Daily antibiotic cost of nosocomial infections in a Turkish university hospital

BACKGROUND: Many studies associated nosocomial infections with increased hospital costs due to extra days in hospital, staff time, extra investigations and drug treatment. The cost of antibiotic treatment for these infections represents a significant part of hospital expenditure. This prospective observational study was designed to determine the daily antibiotic cost of nosocomial infections per infected adult patient in Akdeniz University Hospital. METHODS: All adult patients admitted to the ICUs between January 1, 2000, and June 30, 2003 who had only one nosocomial infection during their stay were included in the study. Infection sites and pathogens, antimicrobial treatment of patient and it's cost were recorded. Daily antibiotic costs were calculated per infected patient. RESULTS: Among the 8460 study patients, 817 (16.6%) developed 1407 episodes of nosocomial infection. Two hundred thirty three (2.7%) presented with only one nosocomial infection. Mean daily antibiotic cost was $89.64. Daily antibiotic cost was$99.02 for pneumonia, $94.32 for bloodstream infection,$94.31 for surgical site infection, $52.37 for urinary tract infection, and$162.35 for the other infections per patient. The treatment of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections was the most expensive infection treated. Piperacillin-tazobactam and amikacin were the most prescribed antibiotics, and meropenem was the most expensive drug for treatment of the nosocomial infections in the ICU. CONCLUSIONS: Daily antibiotic cost of nosocomial infections is an important part of extra costs that should be reduced providing rational antibiotic usage in hospitals

A change in the optical polarization associated with a gamma-ray flare in the blazar 3C 279

It is widely accepted that strong and variable radiation detected over all accessible energy bands in a number of active galaxies arises from a relativistic, Doppler-boosted jet pointing close to our line of sight. The size of the emitting zone and the location of this region relative to the central supermassive black hole are, however, poorly known, with estimates ranging from light-hours to a light-year or more. Here we report the coincidence of a gamma-ray flare with a dramatic change of optical polarization angle. This provides evidence for co-spatiality of optical and gamma-ray emission regions and indicates a highly ordered jet magnetic field. The results also require a non-axisymmetric structure of the emission zone, implying a curved trajectory for the emitting material within the jet, with the dissipation region located at a considerable distance from the black hole, at about 10^5 gravitational radii.Comment: Published in Nature issued on 18 February 2010. Corresponding authors: Masaaki Hayashida and Greg Madejsk

Degradation of Internalized αvβ5 Integrin Is Controlled by uPAR Bound uPA: Effect on β1 Integrin Activity and α-SMA Stress Fiber Assembly

Myofibroblasts (Mfs) that persist in a healing wound promote extracellular matrix (ECM) accumulation and excessive tissue contraction. Increased levels of integrin αvβ5 promote the Mf phenotype and other fibrotic markers. Previously we reported that maintaining uPA (urokinase plasminogen activator) bound to its cell-surface receptor, uPAR prevented TGFβ-induced Mf differentiation. We now demonstrate that uPA/uPAR controls integrin β5 protein levels and in turn, the Mf phenotype. When cell-surface uPA was increased, integrin β5 levels were reduced (61%). In contrast, when uPA/uPAR was silenced, integrin β5 total and cell-surface levels were increased (2–4 fold). Integrin β5 accumulation resulted from a significant decrease in β5 ubiquitination leading to a decrease in the degradation rate of internalized β5. uPA-silencing also induced α-SMA stress fiber organization in cells that were seeded on collagen, increased cell area (1.7 fold), and increased integrin β1 binding to the collagen matrix, with reduced activation of β1. Elevated cell-surface integrin β5 was necessary for these changes after uPA-silencing since blocking αvβ5 function reversed these effects. Our data support a novel mechanism by which downregulation of uPA/uPAR results in increased integrin αvβ5 cell-surface protein levels that regulate the activity of β1 integrins, promoting characteristics of the persistent Mf

How environmental managers perceive and approach the issue of invasive species: the case of Japanese knotweed s.l. (Rhône River, France)

