BACKGROUND Following myomectomy, postoperative adhesions occur in many patients with adverse effects on fertility. This study investigated the applicability, safety and efficacy of an auto-crosslinked hyaluronan gel in preventing adhesion formation after laparoscopic myomectomy. METHODS Fifty-two patients aged 22-42 years, undergoing surgery at four centres, were randomly allocated to receive...

Conventional gasoline engines suffer from low performance and NOx emissions. Controlled auto-ignition (CAI), sometimes referred to as homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI), is a promising concept solve such problems. CAI has the potential improve spark (SI) engine fuel economy while at same time solving trade-off of NOx-soot emissions found in (CI) engines. The can reach comparable tha...

The invention of the spark-ignited internal combustion engine provided a market for a petroleum middle distillate, gasoline, about 100 years ago. The internal combustion engine and gasoline have co-evolved until motor vehicles now annually consume about 110 billion gallons of gasoline in the United States. Continuing air pollution problems and resulting regulatory pressures are driving the need...

Skeletal reaction models for n-butane and iso-butane combustion are derived from the detailed gas phase chemistry model of USC Mech II through directed relation graph (DRG) and DRG aided sensitivity analysis (DRGASA) methods. The skeletal models generated from various combustion systems, e.g. auto-ignitions versus premixed flames, n-butane versus i-butane, are compared, and analyzed based on th...

Abundant availability and potential for lower CO2 emissions are drivers for increased utilization of natural gas in automotive engines for transportation applications. However scarce refueling resources for on-road vehicles impose an infrastructure limited barrier on natural gas use in transportation. A novel ‘bimodal’ engine which can operate in a compressor mode has been developed that allows...

Burning sulphur-laden transportation fuels results in misty and fuggy air of large cities. The combustion products of sulphur-laden fuels poison the exhaust conversion catalyst and invalidate the catalyst box. As results, the vehicle emission gets worse and worse no matter how advanced the auto technology is. Some sulphur compounds converted to sulphates after combustion and emitted into the at...