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A critical aspect of blood transfusion is the timely provision of high quality blood products. This task remains a significant challenge for many blood services and blood systems reflecting the difficulty of balancing the recruitment of sufficient donors, the optimal utilization of the donor's gift, the increasing safety related restrictions on blood donation, a growing menu of specialized blood products and an ever-growing imperative to increase the efficiency of blood product provision from a cost perspective. As our industry now faces questions about our standard practices including whether or not the age of blood has a negative impact on recipients, it is timely to take a look at our collective inventory management practices. This International Forum represents an effort to get a snap shot of inventory management practices around the world, and to understand the range of different products provided for patients. In addition to sharing current inventory management practices, this Forum is intended to foster an exchange of ideas around where we see our field moving with respect to various issues including specialty products, new technologies, and reducing recipient risk from blood transfusion products.

Crescentic glomerulonephritis (GN) is the histopathological correlate of the clinical syndrome of rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis. Glomerular crescent formation complicates proliferative forms of GN and indicates severe disease with a poor renal prognosis. In the past 10 years evidence from experimental models of GN and from human disease has accumulated suggesting that crescentic glomerulonephritis is a manifestation of a delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH)-like response to nephritogenic antigens. The elucidation of T helper 1 (Thl) and Th2 subsets in mice and in humans has led to the hypothesis that crescentic GN is a manifestation of a Thl predominant DTH mediated immune response. Recent experiments performed mainly in a murine model of crescentic glomerulonephritis have tested this hypothesis. Crescent formation in this model is substantially interleukin (IL)-12 and interferon-y (IFN-y) dependent. Administration of IL-12, deletion of endogenous IL-4 or IL-lO results in enhanced disease , while administration of exogenous IL-4 and/or IL-IO reduces crescentic injury. These findings, together with the available evidence from human studies (examining the pattern of immune effectors in glomeruli, data on cytokine production by peripheral blood mononuclear cells and case reports of the induction of proliferative and/or crescentic GN by administration of IFN-y or IL2) suggest that human crescentic GN is manifestation of a Thl mediated DTH-like nephritogenic immune response.

Neutron and synchrotron X-ray diffraction spectra have been acquired during room temperature tensile deformation of a creep-resistant bainitic 1% CrMoV steel, in order to study the evolution of internal microstresses and load-sharing mechanisms between the ferrite matrix and the various carbides. Cementite takes load from the plastifying matrix at the onset of macroscopic plasticity resulting in residual interphase stresses. Single peak fitting indicates an elastic anisotropic behaviour of cementite. (C) 2011 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The prediction of long-term high-temperature material properties is difficult when the prediction is based on normal short to medium-term uniaxial creep test results. The test acceleration achieved by increasing either test temperature or stress or both, easily leads to deformation mechanism changes, which makes the prediction unreliable. In a short-term uniaxial laboratory test it is impossible to produce the same type of creep damage as observed in power plant components which have been in operation for more than 100 000 hours. An alternative method has been proposed based on using multiaxial test specimens. This concept was tested in the LICON project (BE95-3019, 1996-2001), where the theoretical basis of the method was developed and verified experimentally for three steels in base material and welded condition by using several different multiaxial laboratory specimens and full-size test components. A typical test campaigne required to apply the methodology is a series of creep crack growth tests on standard CT specimens to 0.5 mm crack extension and test durations between 1.000 and 10.000 hours. A comprehensive Code of Practice document was produced in the project, and this will be published later in 2007.