Medical history among Bulgarian patients with fever of unknown origin and low-grade fever

Въведение: Персистиращият фебрилитет с неизвестен произход е предизвикателство пред медицинската общност. Целта на тази статияе да се представят анамнестичните данни при български пациенти с неясно фебрилно състояние (НФС) и субфебрилна температура.Материали и методи: За периода от 01.02.2012г. до 01.08.2015г. в Клиниката по инфекциозни болести към ВМА-София се проведе проспективно проучване на пациенти с НФС и субфебрилитет. Изследвани бяха общо 117 пациенти, от тях с НФС - 88 човека, със субфебрилитет 29 човека. В настоящата работа са използвани следните методи: библиографски метод, метод на сравнението и клинични методи.Резултати: Основните анамнестични данни, имащи принос към поставянето на окончателната диагноза при всички проучени пациенти, са следните - умора, изпотяване, втрисане, главоболие и артралгия.Заключение: Анамнезата е от съществено значение за крайния успех в диагностиката на фебрилитета с неизвестен произход. Тя се явява първа стъпка в диагностичния алгоритъм при НФС.Introduction: The persisting fever of indeterminate genesis is a challenging for the medical society. The aim of this paper was to present the medical history of Bulgarian patients with fever of unknown origin (FUO) and low-grade fever (non-FUO).Materials and methods: A prospective study of patients with FUO and non-FUO was done at the Department of Infectious Diseases, Military Medical Academy (Sofia, BG) for the period: 1st February 2012 - 1st August 2015. A population of 117 patients were analyzed, 88 - FUO, 29 - non-FUO. The following methods were applied: literature review, a method of comparison and clinical evaluation.Results: The main historical data which are leading to the final diagnosis in the whole analyzed group were: fatigue, sweats, chills, headache and arthralgia.Conclusion: The medical history is a basic key in the diagnostic pathway to the final diagnosis in case of fever of undetermined origin. This is the first step in the diagnostic algorithm

Hepatitis E Virus Infection in Bulgaria: A Brief Analysis of the Situation in the Country

BACKGROUND: Over the past two decades, more thorough investigations for hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection have been done in the world. Reports from Southeast European countries have increased. AIM: The current article presents a critical analysis of all studies for HEV in Bulgaria. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A literature search was done using available medical databases. We analysed the literature in PubMed databases and Bulgarian medical databases for English and Bulgarian languages sources. Preference was given to the sources published within the past 24 years (January 1995 – September 2018). RESULTS: Two thousand two hundred and fifty-seven blood serums were tested for the analysed period (1995 – 2018), and 13.1% of them were positive for acute HEV (Mean ± SD: 20.38 ± 25.77%; 95% CI: 1.29 – 39.47%). The following subtypes were established in the country – HEV Subtype 3e, HEV Subtype 3f, HEV Subtype 3c, HEV Subtype 3i, HEV Subtype 3hi and HEV Subtype 1. CONCLUSION: We hope that the National Health Organizations will take adequate and timely measures to increase the knowledge and research for HEV among Bulgarian citizens

Infekcija virusom Zapadnog Nila s neurološkim poremećajima: prikaz slučaja i kratak pregled stanja u Bugarskoj

A case of a 66-year-old man with West Nile neuroinvassive disease manifested with fever, weakness, fa-tigue, consciousness disorders and underlying diabetes mellitus type 2 and cardiovascular diseases is pre-sented. Laboratory data showed elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate and fibrinogen. Serological tests revealed West Nile virus specific antibodies of class IgM and IgG in serum. West Nile virus RNA was de-tected in urine sample. Supportive therapy was applied.Prikazuje se slučaj 66-godišnjeg bolesnika s neuroinvazivnom bolešću Zapadnog Nila koja se manifestirala grozni-com, umorom, poremećajem svijesti uz osnovnu bolest dijabetesa tipa 2 i kardiovaskularnom bolešću. Laboratorij-ski podaci pokazali su povišenu sedimentaciju i fibrinogen. Serološki testovi utvrdili su protutijela specifična za virus Zapadnog Nila klase IgM i IgG u serumu. Virusna RNA otkrivena je u uzorku mokraće. Primijenjena je suportivna terapija

Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis: Case reports

Синдромът на Стивънс-Джонсън и токсичната епидермална некролиза са редки заболявания. В настоящата статия представяме трима пациенти с вероятен синдром на Стивънс-Джонсън и токсична епидермална некролиза, лекувани в МБАЛ-Пазарджик от април 2012 г. до май 2015г. Тримата болни се повлияха добре от проведената терапия и бяха изписани с подобрение.Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis are rare diseases. In this article we present three clinical cases of probable Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis. They were treated at the Department of Infectious Diseases, Hospital of Pazardjik (BG) for the period of April 2012 to May 2015. The patients responded well after application of supportive therapy and were discharged with improvement

