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OBJECTIVE Surgical evacuation of chronic subdural hematoma (SDH) in cancer patients is often contraindicated owing to refractory thrombocytopenia. Middle meningeal artery embolization (MMAE) recently emerged as a potential alternative to surgical evacuation for patients with chronic SDH. The goal of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of MMAE for chronic SDH in cancer patients with refractory thrombocytopenia. METHODS A multiinstitutional registry was reviewed for clinical and radiographic outcomes of cancer patients with transfusion-refractory thrombocytopenia and baseline platelet count < 75 K/µl, who underwent MMAE for chronic SDH. RESULTS MMAE was performed on a total of 31 SDHs in 22 patients, with a mean ± SD (range) platelet count of 42.1 ± 18.3 (9–74) K/µl. At the longest follow-up, 24 SDHs (77%) had reduced in size, with 15 (48%) showing > 50% reduction. Two patients required surgical evacuation after MMAE. There was only 1 procedural complication; however, 16 patients (73%) ultimately died of cancer-related complications. Median survival was significantly longer in the 16 patients with improved SDH than the 6 patients with worsened SDH after MMAE (185 vs 24 days, p = 0.029). Length of procedure, technical success rate, SDH size reduction, and complication rate were not significantly differ between patients who underwent transfemoral and transradial approaches. CONCLUSIONS Transfemoral or transradial MMAE is a potential therapeutic option for thrombocytopenic cancer patients with SDH. However, treatment benefit may be marginal for patients with high disease burden and limited life expectancy. A prospective trial is warranted to address these questions.

A single-feed, circularly polarized, log periodic dipole array (CPLPDA) with size-reduced, cross-dipole elements is proposed. Size reduction in elements is achieved with curved T-shaped, top loading. Compared to the full-sized CPLPDA elements, the achieved element-length reduction is 50%. With six elements, the antenna shows a -10-dB impedance bandwidth (IBW) of 87.0%, and a 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) of 50.0% in measurement. The common bandwidth (CBW) between the -10-dB IBW and 3-dB ARBW of the CPLPDA is 50.0%. The peak realized gain in the direction of the shortest element is 6.60 dBi over the CBW.

The article presents results of research on commercially used cutting mechanisms of low-power (about 10 kW) wood size reduction machines driven by small engines. The energy consumed was determined based on work demand, showing that two-cylinder cutting mechanism consumes less energy than disc cutting mechanism and drum cutting mechanism when wood size reduction various species of wood, within the cross-section range from 10 × 10 mm to 50 × 50 mm. The main application of the tested machines is the reduction of branch volume when maintaining the infrastructure of urban green areas, in order to facilitate their transport. The average increase in energy consumption required for the size reduction of a single 2-m-long timber beam relative to the most energy-efficient mechanism (two-cylinder cutting mechanism) may range from 369% to 478%, while the average energy consumed during 1 h of continuous wood size reduction machines operation may increase relative to the least energy-efficient mechanism from 80% to 188%. The average productivity when reducing the size of the wood of the tested machines depending on the cutting mechanism ranges from 0.47 tons/h to 0.06 tons/h. The greatest productivity is characterized by the two-cylindrical mechanism cutting 0.88 tons/h.

Until now, influences of different grinding mechanisms on specific energy consumption have been subject of many researches. In this regard, the technologies of impact and attrition milling have been compared by several studies. Although energy consumption is of major concern, the product properties or the behaviour of the components within the mixture may vary depending on the mechanism chosen. Such investigation is still missing for the dry stirred media milling. Moreover, its comparison with the conventional techniques regarding to this phenomenon is also lacking within the literature. This paper initially aims to provide an insight on components' interaction within ball milling and stirred milling and then comparison of the two outcomes. Within the scope, the first phase of grinding tests consisted of ball milling and stirred milling of calcite within a single and multi-component environment. For the mixtures, each component was separated via chemical analyses hence comparisons were made regarding to size reduction of the individuals. Further tests were performed with a copper ore to investigate the behaviours of the minerals by benefitting from MLA analyses. As a result, the two technologies were compared on the basis of energy consumption, components' interaction and their contributions to the liberation characteristics of the minerals. (c) 2021 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.

This study investigated the specific milling energy of rectangular pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) boards using a new size reduction technology, which can produce fine wood powders in a single-step operation. Multilinear regression (MLR) analysis was used to model the milling energy of a multi-blade shaft mill through a designed series of experiments having three input parameters: the moisture content of the board, milling blade speed and board feeding speed. The observed specific milling energy ranged from 60 to 172 kWh t−1 [DM] and the MLR model showed it was proportional to the blade speed and the moisture content. The results suggest that multi-blade shaft milling is a two-dimension extension of singular circular blade milling with regard to work piece shape and sawblade teeth engagement effects. The findings were compared with the specific milling energy of pine logs obtained in a previous study.

