Increasing Heat Transfer from Metal Surfaces through Laser-Interference-Induced Microscopic Heat Sinks.

With the increasing processing power of micro-electronic components and increasing spatial limitations, ensuring sufficient heat dissipation has become a crucial task. This work presents a microscopic approach to increasing the surface area through periodic surface structures. Microstructures with a periodic distance of 8.5 µm are fabricated via Direct Laser Interference Patterning (DLIP) on stainless steel plates with a nanosecond-pulsed infrared laser and are characterized by their developed interfacial area ratio. The optimal structuring parameters for increasing the surface area were investigated, reaching peak-to-valley depths up to 12.8 µm and increasing surface area by up to 394%. Heat dissipation in a natural convection environment was estimated by measuring the output voltage of a Peltier element mounted between a hot plate and a textured sample. The resulting increase in output voltage compared to an unstructured sample was correlated to the structure depth and developed interfacial area ratio, finding a maximum increase of 51.4%. Moreover, it was shown that the output voltage correlated well with the structure depth and surface area.

A case of chronic schistosomiasis in a Dongola stallion (Equus ferus caballus Linnaeus, 1758) from Nigeria.

Schistosomiasis is a worldwide snail-borne parasitic infestation of man and animals with acute or chronic phases having devastating sequelae. The present case report focused on post-mortem examination of a cachexic Dongola stallion (Equus ferus caballus Linnaeus, 1758) in Abuja, Nigeria, that failed to respond to treatment. Typical dense collagenous granulomatous lesions with marked inflammatory responses and fibrosis occurred in the liver and several visceral organs of the horse along with other lesions indicative of systemic collapse. Special Ziehl-Neelsen and Periodic Acid-Schiff staining as well as microbial culture returned negative results to rule out acid-fast bacilli, fungal, and other bacterial involvement. In addition, the presence of a yellowish-brown eggshell within fibrosing granulomatous lesions led to the diagnosis of chronic schistosomiasis. Prolonged malnutrition under harsh and changing increment weather conditions with lack of medical care following the infection might have predisposed the horse to the recorded systemic collapse in the present case. The dearth of information on the ante-mortem evaluation of acute equine schistosomiasis cases notwithstanding, the observed lesions/cellular changes reinforced  associated multi-organ damages and systemic collapse in chronic cases. Our findings highlighted the pathological presentations and prognosis of chronic schistosomiasis and its triggers, especially in endemic areas, and in horses that often do not present obvious clinical manifestations.

Publication Rate of Podium Presentations From the North American Spine Society Annual Meetings.

STUDY DESIGN: Observational study. OBJECTIVES: To determine the publication rate of podium presentations from the North American Spine Society (NASS) annual meetings from the years 2009 to 2011. METHODS: In April 2015, a PubMed search was conducted using titles from the paper presentations as well as the authors. Of the search results that were found, the specific scientific journal in which the article was published was recorded. We analyzed further the top 4 destination journals and trends in publications in these journals over the study period. No study funding was obtained for this research, and there are no potential conflicts of interest or associated biases. RESULTS: Over the study period, 671 paper presentations were available and 342 were published (51% publication rate). The highest publication rate was from the 2011 annual meeting, with 55.3%, and the lowest year was 2010, with a rate of 46.43%. Spine (32.75%), The Spine Journal (19.01%), Journal of Neurosurgery Spine (7.31%), and European Spine Journal (6.73%) were the top 4 destination journals. Over the study period, we found a significant decrease in publication rate in Spine (P = .001) and a significant increase in publication rate in The Spine Journal (P = .003). There were no significant difference in publication rate over the study period in Journal of Neurosurgery Spine (P = .15) or European Spine Journal (P = .23). CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to our knowledge evaluating the publication rate of podium presentations from recent North American Spine Society annual meetings. We found an overall publication rate of 51%.

Intrawound Vancomycin Powder for Spine Tumor Surgery.

Study Design Retrospective evaluation of prospectively collected data. Objective To evaluate infection rates following intrawound vancomycin powder application during spine tumor surgery. Methods Patients ≥18 years old undergoing spine tumor surgery and receiving intrawound vancomycin powder at a single center between January 2008 and January 2015 were enrolled. Patient demographics (age, sex, body mass index [BMI]), tumor type (metastatic, primary) and location, surgical data (estimated blood loss [EBL], levels fused, type of decompression, length of surgery and hospitalization, discharge status from hospital), radiation therapy use, and infection rates (surgery to a minimum of 30 days postoperative) were evaluated. Results Forty patients (46 procedures) undergoing spine tumor surgery and intrawound vancomycin powder application were identified. Five were excluded because of death less than 30 days postoperatively, and 35 patients (41 procedures) were enrolled: 11 women and 24 men with an average age of 61.4 years (range 19 to 92) and average BMI of 27.3 (range 17.4 to 36.8). Three cases were primary spine tumors. Five were hematologic malignancies, and 27 were metastatic cancers. Twenty-one tumors were in the thoracic spine, 12 in the lumbar spine, and 8 in the cervical spine. Average EBL was 899 mL (range 25 to 3,500), average length of surgery was 241 minutes (range 78 to 495), and average hospital stay was 15.1 days (range 3 to 49). Two culture-proven infections (Staphylococcus aureus, Enterobacter cloacae) were noted in 41 procedures (4.9%). Ten patients (28.6%) had preoperative radiation only; 14 (40%) had postoperative radiation only, 5 (14.3%) had both preoperative and postoperative radiation, and 6 (17.1%) had no radiation. There were no associations between radiation treatment and postsurgical infections (p = 0.19). Conclusion In this first study evaluating intrawound vancomycin powder for spine tumor surgery, we report an infection rate of 4.9%. We found no correlations between radiation treatment and postsurgical infections.