This volume, the second in a series on topics in microcomputers in critical care and pulmonary physiology, ' contains the proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Computers in Critical Care and Pulmonary Medicine, held at the University of Lund in 1980 under the., chairmanship of Prof. B. Jonson, M.D., Department of Clinical Physiology, University of Lund, Sweden. Clinicians and biomedical engineers from many countries parti cipated in a three day deliberation. Of special interest was the introduction of nuclear techniques in pulmonary medicine for the first time in this symposium...

This volume represents a review of recent work presented by eminent scientists at the Second International Symposium on 'Applied Physiology in Critical Care with Emphasis on Children' at Aruba, Netherlands Antilles, November 28 - 2 December, 1983. We are grateful to the keynote speakers who accepted our invitation and completed their chapters in time for the press. I must thank the Government of Aruba, the Tourist Office of Aruba, Mr Frank Croes and Mr Betico Croes for their support and generosity for organizing this symposium. My sincere thanks go to Mr Rory Arends, Lucy Arends, Simon Meij...

There is a tendency of an increasing number of signals and derived variables to be incorporated in the monitoring of patients during anesthesia and in intensive care units. The addition of new signals hardly ever leads to thedeletion of other signals. This is probably based on a feeling of insecurity. We must realize that each new signal that is being monitored brings along its cost, in terms of risk to the patient, investment and time. It is therefore essential to assess the relative contribution of this new signal to the quality of the monitoring process; i. e. given the set of signals...

During the last 20 years two groups of investigators have concerned themselves with the problem of acid-base regulation at various body temperatures. Each group, in professional isolation, pursued a separate path. Surgeons and anesthe tists developed techniques and tools for hypothermic cardio-pulmonary by-pass operations and based their rationale for acid-base management on in vitro models of blood behavior. Physiologists and biochemists, on the other hand, endeavored to understand acid-base regulation in living organisms naturally subjected to changes in body temperature. Only in the last...