Diabetes, adjudged a risk factor for coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19), can be managed through consumption of plantain and its associated products. Plantain is usually processed into flour and other storable/value-added products due to its very short shelf-life. To process unripe plantain pulps into flour, there is a need for size reduction after drying. This paper presents the development and performance evaluation of a size reduction unit for pulverizing, sieving and conveying material to the next processing stage in a plantain flour process plant. Its model was developed using solidworks application software. After design analysis, the model was simulated to establish its suitability/adequacy for fabrication. The pulverizer was fabricated using locally available materials. Its performance evaluation gave 400kg/h throughput, 96% crushing efficiency and 96% efficiency based on the required particle size. The average particle size of flour obtained was 236μm using 500μm screen. Effect of cyclone control-valve on the pulverizer’s overall efficiency was also investigated by allowing it to operate when the valve was completely closed, partially closed and fully opened. It was observed that the control-valve’s positions significantly influenced the machine’s performance/efficiency. It can thus be inferred that the position of cyclone control-valve has significant effect on a pulverizer’s efficiency/performance. Hence, leaving control-valve fully opened during operation would help a pulverizer perform with optimum efficiency, as the pulverizer was able to convey material, efficiently in that position, to the next processing stage during performance evaluation.

Fruits and vegetables (F&V) are the second highest recommended foods, rich in antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, vital for building immunity against chronic diseases. F&V processing involves particle size reduction, for which different types of homogenizers, categorized as mechanical homogenizers, pressure homogenizers and ultrasonic homogenizers are used. The review discusses different types of homogenizers, their working mechanism, and application in F&V processing. Among mechanical homogenizers, knife mills are used for primary size reduction, ball mills for the micronization of dried F&V and rotor-stator homogenizers for emulsification. Use of the ultrasonic homogenizer is limited to extraction of bioactive compounds or as a pre-treatment for dehydration of F&V. High-pressure homogenizers are most widely used and reported due to the synergistic effect of homogenization and temperature increase, resulting in longer shelf-life and better physicochemical properties of the product. Additionally, the review also explains the effect of homogenization on the physicochemical, sensory and nutraceutical properties of the product.

To measure the lesion size reduction in eyes with active toxoplasma retinochoroiditis during the disease course with swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography (SS-OCTA). We retrospectively analysed the chorioretinal lesion size in a group of 14 eyes with a single active toxoplasma retinochoroiditis lesion. SS-OCTA was performed at the baseline and follow-up in all eyes. The 6 × 6 mm choriocapillaris slab images were evaluated with image analysis (MATLAB). The number of black and white pixels in a 1500-µm-diameter circle centred on each active lesion was counted at the time of baseline examination and at the first follow-up visit when the chorioretinal scar formation was noticed. Fourteen eyes with a single active toxoplasmosis retinochoroiditis lesion were included. Ten patients were female and three were male. The mean age was 29.1 ± 14.9 years. Active lesions were at the macula in five eyes, at the periphery in six eyes and juxtapapillary in three eyes. At the initial examination, the lesion area was observed as an area with a decreased flow signal on SS-OCTA. There was the perilesional capillary disruption in superficial and deep capillary plexi together with a diffuse capillary network attenuation and non-detectable flow signal zones in the choriocapillaris slabs. In addition to sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim and azithromycin combination, oral corticosteroids were only co-administered in five (35%) eyes with macular involvement. The chorioretinal scar formation was observed in 4 to 16 weeks. At the time of inactivity, the original lesion was diminished in size when compared to its baseline in all study eyes (p = 0.001) with a mean black pixel reduction percentage of 21.8%. The reduction was 15.4% in eyes with macular lesion, 31.6% with peripheral lesions and 18.1% with juxtapapillary lesions (p = 0.001, p = 0.032, p = 0.028, p = 0.043, respectively). Visual acuity was correlated with black pixel reduction percentage in eyes with macular lesion (r = 0.56, p

The size reduction is a mandatory step in oil shale processing. In this study, the sensitivity of oil shale and its organic matters to the applied load in grinding was tested in a ball mill not onl...

