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Background: Cognitive impairment is a frequent feature of COPD. However, the proportion of patients with COPD with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is still unknown, and no screening test has been validated to date for detecting MCI in this population. The goal of this study was to determine the frequency and subtypes of MCI in patients with COPD and to assess the validity of two cognitive screening tests, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), in detecting MCI in patients with COPD.Methods: Forty-five patients with moderate to severe COPD and 50 healthy control subjects underwent a comprehensive neuropsychologic assessment using standard MCI criteria. Receiver operating characteristic curves were obtained to assess the validity of the MMSE and the MoCA to detect MCI in patients with COPD.Results: MCI was found in 36% of patients with COPD compared with 12% of healthy subjects. Patients with COPD with MCI had mainly the nonamnestic MCI single domain subtype with predominant attention and executive dysfunctions. The optimal MoCA screening cutoff was 26 (≤ 25 indicates impairment, with 81% sensitivity, 72% specificity, and 76% correctly diagnosed). No MMSE cutoff had acceptable validity.Conclusions: In this preliminary study, a substantial proportion of patients with COPD were found to have MCI, a known risk factor for dementia. Longitudinal follow-up on these patients is needed to determine the risk of developing more severe cognitive and functional impairments. Moreover, the MoCA is superior to the MMSE in detecting MCI in patients with COPD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the feasibility of using innovative vacuum infused anionic polyamide-6 (PA-6) thermoplastic composites for MW-size wind turbine blades structures. To compare the performance of this fully recyclable material against commonly used less sustainable thermoset blade materials in a baseline structural MW-size blade configuration (box-spar/skins), four different blade composite material options were investigated: Glass/epoxy, carbon/epoxy, glass/PA-6, and carbon/PA-6. Blade characteristics such as weight, costs, and natural frequencies were compared for rotor blades ranging between 32.5 and 75 m in length, designed according to both stress and tip deflection criteria. Results showed that the PA-6 blades have similar weights and natural frequencies when compared to their epoxy counterpart. For glass fiber blades, a 10% reduction in material cost can be expected when using PA-6 rather than epoxy while carbon fiber blades costs were found to be similar. Considering manufacturing, processing temperatures of PA-6 are significantly higher than for epoxy systems; however the associated cost increase is expected to be compensated for by a reduction in infusion and curing [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]