809 research outputs found
T.C. Powers, '25, author of the book, "Leakage: The Bleeding of the American Economy"
No full textIncludes letters from the American Society for Testing Material about T.C. PowersBlack and WhitePeople: Powers, T.C
MBL2 deficiency is associated with higher genomic bacterial loads during meningococcemia in young children
No full textMannose binding lectin (MBL2) is a soluble pattern recognition receptor that is key to generating innate immune responses to invasive infection, including against the cardinal Gram-negative bacterium Neisseria meningitidis. Individuals homozygous or heterozygous for any of three variant alleles of MBL2 (O/O or A/O genotypes) have deficient concentrations of MBL2 in circulating blood, but previous studies linking MBL deficiency to susceptibility to meningococcal disease have not revealed a consistent association. We genotyped 741 patients with microbiologically-proven meningococcal disease and correlated MBL2 genotype with plasma bacterial load of N. meningitidis with blood samples taken during hospital admission. We show that individuals with genotypes compatible with MBL2 deficiency have higher measurable levels of bacterial plasma genomic load with the greatest effect seen in children <2 years of age. However, the overall impact of this is minor, because there was no evidence that such genotypes are more common in children with meningococcal disease compared with uninfected cohorts. The findings suggest that MBL2 supports innate immune defence against meningococcal disease in the early months of life, before acquired immunity is sufficiently robust for effective natural protection.</p
Controversies in the management of acute tonsillitis: an evidence-based review
No full textBACKGROUND: Patients admitted with acute tonsillitis generate a substantial workload for the National Health Service (NHS), placing huge financial pressures on an already overstretched budget.OBJECTIVE OF REVIEW: Due to the difficulty of accurate diagnosis and varying practices across the UK, there exist a number of controversial areas and non-standardised practice. These will be highlighted and tackled within this article.TYPE OF REVIEW AND SEARCH STRATEGY: A literature review, last performed in September 2013, searched PubMed citing variations on the areas of controversies with 'tonsillitis', 'pharyngitis' and 'pharyngotonsillitis' - from 1956 to present with language restrictions. Excluded articles included those regarding sore throat after tonsillectomy and peritonsillar abscess.EVALUATION METHOD: Titles and abstracts were initially screened, and full text of potentially relevant articles obtained. The bibliographies of articles were searched for relevant references. The references were then compiled and reviewed independently by two authors (JB & TB), overseen by the senior author (EK).RESULTS: (i) Diagnosis and investigation: Use of the Centor criteria is inadequate within the secondary care setting. Blood testing is unnecessary in the majority of cases where patients do not require admission, as they are unlikely to change management. (ii) Antibiotics: Antibiotics are likely to be indicated in all those presenting to secondary ENT care, with penicillin being the antibiotic of choice for first-line therapy. (iii) Corticosteroids: Moderate evidence supports the benefit of steroid administration in this patient cohort, advocating a single dose initially followed by reassessment. (iv) Analgesia: Paracetamol and NSAIDs have good evidence of action. Codeine should be used with caution in the paediatric population. (v) Reduced admission rates and early discharge: There is evidence suggesting that a trial of medical therapy prior to admission is beneficial in reducing rates of admission and length of stay.CONCLUSIONS: Management of acute tonsillitis within a secondary care setting largely consists of anecdotal or relatively low-quality evidence. Thus, much evidence from management comes from expert opinion or practice within a primary care setting. Management across the UK can also vary greatly. An evidence-based review of best practice has been presented here, but further evidence will be required in the future examining the significance of corticosteroids and antibiotic administration in this patient cohort specifically, ensuring practice is evidence based and clinically relevant.</p
(13(3):51-56)酸桔葉片殊形潰瘍病斑之利用
No full textCitrus canker caused by Xanthomonas citri (Hasse) Dowson is normally charac-terized by corky, hard, and somewhat suberized lesions surrounded by a yellowish halo on the infected leaves of susceptible varieties. If the canker lesion has developed quickly under extremely favorable conditions, the white spongy tissue will excruded in some degree, and accumulated on the lesions. This special canker lesions with spongy eruption of tissue will be found, sometime, when artificial inoculation was made by overstaying the inoculated plant in pot (Fig. 4) in the inoculation chamber for three or four days after inoculation. It is also easy to induce special lesions by keeping the leaves of susceptible varieties in such a semi-vivo condition as in the moistened Petri-dish (Fig. 3) placed in the incubator for five or six days after inoculation.