The essential oil of celery ( Apium graveolens ) is characterized by exceptionally high content of alkylphthalides. The mentioned compounds exhibit a number of biological effects (including hypotensive, lipid-lowering, neuroprotective, and cytotoxic) and are also responsible for distinctive aroma of the plant. In the current work, parameters of conventional hydrodistillation (HD) and simultaneous distillation-extraction (SDE) were optimized to obtain phthalide-enriched fractions of celery seeds. A positive correlation was shown between hydrodistillation time and improved essential oil and phthalide yields. The 6-h HD of comminuted seeds yielded essential oil (2.9%) with a higher total phthalide content (51%), as compared to the samples collected after 1.5-3.0 h, which gave 2.4-2.7% of oil containing 24.6-39.2% of total phthalides. The oil contained sedanenolide (36.7%), 3- n -butylphthalide (13.1%), and sedanolide (1.1%). A further increase in the total phthalide content was achieved by omitting the size reduction step prior to hydrodistillation (68.8%) and utilization of the salting-out effect (84.3%). Enzyme pretreatment had a negligible effect on essential oil and phthalide yields. The change of distillation mode from HD to SDE significantly increased the oil yield of whole seeds (from 2.8 to 5.8% for 6 h processing) while maintaining its high phthalide content (62.5%), which translated to an increase in the total phthalide yield from 19.4 to 36.0 g/kg.

In coal beneficiation, ash content is the main focus area as it plays a vital role in controlling the yield and quality of the washed clean coal. Indian sub-bituminous and bituminous coals are of l...

The effects of high energy milling on the shape, size and low temperature sinterability of plate-like alumina powder was studied. The milling effects were studied under three different processing conditions, designed by varying the charge ratio and the milling medium. 10:1 and 20:1 ball to powder charge ratios were considered in wet and dry milling media, with powder samples collected after 4, 8, 16 and 32 h of milling. Analysis demonstrates that 20:1 wet milled powders underwent greatest size reduction with a final average particle size of 0.29 um and crystallite size of 10.13 nm. 20:1 wet milled powders were subsequently sintered at 1300 °C for 10 and 20 h. Results indicate that densification and hardness increased as a function of milling time, reaching to a maximum for 16 h milled samples with the least amount of porosity.

Wheat bran is widely used in the food industry to produce fibre-rich food products with enhanced health benefits. The present study explored the effect of bran size reduction by superfine grinding on the microstructure and quality of bran-enriched dried white noodle (DWN). Coarse (D50 = 330.7 μm) and superfine-ground (D50 = 50.7 and 27.9 μm) wheat brans were fortified into DWN at levels of 10, 20 and 30%. The physical modifications by bran addition on the microstructure, cooking performance, and textural properties of DWN were determined. Then, the sensory quality of the products was evaluated by the human panel using both the hedonic and “difference-from-control” tests. With the increasing amount of bran added, noodle quality deteriorated in all aspects. DWN fortified with 30% of bran presented a highly obstructed or disrupted microstructure, and their appearance and taste were least favoured by the consumers. Superfine grinding effectively pulverized wheat bran into micro-scale, and DWN fortified with the finest bran (D50 = 27.9 μm) possessed the darkest colour and a compromised cooking yield rate. However, they maintained superior taste and texture that were comparable to the control, with up to 20% of bran addition. The present study demonstrated that superfine grinding not necessarily improves all aspects of noodle processing and cooking but would promote an overall improvement on the sensory quality of bran-fortified noodle. Besides, it was possible to produce fibre-rich DWN with relatively high (10–20%) bran addition levels with acceptable quality. The results may guide future development of bran-enriched products to stimulate consumer’s fibre intake.

Thyroid nodules (TNs) are a frequently seen clinical problem which increased in incidence with the usage of high-resolution ultrasound (US). Most of these nodules are benign and do not need any further management unless they start to be symptomatic, cosmetically unacceptable, or proven to be malignant. Surgery has been the only treatment option. Since scientists and clinicians became more conservative and toward minimally invasive techniques, TNs’ management was not exceptional. Minimally invasive US-guided techniques were introduced in the last two decades as a management of TNs. Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is considered relatively the newest of all and showed a significant reduction in the size and improvement of clinical symptoms.. The aim of this article is to review basic principles and technical details of RFA. RFA showed promising results in TNs size reduction as well as cure of hyperthyroidism due to toxic nodules. Data also reported improvement of compressive symptoms after the procedure. As RFA is a relatively new novel technique in management of thyroid disease, with further studies focusing more on indications, and outcomes, we predict that RFA will be widely applied in the management of thyroid disease. It plays a major role in reducing the number of patients undergoing surgeries and avoiding all the risk related to it.

This paper presents an elegant yet straightforward design procedure for a compact rat-race coupler (RRC) with an extended harmonic suppression. The coupler’s conventional $\lambda $ /4 transmission lines (TLs) are replaced by a specialized TL that offers significant size reduction and harmonic elimination capabilities in the proposed approach. The design procedure is verified through the theoretical, circuit, and electromagnetic (EM) analyses, showing excellent agreement among different analyses and the measured results. The circuit and EM results show that the proposed TL replicates the same frequency behaviour of the conventional one at the design frequency of 1.8 GHz while enables harmonic suppression up to the $7^{\mathrm {th}}$ harmonic and a size reduction of 74%. According to the measured results, the RRC has a fractional bandwidth of 20%, with input insertion losses of around 0.2 dB and isolation level better than 35 dB. Furthermore, the total footprint of the proposed RRC is only 31.7 mm $\times15.9$ mm, corresponding to $0.28\,\,\lambda \times 0.14\,\,\lambda $ , where $\lambda $ is the guided wavelength at 1.8 GHz.