We would like to thank Springer for publishing our article. The final publication is available at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10530-015-0969-1International audienceStudying the perceptions of stakeholders or interested parties is a good way to better understand behaviours and decisions. This is especially true for the management of invasive species such as Japanese knotweed s.l. This plant has spread widely in the Rhône basin, where significant financial resources have been devoted to its management. However, no control technique is recognized as being particularly effective. Many uncertainties remain and many documents have been produced by environmental managers to disseminate current knowledge about the plant and its management. This article aims at characterizing the perceptions that environmental managers have of Japanese knotweed s.l. A discourse analysis was conducted on the printed documentation produced about Japanese knotweed s.l. by environmental managers working along the Rhône River (France). The corpus was both qualitatively and quantitatively analysed. The results indicated a diversity of perceptions depending on the type of environmental managers involved, as well as the geographicalareas and scales on which they acted. Whereas some focused on general knowledge relating to the origins and strategies of colonization, others emphasized the diversity and efficacy of the prospective eradication techniques. There is a real interest in implementing targeted actions to meet local issues. To do so, however, these issues must be better defined. This is a challenging task, as it must involve all types of stakeholders

Association Analysis of 94 Candidate Genes and Schizophrenia-Related Endophenotypes

While it is clear that schizophrenia is highly heritable, the genetic basis of this heritability is complex. Human genetic, brain imaging, and model organism studies have met with only modest gains. A complementary research tactic is to evaluate the genetic substrates of quantitative endophenotypes with demonstrated deficits in schizophrenia patients. We used an Illumina custom 1,536-SNP array to interrogate 94 functionally relevant candidate genes for schizophrenia and evaluate association with both the qualitative diagnosis of schizophrenia and quantitative endophenotypes for schizophrenia. Subjects included 219 schizophrenia patients and normal comparison subjects of European ancestry and 76 schizophrenia patients and normal comparison subjects of African ancestry, all ascertained by the UCSD Schizophrenia Research Program. Six neurophysiological and neurocognitive endophenotype test paradigms were assessed: prepulse inhibition (PPI), P50 suppression, the antisaccade oculomotor task, the Letter-Number Span Test, the California Verbal Learning Test-II, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test-64 Card Version. These endophenotype test paradigms yielded six primary endophenotypes with prior evidence of heritability and demonstrated schizophrenia-related impairments, as well as eight secondary measures investigated as candidate endophenotypes. Schizophrenia patients showed significant deficits on ten of the endophenotypic measures, replicating prior studies and facilitating genetic analyses of these phenotypes. A total of 38 genes were found to be associated with at least one endophenotypic measure or schizophrenia with an empirical p-value<0.01. Many of these genes have been shown to interact on a molecular level, and eleven genes displayed evidence for pleiotropy, revealing associations with three or more endophenotypic measures. Among these genes were ERBB4 and NRG1, providing further support for a role of these genes in schizophrenia susceptibility. The observation of extensive pleiotropy for some genes and singular associations for others in our data may suggest both converging and independent genetic (and neural) pathways mediating schizophrenia risk and pathogenesis

Wound dressings for a proteolytic-rich environment

Wound dressings have experienced continuous and significant changes over the years based on the knowledge of the biochemical events associated with chronic wounds. The development goes from natural materials used to just cover and conceal the wound to interactive materials that can facilitate the healing process, addressing specific issues in non-healing wounds. These new types of dressings often relate with the proteolytic wound environment and the bacteria load to enhance the healing. Recently, the wound dressing research is focusing on the replacement of synthetic polymers by natural protein materials to delivery bioactive agents to the wounds. This article provides an overview on the novel protein-based wound dressings such as silk fibroin keratin and elastin. The improved properties of these dressings, like the release of antibiotics and growth factors, are discussed. The different types of wounds and the effective parameters of healing process will be reviewed

Severe Aplastic Anemia and PNH

Severe aplastic anemia (SAA) is an autoimmune disorder (AID) due to the attack of autoreactive cytotoxic T lymphocytes to the hematopoietic component of the bone marrow