The present author was deeply interested in the formation of this special lesion and had made his attempt to utilize them for several purposes, such as screen test for canker-control bactericides, identrfication of newly isolated canker organism, and determination of resistance of citrus varieties to the disease. The present report was made in deal with utilization of this inoculation technique for testing inhibiting effectiveness of the bactericides on the fomation of canker lesion.
柑桔類潰瘍病於極度適宜之環境下所發生之病斑，因罹病組識之海棉細胞受病原菌之刺激致呈畸形膨大，多量溢出，而形成白色隆起之明顯殊形病斑，此種殊形病斑頗易由人工接種而顯現。將酸桔半成熟葉片採下，以自來水沖洗後以解剖針輕刺一定數目之傷痍，浸漬於病原菌懸浮液，使葉面餘液陰乾後排放於潮濕培養皿之玻璃支架上，置28℃定溫箱培養六天，即可於傷痍部位呈現明顯之殊形潰瘍病斑。
筆者以此病斑形成之明顯與容易，乃探測其利用價值。本試驗以五種抗生製劑供作傷痍葉片人工接種後作藥劑侵漬處理，以葉片病斑發生數目，測定供試藥劑對病原菌之抑制或殺減效力。據試驗結果，病斑之發生與藥劑濃度具有規律之相關關係。筆者認為此法於藥劑試驗之初步選定上，為一簡便而可行之方法
Smart Redundancy Schemes for ANNs against Fault Attacks
No full textArtificial neural networks (ANNs) are used to accomplish a variety of tasks, including safety critical ones. Hence, it is important to protect them against faults that can influence decisions during operation. In this paper, we propose smart and low-cost redundancy schemes that protect the most vulnerable ANN parts against fault attacks. Experimental results show that the two proposed smart schemes perform similarly to dual modular redundancy (DMR) at a much lower cost, generally improve on the state of the art, and reach protection levels in the range of 93% to 99%.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Computer EngineeringQuantum & Computer Engineerin
Managing and monitoring tuberculosis using web-based tools in combination with traditional approaches.
No full textTuberculosis (TB) remains a global health emergency. Ongoing challenges include the coordination of national and international control programs, high levels of drug resistance in many parts of the world, and availability of accurate and rapid diagnostic tests. The increasing availability and reliability of Internet access throughout both affluent and resource-limited countries brings new opportunities to improve TB management and control through the integration of web-based technologies with traditional approaches. In this review, we explore current and potential future use of web-based tools in the areas of TB diagnosis, treatment, epidemiology, service monitoring, and teaching and training
A bibliometric analysis of the performance of Water Research
No full text[[abstract]]This paper presents a detailed chronological survey of papers published in the journal titled Water Research which started publication since 1967. This current investigation reviews publication patterns between 1967 and 2008. An analysis of the research performance according to publication output, distribution of words in article title, author keywords, and keywords plus. Performances of countries, institutes, and authors, including total, single, collaborative, first author, and corresponding author publications were analyzed. The most-frequently cited articles each year and the articles of the highest impact in 2008 were also reported. Results showed that ‘‘activated sludge’’ was the most frequently used author keyword, followed by ‘‘adsorption,’’ and ‘‘drinking water.’’ Authors from 114 different countries/territories published in the journal, with the most articles submitted by authors from the USA
Acoustic mapping and monitoring of the seabed: From single-frequency to multispectral multibeam backscatter
No full textWith the increasing human activities in the marine environment, such as fisheries, dredging, coastal protection or construction of marine infrastructure, seabed sediment and habitat mapping have become highly relevant for the development of sustainable marine management strategies. Compared to traditional mapping methods, primarily based on bed sampling, multibeam echosounding belongs to the cutting-edge technology to time-efficiently acquire high-resolution bathymetric and backscatter (BS) data over large areas. Using classification methods to combine the acoustic data with ground-truthing, large-scale maps can be automatically and objectively produced, that enables to describe the distribution of benthic habitats or quantify marine resources. However, acoustic sediment classification still does not allow to discriminate between the entire heterogeneity of the seabed and is generally applied to a single multibeam echosounder dataset by means of revealing the seabed state only at a given time instant. Two challenging issues addressed within the scope of this thesis are summarized as: (1) Investigation on the applicability of repetitive multibeam (single-frequency) BS measurements for monitoring the seabed; and (2) Evaluation of the potential of multispectral BS to increase the acoustic discrimination between different seabed environments.Aircraft Noise and Climate Effect
Strain Fields in Crystalline Solids - Prediction and Measurement of X-Ray Diffraction Patterns and Electron Diffraction-Contrast Images
No full textApplied Science
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