Floseal-induced small bowel obstruction.

Floseal is a haemostatic agent designed to augment the body's natural clotting cascade response. We describe the first case in over a decade, and the first case with intra-operative images of early post-operative small bowel obstruction (SBO) associated with Floseal use in general surgery. A previously well man in his 30s underwent laparoscopic appendicectomy for clinical acute appendicitis. Floseal was applied to the right lateral abdominal wall for haemostasis. He developed a mechanical SBO, with diagnostic laparoscopy confirming a transition point between the caecum and terminal ileum, adherent to the area of the previously applied Floseal. He underwent adhesiolysis and uneventful recovery. We propose Floseal may exacerbate early post-operative inflammation and provide a nidus for early adhesion formation. We recommend removing excess Floseal not incorporated in the haemostatic clot and to consider Floseal as a differential in early post-operative SBO.

SELF-RECOGNITION OF DNA FROM LIFE PROCESSES TO DNA COMPUTATION.

Ever since the first appearance of deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA) in 1953, it has fascinated multitudes with its simplicity. With a modest syllabus of four nucleotides (adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine), it codes for the complexity of life around us. In this paper, we investigate how the structure of DNA codes for life processes and how we can take advantage of its minuscule size, mechanism of self-recognition and self-assembly for "bottom-up" nanotechnology. High hopes are also placed on miniaturizing present computing technology using DNA computing based on two fundamental features; massive parallelism of DNA strands and Watson-Crick complementarity. Advances in DNA-based computation and algorithmic assembly are then used to complement researches in DNA nanotechnology.