Purpose – To resolve the drawback in the existing methods for query refinement by using semantic technologies. Design/methodology/approach – The article introduces a conceptual space (ontology) in which a query refinement problem will be treated. In that space a query is modeled as a set of logic formulas, query refinement process is modeled as an inferencing process. The approach is focused on the positive conjunctive queries.Findings – This (re)opens a question about a need for a more semantic‐based indexing of documents in the traditional information retrieval in order to improve the overall retrieval performances. This experimental study has shown that the semantics arisen (emerged) from row documents has enough quality to enable building query refinement methods that outperform the most advanced syntactic‐driven methods. Consequently, one can imagine a more emergent‐semantic based indexing process that will retain the autonomy of web data, but will significantly increase the precision of the retrieva...

Discussion Impalement injuries usually occur at construction sites or in motor vehicle crashes or are caused by falling objects. It is crucial to leave the impaling object in situ and remove it under controlled conditions in the hospital. Careful extraction with minimal movement of the impaling object prevents further tissue damage and blood loss. Therefore most authors advise removal under direct vision. In our case a computed tomographic scan revealed a bilateral hematothorax. Chest tubes were inserted to drain both sides, and 1.5 L of blood was removed from the left side within a few minutes. The patient was immediately taken to the operating room with the aim of controlling bleeding and removing the iron rods from the left thoracic cavity under direct vision. The situation was rendered even more dramatic because the patient had refused to receive blood under any circumstances. The rapid loss of more than 40% of blood volume is usually life-threatening. For acutely anemic patients, the American Society of Anesthesiologists Task Force on Blood Component Therapy has advised that transfusion is almost always indicated when hemoglobin concentration decreases to less than 6 g/dL. Our patient, however, survived a much lower concentration without organ damage apart from paraplegia caused by one of the impaling rods. His survival is certainly not a common clinical experience. The lesson we learned from this case is that an otherwise healthy subject can tolerate the loss of more blood than is commonly believed. Rapid assessment of the injury with careful hemostasis after removal of the impaling objects under direct vision together with appropriate fluid replacement was able to save a patient with an extremely unusual and severe impalement injury.