introduction: needle stick injuries (nsi) are major occupational hazards for health care workers. objectives: this study aimed to determine the epidemiology of needle sticks and sharp injuries among nurses of an iranian teaching hospital. materials and methods: this descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 2009 on 328 nurses in a health center in tehran. stratified random samples were...

During percutaneous interventional procedures, the orientation and position and of a needle-like instrument can be constrained relative to the patient’s coordinate system using a variety of aiming devices. Physicians align the aiming device in space according to a pre-defined plan and advance the instrument without excessive bending, resulting in a higher targeting accuracy. However, available ...

This paper deals with future aspects and developments in endoscopic sutures, needles, needle drivers, and sewing devices. Shape memory alloys such as superelastic nickel-titanium can be used for surgical needles and hingeless needle drivers. A sewing device consists of a T-Needle which can be shuttled between the jaws of specially designed instruments. The jaws possess small elements that grip ...

Safe sampling of cord blood can reduce the risk of exposure to infectious agents by obstetric personnel. We developed a new device for collecting umbilical cord blood. Using a modified closed-cup instrument, gravity drainage within the sealed device allows for guarded-needle vacuum tube blood collection. The mean (+/- standard deviation) volume of blood collected with the device was 6.1 +/- 3.1...

Gonadotrophins are injected daily over several days in follicular stimulation protocols. To facilitate self-injection, various injection or reconstitution devices are available. It was investigated whether injection training enabled patients to choose their preferred device. Patients and their partners received nurse-led training about: powdered urofollitropin (Bravelle) with needle-free recons...

The radiofrequency quadrupole linear ion trap is a widely used device in physics and chemistry. When used for trapping of large ion clouds, the presence of anharmonic terms in the radiofrequency potential limits the total number of stored ions. In this paper, we have studied the anharmonic content of the trapping potential for different implementations of a quadrupole trap, searching for the ge...

The transient properties of single grain–thin film transistors SG-TFTs with high electron mobility have been studied. Overshoot current induced by trap states has been observed in most of the devices. A method of ac measurements has been used to investigate the trap processes. Both transient and ac measurements show that the response of some SG-TFTs with high field effect mobility is dominated ...

Trapping and manipulation of microscale and nanoscale particles is demonstrated using the sole action of hydrodynamic forces. We developed an automated particle trap based on a stagnation point flow generated in a microfluidic device. The hydrodynamic trap enables confinement and manipulation of single particles in low viscosity (1-10 cP) aqueous solution. Using this method, we trapped microsca...

Cell ‘trap and release’ in microfluidic devices is critical for on-chip concentration purposes and dynamic microarrays. However, most existing mechanical trapping modalities lack release capabilities and some employ very complex or abrasive trapping mechanisms. Here we describe a novel cell ‘trap and release’ device, which employs principles similar to the ‘hydraulic jump’ phenomenon in nature....