This research work presents the preparation of TiB2 nanopowders by molten-salt synthesis (MSS) technique from TiO2 and MgB2 as starting active materials and MgCl2 as a molten salt. The pure TiB2 nanopowders were finally prepared using 2M HCl aqueous solution to leach the synthesized samples. The effects of the firing temperature, firing time and reactants to salt ratio on the TiB2 nanopowders formation were examined. The results demonstrated that the TiB2 formation was completed even with reactants to salt mass ratio of 1:2 at 1000 ?C for 4 h. The TiB2 nanopowders synthesized with 1:2, 1:5 and 1:10 reactants to salt mass ratios have different particle sizes. Thus, the average particle sizes estimated from BET surface areas were 59, 55 and 46 nm for the samples synthesized with 1:2, 1:5 and 1:10 reactants to salts mass ratios, respectively. These results illustrated that the high concentration of MgCl2 plays a key role in the particles? size reduction. The above results assured that this research study presents a new low-temperature synthesis route for nano-sized metal diboride powders.

Flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) gypsum has occasionally been used as an additive to cement. Consequently, appropriate facilities are required to ensure the environmentally safe processing of FGD gypsum and the resulting cement material properties. Such facilities are yet to be developed because the amount of FGD gypsum used is still small when compared with the vast amounts of FGD gypsum generated. In this study, we analyze the effect of FGD gypsum addition on the physical properties, stabilization, and radon count of steam-cured mortar and compare its performance with air-cured mortar. Our results show that the steam-cured pozzolanic hydration products of ettringite and C-S-H promote the densification of the mortar structure, thereby resulting in nanopore size reduction and increased strength of FGD gypsum mortar subsequent to the steam-cured hydration process. Further, our environmental test results indicate that steam-cured pozzolanic materials composed of FGD gypsum are environmentally safer than air-cured cementitious materials.

A Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS) monitors the signals of Global Navigation Satellite Systems and broadcasts differential correction signals. It relies on Multipath Limiting Antennas (MLAs) that can receive signals over almost the entire upper hemisphere while greatly attenuating signals reflected from the ground. The current Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-approved system utilizes an MLA that is approximately 182.9 cm tall. In this paper, a substitute MLA is designed that is only 97.05 cm tall (approximately 44% reduction). The size reduction is accomplished by reducing the number of array elements from 19 to 11. We developed a novel self-cardioid antenna element that allows for this reduction.

In this study, a three-way Wilkinson power divider (WPD) was proposed the circuit whose center frequency was selected as 1.9 GHz operates between 0.95-2.95 GHz frequencies and has a bandwidth of approximately 105%. The simulation and measurement results of the designed circuit were well aligned with each other below 10 dB return loss and 13 dB isolation. In addition, 0.4, 0.3 and 1.0 dB insertion loss were obtained in the output ways, respectively. The circuit is made more compact thanks to the curved structure of the output ways. It has been found that the proposed three-way power divider takes about 35% less space than the conventional circuit design.

The valorisation of oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) in the palm oil industry is hampered by major challenges due to its poor fuel properties, which require comprehensive characterisation and pre-treatment. This paper presents an overview of the various technologies currently employed for the fuel characterisation and pre-treatment of OPEFB in the literature. Furthermore, the paper presents the current challenges and prospects of OPEFB characterisation and pre-treatment techniques. The reviews indicate that OPEFB characterisation studies in the literature are limited to the chemical, thermal, kinetic, and thermodynamic fuel properties. The authors opine that future characterisation studies are required to examine the physical, morphological, and microstructural properties of OPEFB. The paper also notes that drying, size reduction, and pelletisation are the most common pre-treatment techniques for OPEFB. The various characterisation and pre-treatment techniques highlighted are prone to various limitations, which indicate that more effective strategies are required to save the energy, time, and cost for future OPEFB valorisation. The design, implementation, or adoption of hybrid biomass pre-treatment and conversion systems could effectively address the issues of poor OPEFB fuel properties, operational challenges, and product distribution.

The spin-crossover phenomenon in nanomaterials has been the subject of exploratory investigations for stimuli-responsive switching properties at nanoscale. Using variable-temperature Raman spectroscopy, we investigated changes in the temperature-driven spin-transition property of {Fe(py)2[Pt(CN)4]} (py = pyridine) induced by a size reduction from a bulk polycrystalline powder to an ultrathin film (crystallite size, 15 nm). When the crystallite size was reduced, the spin-transition temperature shifted lower and the spin-transition curves became less steep. In the thin-film form, the residual high-spin fraction was found to be about 20%.

