1,520 research outputs found

    Antibiotics to improve recovery following tonsillectomy: a systematic review.

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    OBJECTIVE: To determine if antibiotics improve recovery following tonsillectomy. STUDY DESIGN: DATA SOURCES: Electronic databases Medline, Embase, and Cochrane Controlled Trials Register were searched using relevant search terms. Additional trials, if any, were retrieved by searching the references from all identified trials, reviews, correspondences, editorials, and conference proceedings. No language restriction was applied. STUDY SELECTION: Systematic review of trials in which antibiotic was administered as a study medication intraoperatively and/or postoperatively, in children or adults undergoing tonsillectomy or adenotonsillectomy. Only randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trials attaining preset quality scores were included. Outcomes analyzed: 1) pain, need for analgesia, fever, halitosis, and return to normal diet and activities; 2) secondary hemorrhage using 2 parameters-significant hemorrhage (ie, warranting readmission, blood transfusion, or return to theatre for hemostasis) and total hemorrhage; and 3) adverse events. RESULTS: Five trials met the eligibility criteria. Antibiotics significantly reduced the number of subjects manifesting fever (relative risk [RR]: 0.62, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.45, 0.85) and duration of halitosis (-1.94 [-3.57, -0.30] days), and marginally reduced the time taken to resume normal activity (-0.63 [-1.12, -0.14] days), but had no significant effect in reducing pain scores (-0.01 [-0.60, 0.57]) or need for analgesia. Similarly, there was no significant difference in the time taken to resume normal diet or incidence of significant and total hemorrhage, although data was underpowered to detect differences for these outcomes. In the antibiotic group 4 patients developed an adverse reaction (3 cases of rash and 1 case of oropharyngeal candidiasis), while in the control group 1 patient had an adverse reaction (rash). The RR of antibiotic-related adverse events was 2.45 (0.45, 13.31). CONCLUSION: Antibiotics appear to be effective in reducing some, but not all, morbid outcomes following tonsillectomy, and may increase the risk of adverse events. Further trials are needed to better define the role of antibiotics in facilitating post-tonsillectomy recovery. EBM RATING: A-1a

    Catalytic Performance of Commercial Zeolites Y as Catalyst for Ethylene Production from Ethanol Dehydration

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    Catalytic dehydration of ethanol into ethylene was studied over commercial Zeolites-Y with different Si:Al ratios between 5.1:1 and 80:1, and temperature from 573 K to 773 K. The physicochemical properties of fresh and spent catalyst of Zeolite Y Si:Al 80:1 (best performing catalyst) were investigated using N2-physisorption, TGA, SEM-EDX, NH3-TPD, FTIR and XRD. Results showed that catalysts with higher Si:Al ratios exhibit better catalytic performance in terms of higher ethanol conversion and higher selectivity to ethylene. Indeed, zeolites-Y with Si:Al ratio 5.1:1 and 12:1 demonstrated low catalytic activity with ethanol conversion of 34% and 2%, respectively. However, ethylene selectivity of NH3-Y (5) was 84%, which was considerably higher than NH3-Y (12) which was 26%, indicated that this catalyst was not promoting the formation of other hydrocarbons i.e. methane and ethane. Albeit all of the catalysts namely H-Y (30), H-Y (60) and H-Y (80) showed favorable performance in ethanol dehydration, H-Y (80) attained almost total selectivity to ethylene and highest conversion of 73.0% among all the tested catalysts

    The prevalence of insomnia in the general population in China: A meta-analysis

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    This is the first meta-analysis of the pooled prevalence of insomnia in the general population of China. A systematic literature search was conducted via the following databases: PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE and Chinese databases (China National Knowledge Interne (CNKI), WanFang Data and SinoMed). Statistical analyses were performed using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis program. A total of 17 studies with 115,988 participants met the inclusion criteria for the analysis. The pooled prevalence of insomnia in China was 15.0% (95% Confidence interval [CI]: 12.1%-18.5%). No significant difference was found in the prevalence between genders or across time period. The pooled prevalence of insomnia in population with a mean age of 43.7 years and older (11.6%; 95% CI: 7.5%-17.6%) was significantly lower than in those with a mean age younger than 43.7 years (20.4%; 95% CI: 14.2%-28.2%). The prevalence of insomnia was significantly affected by the type of assessment tools (Q = 14.1, P = 0.001). The general population prevalence of insomnia in China is lower than those reported in Western countries but similar to those in Asian countries. Younger Chinese adults appear to suffer from more insomnia than older adults

