473 research outputs found
Promoting quality through measurement of performance and response: prevention success stories.
Successful efforts to prevent health-care acquired infections occur daily in U.S. hospitals. However, few of these "success stories" are presented in the medical literature or discussed at professional meetings. Key components of successful prevention efforts include multidisciplinary teams, appropriate educational interventions, and data dissemination to clinical staff
Women's knowledge of maternal danger signs during pregnancy: Findings from a cross-sectional survey in Papua New Guinea
© 2019 Objective: To explore knowledge of pregnancy related danger signs among women attending antenatal clinics in Papua New Guinea. Design: Cross-sectional survey undertaken as part of a wider integrated health and demographic survey. Setting: Three sites in Papua New Guinea: Hiri District (Central Province), Karkar (Madang Province) and Asaro (Eastern Highlands Province). Participants: 482 women aged 15–44 years. Findings: Almost all (95.2%; 459/482) women attended for antenatal care at least once; 68.2% attended four or more times. Among women who attended the antenatal clinic, 53.6% (246/459) reported receiving information about danger signs in pregnancy from a health worker. Of these 60.2% (148/246) could recall at least one danger sign. In addition, 16.4% (35/213) of women who did not receive information from the antenatal clinic reported pregnancy related danger signs. Among the 183 women who reported danger signs, 47.5% (87/183) reported fever; 39.3% (72/183) reported vaginal bleeding and 36.6% (67/183) reported swelling of the face, legs and arms. Women who reported receiving information at the antenatal clinic were significantly more likely know any danger signs, compared with women who did not receive information at the antenatal clinic (OR 7.68 (95%CI: 4.93, 11.96); p = <0.001). Knowledge of danger signs was significantly associated with secondary school education, compared with none or only primary education (OR 3.08 (95% CI: 2.06, 4.61); p = <0.001). Conclusions and implications for practice: Every antenatal clinic visit should be used opportunistically to provide women with information about key danger signs during pregnancy and childbirth. Recognising maternal danger signs, together with the importance of seeking early transfer to the health facility and the importance of attending for a health facility birth are critical to improving outcomes for mothers and babies especially in low income settings such as Papua New Guinea
Electron-phonon relaxation and excited electron distribution in zinc oxide and anatase
We propose a first-principle method for evaluations of the time-dependent
electron distribution function of excited electrons in the conduction band of
semiconductors. The method takes into account the excitations of electrons by
external source and the relaxation to the bottom of conduction band via
electron-phonon coupling. The methods permits calculations of the
non-equilibrium electron distribution function, the quasi-stationary
distribution function with steady-in-time source of light, the time of setting
of the quasi-stationary distribution and the time of energy loss via relaxation
to the bottom of conduction band. The actual calculations have been performed
for titanium dioxide in the anatase structure and zinc oxide in the wurtzite
structure. We find that the quasi-stationary electron distribution function for
ZnO is a fermi-like curve that rises linearly with increasing excitation energy
whereas the analogous curve for anatase consists of a main peak and a shoulder.
The calculations demonstrate that the relaxation of excited electrons and the
setting of the quasi-stationary distribution occur within the time no more than
500 fsec for ZnO and 100 fsec for anatase.
We also discuss the applicability of the effective phonon model with
energy-independent electron-phonon transition probability. We find that the
model only reproduces the trends in changing of the characteristic times
whereas the precision of such calculations is not high. The rate of energy
transfer to phonons at the quasi-stationary electron distribution also have
been evaluated and the effect of this transfer on the photocatalyses has been
discussed. We found that for ZnO this rate is about 5 times less than in
anatase.Comment: 21 p., 9 figure
Cystatins as calpain inhibitors: Engineered chicken cystatin- and stefin B-kininogen domain 2 hybrids support a cystatin-like mode of interaction with the catalytic subunit of μ-calpain
Within the cystatin superfamily, only kininogen domain 2 (KD2) is able to inhibit μ- and m-calpain. In an attempt to elucidate the structural requirements of cystatins for calpain inhibition, we constructed recombinant hybrids of human stefin B (an intracellular family 1 cystatin) with KD2 and Delta L110 deletion mutants of chicken cystatin-KD2 hybrids. Substitution of the N-terminal contact region of stefin B by the corresponding KD2 sequence resulted in a calpain inhibitor of K-i = 188 nM. Deletion of L110, which forms a beta -bulge in family 1 and 2 cystatins but is lacking in KD2, improved inhibition of mu -calpain 4- to 8-fold. All engineered cystatins were temporary inhibitors of calpain due to slow substrate-like cleavage of a single peptide bond corresponding to Gly9-Ala10 in chicken cystatin. Biomolecular interaction analysis revealed that, unlike calpastatin, the cystatin-type inhibitors do not bind to the calmodulin-like domain of the small subunit of calpain, and their interaction with the mu -calpain heterodimer is completely prevented by a synthetic peptide comprising subdomain B of calpastatin domain 1. Based on these results we propose that (i) cystatin-type calpain inhibitors interact with the active site of the catalytic domain of calpain in a similar cystatin-like mode as with papain and (ii) the potential for calpain inhibition is due to specific subsites within the papain-binding regions of the general cystatin fold
Feeding back surveillance data to prevent hospital-acquired infections.