Understanding the mechanisms of the breakage of ore particles is important to predict the particle size distribution in size reduction operations. This paper aims to show the presence of common breakage modes in impact breakage and ball milling of the cement clinker and chromite samples. For that purpose, narrow size fractions of the two samples were broken in a drop-weight tester or ball mill by changing the degree of applied energy. Then the resultant size distributions were evaluated to seek evidence for the common breakage modes. The results showed that increasing the breakage energy will produce a systematic change in the shapes of the size distributions, suggesting a sequential set of breakage modes. The breakage is initially due to tensile stresses at low breakage energies and compressive stresses at high breakage energies. Further studies should be done to assess if these breakage modes occur at size-reduction of different ores.

The conditions of size reduction of particles of an emulsion disperse phase during its movement in the holes of the rotor and stator of a high-speed rotary disperser are studied. Analytical relationships that allow determination of the magnitude of tensile forces acting on the ends of the particle located on the sharp edge of the rotor hole were obtained. It is shown that the magnitude of tensile forces depends on the particle mass, angles of the hole edges, diameter, and angular speed of the rotor. As the rotation speed increases and the rotor hole edge angles decrease, the tensile forces acting on the particle ends increase, which increases the probability of its fragmentation into two parts.

This paper focuses on a short circuit and concentric loop effects to improve the structure dimension as well as enhance the ability to encode electromagnetic wave data for chipless RFID tags. The tag is composed of star-shaped rings that are concentrically nested together. The following factors help reduce the tag size: using the phenomenon of electromagnetic backscattering, assessment by the Radar Cross Section (RCS), the antenna-free tag only includes the multi-frequency resonators. By inserting short circuit lines combined with concentric loops, the number of resonant peaks increases exponentially without increasing the tag overall dimension. In addition, by inserting the short circuit lines at different angles between the two consecutive loops, we can adjust the resonant frequency in the frequency bands, thereby changing the value of the bit by shifting the frequency position. The overall dimension of the resulted tag is 13mmx13 mm and the tag is aimed to be a printable tag on the flexible substrate to minimize the fabrication cost. With the 18-vertex star-shaped tag with five concentric loops, this chipless RFID tag can encode up to 16 bits with high resolution and large data density.

This paper presents a new compact rectangular microstrip patch antenna with a superstrate element. This antenna operates at 2.4 GHz TM01 fundamental mode, which is suitable for WLAN applications. The patch area is reduced by 50% by placing three rectangular slots on the ground plane. In order to compensate for the decreased gain due to the size reduction, a high permittivity superstrate is used with 4mm thickness and 5mm height from the antenna surface. The proposed antenna offers the advantage of occupying half the area of the non-modified rectangular patch while it possesses the same broadside gain of 6-7dB. The trade-off is the additional antenna height due to the placement of the superstrate element.

Dried coal typically had certain Particle Size Distribution (PSD) resulting from the size reduction process. Effect of PSD to the compaction phenomenon was investigated on the binary mixtures of In...

Many natural substances are efficient in vitro and in vivo for the treatment of various disorders. However, treatment is often limited by their low bioavailability, water solubility and permeation. As a consequence, drugs are administered frequently and in large doses. There is therefore a need for techniques to enhance the solubility, permeability and the stability. Here, we review methods to improve solubility using particle engineering, complexation, solid dispersion, solubilization, chemical modifications and use of nanocarriers.

Fissarcturus argentinensis n. sp. (Valvifera, Isopoda) is described from the Mar del Plata submarine canyon. This species can be separated from other species of the genus Fissarcturus by: (1) its medium-sized eyes, (2) the number and arrangement of spines on the body surface, and (3) the pleopod I with the endopod smaller than the exopod and lacking plumose setae on both rami. The distribution of Fissarcturus patagonicus (Ohlin, 1901) is extended to the Burdwood Bank/Marine Protected Area Namuncura II, and the male is described and illustrated for the first time. Remarks on the penial plate, a character that has received little attention in the taxonomy of the genus, are provided. The distribution data of the species currently assigned to Fissarcturus are compiled and updated. A general trend of eye size reduction with depth is suggested for the members of this genus.

Mineral liberation and size reduction are the most critical steps before mineral separation. Several investigations showed that mineral liberation degree could be affected by ore texture and/or loading mechanisms. However, varied definitions have been used for the breakage fundamentals as the leading cause of mineral liberation. This review identifies the breakage fundamentals and analyzes them in terms of process and ore breakage behavior. It is highlighted that the breakage fundamentals are essential for optimizing of comminution environments and designing the comminution machines. Three main areas of breakage processes in regard to fundamentals of breakage are classified and addressed as “Loading mechanism”, “Breakage mechanism”, and “Breakage mode”. Despite the fact that many advances have been made in the design of the comminution machines; still, the combined effect of breakage fundamentals and ore properties such as ore texture in a quantitative manner is not fully understood. In this regard, this study identifies and discusses the material and process factors influencing the breakage phenomenon. This potentially paves the way for improving the comminution environment concerning a particular ore type.

