagulation variables.

The quality of blood products obtained from two different autotransfusion devices (CATS- Fresenius and Sequestra 1000 - Medtronic) was tested in 27 patients undergoing elective orthopaedic surgery. Blood products provided from our institutional blood bank (n = 16) served as controls. Hemodiluted blood was separated into platelet poor plasma (PPP), platelet rich plasma (PRP), and packed red cells (PRC) and analysed for blood cell count, fibrinogen concentration, thromboplastin time, partial thromboplastin time, platelet aggregation and platelet recovery rate.