Role of Clostridium Perfringens in Neonatal Necrotizing Enterocolitis and the Utility of Anaerobic Blood Cultures

Introduction: Clostridium perfringens is a gram-positive anaerobic bacillus that causes various clinical diseases, including necrotizing enterocolitis in newborns. The progression could be fulminant and lethal. Presentation of the cases: We report 3 cases of necrotizing enterocolitis due to C. perfringens from 2 high-complexity public centers in Chile. Conclusion: Strong clinical suspicion combined with early microbiological identification may modify patient evolution. Anaerobic blood cultures have become a fundamental diagnostic method; therefore, having this tool in neonatal units would be useful

THE COMPARISON OF THE DYNAMIC TESTS RESULTS FROM SENSORY PLATFORMS

The article deals with dynamic plantography, which is a popular diagnostic method focused on assessment of the foot condition during walking and to expose foot disorders. The aim of the paper is to discover whether it’s possible to do dynamic analyses on short platforms by using comparison of short and long sensory platform output. To get dynamic output were used ImportaMedica platforms, specific long platform Elegance and short platform Speed. Three subjects were involved in dynamic test on both platforms. The evaluated parameters were surface of the foot, maximum and average pressure, speed and gait line. By comparing these parameters the biggest difference was discovered in adapting walking because of the correct tread on short platform. When comparing the outputs from the long and short platforms, a longer duration of the right and left footsteps was recorded for all three subjects on the short platform.

Formation of a Flow-Line Technical Diesel Engine by the Method of Safety-Free Diagnostics

The analysis of diagnostic methods of diesel engines is given. The principle of diagnostics by certain methods, parameters, by which the diagnostics of fuel injection equipment is conducted, as well as disadvantages of one or another method are considered. The main causes of derangements in the nodes of the fuel injection equipment of diesel engines are determined. The examples have proved that the direct diagnostics methods are the most effective in determining correlation dependencies, for example, indicating the workflow in a diesel cylinder. It is particularly established that the methods of technical diagnostics do not require dismantling of the fuel injection equipment and have proven themselves to be versatile and operative, allowing to comprehensively evaluate the condition of the diesel. The methods of non-separable diagnostic of the condition of a diesel engine are described in detail, the features of such indirect diagnostic methods as vibration, acoustic, indirect indicating by determining the voltage in the cylinder head studs, estimation of the wear rate of component parts with a metal content in engine oil, as well as diagnosing with uneven rate speed of the crankshaft. The vibro-acoustic diagnostic method of a diesel engine can be used to determine the technical condition of such elements as a diesel fuel injection pump , nozzles, and a fuel-priming pump. In addition, the characteristics of motor testers, highly specialized testers and auto scanners are given. A diagnostic feature using a computer auto scanner is that it allows evaluating the condition of nodes in a comprehensive manner, that is, taking into account the mutual influence of derangements on each other. It is noted that the methods that do not require disassembling can be considered the most effective, and the most accurate assessment of the technical condition of the diesel fuel system can be given using the diagnostic method according to the parameters of work processes.

A Novel Performance Adaptation and Diagnostic Method for Aero-Engines Based on the Aerothermodynamic Inverse Model

Aero-engines are faced with severe challenges of availability and reliability in the increasing operation, and traditional gas path filtering diagnostic methods have limitations restricted by various factors such as strong nonlinearity of the system and lack of critical sensor information. A method based on the aerothermodynamic inverse model (AIM) is proposed to improve the adaptation accuracy and fault diagnostic dynamic estimation response speed in this paper. Thermodynamic mechanisms are utilized to develop AIM, and scaling factors are designed to be calculated iteratively in the presence of measurement correction. In addition, the proposed method is implemented in combination with compensation of the nonlinear filter for real-time estimation of health parameters under the hypothesis of estimated dimensionality reduction. Simulations involved experimental datasets revealed that the maximum average simulated error decreased from 13.73% to 0.46% through adaptation. It was also shown that the dynamic estimated convergence time of the improved diagnostic method reached 2.183 s decrease averagely without divergence compared to the traditional diagnostic method. This paper demonstrates the proposed method has the capacity to generalize aero-engine adaptation approaches and to achieve unbiased estimation with fast convergence in performance diagnostic techniques.

Frequency Analysis of Partial Short-Circuit Fault in BLDC Motors with Combined Star-Delta Winding

This paper analyses the condition of a partial short-circuit in a brushless permanent magnet motor. Additionally, the problem was analysed for three stator winding configurations: star, delta and star-delta connection. The paper presents an original mathematical model allowing a winding configurations to be analysed. What is more, the said mathematical model allows taking account of the partial short-circuit condition. Frequency analysis (Fast Fourier Transform—FFT) of the artificial neutral point voltage was proposed for the purpose of detecting the partial short-circuit condition. It was demonstrated that a partial short-circuit causes a marked increase in the diagnostic frequencies of the voltage signal. The proposed brushless permanent magnet motor diagnostic method is able to detect the fault regardless of the stator winding configuration type.

Role of point-of-care lung ultrasound in different respiratory disorders

Point-of-care lung ultrasound either standalone or in a combination with other ultrasound techniques is a useful diagnostic method for patients with different respiratory disorders. Nowadays lung ultrasound helps to identify emergency conditions, such as acute respiratory distress syndrome, pneumothorax, cardiac arrest, acute respiratory failure, pneumonia. Moreover, a semi-quantitative evaluation of pulmonary congestion can be performed to determine the severity of interstitial syndrome and COVID‑19 associated pneumonia. In this review the basic semiotics of ultrasound are described, as well as the role of point-of-care lung ultrasound in various respiratory disorders.

Actual concepts of classification, diagnosis and treatment of atlanto-occipital dislocations in adults: non-systematic literature review

Objective. To review the literature on atlanto-occipital dislocation (AOD) in adults to determine the optimal classification, diagnostic method and treatment.Material and Methods. A search was conducted in the PubMed database for the period from 1966 to 2020. The initial search revealed 564 abstracts of articles. A total of 95 studies were selected for a detailed study of the full text, of which 47 studies describing data from 130 patients were included in this review.Results. The paper describes all the available AOD classifications, and discusses their advantages and disadvantages. The clinical picture, features of the diagnosis in published observations of AOD in adults, as well as the applied treatment methods and their results are presented.Conclusion. Atlanto-occipital dislocation is one of the most severe types of injuries of the cervical spine in adults, which is accompanied by damage to the medulla oblongata and gross neurological deficit in 70 % of cases. The sensitivity of radiography for the diagnosis of AOD was 56.3 %. In 18.5 % of patients, its use led to untimely diagnosis and could cause subsequent deterioration. The CT sensitivity was 96.8 %. The most accurate method of AOD verification was to determine the atlanto-occipital interval (100 % sensitivity and specificity). The optimal method of treating victims with AOD is surgical one.