The outcome for children with deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) is unknown. An understanding of morbidity and mortality of DVT/PE is crucial to the development of rational treatment protocols. The Canadian Childhood Thrombophilia Registry has followed 405 children aged 1 mo to 18 y with DVT/PE for a mean of 2.86 y (range, 2 wk to 6 y) to assess outcome. The all-cause mortality was 65 of 405 children (16%). Mortality directly attributable to DVT/PE occurred in nine children (2.2%), all of whom had central venous line-associated thrombosis. Morbidity was substantial, with 33 children (8.1%) having recurrent thrombosis, and 50 children (12.4%) having postphlebitic syndrome. Recurrent thrombosis and postphlebitic syndrome were more common in older children, although deaths occurred equally in all age groups. The incidence of recurrent thrombosis and postphlebitic syndrome are likely underestimated because of difficulties in diagnosis, especially in younger children. The significant mortality and morbidity found in our study supports the need for international multicenter randomized clinical trials to determine optimal prophylactic and therapeutic treatment for children with DVT/PE.

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Two dimensional (2D) transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) based semiconductors have generated intense recent interest due to their novel optical and electronic properties, and potential for applications. In this work, we characterize the atomic and electronic nature of intrinsic point defects found in single crystals of these materials synthesized by two different methods-chemical vapor transport and self-flux growth. Using a combination of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), we show that the two major intrinsic defects in these materials are metal vacancies and chalcogen antisites. We show that by control of the synthetic conditions, we can reduce the defect concentration from above 10 13 /cm 2 to below 10 11 /cm 2. Because these point defects act as centers for non-radiative recombination of excitons, this improvement in material quality leads to a hundred-fold increase in the radiative recombination efficiency.

The transmembrane cellular receptor tissue factor (TF) is the primary initiator of the coagulation cascade in man. Expression of TF was determined in 55 specimens of ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas and was found to correlate strongly with the degree of histological differentiation. A significant linear trend was observed with stronger immunoreactivity observed in poorly differentiated tumours (chi 2 = 6.69, P = 0.0098). No TF staining was seen in pancreatic samples from normal controls (n = 18). As expression of TF may be associated with tumour progression, its analysis could provide useful prognostic information in patients with pancreatic malignancy.

Our experiments unambiguously establish 2H-MoTe2 and 2H-MoSe2 as magnetic, moderate bandgap semiconductors.