Antimicrobials: a global alliance for optimizing their rational use in intra-abdominal infections (AGORA)

Intra-abdominal infections (IAI) are an important cause of morbidity and are frequently associated with poor prognosis, particularly in high-risk patients. The cornerstones in the management of complicated IAIs are timely effective source control with appropriate antimicrobial therapy. Empiric antimicrobial therapy is important in the management of intra-abdominal infections and must be broad enough to cover all likely organisms because inappropriate initial antimicrobial therapy is associated with poor patient outcomes and the development of bacterial resistance. The overuse of antimicrobials is widely accepted as a major driver of some emerging infections (such as C. difficile), the selection of resistant pathogens in individual patients, and for the continued development of antimicrobial resistance globally. The growing emergence of multi-drug resistant organisms and the limited development of new agents available to counteract them have caused an impending crisis with alarming implications, especially with regards to Gram-negative bacteria. An international task force from 79 different countries has joined this project by sharing a document on the rational use of antimicrobials for patients with IAIs. The project has been termed AGORA (Antimicrobials: A Global Alliance for Optimizing their Rational Use in Intra-Abdominal Infections). The authors hope that AGORA, involving many of the world's leading experts, can actively raise awareness in health workers and can improve prescribing behavior in treating IAIs

Correlations and the relativistic structure of the nucleon self-energy

A key point of Dirac Brueckner Hartree Fock calculations for nuclear matter is to decompose the self energy of the nucleons into Lorentz scalar and vector components. A new method is introduced for this decomposition. It is based on the dependence of the single-particle energy on the small component in the Dirac spinors used to calculate the matrix elements of the underlying NN interaction. The resulting Dirac components of the self-energy depend on the momentum of the nucleons. At densities around and below the nuclear matter saturation density this momentum dependence is dominated by the non-locality of the Brueckner G matrix. At higher densities these correlation effects are suppressed and the momentum dependence due to the Fock exchange terms is getting more important. Differences between symmetric nuclear matter and neutron matter are discussed. Various versions of the Bonn potential are considered.Comment: 18 pages LaTeX, including 6 figure

Neutron star properties with relativistic equations of state

We study the properties of neutron stars adopting relativistic equations of state of neutron star matter, calculated in the framework of the relativistic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approximation for electrically charge neutral neutron star matter in beta-equilibrium. For higher densities more baryons (hyperons etc.) are included by means of the relativistic Hartree- or Hartree-Fock approximation. The special features of the different approximations and compositions are discussed in detail. Besides standard neutron star properties special emphasis is put on the limiting periods of neutron stars, for which the Kepler criterion and gravitation-reaction instabilities are considered. Furthermore the cooling behaviour of neutron stars is investigated, too. For comparison we give also the outcome for some nonrelativistic equations of state.Comment: 43 pages, 22 ps-figures, to be published in the International Journal of Modern Physics

Cusps of Hilbert modular varieties

Motivated by a question of Hirzebruch on the possible topological types of cusp cross-sections of Hilbert modular varieties, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for a manifold M to be diffeomorphic to a cusp cross-section of a Hilbert modular variety. Specialized to Hilbert modular surfaces, this proves that every Sol 3-manifold is diffeomorphic to a cusp cross-section of a (generalized) Hilbert modular surface. We also deduce an obstruction to geometric bounding in this setting. Consequently, there exist Sol 3-manifolds that cannot arise as a cusp cross-section of a 1-cusped nonsingular Hilbert modular surface.Comment: To appear in Mathematical Proceedings Cambridge Philosophical Societ

Eddy genesis and transformation of Stokes flow in a double-lid-driven cavity. Part 2: deep cavities

This paper extends an earlier work [1] on the development of eddies in rectangular cavities driven by two moving lids. The streamfunction describing Stokes flow in such cavities is expressed as a series of Papkovich-Faddle eigenfunctions. The focus here is deep cavities, i.e. those with large height-to-width aspect ratios, where multiple eddies arise. The aspect ratio of the fully developed eddies is found computationally to be 1.38 > 0.05, which is in close agreement with that obtained from Moffatt's [2] analysis of the decay of a disturbance between infinite stationary parallel plates. Extended control space diagrams for both negative and positive lid speed ratios are presented, and show that the pattern of bifurcation curves seen previously in the single-eddy cavity is repeated at higher aspect ratios, but with a shift in the speed ratio. Several special speed ratios are also identified for which the flow in one or more eddies becomes locally symmetric, resulting in locally symmetric bifurcation curves. By superposing two semi-infinite cavities and using the constant velocity damping factor found by Moffatt, a simple model of a finite multiple-eddy cavity is constructed and used to explain both the repetition of bifurcation patterns and the local symmetries. The speed ratios producing partial symmetry in the cavity are shown to be integer powers of Moffatt's velocity damping factor

F-adjunction

In this paper we study singularities defined by the action of Frobenius in characteristic $p > 0$. We prove results analogous to inversion of adjunction along a center of log canonicity. For example, we show that if $X$ is a Gorenstein normal variety then to every normal center of sharp $F$-purity $W \subseteq X$ such that $X$ is $F$-pure at the generic point of $W$, there exists a canonically defined \bQ-divisor $\Delta_{W}$ on $W$ satisfying (K_X)|_W \sim_{\bQ} K_{W} + \Delta_{W}. Furthermore, the singularities of $X$ near $W$ are "the same" as the singularities of $(W, \Delta_{W})$. As an application, we show that there are finitely many subschemes of a quasi-projective variety that are compatibly split by a given Frobenius splitting. We also reinterpret Fedder's criterion in this context, which has some surprising implications.Comment: 31 pages; to appear in Algebra and Number Theory. Typos corrected, presentation improved throughout. Section 7 subdivided into two sections (7 and 8). The proofs of 4.8, 5.8 and 9.5 improve