Pharmacokinetics, in-vitro activity, therapeutic efficacy and clinical safety of aztreonam vs. cefotaxime in the treatment of complicated urinary tract infections

The minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of aztreonam and cefotaxime were determined against 400 isolates from urological in-patients with complicated and/or hospital acquired urinary tract infections (UTI). Against the Gram-negative rods the activities of both antibiotics were comparable except for higher activity of aztreonam against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The pharmacokinetic study in nine elderly patients showed a prolonged plasma half life of aztreonam (2.7 h) as compared to younger volunteers (1.6-1.9 h). In a prospective randomized study 39 urological patients with complicated and/or hospital acquired UTI were treated with 1 g aztreonam or cefotaxime iv twice daily for 4 to 15 days. Cure was obtained in 5 out of 18 patients in the aztreonam and 7 out of 20 patients in the cefotaxime group. There were 3 superinfections, 7 relapses and 3 reinfections in the aztreonam group and 1 failure, 1 superinfection, 6 relapses and 5 reinfections in the cefotaxime group. There was no significant difference in therapeutic efficacy between the two antibiotics. Both antibiotics were tolerated well and seem to be equally effective in the treatment of complicated UTI caused by sensitive organisms

NJL with eight quark interactions: Chiral phases at finite T

The thermodynamic potential and thermal dependence of low lying mass spectra of scalars and pseudoscalars are evaluated in a generalized Nambu -- Jona-Lasinio model, which incorporates eight-quark interactions. These are necessary to stabilize the scalar effective potential for the light and strange quark flavors, which would be otherwise unbounded from below. In addition it turns out that they are also crucial to i) lower the temperature of the chiral transition, in conformity with lattice calculations, ii) sharpen the temperature interval in which the crossover occurs, iii) or even allow for first order transitions to occur with realistic quark mass values, from certain critical values of the parameters. These are unprecedented results which cannot be obtained within the NJL approaches restricted to quartic and six-quark interactions.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Talk presented at SCADRON 70 Workshop on Scalar Mesons and Related Topics, Lisbon, 11-16 February 200

Serpentinite-derived slab fluids control the oxidation state of the subarc mantle

© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Zhang, Y., Gazel, E., Gaetani, G. A., & Klein, F. Serpentinite-derived slab fluids control the oxidation state of the subarc mantle. Science Advances, 7(48), (2021): eabj2515, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abj2515.Recent geochemical evidence confirms the oxidized nature of arc magmas, but the underlying processes that regulate the redox state of the subarc mantle remain yet to be determined. We established a link between deep subduction-related fluids derived from dehydration of serpentinite ± altered oceanic crust (AOC) using B isotopes and B/Nb as fluid proxies, and the oxidized nature of arc magmas as indicated by Cu enrichment during magma evolution and V/Yb. Our results suggest that arc magmas derived from source regions influenced by a greater serpentinite (±AOC) fluid component record higher oxygen fugacity. The incorporation of this component into the subarc mantle is controlled by the subduction system’s thermodynamic conditions and geometry. Our results suggest that the redox state of the subarc mantle is not homogeneous globally: Primitive arc magmas associated with flat, warm subduction are less oxidized overall than those generated in steep, cold subduction zones.Y.Z. acknowledges funding from the National Science Foundation of China (91958213), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB42020402), and the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation, China (ZR2020QD068). This study was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation NSF EAR 1826673 to E.G. and G.A.G. and OCE 1756349 to E.G

Antibiotic susceptibility pattern and biofilm formation in coagulase negative staphylococci

This item has no abstract. Follow the links below to access the full text.</jats:p

Ticking for Metabolic Health:The Skeletal-Muscle Clocks

To be prepared for alternating metabolic demands occurring over the 24-hour day, the body preserves information on time in skeletal muscle, and all cells, through a circadian clock mechanism. Skeletal muscle can be considered the largest collection of peripheral clocks in the body with a major contribution to whole body energy metabolism. Comparison of circadian clock gene expression between skeletal muscle of nocturnal rodents and diurnal humans reveals very common patterns based on rest/active cycles rather than light/dark cycles. Rodent studies in which the circadian clock is disrupted in skeletal muscle demonstrate impaired glucose handling and insulin resistance. Experimental circadian misalignment in humans modifies the skeletal muscle clocks and leads to disturbed energy metabolism and insulin resistance. Preclinical studies have revealed that timing of exercise over the day can influence the beneficial effects of exercise on skeletal muscle metabolism and studies suggest similar applicability in humans. Current strategies to improve metabolic health, e.g. exercise, should be reinvestigated in their capability to modify the skeletal muscle clocks by taking timing of the intervention into account

Investment Strategies, Performance, And Trading Information Impact

This paper examines a set of investment strategies based on past market information to evaluate performance and trading impact on the Canadian Market. In doing so, we assess whether trading information adds value to the effectiveness of these strategies. Utilizing variant models of four different methodologies, we find strong evidence that supported the Momentum Investment Strategy, which buys past winner stocks and sells past loser stocks. Our evidence did not support Contrarian Investment Strategy, which posits that investors overreact to good and bad news. Our winners’ portfolios outperform our losers’ portfolios.  The Negative Volume Effect Strategy did not work, which is contrary to the Foerster, Prihar and Schmitz (1995) study. We found that winners’ stocks did not reverse in cases of heavy volume; nor did loser stocks reverse in a high volume context. However, we did find that trading information has an impact on stock returns and thus adds value to investment strategies for the 1990 to 2000 investment period.  Investors who combine past price and trading volume information in constructing their investment strategies would achieve higher returns than investors who base their portfolio construction decisions solely on stock prices.University

