Ambulatory pulmonary artery pressure monitoring in advanced heart failure patients

Heart failure (HF) is an emerging epidemic associate with significant morbidity, mortality, and health care expenditure. Although there were major advances in pharmacologic and device based therapies for the management of HF, mortality of this condition remains high. Accurate monitoring of HF patients for exacerbations is very important to reduce recurrent hospitalizations and its associated complications. With the failure of clinical signs, tele-monitoring, and laboratory bio-markers to function as early markers of HF exacerbations, more sophisticated techniques were sought to accurately predict the circulatory status in HF patients in order to execute timely pharmacological intervention to reduce frequent hospitalizations. CardioMEMSTM (St. Jude Medical, Inc., Saint Paul, Minnesota) is an implantable, wireless pulmonary arterial pressure (PAP) monitoring system which transmits the patient’s continuous PAPs to the treating health care provider in the ambulatory setting. PAP-guided medical therapy modification has been shown to significantly reduce HF-related hospitalization and overall mortality. In advanced stages of HF, wireless access to hemodynamic information correlated with earlier left ventricular assist device implantation and shorter time to heart transplantation.

Automatic prediction of time to failure of open pit mine slopes based on radar monitoring and inverse velocity method

Radar slope monitoring is now widely used across the world, for example, the slope stability radar(SSR)and the movement and surveying radar(MSR) are currently in use in many mines around the world.However, to fully realize the effectiveness of this radar in notifying mine personnel of an impending slope failure, a method that can confidently predict the time of failure is necessary. The model developed in this study is based on the inverse velocity method pioneered by Fukuzono in 1985. The model named the slope failure prediction model(SFPM) was validated with the displacement data from two slope failures monitored with the MSR. The model was found to be very effective in predicting the time to failure while providing adequate evacuation time once the progressive displacement stage is reached.

A review of bridge scour monitoring techniques

The high profile failure of the Malahide Viaduct in Dublin, Ireland, which is a part of the EU TEN-T network of critical transport links, was caused by foundation scour. Scour is a common soil-structure interaction problem. In light of current changes in climate, increasing frequency of flooding, coupled with the increasing magnitude of these flood events, will lead to a higher risk of bridge failure. Moni- toring scour is of paramount importance to ensure the continued safe operation of the aging bridge asset network. Most monitoring regimes are based on expensive underwater instrumentation that can often be subjected to damage during times of flooding, when scour risk is at its highest. This paper presents a critical review of existing scour monitoring equipments and methodologies with a particular focus on those using the dynamic response of the structure to indicate the existence and severity of the scour phenomenon affecting the structure. A sensitivity study on a recently developed monitoring method is also undertaken.