We describe the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance system. Elements of the system critical for successful reduction of nosocomial infection rates include voluntary participation and confidentiality; standard definitions and protocols; identification of populations at high risk; site-specific, risk- adjusted infection rates comparable across institutions; adequate numbers of trained infection control professionals; dissemination of data to health-care providers; and a link between monitored rates and prevention efforts
Observation of Coherently Coupled Cation Spin Dynamics in an Insulating Ferrimagnetic Oxide
Many technologically useful magnetic oxides are ferrimagnetic insulators,
which consist of chemically distinct cations. Here, we examine the spin
dynamics of different magnetic cations in ferrimagnetic NiZnAl-ferrite
(NiZnAlFeO) under continuous microwave
excitation. Specifically, we employ time-resolved x-ray ferromagnetic resonance
to separately probe Fe and Ni cations on different sublattice
sites. Our results show that the precessing cation moments retain a rigid,
collinear configuration to within 2. Moreover, the effective
spin relaxation is identical to within 10% for all magnetic cations in the
ferrite. We thus validate the oft-assumed ``ferromagnetic-like'' dynamics in
resonantly driven ferrimagnetic oxides, where the magnetic moments from
different cations precess as a coherent, collective magnetization
Case of an unusual clinical and radiological presentation of pulmonary metastasis from a costal chondrosarcoma after wide surgical resection: A transbronchial biopsy is recommended
Chondrosarcomas are the most frequently occurring primary malignant chest wall tumors. Furthermore, the lungs serve as the most frequent sites for metastases. Pulmonary metastases from sarcomas usually appear as round nodules of varying sizes on roentgenograms. Here, we report an unusual clinical and radiographic presentation of pulmonary metastasis from a costal chondrosarcoma. Bilateral pulmonary metastases developed soon after wide surgical resection. Thoracic computed tomography revealed unusual radiological findings: consolidation accompanied with ground-glass opacity. To confirm the metastasis, we recommend a transbronchial biopsy in cases where unusual pulmonary findings are detected
Association study with Wegener granulomatosis of the human phospholipase Cγ2 gene
BACKGROUND: Wegener Granulomatosis (WG) is a multifactorial disease of yet unknown aetiology characterized by granulomata of the respiratory tract and systemic necrotizing vasculitis. Analyses of candidate genes revealed several associations, e.g. with α(1)-antitrypsin, proteinase 3 and with the HLA-DPB1 locus. A mutation in the abnormal limb mutant 5 (ALI5) mouse in the region coding for the hydrophobic ridge loop 3 (HRL3) of the phospholipaseCγ2 (PLCγ-2) gene, corresponding to human PLCγ-2 exon 27, leads to acute and chronic inflammation and granulomatosis. For that reason, we screened exons 11, 12 and 13 coding for the hydrophobic ridge loop 1 and 2 (HRL1 and 2, respectively) and exon 27 of the PLCγ-2 protein by single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP), sequencing and PCR/ restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analyses. In addition, we screened indirectly for disease association via 4 microsatellites with pooled DNA in the PLCγ-2 gene. RESULTS: Although a few polymorphisms in these distinct exons were observed, significant differences in allele frequencies were not identified between WG patients and respective controls. In addition, the microsatellite analyses did not reveal a significant difference between our patient and control cohort. CONCLUSION: This report does not reveal any hints for an involvement of the PLCγ-2 gene in the pathogenesis of WG in our case-control study
Room temperature chiral magnetic skyrmion in ultrathin magnetic nanostructures
Magnetic skyrmions are chiral spin structures with a whirling configuration.
Their topological properties, nanometer size and the fact that they can be
moved by small current densities have opened a new paradigm for the
manipulation of magnetisation at the nanoscale. To date, chiral skyrmion
structures have been experimentally demonstrated only in bulk materials and in
epitaxial ultrathin films and under external magnetic field or at low
temperature. Here, we report on the observation of stable skyrmions in
sputtered ultrathin Pt/Co/MgO nanostructures, at room temperature and zero
applied magnetic field. We use high lateral resolution X-ray magnetic circular
dichroism microscopy to image their chiral N\'eel internal structure which we
explain as due to the large strength of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction
as revealed by spin wave spectroscopy measurements. Our results are
substantiated by micromagnetic simulations and numerical models, which allow
the identification of the physical mechanisms governing the size and stability
of the skyrmions.Comment: Submitted version. Extended version to appear in Nature
Nanotechnolog
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