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Over the past decade, there have been many advances in the management of bleeding in children undergoing heart surgery. These advances have included changes in surgery, anesthesiology, and cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). Surgeons routinely use hemostatic agents instilled directly at the site of bleeding in the form of gels and sponges (1). Anesthesiologists are using newer drugs such as factor VIIa (2) and older drugs such as aminocaproic acid, which have resurfaced after the recall of aprotinin (1). Anesthesiologists are monitoring the clotting process with thromboelastography, which is more dynamic than traditional clotting tests such as prothrombin time (3). Cardiopulmonary bypass circuits have become smaller and more biocompatible leading to decreased contact activation of the inflammatory response and potentially mitigating CPB’s effects on hemostasis. Perfusionists routinely use various forms of ultrafiltration in an attempt to hemoconcentrate red blood cells and clotting factors during (conventional ultrafiltration) and immediately after (modified ultrafiltration [MUF]) CPB. We recently introduced a change in our blood product transfusion practice in an attempt to decrease volume shifts during the MUF process and promote earlier hemostasis. Instead of administering all of the blood products intravenously after CPB and MUF, we changed to administering blood products during MUF, directly into the MUF circuit. This article describes a retrospective study of this change in practice.

Laser induced breakdown spectrometry (LIBS) combined with laser induced fluorescence spectrometry (LIFS) has been applied for detection of trace-level phosphorus in steel. The plasma induced by irradiation of Nd:YAG laser pulse for ablation was illuminated by the 3rd harmonic of Ti:Sapphire laser tuned to one of the resonant lines for phosphorus in the wavelength region of 253–256 nm. An excitation line for phosphorus was selected to give the highest signal-to-noise ratio. Fluorescence signals, P213.62 and P214.91 nm, were observed with high selectivity at the contents as low as several tens µg g − 1 . Fluorescence intensities were in a good linear correlation with the contents. Fluorescence intensity ratio of a collisionally assisted line (213.62 nm) to a direct transition line (214.91 nm) was discussed in terms of the analytical conditions and experimental results were compared with a calculation based on rate equations. Since the fluorescence signal light in the wavelength range longer than 200 nm can be transmitted relatively easily, even through fiber optics of moderate length, LIBS/LIFS would be a versatile technique in on-site applications for the monitoring of phosphorus contents in steel.

Fluorescence of atomic carbon in steel was detected at 193.09 nm by the excitation with laser pulse tuned at 247.85 nm. Solid steel samples were irradiated by pulsed Nd:YAG laser (ablation laser) to generate atomic vapor, which was then illuminated by the probe laser. One of ionic iron lines is very close to the excitation line for carbon. However, its interaction was not found to be very significant because population of ionic iron decreased faster than that of atomic carbon in a transient plasma induced by the ablation laser. When the probe laser was coaxial with the ablation laser, fluorescence spectra with high selectivity was observed with delay of 50 μs between two lasers. Fluorescence intensities were in a good linear correlation with contents of carbon in steel samples in a range of 83–5000 μg/g, which suggested that quantitative detection of carbon would be possible with the developed method.

The present paper describes experimental results of the high power laser welding characteristics of hot steelsamples. Using laser induced plasma as a secondary heat source, the penetration depth of 1000°C steelsamples improve about 30% compared to that of room temperature samples. The maximum depth is 38mmat lm/min welding velocity using 40 kW power. A beam weaving method is adopted to enlarge bead width without degrading fusion efficiency. It is also effective for suppressing bead depth deviation.

Scale, iron oxide on hot rolled steel sheets, mainly consists of several kinds of oxides; hematite (Fe2O3), magnetite (Fe3O4) and wustite (FeO), as well as iron (Fe) itself. In this study, controlling of scale properties was studied using laser irradiation, which realizes heating only thin scale surface layer without changing properties of steel substrate. In our experiment, diode laser beam up to 3 kW power was scanned on scale surface at 0.2 m/sec. The composition analysis revealed that the following reaction takes place in the scale: Fe3O4 + Fe → 4FeO. It is known that the reaction occurs at above 580 °C under thermal equilibrium, but the result shows that heating time of just several milliseconds over 580 °C is enough for the reaction. The mechanism investigation is also presented.

The polymer coated thin steel sheet is widely used for materials requiring the heavy corrosion resistance. The surface of this material has strong corrosion resistance, however, the edge or joint section should be sufficiently sealed off against the environment to prevent rusting. The tight rolling of the sheet edge is one of the sealing techniques. In this study, we applied the laser heat welding of polymer in order to enhance the sealing performance. The influence of processing parameters such as the laser wavelength, energy density was examined using the PET film coated (Ni plated) steel sheet. By optimizing the laser parameters, rusting in the roll joint was successfully prevented in accelerated corrosion test.The polymer coated thin steel sheet is widely used for materials requiring the heavy corrosion resistance. The surface of this material has strong corrosion resistance, however, the edge or joint section should be sufficiently sealed off against the environment to prevent rusting. The tight rolling of the sheet edge is one of the sealing techniques. In this study, we applied the laser heat welding of polymer in order to enhance the sealing performance. The influence of processing parameters such as the laser wavelength, energy density was examined using the PET film coated (Ni plated) steel sheet. By optimizing the laser parameters, rusting in the roll joint was successfully prevented in accelerated corrosion test.

