Enterococcal bacteremia in a medical center

BACKGROUND: The enterococci have become important nosocomial pathogens. They can cause multiple site infections and enterococcal bacteremia becomes more frequently associated with a high mortality rate. Previous studies of enterococcal bacteremia showed a variety of results. To establish the significance and importance of enterococci as nosocomial pathogens in this hospital, to characterize their clinical pictures and to search for the risk factors for mortality, this retrospective study was performed. METHODS: There were 208 cases of enterococcal bacteremia which occurred from 1988 to 1992. Twenty-seven cases had no medical charts, dismissing possibility of evaluation. Finally, 181 cases of enterococcal bacteremia were analysed. RESULTS: One hundred and eighteen episodes were nosocomial infections. Polymicrobial bacteremia occurred in 68.5% of the patients and the most common co-isolate was Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Those patients (78.5%) with underlying diseases and malignancies were the most common underlying problems. The portal of entry could be found in 69.6 percent of patients, with the gastrointestinal tract the most common sources. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing showed high gentamicin resistance rate (89.5%), and ampicillin still had about 80 percent sensitivity rate. The group who received specific antibiotic therapy for enterococcus showed lower mortality (36.4% versus 47.6%). Only one case had infective endocarditis. Forty-nine patients suffered from septic shock, the cause of 30 deaths. Totally 75 patients died during hospitalization. Besides sepsis, another major cause of death was their underlying diseases itself. CONCLUSIONS: Enterococci have no doubt become important nosocomial pathogens and enterococcal bacteremia were associated with high mortality, especially in elderly patients with underlying diseases such as malignancy or diabetes. When clinically dealing with sepsis from the gastrointestinal or biliary tract, especially when previous cephalosporins therapy showed no response, the possibility of enterococcal bacteremia should always be considered.     

Evaluating the impact of CASE: an empirical comparison of retrospective and cross-sectional survey approaches

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate two methods of assessing the productivity and quality impact of Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) and Fourth Generation Language (4GL) technologies: (1) by the retrospective method; and (2) the cross-sectional method. Both methods involve the use of questionnaire surveys. Developers' perceptions depend on the context in which they are expressed and this includes expectations about the effectiveness of a given software product. Consequently, it is generally not reliable to base inferences about the relative merits of CASE and 4GLs on a cross-sectional comparison of two separate samples of users. The retrospective method that requires each respondent to directly compare different products is shown to be more reliable. However, there may be scope to employ cross-sectional comparisons of the findings from different samples where both sets of respondents use the same reference point for their judgements, and where numerical rather than verbal rating scales are used to measure perceptions.     

Presupposition failure — A comedy of errors

Presuppositions of utterances are the pieces of information you convey with an utterance no matter whether your utterance is true or not. We first study presupposition in a very simple framework of updating propositional information, with examples of how presuppositions of complex propositional updates can be calculated. Next we move on to presuppositions and quantification, in the context of a dynamic version of predicate logic, suitably modified to allow for presupposition failure. In both the propositional and the quantificational case, presupposition failure can be viewed as error abortion of procedures. Thus, a dynamic assertion logic which describes the preconditions for error abortion is the suitable tool for analysing presupposition.     

超细Fe3O4粒子表面包覆酞菁钴性质研究

本文研究了合成载氧体的金属有机化学液相淀积法制造工艺，所得产物经ＴＥＭ、ＸＰＳ、Ｍｏｓｓ－ｂａｕｅｒ谱和Ｂ－Ｈ仪等手段，研究了它的结构和磁性能。实验表明，酞青钴以薄层形式包覆在Ｆｅ＿３Ｏ＿４的表面，封闭了Ｆｅ＿３Ｏ＿４的表面孔洞，稳定了Ｆｅ＿３Ｏ＿４的物相，增强了磁性能。     

"网吧"等互联网上网服务营业场所消防安全形势及防火对策

“网吧”等互联网上网服务营业场所 (以下简称网吧 )是集上网聊天、上网冲浪、发电子邮件、查寻资料、休闲娱乐于一体的公共娱乐场所 ,普遍受到人们特别是青少年的欢迎。网吧在给人们工作、学习、生活带来便利的同时 ,也带来了一定的火灾危险 ,震惊全国的北京海淀区“6 .16 -蓝极速”特大火灾事故就是一个典型的案例。网吧存在的突出消防安全问题 ,已经引起公安消防机构的重视 ,并纳入消防监督检查视线 ,部署开展了以网吧为重点的消防安全专项整治。网吧的消防安全现状如何 ,究竟有何火灾危险 ,如何防范 ,笔者谈了以下拙见。　　一、网吧的…     

RSView32软件平台的应用及扩展

概述了RSView32工控软件的特点和使用方法 ,并通过贵溪冶炼厂的一个液位自动控制系统的人机界面设计说明了如何在控制系统中使用RSView32软件。文章特别介绍了如何用VBA程序设计来扩展其功能     

Replacement of beef fat in Frankfurters by interesterified palm,cottonseed and olive oils

Three interesterified vegetable oils (IVOs) prepared from palm, cottonseed, and olive oil, respectively, have been studied for application to Frankfurters. Beef fat (10%) was replaced by one of the IVOs at 20, 60 or 100%. Fatty acid composition of the lipid fraction in the Frankfurters and saturated/unsaturated ratios were established for all batches. We found that total or partial replacement of beef fat by IVOs did not lead to significant changes in appearance, colour, texture, flavour or sensory score. We conclude that IVOs may be successfully applied as beef fat substitutes in Frankfurters.