Search

Masushi Kohta,1 Kazumi Sakamoto,2 Yasuhiro Kawachi,3 Tsunao Oh-i4 1Medical Engineering Laboratory, ALCARE Co, Ltd, Tokyo, 2Department of Nursing, 3Department of Dermatology, Tokyo Medical University Ibaraki Medical Center, Ibaraki, 4Department of Dermatology, Tokyo Medical University Hachioji Medical Center, Tokyo, Japan Purpose: There have been previous clinical studies regarding the impact of dressings on the prevention of pressure ulcer development. However, it remains unclear whether one type of dressing is better than any other type for preventing ulcer development during surgery. Therefore, we compared the effects of ceramide 2-containing hydrocolloid dressing with film dressings in high-risk patients with regard to reducing the incidence of pressure ulcer development during surgery. Patients and methods: A prospective, randomized, open-label, clinical trial was conducted involving patients who were at a high risk of developing pressure ulcers at a Japanese hospital. The intervention group received ceramide 2-containing hydrocolloid dressings (n=66), and the control group received film dressings (n=64). The primary end point was the incidence rate of pressure ulcer development in both groups; skin damage, such as blanchable erythema, skin discoloration, contact dermatitis, and stripped skin, was recorded as the secondary end point. The relative risk (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were assessed to compare the probability ratios of pressure ulcer development between the groups. Results: There were significantly fewer patients who developed pressure ulcers in the intervention group than in the control group (RR, 0.37; 95% CI, 0.05–0.99; P=0.04). In the post hoc subgroup analysis, the superiority of the intervention group was more marked when patients had a lower body mass index (P=0.02), lower albumin values (P=0.07), and operation time of 3 hours or more and less than 6 hours (P=0.03). There was no evidence of any statistically significant differences in the types of skin damage reported. Conclusion: Application of ceramide 2-containing hydrocolloid dressing reduced the risk of pressure ulcer development in patients who were at a high risk during surgery compared with film dressings. Keywords: operating room, wound dressing, friction, skin protection, shear

Fourier-rectangular function (FRF) transform [K. Yamasaki et al., J. Appl. Phys. 126, 043304 (2019)] is used to analyze the structure and dynamics of plasma with cylindrical symmetry. In this article, a new technique based on FRF transform is proposed to elucidate the polarization characteristics of azimuthal modes and fluctuations. The application results are shown for a two-dimensional tomography image of linear cylindrical plasma. The method successfully resolves the polarization characteristics of azimuthal modes and attributes the intermittent behavior of the m = 1 mode to its polarization characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method to quantify the energy transfer among turbulent structures using singular value decomposition (SVD) is presented. We apply the method to numerical turbulence data obtained from a global plasma simulation using the Hasegawa–Wakatani fluid model, in which the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability plays a dominant role. Using the SVD method, the electrostatic potential is decomposed into a background potential deformation, a zonal flow, a coherent mode and an intermittent structure. Thus there are four key structures, as distinct from the three found in conventional theory. The kinetic energy of each structure is evaluated, and the limit cycle among them is obtained. In the limit cycle, an abrupt change of the background is found to be synchronised with the period of the zonal flow. The energy transfer function of each turbulence structure, which is defined on the basis of a vorticity equation, is evaluated. This then provides physical understanding of how the limit cycle is sustained by dynamical changes in the energy transfer among structures over the its period. In addition, it is shown that the abrupt deformation of the background is caused by the non-linear self-coupling of the intermittent structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]