[Influence of postoperative infection on hospitalization day and medical costs of patients with nervous system tumor].

Objective: To investigate the influence of postoperative infection on average hospitalization days and medical costs in patients with nervous system tumor. Methods: The tumor patients treated in neurosurgery ward from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2017 were included in the study. The patients with and without postoperative infections were divided into a case group and a control group, respectively (1 ∶ 1 ratio), matched by admission time (±3 months), age (±5 years) and surgical site. Average hospitalization days and medical costs between the two groups were analyzed. Results: The incidence of postoperative infection was 5.66%, the surgical site infection and lower respiratory tract infection accounted for 54.72% and 31.32% of the total, respectively. The median of hospitalization days in the case group was 20.5, 8.5 days longer than that in the control group (Z=-10.618, P<0.001). The median of total medical costs in the case group was 91 573.42 yuan, higher than that of the control group by 30 518.17 yuan (Z=-9.988, P<0.001). The average costs of surgical and lower respiratory tract infection were 84 888.50 yuan and 110 442.64 yuan, respectively. Among them, surgical site infection or lower respiratory tract infection caused the extra cost of 23 627.49 yuan (Z=-6.627, P<0.001) and 43 631.36 yuan (Z=-4.954, P<0.001), respectively. Conclusions: Postoperative infection greatly increased the patient's financial burden, prolonged the hospitalization duration and resulted in unnecessary use of health resources. It is necessary to pay close attention to postoperative infection.

Fast valve based on double-layer eddy-current repulsion for disruption mitigation in Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak.

A fast valve based on the double-layer eddy-current repulsion mechanism has been developed on Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). In addition to a double-layer eddy-current coil, a preload system was added to improve the security of the valve, whereby the valve opens more quickly and the open-valve time becomes shorter, making it much safer than before. In this contribution, testing platforms, open-valve characteristics, and throughput of the fast valve are discussed. Tests revealed that by choosing appropriate parameters the valve opened within 0.15 ms, and open-valve times were no longer than 2 ms. By adjusting working parameter values, the maximum number of particles injected during this open-valve time was estimated at 7 × 10(22). The fast valve will become a useful tool to further explore disruption mitigation experiments on EAST in 2015.