Possibilities of Endovascular Hemostasis in Treatment of Pancreatic Bleeding.

Pancreatic hemorrhage is one of the most severe complications of various pancreatic diseases that are difficult to treat even in multidisciplinary hospitals. Mortality from pancreatic hemorrhage can reach up to 80%. This study aimed to evaluate the possibility of maintaining endovascular homeostasis in the treatment of patients with pancreatic hemorrhage. This retrospective multicenter study included 45 patients (33 men and 12 women) in the age range of 27-84 years. More than 50% (n=23) of the patients were diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis. Malignant pancreatic lesions were observed in 22 patients; of whom11 patients had acute necrotizing pancreatitis. Acute bleeding was observed in 39 (86.6%) patients, and 6 (13.3%) patients showed chronic symptoms. Single-shot and recurrent bleeding was recorded in 22(48.9%) and 23 (51.1%) patients. In total, 57 patients underwent endovascular surgery. Moreover, 45 patients underwent primary surgery and another 12 (2.2%) underwent reoperation due to recurrent bleeding. Intraoperative complications occurred in 1 (2.2%) patient, and postoperative complications occurred in another. Out of all 45 patients, seven patients had 15 episodes of recurrent bleeding, of whom four patients showed recurrent bleeding at the in-hospital period, and the other three were under local supervision after the previous endovascular intervention. Out of the 45 patients, 35 (77.7%) survived and another 10 (22.2%) died due to multiple organ failure (n=8) and recurrent bleeding and hemorrhagic shock (n=2). Out of 10 patients who died, 4, 3, and 3patients showed malignant pancreatic lesions after surgery, acute pancreatitis, and chronic pancreatitis, respectively. Endovascular hemostatic interventions can significantly increase the survival rate in severe groups of patients with pancreatic bleeding. Endovascular hemostasis is a safe procedure and may be called the "method of choice" in the treatment of pancreatic bleeding, especially in combination with percutaneous draining, aspiration, and injection of liquid embolic agents into leakage of pancreatic juice.

Filtration mapping as complete Bell state analyzer for bosonic particles.

In this paper, we present the approach to complete Bell state analysis based on filtering mapping. The key distinctive feature of this appoach is that it avoids complications related to using either hyperentanglement or representation of the Bell states as concatenated Greenber-Horne-Zeilinger (C-GHZ) state to perform discrimination procedure. We describe two techniques developed within the suggested approach and based on two-step algorithms with two different types of filtration mapping which can be called the non-demolition and semi-demolition filtrations. In the method involving non-demolition filtration measurement the filtration process employs cross-Kerr nonlinearity and the probe mode to distinguish between the two pairs of the Bell states. In the case of semi-demolition measurement, the two states are unambiguously discriminated and hence destroyed, whereas filtraton keeps the other two states intact. We show that the measurement that destroys the single photon subspace in every mode and preserves the superposition of zero and two photons can be realized with discrete photodetection based on microresonator with atoms.

[Managerial, scientific, and practical measures for health protection of the population living and working in the protective actions zone of chemical weapons storage and destruction facilities].

The results of health assessment of the population living and working in the protective actions zone by the evidence obtained during general and special meadical examinations are summarized.

Twist of cholesteric liquid crystal cells: stability of helical structures and anchoring energy effects.

We consider helical configurations of a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) sandwiched between two substrates with homogeneous director orientation favored at both confining plates. We study the CLC twist wave number q characterizing the helical structures in relation to the free twisting number q(0) which determines the equilibrium value of CLC pitch P(0) = 2 pi/ q(0) . We investigate the instability mechanism underlying transitions between helical structures with different spiral half-turn numbers. Stability analysis shows that for equal finite anchoring strengths this mechanism can be dominated by in-plane director fluctuations. In this case the metastable helical configurations are separated by the energy barriers and the transitions can be described as the director slippage through these barriers. We extend our analysis to the case of an asymmetric CLC cell in which the anchoring strengths at the two substrates are different. The asymmetry introduces two qualitatively different effects: (a) the intervals of twist wave numbers representing locally stable configurations with adjacent helix half-turn numbers are now separated by instability gaps; and (b) sufficiently large asymmetry, when the difference between azimuthal anchoring extrapolation lengths exceeds the thickness of the cell, will suppress the jumplike behavior of the twist wave number.

