Pain management in total knee arthroplasty.

Total knee arthroplasty is a frequently performed orthopaedic surgery and the trend indicates an increase in annual procedures. Many patients experience severe postoperative pain. In this review article, a review of the literature reveals evidence supporting a multimodal approach to pain management, which involves basic analgesic treatment in combination with glucocorticoids and local infiltration analgesia. Effective pain control can reduce postoperative pain, lower opioid consumption, and its associated adverse effects, and enhance postoperative rehabilitation and patient satisfaction.

Facile synthesis of brookite TiO2 nanoparticles.

Brookite is the most difficult TiO2 polymorph to obtain in phase pure form. Here we report on a facile synthesis method for phase-pure brookite nanoparticles using a broad range of titanium precursors. General availability of phase pure brookite opens up multiple research activities to explore both fundamental properties as well as applications. The synthesis method is scalable and thus it potentially allows for large-scale industrial production.

Biomolecule-assisted hydrothermal synthesis and self-assembly of Bi2Te3 nanostring-cluster hierarchical structure.

A simple biomolecule-assisted hydrothermal approach has been developed for the fabrication of Bi(2)Te(3) thermoelectric nanomaterials. The product has a nanostring-cluster hierarchical structure which is composed of ordered and aligned platelet-like crystals. The platelets are approximately 100 nm in diameter and only approximately 10 nm thick even though a high reaction temperature of 220 degrees C and a long reaction time of 24 h were applied to prepare the sample. The growth of the Bi(2)Te(3) hierarchical structure appears to be a self-assembly process. Initially, Te nanorods are formed using alginic acid as both reductant and template. Subsequently, Bi(2)Te(3) grows in a certain direction on the surface of the Te rods, resulting in the nanostring structure. The nanostrings further recombine side-by-side with each other to achieve the ordered nanostring clusters. The particle size and morphology can be controlled by adjusting the concentration of NaOH, which plays a crucial role on the formation mechanism of Bi(2)Te(3). An even smaller polycrystalline Bi(2)Te(3) superstructure composed of polycrystalline nanorods with some nanoplatelets attached to the nanorods is achieved at lower NaOH concentration. The room temperature thermoelectric properties have been evaluated with an average Seebeck coefficient of -172 microV K(-1), an electrical resistivity of 1.97 x 10(-3) Omegam, and a thermal conductivity of 0.29 W m(-1) K(-1).

Critical size of crystalline ZrO(2) nanoparticles synthesized in near- and supercritical water and supercritical isopropyl alcohol.

Nanocrystalline ZrO(2) samples with narrow size distributions and mean particle sizes below 10 nm have been synthesized in a continuous flow reactor in near and supercritical water as well as supercritical isopropyl alcohol using a wide range of temperatures, pressures, concentrations and precursors. The samples were comprehensively characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), and the influence of the synthesis parameters on the particle size, particle size distribution, shape, aggregation and crystallinity was studied. On the basis of the choice of synthesis parameters either monoclinic or tetragonal zirconia phases can be obtained. The results suggest a critical particle size of 5-6 nm for nanocrystalline monoclinic ZrO(2) under the present conditions, which is smaller than estimates reported in the literature. Thus, very small monoclinic ZrO(2) particles can be obtained using a continuous flow reactor. This is an important result with respect to improvement of the catalytic properties of nanocrystalline ZrO(2).