Universality of stretching separation.

We develop a model to predict the fragmentation limit of drops colliding off-centre. The prediction is excellent over a wide range of liquid properties and it can be used without adjusting any parameter. The so-called stretching separation is attributed to the extension of the merged drop above a critical aspect ratio of 3.25. The evolution of this aspect ratio is influenced by the liquid viscosity and can be interpreted via an energy balance. This approach is then adapted to drop-jet collisions, which we model as consecutive drop-drop collisions. The fragmentation criterion is similar to the one observed for drop-drop collisions, while the evolution of the stretched jet aspect ratio is modified to account for the different flow fields and geometry.

A simple and cheap aerosol penetrometer for filter testing using an electronic cigarette.

Background: During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic face masks grew in importance as their use by the general population was recommended by health officials in order to minimize the risk of infection and prevent further spread of the virus. To ensure health protection of medical personnel and other system relevant staff, it is of considerable interest to quickly test if a certain lot of filtering facepiece masks meets the requirements or if the penetration changes under different conditions. As certified penetrometers are rather expensive and were difficult to obtain during the COVID-19 pandemic, we describe two quite simple and cheap methods to quickly test the filter penetration based on an electronic cigarette. Methods: The first method uses a precision scale, the second method uses a light scattering detector to measure the filter penetration. To make sure these two methods yield reliable results, both were tested with freshly cut filter samples covering the range of approx. 2 % to 60 % filter penetration and compared to the results of a certified penetrometer. Results: The comparison of the two methods with the certified penetrometer showed a good correlation and therefore allow a quick and rather reliable estimation of the penetration. Conclusions: Several examples about the use of faulty masks and the resulting health risks show that simple, fast, cheap and broadly available methods for filter characterization might be useful in these days.

Reply to "On Clinical Utility and Systematic Reporting in Case Studies of Healthcare Process Mining. Comment on: 10.3390/ijerph17041348 'Towards the Use of Standardised Terms in Clinical Case Studies for Process Mining in Healthcare' ".

Many thanks to Dr. Mordaunt for his thoughtful Comment, which we were delighted to read with great interest[...].

Towards the Use of Standardized Terms in Clinical Case Studies for Process Mining in Healthcare.

Process mining can provide greater insight into medical treatment processes and organizational processes in healthcare. To enhance comparability between processes, the quality of the labelled-data is essential. A literature review of the clinical case studies by Rojas et al. in 2016 identified several common aspects for comparison, which include methodologies, algorithms or techniques, medical fields, and healthcare specialty. However, clinical aspects are not reported in a uniform way and do not follow a standard clinical coding scheme. Further, technical aspects such as details of the event log data are not always described. In this paper, we identified 38 clinically-relevant case studies of process mining in healthcare published from 2016 to 2018 that described the tools, algorithms and techniques utilized, and details on the event log data. We then correlated the clinical aspects of patient encounter environment, clinical specialty and medical diagnoses using the standard clinical coding schemes SNOMED CT and ICD-10. The potential outcomes of adopting a standard approach for describing event log data and classifying medical terminology using standard clinical coding schemes are further discussed. A checklist template for the reporting of case studies is provided in the Appendix A to the article.

Urinary Squamous Epithelial Cells Do Not Accurately Predict Urine Culture Contamination, but May Predict Urinalysis Performance in Predicting Bacteriuria.

OBJECTIVES: The presence of squamous epithelial cells (SECs) has been advocated to identify urinary contamination despite a paucity of evidence supporting this practice. We sought to determine the value of using quantitative SECs as a predictor of urinalysis contamination. METHODS: Retrospective cross-sectional study of adults (≥18 years old) presenting to a tertiary academic medical center who had urinalysis with microscopy and urine culture performed. Patients with missing or implausible demographic data were excluded (2.5% of total sample). The primary analysis aimed to determine an SEC threshold that predicted urine culture contamination using receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis. The a priori secondary analysis explored how demographic variables (age, sex, body mass index) may modify the SEC test performance and whether SECs impacted traditional urinalysis indicators of bacteriuria. RESULTS: A total of 19,328 records were included. ROC curve analysis demonstrated that SEC count was a poor predictor of urine culture contamination (area under the ROC curve = 0.680, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.671 to 0.689). In secondary analysis, the positive likelihood ratio (LR+) of predicting bacteriuria via urinalysis among noncontaminated specimens was 4.98 (95% CI = 4.59 to 5.40) in the absence of SECs, but the LR+ fell to 2.35 (95% CI = 2.17 to 2.54) for samples with more than 8 SECs/low-powered field (lpf). In an independent validation cohort, urinalysis samples with fewer than 8 SECs/lpf predicted bacteriuria better (sensitivity = 75%, specificity = 84%) than samples with more than 8 SECs/lpf (sensitivity = 86%, specificity = 70%; diagnostic odds ratio = 17.5 [14.9 to 20.7] vs. 8.7 [7.3 to 10.5]). CONCLUSIONS: Squamous epithelial cells are a poor predictor of urine culture contamination, but may predict poor predictive performance of traditional urinalysis measures.

HIV-associated nemaline rod myopathy: role of intravenous immunoglobulin therapy in two persons with HIV/AIDS.

Nemaline rod myopathy is a rare disease associated with muscle weakness and the presence of rod-shaped structures in the muscle fibers. Various acquired conditions have been associated with slow progressing presentations during adulthood. Several cases have been diagnosed in adults with HIV infection. The use of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) has not been previously described for the treatment of these patients. We report the cases of 2 patients with HIV-related nemaline rod myopathy who successfully responded to IVIG therapy.