Validation of a Quality of Life Assessment Questionnaire for Patients with Infantile Hemangioma and Their Families - the IH-QOL-RO.

Introduction:Despite the fact that infantile haemangioma is one of the most common benign tumour of the child, the impact of this pathology on the quality of life of patients and their families has not aroused much interest in health services research. Several tools have been proposed to date to assess this, but there is no Romanian standardised instrument yet. Taking as a model the questionnaire developed and validated in English by Chamlin et al (2015), we translated, culturally adapted and piloted this instrument into Romanian. The questionnaire was administered during two years, between August 2019 and August 2021, to the parents of children with a diagnosis of infantile hemangioma who attended "M. S. Curie" Children's Emergency Hospital, Bucharest, Romania. Inclusion criteria were the diagnosis of infantile hemangioma and children under the age of 24 months. Other comorbidities which may have caused other health impairments were considered as exclusion criteria. Response rate was 100% for all items in the questionnaire. A total of 112 family respondents were included for analysis. Classic psychometric tests were used. Results:Based on the 29 standardized original items, the four scales have Cronbach-alpha values ranging from 0.489 (CSI), 0.609 (PSF), 0.689 (PEF) to 0.719 (CPS). The proposed final Romanian version includes 26 standardised items. The Cronbach-alpha values improve marginally: 0.63 (PSF), 0.67 (CSI), 0.72 (PEF) and 0.733 (0.78) (CPS). Conclusion:We propose the 21-item scale of the IH-QOL-RO as the Romanian version of the IH-QOL®. The instrument has been culturally adapted and is ready to use in paediatric clinics. We recommend the use of IH-QOL-RO in a longitudinal study design as a measure of health-related quality of life and to complete the classical set of psychometric tests with the 48-hour test-retest reliability.

Design of Ti-Mo-W Alloys and Its Correlation with Corrosion Resistance in Simulated Body Fluid (SBF).

Titanium and its based alloys are frequently selected for designing biomedical implants and it is thus necessary to study as detailed as possible their corrosion behavior in biological solutions, such as those in the human body environment. In this paper, with the use of molecular orbital calculation, we designed and developed alloys in the Ti-19Mo-xW system (x = 7, 8, 9, and 10 wt%) and investigated the influence of different contents of tungsten on the behavior of Ti-19Mo-xW alloy samples following corrosion in simulated body fluid (SBF). The values of Bo¯ (bond order) and Md¯ (the metal-orbital energy level) were calculated for each alloy and correlations were established between Bo¯ and the content of tungsten. It was found that with the increase in tungsten content, the value of Bo¯ increases. Regarding the values of the corrosion resistance in SBF that resulted from the investigated alloys, the Ti19Mo7W alloy is distinguished by the lowest value of the corrosion current density and the lowest corrosion rate.

Infantile Haemangioma - Elaboration and Piloting a Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire.

Backround:Infantile haemangiomas are the most common benign tumours of the child with clinical manifestations in the first two years of life, which is an additional cause of parents' concerns. Objective:This study describes the first stage in elaborating a specific instrument to evaluate the quality of life of both patients with infantile haemangioma under two years of age and their parents, adapted to the reality of the Romanian context. Methods:Items were generated from a literature review - from both the current generic pediatricians' instruments and specific tools in dermatology for assessing quality of life and the existing consensus among experts - as well as from a qualitative analysis of parents' concerns. The instrument was piloted on a group of patients' relatives. Results:We have developed a 28-item specific infantile haemangioma quality of life questionnaire with four sub-scales to assess physical health, the social function of the child, parents' emotional health and the social function of parents. Demographic data and clinical features (meanings of symptoms and outcomes) that have an impact on the quality of life were obtained. Conclusion:It is important to be able to measure and compare the quality of life of both patients with infantile haemangioma and their parents for adapting the treatment to the specific needs of patients and their family. The effectiveness of new therapeutic options which are especially useful for infants with haemangiomas can be checked by using the questionnaire as a measure of patient-reported outcome. The questionnaire developed by us was well accepted by the patients' parents.

Investigations into Ti-15Mo-W Alloys Developed for Medical Applications.