    Beyond advocacy: making space for conservation scientists in public debate

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    The topic of advocacy by scientists has been debated for decades, yet there is little agreement about whether scientists can or should be advocates. The fear of crossing a line into advocacy continues to hold many scientists back from contributing to public discourse, impoverishing public debate about important issues. We believe that progress in this debate is limited by a misconception about the relationship between scientific integrity and objectivity. We begin by unpacking this relationship and debunking three common misconceptions about advocacy by scientists: namely, that advocacy is harmful to scientific credibility, beyond the scope of science, and incompatible with science, which is value-free. We propose new ways of thinking about responsible advocacy by conservation scientists, drawing on practices from the health sciences, where researchers and professional bodies are empowered to act as health advocates.In so doing, we hope to open further space for conservation scientists to actively and legitimately engage in public debate about conservation issues

    Immunopathology of Virus-Induced Anterior Uveitis

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    Herpes simplex virus, varicella zoster virus, human cytomegalovirus, and rubella virus are the most common causes of virus-induced anterior uveitis. They can present in a variety of entities not only with typical but also overlapping clinical ch

    Dissolved heavy metals and water quality in the surface waters of rivers and drainages of the West Peninsular Malaysia

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    The dissolved concentrations of metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, Ni, Fe and Zn), temperature, total dissolved solids, pH, dissolved oxygen, salinity and conductivity were determined in the surface waters of 24 geographical sampling sites including city and urban drainages and rivers, from the west Peninsular Malaysia, collected in January to April 2005. From these sampling sites, the ranges (min-max) of dissolved metal concentrations (mg/L) were Cd: 0.001-0.055, Cu: 0.001-0.1773, Pb: 0.001-1.523, Ni: 0.001-0.246, Fe: 0.001-35.67 and Zn: 0.0001-0.609 while for the water quality are pH: 4.96-9.81, dissolved oxygen (0.39-7.26 mg/L), total dissolved solids (0.002-10.02 mg/L), salinity (0.00-8.93 ppt), conductivity (3.33-17423 μS/cm) and temperature (27.8-35.3�). Some sites with elevated dissolved concentrations of heavy metals and poor water quality indicated the anthropogenic inputs of industrial and urban wastes. Regular monitoring of water quality in all drainage waters is recommended

    Leptogenesis from Soft Supersymmetry Breaking (Soft Leptogenesis)

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    Soft leptogenesis is a scenario in which the cosmic baryon asymmetry is produced from a lepton asymmetry generated in the decays of heavy sneutrinos (the partners of the singlet neutrinos of the seesaw) and where the relevant sources of CP violation are the complex phases of soft supersymmetry-breaking terms. We explain the motivations for soft leptogenesis, and review its basic ingredients: the different CP-violating contributions, the crucial role played by thermal corrections, and the enhancement of the efficiency from lepton flavour effects. We also discuss the high temperature regime T>107T > 10^7 GeV in which the cosmic baryon asymmetry originates from an initial asymmetry of an anomalous RR-charge, and soft leptogenesis reembodies in RR-genesis.Comment: References updated. Some minor corrections to match the published versio

    High-reflectivity, high-Q micromechanical membranes via guided resonances for enhanced optomechanical coupling

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    Using Fano-type guided resonances (GRs) in photonic crystal (PhC) slab structures, we numerically and experimentally demonstrate optical reflectivity enhancement of high-Q SiNx membrane-type resonators used in membrane-in-the-middle optomechanical (OM) systems. Normal-incidence transmission and mechanical ringdown measurements of 50-nm-thick PhC membranes demonstrate GRs near 1064 nm, leading to a ~ 4\times increase in reflectivity while preserving high mechanical Q factors of up to ~ 5 \times 10^6. The results would allow improvement of membrane-in-the-middle OM systems by virtue of increased OM coupling, presenting a path towards ground state cooling of such a membrane and observations of related quantum effects

    Flavoured soft leptogenesis and natural values of the B term

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    We revisit flavour effects in soft leptogenesis relaxing the assumption of universality for the soft supersymmetry breaking terms. We find that with respect to the case in which the heavy sneutrinos decay with equal rates and equal CP asymmetries for all lepton flavours, hierarchical flavour configurations can enhance the efficiency by more than two orders of magnitude. This translates in more than three order of magnitude with respect to the one-flavour approximation. We verify that lepton flavour equilibration effects related to off-diagonal soft slepton masses are ineffective for damping these large enhancements. We show that soft leptogenesis can be successful for unusual values of the relevant parameters, allowing for BO(TeV)B\sim {\cal O}({\rm TeV}) and for values of the washout parameter up to meff/m5×103m_{\rm eff}/m_* \sim 5\times 10^{3}.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures postscript, Minor changes to match the published version in JHE
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