Pulmonary Hydatid Cyst with Complicating Aspergillus Infection Presenting as a Refractory Lung Abscess

Background Hydatid disease is rare in the United States. Rarely the hydatid cyst can become infected with mycotic organisms, such as Aspergillus . We describe a young male who presents with clinical features of suppurative lung abscess whose workup diagnosed hydatid cyst complicated by Aspergillus co-infection. Case presentation A 27-year-old Peruvian male was hospitalized because of fever, chills, and productive cough of three months’ duration. Clinical features were consistent with a suppurative lung abscess. Significant findings included leukocytosis with eosinophilia and a chest x-ray showing a large lingular lobe thick walled cavity with a wavy irregular fluid level. The patient ultimately underwent surgical resection of the lingular lobe. Examination of the surgical specimen revealed the cavity to be a hydatid cyst. Histologic examination of the cyst wall showed intense inflammation and several septate hyphae of Aspergillus species. The patient recovered fully and has remained in good health. Conclusion A thick-walled cavity and a wavy meniscus constitute unusual features for an ordinary pyogenic lung abscess and suggests other possibilities. Endogenous cases of hydatid disease are uncommon in the United States, with the majority of cases occurring in immigrants. There are few published case reports describing incidental findings of Aspergillus in a hydatid cyst. The rare occurrence of such a condition can lead to a delay in diagnosis and treatment

Predicting the cost of a 24 V soluble lead flow battery optimised for PV applications

Providing reliable electricity from small-scale renewable power is an important challenge for emerging economies. The soluble lead flow battery (SLFB) is a promising battery for this application, as it has a simple architecture making it relatively robust, and a lifetime of 2000 cycles demonstrated at the cell level. Also, the electrolyte is manufacturable directly from spent lead acid batteries. There is a need for techno-economic models to allow the cost/performance of a complete system to be defined and optimised. Such a model is defined here for the first time and used in a multi-objective optimisation to design a 24 V system for a charging hub in Sierra Leone. A 4 h duration was found to be optimal, and electrolyte for a 3.5 kW/14 kWh system would fit in a 1000 L IBC. Methanesulfonic acid was found to be the largest cost component of the 4 h system, with graphitic bipolar plates next. Both have low raw material costs, and in an optimistic scenario a total component cost of <£50/kWh would be achieved, half that of current NMC Li-ion cells. The greatest technical risk to achieving low cost is deposit thickness of lead dioxide. This important research gap should be addressed

EFFECTS OF CHANGE IN BODY POSTURE ON PLASMA AND SERUM ELECTROLYTES IN NORMAL SUBJECTS AND IN PRIMARY ALDOSTERONISM

We observed that change in body posture from the supine to the erect position in normal volunteers was associated with a rise in circulating potassium and a fall in sodium concentrations, irrespective of whether the electrolytes were measured in serum or plasma, or whether head-up tilt or ambulation was used. In patients with primary aldosteronism, the fall in serum sodium and rise in serum potassium with ambulation tended to obscure the characteristic electrolyte abnormalities of that syndrome. These changes in potassium and sodium could contribute to the rise in aldosterone secretion on orthostasis. The body posture of patients should be considered in the interpretation of plasma and serum electrolyte levels.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75439/1/j.1365-2265.1981.tb02972.x.pd

Observation of non-Hermitian degeneracies in a chaotic exciton-polariton billiard