This paper presents a brief review on the Rectangular Dielectric Resonator Antennas (RDRAs) for Sub-6 GHz band of frequencies. Various resonant modes, feeding mechanisms, bandwidth and gain enhancement techniques and size reduction methods have been discussed. Comparisons and advantages of dielectric resonator antenna over microstrip patch antenna have also been presented.

Given a database instance and a populated result, query reverse-engineering attempts to identify candidate SQL queries that produce this result on the instance. A variant of this problem arises when a ground-truth is additionally available, but hidden within an opaque database application. In this demo, we present UN-MASQUE, an extraction algorithm that is capable of precisely identifying a substantive class of such hidden queries. A hallmark of its design is that the extraction is completely non-invasive to the application. Specifically, it only examines the results obtained from application executions on databases derived with a combination of data mutation and data generation techniques, thereby achieving platform-independence. Further, potent optimizations, such as database size reduction to a few rows, are incorporated to minimize the extraction overheads. The demo showcases these features on both declarative and imperative applications.

Introduction: Treatment with ulipristal acetate effectively controls excessive bleeding due to uterine fibroids and reduces their size. Uterine fibroid size reduction is expected to improve the results of the myomectomy and the reproductive prospects of the patient. Methods: Retrospective and descriptive analysis of a series of 53 patients who achieved pregnancy after being treated for symptomatic uterine fibroids. The primary endpoints were pregnancy and birth outcomes in women with symptomatic uterine fibroids that conceived following at least one course of therapy with ulipristal acetate 5 mg/day. The secondary endpoints were time until pregnancy, reasons for ulipristal acetate treatment, number of treatment courses completed, hemorrhagic control achievement, hemoglobin levels, fibroid FIGO classification, largest fibroid diameter, and type of myomectomy (if any). Results: Fifty-five pregnancies were registered in 53 patients following ulipristal acetate therapy (43 live births, 9 miscarriages, and 3 ongoing pregnancies). Half of the patients became pregnant without interval surgery. Bleeding control was achieved in 96% of the cases. A significant increase (p Conclusion: So far, this is the largest case series reporting both pregnancy and birth outcomes following ulipristal acetate therapy for uterine fibroids. Our data support favorable outcomes after therapy for this population subset.

Pt-based electrocatalysts are considered as one of the most promising choices to facilitate the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), and the key factor enabling their success is to reduce the required amount of platinum. Herein, we focus on illuminating both the theoretical mechanisms which enable enhanced and sustained ORR activity and the practical methods to achieve them in catalysts. The various multi-step pathways of ORR are firstly reviewed and the rate-determining steps based on the reaction intermediates and their binding energies are analyzed. We then explain the critical aspects of Pt-based electrocatalysts to tune oxygen reduction properties from the viewpoints of active sites exposure and altering the surface electronic structure, and further summarize representative research progress towards practically achieving these activity enhancements with a focus on platinum size reduction, shape control and core Pt elimination methods. We finally outline the remaining challenges and provide our perspectives with regard to further enhancing their activities.

In this paper, we have studied the effect of size reduction on charge ordering (CO) and magnetic phase separation in La0.5Ca0.5MnO3. The magnetic ground state at low temperature shifts from ferroma...

The size reduction process of rocks in cone crushers is one of the most important issues, particularly for the secondary and tertiary stages of crushing operations. In this study, 17 different rock types were considered for the evaluation of their size reduction variations that occurred in a laboratory-scale cone crusher. Based on several mineralogical, physico-mechanical, and aggregate properties determined for each rock type, the crushability tests were performed. Before and after the crushability tests, particle size distribution (PSD) of the uncrushed (feed) and crushed (product) materials were determined by sieve analyses. On the basis of these PSDs, the degree of rock crushability (DRC) was attempted to quantify by simple approaches (i.e., size reduction ratio, SRR, and the theoretical square mesh aperture size that corresponds to the 10% of the cumulative undersize in the product, P10 (mm)). The crushability test results demonstrated that the DRC in cone crusher could be quantified by focusing on the variations in the SRR and P10. The SRR and P10 are associated with three important rock properties, Shore hardness (SH), Los Angeles abrasion loss (LAA, %), and Brazilian tensile strength (BTS, MPa). The textural and mineralogical features of rocks also have substantial impacts on the DRC for several rock types. It was concluded that the combination of the SRR and P10 could be considered together for the evaluation of DRC in cone crushers. Moreover, further research potentials on the DRC were also discussed in this study.

