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Item does not contain fulltext, OBJECTIVE: To identify pregnancy-related risk factors for different manifestations of congenital anorectal malformations (ARMs). DESIGN: A population-based case-control study. SETTING: Seventeen EUROCAT (European Surveillance of Congenital Anomalies) registries, 1980-2008. POPULATION: The study population consisted of 1417 cases with ARM, including 648 cases of isolated ARM, 601 cases of ARM with additional congenital anomalies, and 168 cases of ARM-VACTERL (vertebral, anal, cardiac, tracheo-esophageal, renal, and limb defects), along with 13 371 controls with recognised syndromes or chromosomal abnormalities. METHODS: Multiple logistic regression analyses were used to calculate adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for potential risk factors for ARM, such as fertility treatment, multiple pregnancy, primiparity, maternal illnesses during pregnancy, and pregnancy-related complications. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Adjusted ORs for pregnancy-related risk factors for ARM. RESULTS: The ARM cases were more likely to be firstborn than the controls (OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.4-1.8). Fertility treatment and being one of twins or triplets seemed to increase the risk of ARM in cases with additional congenital anomalies or VACTERL (ORs ranging from 1.6 to 2.5). Maternal fever during pregnancy and pre-eclampsia were only associated with ARM when additional congenital anomalies were present (OR 3.9, 95% CI 1.3-11.6; OR 3.4, 95% CI 1.6-7.1, respectively), whereas maternal epilepsy during pregnancy resulted in a five-fold elevated risk of all manifestations of ARM (OR 5.1, 95% CI 1.7-15.6). CONCLUSIONS: This large European study identified maternal epilepsy, fertility treatment, multiple pregnancy, primiparity, pre-eclampsia, and maternal fever during pregnancy as potential risk factors primarily for complex manifestations of ARM with additional congenital anomalies and VACTERL.

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Part of the activities of the ICT EU Network of Excellence "Building the future Optical Network in Europe" (BONE) project is the development of the European Roadmap on Optical Networking in the context of the "Network of the Future". This paper presents a summary of the views of the BONE consortium as they were developed in the framework of the Roadmap activity. The methodology followed in the development of the BONE Roadmap was firstly to identify and analyse the status of broadband access penetration as well as the availability of specific network and IT technologies in various European countries. The data collected were then processed and translated into the traffic volume (distributed across different European countries) that a Pan-European network would need to support. This information is then used as the basis of a WDM optical network dimensioning exercise performed with the aim of identifying the scale of the required optical network. In addition, based on estimations regarding the evolution of broadband access technologies and the degree of broadband penetration and network services and applications, extrapolations regarding the growth of traffic to be supported by the European Network of the Future were made in a systematic manner. These were also used to dimension and understand the requirements of the European Network of the Future. This paper presents the relevant results and also provides a discussion on the BONE consortium views on the Network of the Future from an architectural and technology perspective and an outlook of the relevant key research challenges and possible solutions., Anglais

QC 20120417

Almost every mate rial we encounte r in our daily lives can, in the hands of the materia ls engineer, be used to provide some form of safety. Mate rials that are now commonplace were often firs t used in top-secret milita ry, space, medical, or spo rts research labs. Teflon, for example, began as a protective coating in the space indust ry before being appl ied to saucepans and frying pans in our kitchens. Technology's progression f rom indust rial applications to consumer produc ts can now ta ke as little as five years instead of decades . Politics has played its part so that military and space agencies are act ively looking for ways in which the ir expertise can benef it everyone. Medica l indust ries, responding to the fac t that people are living longer, are adopting a preventative attitude to health care. The sports industry has long recognized health and fitness as a lifest yle issue, with its attendant need fo r special products. In recent years, this indust ry has formalized links with the fashi on indust ry, with designers like YohjiYamamoto and Stella McCartney creating special products for various sportswear brands.

Here, Marie O'Mahony focuses on one of the most exciting areas of innovation for textiles - the hybridisation of materials and engineering techniques. It is, as she explains, the very blurring of what a textile constitutes that opens up so many possibilities for material science and application in architecture.

The extent to which technological advances have influenced the development of textiles and their use in design is not something that is well understood by professional designers, manufacturers, academia and the general public. This book explains the main technologies and how they are used. International in scope, over two hundred illustrations include developments such as monofilaments, three dimensional knitting, membrane architecture and biomimetics. A full Glossary, Biographies, Bibliography, Directory of Suppliers and Index make this a book that is extensively used both on design courses and studios. My contribution to the book has two aims. One is to inform students, designers, manufacturers and the general public of the possibilities for textiles to be both technologically advanced and aesthetically strong. Two, to show how these advances can be used to re-examine the nature of textiles and the possibilities they are providing in areas as diverse as fashion, transport, sportswear, architecture, product, art, medical, sustainable and environmental design. This work emerged from my continuing exploration on the impact of new technologies including biotechnology, composites, extrusion and pultrusion on textiles. This exploration is brought more palatably to the architecture, fashion and design professions through the evaluation of the technological combined with aesthetic textiles rather than a purely technological discussion. Understanding the potential for advanced textiles requires constant interpretive engagement across industry groups. It is only by the support of major publishers with international distribution that broad ranging groups will become knowledgeable of developments and their potential.

Optical switching in WDM networks introduces additional aspects to the choice of single channel bit rates compared to WDM transmission systems. The mutual impact of optical switching and bit rates of 40 Gbps and above is discussed.