This research was supported by the Australian Research Council, the ImPACT Program of the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan), the RIKEN iTHES Project, the MURI Center for Dynamic Magneto-Optics, a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (type A), and the State of Bavaria.Exciton-polaritons are hybrid light-matter quasiparticles formed by strongly interacting photons and excitons (electron-hole pairs) in semiconductor microcavities. They have emerged as a robust solid-state platform for next-generation optoelectronic applications as well as for fundamental studies of quantum many-body physics. Importantly, exciton-polaritons are a profoundly open (that is, non-Hermitian) quantum system, which requires constant pumping of energy and continuously decays, releasing coherent radiation. Thus, the exciton-polaritons always exist in a balanced potential landscape of gain and loss. However, the inherent non-Hermitian nature of this potential has so far been largely ignored in exciton-polariton physics. Here we demonstrate that non-Hermiticity dramatically modifies the structure of modes and spectral degeneracies in exciton-polariton systems, and, therefore, will affect their quantum transport, localization and dynamical properties. Using a spatially structured optical pump, we create a chaotic exciton-polariton billiard-a two-dimensional area enclosed by a curved potential barrier. Eigenmodes of this billiard exhibit multiple non-Hermitian spectral degeneracies, known as exceptional points. Such points can cause remarkable wave phenomena, such as unidirectional transport, anomalous lasing/absorption and chiral modes. By varying parameters of the billiard, we observe crossing and anti-crossing of energy levels and reveal the non-trivial topological modal structure exclusive to non-Hermitian systems. We also observe mode switching and a topological Berry phase for a parameter loop encircling the exceptional point. Our findings pave the way to studies of non-Hermitian quantum dynamics of exciton-polaritons, which may uncover novel operating principles for polariton-based devices.PostprintPeer reviewe

Anthropogenic Space Weather

Anthropogenic effects on the space environment started in the late 19th century and reached their peak in the 1960s when high-altitude nuclear explosions were carried out by the USA and the Soviet Union. These explosions created artificial radiation belts near Earth that resulted in major damages to several satellites. Another, unexpected impact of the high-altitude nuclear tests was the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that can have devastating effects over a large geographic area (as large as the continental United States). Other anthropogenic impacts on the space environment include chemical release ex- periments, high-frequency wave heating of the ionosphere and the interaction of VLF waves with the radiation belts. This paper reviews the fundamental physical process behind these phenomena and discusses the observations of their impacts.Comment: 71 pages, 35 figure

A Historiometric Examination of Machiavellianism and a New Taxonomy of Leadership

Although researchers have extensively examined the relationship between charismatic leadership and Machiavellianism (Deluga, 2001; Gardner & Avolio, 1995; House & Howell, 1992), there has been a lack of investigation of Machiavellianism in relation to alternative forms of outstanding leadership. Thus, the purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationship between Machiavellianism and a new taxonomy of outstanding leadership comprised of charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic leaders. Using an historiometric approach, raters assessed Machiavellianism via the communications of 120 outstanding leaders in organizations across the domains of business, political, military, and religious institutions. Academic biographies were used to assess twelve general performance measures as well as twelve general controls and five communication specific controls. The results indicated that differing levels of Machiavellianism is evidenced across the differing leader types as well as differing leader orientation. Additionally, Machiavellianism appears negatively related to performance, though less so when type and orientation are taken into account.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Size Doesn't Matter: Towards a More Inclusive Philosophy of Biology

notes: As the primary author, O’Malley drafted the paper, and gathered and analysed data (scientific papers and talks). Conceptual analysis was conducted by both authors.publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticlePhilosophers of biology, along with everyone else, generally perceive life to fall into two broad categories, the microbes and macrobes, and then pay most of their attention to the latter. ‘Macrobe’ is the word we propose for larger life forms, and we use it as part of an argument for microbial equality. We suggest that taking more notice of microbes – the dominant life form on the planet, both now and throughout evolutionary history – will transform some of the philosophy of biology’s standard ideas on ontology, evolution, taxonomy and biodiversity. We set out a number of recent developments in microbiology – including biofilm formation, chemotaxis, quorum sensing and gene transfer – that highlight microbial capacities for cooperation and communication and break down conventional thinking that microbes are solely or primarily single-celled organisms. These insights also bring new perspectives to the levels of selection debate, as well as to discussions of the evolution and nature of multicellularity, and to neo-Darwinian understandings of evolutionary mechanisms. We show how these revisions lead to further complications for microbial classification and the philosophies of systematics and biodiversity. Incorporating microbial insights into the philosophy of biology will challenge many of its assumptions, but also give greater scope and depth to its investigations