Milk fatty acid profile related to energy balance in dairy cows

Milk fatty acid (FA) profile is a dynamic pattern influenced by lactational stage, energy balance and dietary composition. In the first part of this study, effects of the energy balance during the proceeding lactation [weeks 1-21 post partum (pp)] on milk FA profile of 30 dairy cows were evaluated under a constant feeding regimen. In the second part, effects of a negative energy balance (NEB) induced by feed restriction on milk FA profile were studied in 40 multiparous dairy cows (20 feed-restricted and 20 control). Feed restriction (energy balance of −63 MJ NEL/d, restriction of 49 % of energy requirements) lasted 3 weeks starting at around 100 days in milk. Milk FA profile changed markedly from week 1 pp up to week 12 pp and remained unchanged thereafter. The proportion of saturated FA (predominantly 10:0, 12:0, 14:0 and 16:0) increased from week 1 pp up to week 12 pp, whereas monounsaturated FA, predominantly the proportion of 18:1,9c decreased as NEB in early lactation became less severe. During the induced NEB, milk FA profile showed a similarly directed pattern as during the NEB in early lactation, although changes were less marked for most FA. Milk FA composition changed rapidly within one week after initiation of feed restriction and tended to adjust to the initial composition despite maintenance of a high NEB. C18:1,9c was increased significantly during the induced NEB indicating mobilization of a considerable amount of adipose tissue. Besides 18:1,9c, changes in saturated FA, monounsaturated FA, de-novo synthesized and preformed FA (sum of FA >C16) reflected energy status in dairy cows and indicated the NEB in early lactation as well as the induced NEB by feed restrictio

Molecular Characterization and Antimicrobial Susceptibility of Staphylococcus aureus Isolates from Clinical Infection and Asymptomatic Carriers in Southwest Nigeria

Few reports from Africa suggest that resistance pattern, virulence factors and genotypes differ between Staphylococcus aureus from nasal carriage and clinical infection.We therefore compared antimicrobial resistance, selected virulence factors and genotypes of S. aureus from nasal carriage and clinical infection in Southwest Nigeria. Non-duplicate S. aureus isolates were obtained from infection (n = 217) and asymptomatic carriers (n = 73) during a cross sectional study in Lagos and Ogun States, Nigeria from 2010–2011. Susceptibility testing was performed using Vitek automated systems. Selected virulence factors were detected by PCR. The population structure was assessed using spa typing. The spa clonal complexes (spa-CC) were deduced using the Based Upon Repeat Pattern algorithm (BURP). Resistance was higher for aminoglycosides in clinical isolates while resistances to quinolones and tetracycline were more prevalent in carrier isolates. The Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) was more frequently detected in isolates from infection compared to carriage (80.2 vs 53.4%; p<0.001, chi2-test). Seven methicillin resistant S. aureus isolates were associated with spa types t002, t008, t064, t194, t8439, t8440 and t8441. The predominant spa types among the methicillin-susceptible S. aureus isolates were t084 (65.5%), t2304 (4.4%) and t8435 (4.1%). spa-CC 084 was predominant among isolates from infection (80.3%, n = 167) and was significantly associated with PVL (OR = 7.1, 95%CI: 3.9– 13.2, p<0.001, chi2- test). In conclusion, PVL positive isolates were more frequently detected among isolates from infection compared to carriage and are associated with spa-CC 084

On some meaningful inner product for real Klein-Gordon fields with positive semi-definite norm

A simple derivation of a meaningful, manifestly covariant inner product for real Klein-Gordon (KG) fields with positive semi-definite norm is provided which turns out - assuming a symmetric bilinear form - to be the real-KG-field limit of the inner product for complex KG fields reviewed by A. Mostafazadeh and F. Zamani in December, 2003, and February, 2006 (quant-ph/0312078, quant-ph/0602151, quant-ph/0602161). It is explicitly shown that the positive semi-definite norm associated with the derived inner product for real KG fields measures the number of active positive and negative energy Fourier modes of the real KG field on the relativistic mass shell. The very existence of an inner product with positive semi-definite norm for the considered real, i.e. neutral, KG fields shows that the metric operator entering the inner product does not contain the charge-conjugation operator. This observation sheds some additional light on the meaning of the C operator in the CPT inner product of PT-symmetric Quantum Mechanics defined by C.M. Bender, D.C. Brody and H.F. Jones.Comment: 8 pages, no figures; correction of obvious typos and marginal improvement of formulation

Images in Christmas Balls

We describe light-reflection properties of spherically curved mirrors, like balls in the Christmas tree. In particular, we study the position of the image which is formed somewhere beyond the surface of a spherical mirror, when an eye observes the image of a pointlike light source. The considered problem, originally posed by Abu Ali Hasan Ibn al-Haitham -- alias Alhazen -- more than a millennium ago, turned out to have the now well known analytic solution of a biquadratic equation, being still of great relevance, e.g. for the aberration-free construction of telescopes. We do not attempt to perform an exhaustive survey of the rich historical and engineering literature on the subject, but develop a simple pedagogical approach to the issue, which we believe to be of continuing interest in view of its maltreating in many high-school textbooks.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures plain LaTeX; Also see http://cft.fis.uc.pt/eef/mirrors.htm, revised version has simplified formulas, more transparent for a wider audience, one reference adde