The ß-Ti alloys have attracted the attention of researchers due to their excellent properties and their remarkable biocompatibility. The present study evaluated the mechanical behavior analysis (hardness, compressive strength, and modulus of elasticity) of the Ti-15Mo-W system. For experimental research, we chose the TiMo15 biocompatible alloy as a starting material. In order to improve the mechanical properties, we added tungsten amounts of 3.88 to 12.20 wt.% and analyzed the results obtained. The successive melting of the samples was done using a vacuum arc furnace in a copper crucible cooled with water. Following micro-structural investigations, we found this alloy possessed a homogeneous structure and showed ß-phase predominance. The investigated alloys have good mechanical properties-the mean Vickers micro-hardness values are between 251 to 321 HV, the compressive strength values range from 717 to 921 MPa, and the modulus of elasticity is between 17.86 and 45.35 GPa. These results are compatible to the requirements of a metallic material for medical applications as artificial implant devices.

Studies on mathematical modeling of the leaching process in order to efficiently recover lead from the sulfate/oxide lead paste.

Increasing global lead consumption has been mainly supported by the acid battery manufacturing industry. As the lead demand will continue to grow, to provide the necessary lead will require an efficient approach to recycling lead acid batteries. In this paper was performed a mathematical modeling of the process parameters for lead recovery from spent lead-acid batteries. The results of the mathematical modeling compare well with the experimental data. The experimental method applied consists in the solubilisation of the sulfate/oxide paste with sodium hydroxide solutions followed by electrolytic processing for lead recovery. The parameters taken into considerations were NaOH molarity (4M, 6M and 8M), solid/liquid ratio - S/L (1/10, 1/30 and 1/50) and temperature (40°C, 60°C and 80°C). The optimal conditions resulted by mathematical modeling of the electrolytic process of lead deposition from alkaline solutions have been established by using a second-order orthogonal program, in order to obtain a maximum efficiency of current without exceeding an imposed energy specific consumption. The optimum value for the leaching recovery efficiency, obtained through mathematical modeling, was 89.647%, with an error of δy=3.623 which leads to a maximum recovery efficiency of 86.024%. The optimum values for each variable that ensure the lead extraction efficiency equal to 89.647% are the following: 3M - NaOH, 1/35 - S/L, 70°C - temperature.

Simultaneous recovery of Zn and MnO2 from used batteries, as raw materials, by electrolysis.

High purity electrolytic manganese dioxide (EMD) is the main raw material used for manufacturing of zinc and manganese based portable batteries (alkaline with manganese AlMn and zinc carbon Zn-C). Lately, due to the progressive depletion of MnO(2) natural resources, the quantity of artificially electrolytic produced MnO(2) has started to increase to satisfy the demand. This paper describes an electrolytic process for the simultaneous production of the following components:The electrolysis process was conducted in a specialized laboratory facility. The study was particularly focused on the following electrolysis process parameters:

Study on the influence of various factors in the hydrometallurgical processing of waste printed circuit boards for copper and gold recovery.

The present lab-scale experimental study presents the process of leaching waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) in order to recover gold by thioureation. Preliminary tests have shown that copper adversely affects gold extraction; therefore an oxidative leaching pre-treatment was performed in order to remove base metals. The effects of sulfuric acid concentration, hydrogen peroxide volume and temperature on the metal extraction yield were studied by analysis of variance (ANOVA). The highest copper extraction yields were 76.12% for sample A and 18.29% for sample D, after leaching with 2M H2SO4, 20 ml of 30% H2O2 at 30°C for 3h. In order to improve Cu removal, a second leaching was performed only on sample A, resulting in a Cu extraction yield of 90%. Other experiments have shown the negative effect of the stirring rate on copper dissolution. The conditions used for the process of gold extraction by thiourea were: 20 g/L thiourea, 6g/L ferric ion, 10 g/L sulfuric acid, 600 rpm stirring rate. To study the influence of temperature and particle size, this process was tested on pins manually removed from computer central processing units (CPUs) and on waste CPU for 3½ h. A gold extraction yield of 69% was obtained after 75% of Cu was removed by a double oxidative leaching treatment of WPCBs with particle sizes smaller than 2 mm.