Current Affairs Question - 19 December 2019

Explanation :

• Postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) is a complication of delivery and the most common cause of maternal death, accounting for about 35% of all maternal deaths worldwide.
• PPH is commonly defined as a blood loss of 500 ml or more within 24 hours after birth, while severe PPH is defined as a blood loss of 1000 ml or more within the same time frame according to World Health Organisation (WHO).
• It is a major cause of morbidity and mortality with in the first 24 hours following delivery and this is regarded as primary PPH: whereas any excessive bleeding from the birth canal occurring between 24 hours and 12 weeks postnatally (after delivery) is termed as secondary PPH.

Causes

• Uterine atony
• Genital trauma
• Coagulation problem

Treatment

• The treatment of patients with PPH has 2 major components: (1) resuscitation and management of obstetric hemorrhage and, possibly, hypovolemic shock and (2) identification and management of the underlying causes of the hemorrhage.

Explanation :

• The Rare Earth Elements (REE) are a set of seventeen metallic elements. These include the fifteen lanthanides on the periodic table plus scandium and yttrium.
• 15 REE are- lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), praseodymium (Pr), neodymium (Nd), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), terbium (Tb), dysprosium (Dy), holmium (Ho), erbium (Er), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), and lutetium (Lu).
• The principal economic sources of rare earths are the minerals bastnasite, monazite, and loparite and the lateritic ion-adsorption clays.
• Although these elements are referred to as rare they are not particularly rare in the earth’s crust. Cesium is the 25th most abundant crustal element and lutetium, the scarcest REE, is about the 60th most abundant.

REEs are categorized as being either light or heavy:

• Light REEs (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium and scandium) are produced in global abundance and are in surplus supply
• Heavy REEs (terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium and yttrium) are produced mainly in China and are in limited supply.

Uses

• Their unique magnetic, luminescent, and electrochemical properties make them essential to such products as smartphones, electric cars, camera lenses, X-ray scanners, wind turbines, and computer hard drives.
• REE are essential raw materials for a wide range of applications, including metallurgy (metal refining and metal alloying), catalysts in the automotive and the petro-chemical industry, colouring of glass/ceramics, phosphors (LEDs, compact fluorescent lamps, flat panel displays), lasers, rechargeable solid state batteries (Ni-MH), fibre optics and others.
• Additionally, REE are vital elements in emerging technologies such as solid state fuel cells, superconductors, magnetic cooling, hydrogen storage and high performance permanent magnets.