Resistance pattern of 2816 isolates isolated from 17631 blood cultures and etiology of bacteremia and fungemia in a single cancer institution

A phase III, open label randomized study was conducted in 50 patients comparing halothane and sevoflurane for paediatric day case surgery. A graded inhalational induction resulted in only slightly more rapid induction with sevoflurane (3.34 +/- 0.92 versus 3.85 +/- 1.02 minutes; P > 0.05). In children receiving sevoflurane, systolic blood pressure decreased to a lesser extent during induction (143 +/- 19.2 versus 26.9 +/- 10.9 percent decrease from resting values; P < 0.01) and heart rate was maintained. Respiratory events (coughing, breath-holding, bronchospasm, laryngospasm) were more common during induction with halothane, and excitement more common in children receiving sevoflurane. Emergence times were significantly more rapid in children who had received sevoflurane (21.4 +/- 10.9 versus 33.1 +/- 13.7 minutes; P < 0.01). Objective pain/discomfort scores were higher in patients receiving sevoflurane at 10, 20, 30 and 40 minutes after arrival in the recovery room, and the incidence of excitement during emergence was higher in this group. It is concluded that sevoflurane is well tolerated for inhalational induction and has an improved cardiovascular profile compared to halothane. Emergence was significantly more rapid following sevoflurane.     

Chlorin-based supramolecular assemblies for artificial photosynthesis

Photosynthetic reaction center models consisting of zinc 9-desoxo-pyrochlorophyllide a primary electron donors, ZC, that are directly bonded at their 3-position to the 5-position of a 2,8,12,18-tetraethyl-3,7,13,17-tetramethylporphyrin ZP, which is in turn bonded at its 15-position to 2-triptycenenaphthoquinone, 2-triptycenebenzoquinone, 1-triptycenebenzoquinone, or N-(4-phenyl),N′-(n-octyl)-1,4,5,8-naphththalediimide 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively, were prepared. Steric hindrance between adjacent substituents positions the π system of the chlorophyll perpendicular to that of the porphyrin. In turn, the π system of the chlorophyll is held about 60° to that of the O-O axis of the quinones in 1 and 2, parallel to the quinone O-O axis in 3, and parallel to the N-N axis in the diimide acceptor in 4. The resulting structures place the ZC donors in 1, 2, 3 and 4 at fixed center-to-center distances of 20, 18, 14, and 21 å from the acceptors, respectively. Photoexcitation of 1-4 in 2-methyltetrahydrofuran glass at 77K results in a single observable electron transfer reaction: ZC-ZP-X^1* ZC-ZP-X → ZC⁺-ZP-X⁻, where X = benzoquinone (BQ), naphthoquinone (No) or naphthalenediimide (NI), that occurs with τ = 4.5, 3.3, 2.0, and 2.0 ps for 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. The final ZC⁺-ZP-X⁻ radical pairs live for 12.7, 8.4, 2.5, and 10 ms at 77K in 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively, and exhibit spin-polarized EPR spectra characteristic of spin-correlated radical pairs. The EPR spectra of 1-4 can be simulated using the distances and orientations of the radicals relative to one another determined from the molecular structures of 1-4. These long-lived, spin-polarized radical ion pairs closely mimic the bacteriochlorophyll cation - quinone anion radical pair produced in photosynthetic reaction centers and provide a useful tool for studying the interaction of the surrounding medium with the charge separated radical ion pair.     

Object Recognition in X-ray Testing Using Adaptive Sparse Representations

In recent years, X-ray screening systems have been used to safeguard environments in which access control is of paramount importance. Security checkpoints have been placed at the entrances to many public places to detect prohibited items such as handguns and explosives. Human operators complete these tasks because automated recognition in baggage inspection is far from perfect. Research and development on X-ray testing is, however, ongoing into new approaches that can be used to aid human operators. This paper attempts to make a contribution to the field of object recognition by proposing a new approach called Adaptive Sparse Representation (XASR+). It consists of two stages: learning and testing. In the learning stage, for each object of training dataset, several patches are extracted from its X-ray images in order to construct representative dictionaries. A stop-list is used to remove very common words of the dictionaries. In the testing stage, test patches of the test image are extracted, and for each test patch a dictionary is built concatenating the ‘best’ representative dictionary of each object. Using this adapted dictionary, each test patch is classified following the Sparse Representation Classification methodology. Finally, the test image is classified by patch voting. Thus, our approach is able to deal with less constrained conditions including some contrast variability, pose, intra-class variability, size of the image and focal distance. We tested the effectiveness of our method for the detection of four different objects. In our experiments, the recognition rate was more than 97 % in each class, and more than 94 % if the object is occluded less than 15 %. Results show that XASR+ deals well with unconstrained conditions, outperforming various representative methods in the literature.     

Poly(2-hydroxyethyl acrylate-co-ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate) monoliths synthesized by radiation polymerization in a mold

Copolymer monoliths of diethyleneglycol dimethacrylate and 2-hydroxyethyl-acrylate were prepared by using the advantage of radiation initiated polymerization over the thermally initiated polymerization, namely, that it is sufficient to use only a monomer and a porogenic solvent and no initiator is needed. Besides, the reaction can take place at any desired temperature in a mold of suitable size and shape.The results showed that increase of the HEA content in the comonomer mixture (up to 18 vol%) resulted in monoliths with increased pore size and hydrophilic character. The specific surface area of these monoliths was in the order of 1 m²/g. The porous properties could be fine-tuned by changing the solvent.Flow rate measurements for several eluents indicated that these monoliths could be useful as chromatographic columns. This is illustrated by separation of several amino acids.     

Combined exposure to cyanobacterial biomass, lead and the Newcastle virus enhances avian toxicity

Under environmental conditions, wild birds can be exposed to multiple stressors including natural toxins, anthropogenic pollutants and infectious agents at the same time.This experimental study was successful in testing the hypothesis that adverse effects of cyanotoxins, heavy metals and a non-pathogenic immunological challenge combine to enhance avian toxicity. Mortality occurred in combined exposures to naturally occurring cyanobacterial biomass and lead shots, lead shots and Newcastle vaccination as well as in single lead shot exposure. Mostly acute effects around day 10 were observed. On day 30 of exposure, there were no differences in the liver accumulation of lead in single and combined exposure groups. Interestingly, liver microcystin levels were elevated in birds co-exposed to cyanobacterial biomass together with lead or lead and the Newcastle virus. Significant differences in body weights between all Pb-exposed and Pb-non-exposed birds were found on days 10 and 20. Single exposure to cyanobacterial biomass resulted in hepatic vacuolar dystrophy, whereas co-exposure with lead led to more severe granular dystrophy. Haematological changes were associated with lead exposure, in particular. Biochemical analysis revealed a decrease in glucose and an increase in lactate dehydrogenase in single and combined cyanobacterial and lead exposures, which also showed a decreased antibody response to vaccination.The combined exposure of experimental birds to sub-lethal doses of individual stressors is ecologically realistic. It brings together new pieces of knowledge on avian health. In light of this study, investigators of wild bird die-offs should be circumspect when evaluating findings of low concentrations of contaminants that would not result in mortality on a separate basis. As such it has implications for wildlife biologists, veterinarians and conservationists of avian biodiversity.