California State University, Long Beach

About: California State University, Long Beach is a education organization based out in Long Beach, California, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 10036 authors who have published 13933 publications receiving 377394 citations. The organization is also known as: Cal State Long Beach & Long Beach State.

Diagnostic principles in pleural disease

Abstract: When a patient with an undiagnosed pleural effusion is evaluated, the first question to answer is whether the patient has a transudate or an exudate. This is best done using Light's criteria, but these criteria occasionally misidentify a transudate as an exudate. If the patient's pleural fluid meets exudative criteria, but the patient appears clinically to have a transudative effusion, then the serum-pleural fluid albumin gradient should be measured. If this is greater than 1.2 g-dL-1, the patient probably does have a transudative effusion. If the patient has an exudative pleural effusion, additional tests are indicated to determine the aetiology of the effusion. The gross appearance and the odour of the pleural fluid should be noted and samples of all exudates should be sent for bacterial cultures. Laboratory tests that are useful in the differential diagnosis of exudative pleural effusions include: differential white cell count of the pleural fluid; cytology of the pleural fluid; and levels of adenosine deaminase, glucose, amylase and lactate dehydrogenase in the pleural fluid. If pleural tuberculosis is suspected, a needle biopsy of the pleura is indicated. Thoracoscopy is very efficient at diagnosing malignant pleural effusion and tuberculosis pleuritis, but rarely establishes any other diagnosis.

An ultra-tunable platform for molecular engineering of high-performance crystalline porous materials

Abstract: Metal-organic frameworks are a class of crystalline porous materials with potential applications in catalysis, gas separation and storage, and so on. Of great importance is the development of innovative synthetic strategies to optimize porosity, composition and functionality to target specific applications. Here we show a platform for the development of metal-organic materials and control of their gas sorption properties. This platform can accommodate a large variety of organic ligands and homo- or hetero-metallic clusters, which allows for extraordinary tunability in gas sorption properties. Even without any strong binding sites, most members of this platform exhibit high gas uptake capacity. The high capacity is accomplished with an isosteric heat of adsorption as low as 20 kJ mol−1 for carbon dioxide, which could bring a distinct economic advantage because of the significantly reduced energy consumption for activation and regeneration of adsorbents. Synthetic design of crystalline porous materials is important for applications such as catalysis and adsorption. Here, the authors demonstrate a platform for the development of crystalline porous materials with a variety of organic ligands and metallic clusters, and control of their gas sorption properties.