The young star β Pictoris is well known for its dusty debris disk produced through collisional grinding of planetesimals, kilometre-sized bodies in orbit around the star. In addition to dust, small amounts of gas are also known to orbit the star; this gas is likely the result of vaporisation of violently colliding dust grains. The disk is seen edge on and from previous absorption spectroscopy w...

CONTEXT The European Association of Urology (EAU) Guidelines Office has set up a guideline working panel to analyse the scientific evidence published in the world literature on lasers in urologic practice. OBJECTIVE Review the physical background and physiologic and technical aspects of the use of lasers in urology, as well as current clinical results from these new and evolving technologies,...

Objective To conduct a prospective randomised study comparing the safety, effectiveness and treatment outcomes in patients undergoing bipolar transurethral resection of the prostate (bTURP) and photoselective vaporisation of the prostate (PVP) under sedoanalgesia, as sedoanalgesia is a safe and effective technique suitable for minimally invasive endourological procedures and although studies ha...

The management of lower urinary tract symptoms due to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is one of the most topical areas in urology. Although most patients are adequately managed conservatively, many still require surgery to reduce bladder outlet obstruction or relieve symptoms by removing the inflamed adenomatous tissue. Transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) remains the gold standard...

The vaporisation of ionic liquids has been investigated using temperature programmed desorption (TPD) and ultra-high vacuum (UHV) distillation. 1-Alkyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide ionic liquids, [C(n)C(1)Im][Tf(2)N] (n = 2, 8), have been distilled at UHV and T > 500 K in a specially designed still. The distillation process yielded spectroscopically pure ionic liquid di...

SN 2008S erupted in early 2008 in the grand design spiral galaxy NGC 6946. The progenitor was detected by Prieto et al. in Spitzer Space Telescope images taken over the four years prior to the explosion, but was not detected in deep optical images, from which they inferred a self-obscured object with a mass of about 10M . We obtained Spitzer observations of SN 2008S five days after its discover...

BACKGROUND The potential of a new continuous-wave (CW) 70-W, 2.013-microm thulium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet (Tm:YAG) laser for the endoscopic treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is investigated. OBJECTIVE The simultaneous combination of vaporisation and resection of prostatic tissue in a retrograde fashion is the main characteristic of this new laser technique. We provide a D...

CONTEXT The European Association of Urology (EAU) Guidelines Office has set up a guideline working panel to analyse the scientific evidence published in the world literature on lasers in urologic practice. OBJECTIVE Review the physical background and physiologic and technical aspects of the use of lasers in urology, as well as current clinical results from these new and evolving technologies,...