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Objective. Severe hemorrhage is a leading cause of death and difficult to control even by trained medical personnel. Current interventions have significant limitations in the prehospital setting; therefore, a need exists for a new and effective treatment. iTraumaCare has designed a temporary wound closure device, the iTClamp, which controls external hemorrhage from open wounds within compressible zones. The device approximates the wound edges, sealing the skin within a pressure bar, enabling creation of a hematoma and subsequent clot formation. The objective of this study is to test the effectiveness of the iTClamp to control external bleeding due to a major vascular injury to the groin in an in vivo swine model. Methods. Twenty Yorkshire-cross male swine were enrolled in this study. A complex groin injury was created by complete excision of the femoral artery and vein along with some surrounding muscle. The animals were divided into four treatment groups: control (no treatment), early iTClamp treatment, late iTClamp treatment, and standard gauze treatment. Survival rate, survival time, and blood loss were the primary endpoints. Physiologic parameters (heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation) were monitored throughout the experiment and blood samples were collected to analyze partial thromboplastin time and fibrinogen. Results: All (100%) of the animals treated with the iTClamp lived through the end of the experiment, compared to 60% in standard gauze treated and 0% of untreated control animals (early and late iTClamp vs. control and standard gauze, Fisher's exact, p = 0.003). Both the early iTClamp and late iTClamp treatment groups survived significantly longer than the untreated control pigs (Mann-Whitney U-test, p < 0.009). External blood loss was significantly lower in animals treated with the iTClamp (early) compared to no treatment (Mann-Whitney U-test, p < 0.008). There was no significant change in physiologic or hematologic parameters between treatment groups. Conclusions: The iTClamp showed statistically significant improvement in survival, survival time, and estimated blood loss when compared to no treatment. This proof-of-concept study demonstrates the potential of the iTClamp to control severe bleeding and prevent blood loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives Most nursing research using quantitative empirical data involves entering information collected on data collection forms into a computer. This paper brings to attention issues related to the introduction of errors during this transfer of data and makes some recommendations as to how this might be dealt with. Background Beyond concerns with the reliability and validity of data collection instruments, the issue of data accuracy and the introduction of errors in research data sets receive little mention in the nursing research literature. Given that studies have reported up to a 26·9 per cent error rate in data transfer (Goldberg et al. Proceedings American Medical Informatics Association, Annual Symposium November 2008), it is important that this potential problem is addressed in the context of nursing research. Design Discursive paper. Conclusions An approach to checking the accuracy of data entered onto a computer via the keyboard is suggested, and a method for estimating the level of confidence that could be claimed regarding the number of errors introduced is outlined. Relevance to clinical practice If nursing is to be investigated by quantitative methods, it would seem that the accuracy of study findings is paramount. This paper identifies one area of research where errors are prone to arise and suggests a method for containing these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Conventional functional magnetic resonance imaging using blood oxygenation level dependent contrast requires signal averaging and statistical methods to detect activation. Signal averaging implicitly assumes that brain activation in response to a stimulus is reproducible on the scale of the imaging voxel. This assumption is examined in the absence of averaging by analyzing individual trials of individual voxels that approach the size of the functional unit, the cortical column, in the human primary visual cortex. In the absence of spatial and temporal averaging, even highly active voxels demonstrate inconsistent activation to the same repeated stimulus despite consistent behavioral responses. This observation implies a variable selection of suitable cortical columns from a population of available functional units to produce consistent perception of the stimulus. The implication of this observation for neuroplasticity and behavioral consistency at the level of functional units is discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]