Saddle-splay-term-induced orientational instability in nematic-liquid-crystal cells and director fluctuations at substrates.

We analyze stability of the planar orientational structure in a nematic-liquid-crystal cell with planar anchoring conditions at both substrates. Specifically, we study the instabilities of the ground state caused by surface elasticity with the saddle-splay elastic constant K24 violating the Ericksen inequalities. We express the surface part of static correlation functions as a functional integral over the fluctuation field induced by director fluctuations at confining walls and derive the stability conditions for the planar structure with respect to the fluctuation modes characterized by the in-plane wave numbers and by the parity. These conditions are analyzed in the cell thickness-fluctuation wavelength plane through the parametrization for the boundary curve of the instability region. For relatively small K24, the fluctuation mode of the critical wavelength is found to render the structure unstable when the thickness of the cell is below its critical value. The parity of the critical mode changes as the twist-splay ratio K(2)/K(1) is passing through unity. Further increase of K24 beyond the second threshold value, 4K(1)K(2)/(K1+K2), leads to the instability with respect to short wavelength fluctuations regardless of the cell thickness. We compute the critical thickness and the critical wavelength as a function of K24, the twist-splay ratio, and the azimuthal anchoring strength.

Photoinduced three-dimensional orientational order in side chain liquid crystalline azopolymers.

We apply experimental technique based on the combination of methods dealing with principal refractive indices and absorption coefficients to study the photoinduced three-dimensional (3D) orientational order in the films of liquid crystalline (LC) azopolymers. The technique is used to identify 3D orientational configurations of trans azobenzene chromophores and to characterize the degree of ordering in terms of order parameters. We study two types of LC azopolymers which form structures with preferred in-plane and out-of-plane alignment of azochromophores, respectively. Using irradiation with the polarized light of two different wavelengths, we find that the kinetics of photoinduced anisotropy can be dominated by either photoreorientation (angular redistribution of trans chromophores) or photoselection (angular selective trans-cis isomerization) mechanisms depending on the wavelength. At the early stages of irradiation, the films of both azopolymers are biaxial. This biaxiality disappears on reaching a state of photosaturation. In the regime of photoselection, the photosaturated state of the film is optically isotropic. But, in the case of the photoreorientation mechanism, anisotropy of this state is uniaxial with the optical axis dependent on the preferential alignment of azochromophores. We formulate the phenomenological model describing the kinetics of photoinduced anisotropy in terms of the isomer concentrations and the order parameter tensor. We present the numerical results for absorption coefficients that are found to be in good agreement with the experimental data. The model is also used to interpret the effect of changing the mechanism with the wavelength of the pumping light.

Light scattering by optically anisotropic scatterers: T-matrix theory for radial and uniform anisotropies.

We extend the T-matrix approach to light scattering by spherical particles to some simple cases in which the scatterers are optically anisotropic. Specifically, we consider cases in which the spherical particles include radially and uniformly anisotropic layers. We find that in both cases the T-matrix theory can be formulated using a modified T-matrix ansatz with suitably defined modes. In a uniformly anisotropic medium we derive these modes by relating the wave packet representation and expansions of electromagnetic field over spherical harmonics. The resulting wave functions are deformed spherical harmonics that represent solutions of the Maxwell equations. We present preliminary results of numerical calculations of the scattering by spherical droplets. We concentrate on cases in which the scattering is due only to the local optical anisotropy within the scatterer. For radial anisotropy we find that nonmonotonic dependence of the scattering cross section on the degree of anisotropy can occur in a regime to which both the Rayleigh and semiclassical theories are inapplicable. For uniform anisotropy the cross section is strongly dependent on the angle between the incident light and the optical axis, and for larger droplets this dependence is nonmonotonic.