Endoscopy represents a commonly employed technique for canine enteropathies. Different trials in human intestinal endoscopy have suggested that the introduction of water for luminal distension, in place of air, improves the visualization of the mucosal texture and decreases pain.

The aim of the study was to compare water immersion (WI) vs. air insufflation (AI) during duodenoscopy in anesthetized dogs in terms of mucosal visualization and nociception.

Twenty-five dogs undergoing duodenoscopy were included. The same image of the descen- ding duodenum was recorded applying WI and AI. Each pair of images was analyzed using mor- phological skeletonization, an image entropy evaluation, and a subjective blind evaluation by three experienced endoscopists. To evaluate differences in nociception related to the procedure applied, heart rate and arterial blood pressure were measured before, during and after WI/AI. To compare the two methods, a t-test for paired data was applied for the image analysis, Fleiss’ Kappa evaluation for the subjective evaluation and a Friedman test for anesthetic parameters.

No differences were found between WI and AI using morphological skeletonization and entropy. The subjective evaluation identified the WI images as qualitatively better than the AI images, indicating substantial agreement between the operators. No differences in nociception were found.

The results of the study pointed out the absence of changes in pain response between WI and AI, likely due to the sufficient control of nociception by the anesthesia. Based on subjective evaluation, but not confirmed by the image analysis, WI provided better image quality than AI.

The compressive strength and water absorption of cement mortars with different water-binder ratio (0.35, 0.45 and 0.55) and fly ash content (0, 10%, 20% and 30%) under water immersion were investigated, and the correlation between them was further analyzed. The internal microstructure and phase composition of mortar was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively. The results show that the inside of mortar mixed with fly ash displayed the loose and porous microstructure. Therefore, the incorporation of fly ash reduced the compressive strength of mortar, especially the early strength, and the strength decreased with the increase of fly ash content, and the water absorption of mortar also increased. There was a linear correlation between the compressive strength and water absorption of mortar with the equation: f_c = -3.838β + 62.332, where f_c and β represented the compressive strength and water absorption, respectively. Therefore, when the water absorption of mortar immersed in water was measured, its corresponding compressive strength could be preliminarily inferred through this equation, which was of great significance for detecting and identifying the stability and safety of hydraulic structures.