High-speed etching of polyimide films used as insulators for multi-layered printed circuit boards has been investigated usinga 0-switched CO2 laser tuned at 9.3 im. A mechanical chopper inserted in the cavity realizes the 0-switching operation. Thepulse repetition rate of the laser is as high as several tens of kHz, so that continuous processing of certain width is possiblewithout beam aiming to each hole. The laser beam is scanned by a galvano-mirror and then focused to the work by a telecentriclens. Metal layer on the top of the printed-circuit board is used as a contact mask, and it works as a multi-reflector inconjunction with a reflector placed above. Multi-reflection increases the processing speed by a factor of 2.5. Overall process-ing speed is 1.5 rn/mm for 0.1 m width or 0.15 m2/min. Keywords: polyimide, polymer, printed-circuit, etching, laser, 0-switch, CO2 laser 1. INTRODUCTION With the recent progress of electric tools such as mobile telephones, digital cameras, and personal computers especially intheir sizes, device-mounting density for the PCBs (print-circuit boards) are rapidly rising. Such situation has derived themulti-layered PCB technology. For these multi-layered PCBs, etching of insulator such as polyimide between metal layers isnecessary for inter-layer connection. A hole that connects layers is called as a blind hole. Interest in laser etching of polyimideresides in its ability of precise high speed processing. Most of organic polymers show the strong absorption in IR (infrared)region as well as in UV (ultraviolet) region. Thus most of laser-etching machines employ excimer lasers or TEA (transverselyexcited atmospheric-pressure) CO2 lasers as beam sources because their high peak powers are suitable for drilling1'2. Nowa-days TEA CO2 laser based systems are growing up in the market of laser-etching machines mainly due to their low running-cost and free of life-hazard gases in contrast to excimer laser based systems. However, since the pulse repetition frequency of

The polymers ablation by a Q-switched C02 laser is demonstrated and compared with that of the conventionalTEA laser ablation. The 20 - 100 m depth ablative etching of PET with well defined edge were successfully obtainedwhen the strong absorbed 9R(20) line at 1078.57cm1was irradiated. It was found the ablation characteristics by a Q-switched laser was almost same as that by a TEA laser.Keywords: Q-switched C02 laser, Ablation, Organic polymers, Laser materials processing 1. INTRODUCTION Since early works of laser ablation using excimer laser 2, lot of studies focused on its mechanism have beenreported. Many applications such as micro-machining of polymers, surface cleaning of solid and superconducting thin-filmdeposition are expected by using a laser ablation. Most of organic polymers show the strong absorption in IR region aswell as in UV region, the pulsed C02 laser can also ablate these materials successfully. In order to avoid the thermaldamage, a short duration and high peak power pulse is preferable for laser ablation. Therefore, TEA C02 laser was adoptedfor the IR laser ablation studies35. Werner and Schweizer reported the paint stripping of aircraft using commerciallyavailable TEA C02 laser of 2kW average power3. Brannon and Lankard studied the ablative etching of Polyimide, which isthe insulating material for micro-electronic device, using a tunable TEA C02 laser. They pointed out that Polyimide can beetched clearly and precisely by selecting the proper C02 laser line at strong absorption band4.For the industrial applications of the laser ablations, it requires a high average power (pulse repetition frequency

Performance characteristics of a high power Q-switched CO2 laser based on a fast gas flow system have been investigated. A combination of a fast rotating chopper and an intracavity telescope as a Q-switching device has been applied to a fast axial flow, dc- discharged 1.5 kW continuous wave CO2 laser. The laser delivered 480 W average output power at 12 kHz pulse repetition rate on a free-running basis. Peak power of each Q-switched pulse is approximately 100 kW, and the pulse duration is 250 nsec. An analytical model describing the unique characteristics of the CO2 laser medium and of the rotating chopper Q-switching technique has been developed and applied to the experimental results. Good agreement was obtained between the theory and experiment for various pulse parameters such as peak power, pulse duration, and pulse buildup time. A method to improve the pulse characteristics using a fast axial gas flow system is proposed.© (1993) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

A compact high-power Q-switched CO2 laser has been developed using a combination of intense pulsed rf (13.56 MHz) discharge excitation and a high-speed rotating Q-switch chopper. Performance characteristics have been investigated as functions of Q-switching velocity, input discharge energy density and laser gas composition. A pulse peak power of 300 kW and an average power of 740 W at 10 kHz pulse repetition frequency have been obtained simultaneously for a Q-switched laser based on a CO2 laser with 1.1 kW average power. By decreasing the repetition frequency to 4 kHz, the peak power was enhanced to above 500 kW. An analytical model describing the unique features of the Q-switched CO2 laser has also been developed for quantitative evaluation of the laser performance. Good agreement was obtained between the theoretical model and experimental results.