Chipping is a big problem when it enters the guard ring or die active area, because the size of chipping is bigger than Defect-Free Zone (DFZ). Thus, the smaller of chipping size, the better the quality, but chipping free is the best [1]. At present, the selling price of semiconductor products (especially on the IC product) is not too expensive as before, while the size of the package is getting smaller and smaller with higher density. Many companies interested in ultra-thin wafers (i.e. very thin wafers having thicknesses less than 100μm [2]). And also interested in increasing die per wafer (DPW) to have a competitive product cost. This increases the difficulty in the wafer sawing process because increasing die per wafer causes a narrow width of the saw-street meaning that the size of DFZ will be very narrow [3]. For the factory in this case study, customers provide the new revision of ultra-thin wafers (50μm) with the width of saw-streets at 60μm. This is narrower than the width of the existing saw-streets (80μm), which means that the current condition of the sawing process might not be suitable for this narrow saw streets of ultra-thin wafers. As a result, the approach to remedy this situation is conducted under the Six Sigma approach.

The influence of using nanofluids on heat transfer augmentation and characteristics of fluid flow in rectangular cross sectional microchannel heat sink (MCHS) is numerically investigated for single and double stack microchannels at uniform heat flux, q = 100 W/cm2 and Reynolds number ranging from 200 to 1500. In this study, alumina–water (Al2O3-H2O) nanofluid with different nanoparticle volume concentrations from 1% to 5% was used as a coolant for the MCHS. The three-dimensional steady, laminar flow and heat transfer governing equations are solved by finite volume method using ANSYS-Fluent 18.2. The MCHS performance is evaluated in terms of temperature profile, heat transfer coefficient, pressure drop, pumping power and volume reduction. The results reveal that increasing the nanoparticles concentration improves the cooling process. The maximum heat transfer augmentation in the current study was achieved at the highest concentration of 5%. For example, at this concentration the temperature was reduced by 7.3% using single stack microchannel. However, 33.5% temperature reduction was achieved using double stack microchannels. Also, it results in an increase in the heat transfer coefficient by 13.12% compare to that of the pure water. On the other hand, for a single stack at nanoparticle concentration of 5%, both pressure drop and power increased by 10% and 8%, respectively. Because of the significant influence of the nanofluid on the improvement of the cooling process, an estimation of the volume reduction was made. It was found that 62.6% volume reduction for single stake at concentration 5% can be achieved.

Bu çalışmada, Niğde ilinde faaliyet gösteren yedi farklı kırmataş ocağında delme-patlatma sonrası oluşan yığındaki iri blokların (patar) ufaltılmasında kullanılan hidrolik kırıcıların performansına kayaçların fiziksel ve mekanik özelliklerinin etkileri araştırılmıştır. Bu amaçla, yığın malzemesi parçacık boyutlarının belirlenmesi için görüntü işleme yöntemi kullanılarak boyut analizleri yapılmıştır. Daha sonra bu malzemenin içerisinde bulunan patarların hidrolik kırıcılar ile ikinci bir kırma işlemine tabi tutulması esnasında hidrolik kırıcıların net çalışma süreleri ve kırma hızları belirlenmiştir. Bu çalışma kapsamında ziyaret edilen kırmataş ocaklarında benzer özelliklere sahip hidrolik kırıcılar kullanılmaktadır. Bu doğrultuda, basit regresyon yöntemi kullanılarak kayaçların fiziksel ve mekanik özellikleri ile hidrolik kırıcı net üretim miktarları arasındaki doğrusal ilişkiler araştırılabilmiştir. Buna göre, iki değişken arasında farklı düzeylerde anlamlı doğrusal ve ters yönlü ilişkiler bulunmuştur. Ayrıca çalışmanın sonunda, bütün değişkenlerin dâhil edildiği çoklu regresyon analizi ile hidrolik kırıcının anlık üretim performansını önceden kestirecek bir model geliştirilmiştir., In this study, the effects of physical and mechanical properties of the rocks on the performance of impact hammers used to crush boulders in muck piles produced after drilling and blasting were investigated for seven different quarries operating in Niğde province. For this purpose, the muck piles were analysed using image processing method to determine the amount of the boulders. Total operating time and breaking rate of the hydraulic impact hammers were measured during a secondary breaking task for oversized boulders. Hydraulic hammers with the similar specifications were employed in all quarries visited in this study. In this regard, it was possible to investigate the relationships between hydraulic hammers’ instantaneous production rate with the physical and mechanical properties of the rocks by simple regression method. Accordingly, significant linear relationships in various levels were found between the physical-mechanical properties of the rocks and hydraulic hammer performance. At the end of the study, a multiple linear regression equation was proposed to estimate instantaneous production rate of the impact hammers based on the independent parameters.

Global fisheries production has increased up to 200 MT which resulted in 20 MT of waste. Discards or by-products from aquatic processing have remained a big challenge for waste management and their efficient use for human food. In the present study, we prepared fish bone powder (FBP) from grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) using autoclave processing and compared its characteristics with simple heat treatment as well as with size reduction process. The results showed that autoclave processing with reduced particle size significantly (p

Aim: To study the effects of different sizes of groundnut shell on biogas and methane yields using batch reactor at mesophilic temperature. Place and Duration of Study: The laboratory experiment was carried out at the Laboratory of the Department of Agricultural Engineering, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria, between August and October, 2018. Methodology: Batch experiment was set up for a period of 35 days with substrate reduced to 2, 4 and 6 mm sizes. The digesters were subjected to anaerobic digestion at mesophilic condition and the gas produced were collected with graduated gas sampling bottles dipped in measuring cylinders already filled with red liquid. The total gas produced was analyzed using gas analyzer to give the percentage composition of the gas components and Enwuff equation was used to calculate the biogas and methane yields of organic dry matter and fresh mass of the samples. Results: The total gas volume of 482.5, 605.0 and 732.5 ml were recorded for the sizes 2, 4 and 6 mm respectively. The organic dry matter biogas yields were 357.1, 514.31 and 324.5 lNkg-1oDM for treatment 2, 4 and 6 mm respectively; while organic dry matter methane produced were 222.41, 298.41 and 211.31 CH4kg-1oDM for 2, 4 and 6 mm, respectively. The fresh mass biogas yields were 147.6, 180.7 and 177.3 lNkg-1FM and fresh mass methane yield were 919, 104.8 and 115.4 lNCH4 kg-1FM for 2, 4 and 6 mm, respectively. Conclusion: Considering the yields recorded, the experiment shows that size reduction had effect on biogas yields and it is an important factor to be considered in biogas production. Treatment with particle size 4 mm seems to be the ideal size when considered the yields in terms of organic dry matter and fresh mass basis.

Loss of fixation and seal represent a key problem when undertaking endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) with hyperangulated necks (HAN). This study assesses the outcomes following the use of adjunct endostapling to supplement proximal aorto-prosthetic fixation in patients who have AAAs with HAN. A retrospective review of a prospective database of 42 patients with HAN (> 60°) who underwent endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) with supplementary endostapling was undertaken. Primary outcomes assessed were: change in post-EVAR neck angulation at first post-procedure scan, freedom from type 1 endoleaks, migration and reintervention for proximal seal complications. Secondary parameters included assessment for neck dilatation, sac size changes and EndoAnchor distribution patterns. In total, 42 patients underwent EVAR between 2013 and 2019. There was one 30-day mortality resulting in 41 patients (34 male, 7 females aged 76.8 ± 8.9 years)) being analysed; 251 EndoAnchors were deployed in total, averaging 6 ± 2 per patient; 38 such cases were primary deployments. Neck angulation was 76.9 ± 14 degrees pre-EVAR and 50.2 ± 14.5 degrees post-procedure (p

This paper presents a review of the current applications of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) in the robotics and industrial applications. MEMS are widely used as actuators or sensors in numerous respects of our daily life as well as automation lines and industrial applications. Intersection of founding new polymers and composites such as silicon and micro manufacturing technologies performing micro-machining and micro-assembly brings about remarkable growth of application and efficacy of MEMS devices. MEMS indicated huge improvement in size reduction, higher reliability, multi-functionality, customized design, and power usage. Demonstration of various devices and technologies utilized in robotics and industrial applications are illustrated in this article along with the use and the role of silicon in the development of the sensors. Some future trends and its perspectives are also discussed.

Size reduction of oil shale is an essential process that allows the liberation of organic-rich constituents from inorganic portions to prepare the oil shale for further beneficiation processes. Gri...

For the first time, an annular slot is used to excite the fundamental TM $_{01 \delta }$ mode of a cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna (DRA). The annular slot has eight pairs of meander lines that make the $E$ -field of the slot nearly uniform. The meander lines can introduce an inductance to the antenna and thus, lower the resonant frequency or equivalently reduce the antenna size. To verify the idea, a prototype operating in the fundamental TM $_{01 \delta }$ mode was designed, fabricated, and measured for 2.4 GHz WLAN applications (2.40–2.48 GHz). The ${S}$ -parameters, radiation pattern, realized gain, and total efficiency are simulated and measured, and good agreement between the simulations and measurements is obtained. As compared with a conventional probe-fed TM $_{01\delta }$ -mode cylindrical DRA, our antenna has a size reduction of 43% while providing a measured 10 dB impedance bandwidth of 18.0%.