Fever of unknown origin and Q-fever: a case series in a Bulgarian hospital

Background: Fever of unknown origin (FUO) is a perplexing medical problem. The causes for FUO are more than 200 diseases. The aim of the study was to present human clinical cases of Coxiella burnetii infection debuting as FUO. Methods: The following methods were conducted in the study: literature search, laboratory, imaging, and statistical methods. Criteria of Durack and Street were applied for FUO definition. For the etiological diagnosis indirect immunoenzyme assay (ELISA) for antibodies detection against Coxiella burnetii was used (cut-off = 0.481–0.519). Results: From 2008 until 2015, nine patients with FUO caused by C. burnetii were hospitalized at the Military Medical Academy of Sofia. Male gender was predominant (male/female – 77.8 /22.2), mean age was 48.78±14.52 years (range: 26–67), hospital stay was 9.78±2.95 days (range: 5–15), fever duration was 54.33±56.23 days (range: 21–180). Laboratory investigations estimated the elevation of erythrocyte sedimentation rate 49.11±31.74mm/h (95CI = 13.09–111.31), C-reactive protein 37.68±37.62mg/L (95 CI = 36.07–111.42) and fibrinogen 5.69±1.59g/L (95 CI=2.57–8.81). The mean values of liver enzymes were in reference range. Among imaging tests, abdominal ultrasound and X-ray demonstrated 33.3 contribution to the final diagnosis. Transthoracic echocardiography found 22.2 contribution. Serological methods presented 100 contribution. Conclusion: C. burnetii infection was accepted as a final diagnosis among 9 patients with FUO based on the integrated information from the applied methods. Active search and establishment of this pathogen among FUO should lead to avoiding potential complications and consequences in case of untreated patients infected with C. burnetii

Atomic Layer Deposition of PbS Thin Films at Low Temperatures

doi: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.0c01887Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a viable method for depositing functional, passivating, and encapsulating layers on top of halide perovskites. Studies in that area have only focused on metal oxides, despite a great number of materials that can be made with ALD. This work demonstrates that, in addition to oxides, other ALD processes can be compatible with the perovskites. We describe two new ALD processes for lead sulfide. These processes operate at low deposition temperatures (45-155 degrees C) that have been inaccessible to previous ALD PbS processes. Our processes rely on volatile and reactive lead precursors Pb(dbda) (dbda = rac-N-2,N-3-di-tertbutylbutane-2,3-diamide) and Pb(btsa)(2) (btsa = bis(trimethylsilyl)amide) as well as H2S. These precursors produce high quality PbS thin films that are uniform, crystalline, and pure. The films exhibit p- type conductivity and good mobilities of 10-70 cm(2) V-1 s(-1). Low deposition temperatures enable direct ALD of PbS onto a halide perovskite CH3NH3PbI3 (MAPI) without its decomposition. The stability of MAPI in ambient air is greatly improved by capping with ALD PbS. More generally, these new processes offer valuable alternatives for PbS-based devices, and we hope that this study will inspire more studies on ALD of non-oxides on halide perovskites.Peer reviewe

Atomic layer deposition of PbCl2, PbBr2 and mixed lead halide (Cl, Br, I) PbXnY2-n thin films

Atomic layer deposition offers outstanding film uniformity and conformality on substrates with high aspect ratio features. These qualities are essential for mixed-halide perovskite films applied in tandem solar cells, transistors and light-emitting diodes. The optical and electronic properties of mixed-halide perovskites can be adjusted by adjusting the ratios of different halides. So far ALD is only capable of depositing iodine-based halide perovskites whereas other halide processes are lacking. We describe six new low temperature (Peer reviewe

Twistor Strings with Flavour

We explore the tree-level description of a class of N=2 UV-finite SYM theories with fundamental flavour within a topological B-model twistor string framework. In particular, we identify the twistor dual of the Sp(N) gauge theory with one antisymmetric and four fundamental hypermultiplets, as well as that of the SU(N) theory with 2N hypermultiplets. This is achieved by suitably orientifolding/orbifolding the original N=4 setup of Witten and adding a certain number of new topological 'flavour'-branes at the orientifold/orbifold fixed planes to provide the fundamental matter. We further comment on the appearance of these objects in the B-model on CP(3|4). An interesting aspect of our construction is that, unlike the IIB description of these theories in terms of D3 and D7-branes, on the twistor side part of the global flavour symmetry is realised geometrically. We provide evidence for this correspondence by calculating and matching amplitudes on both sides.Comment: 38+12 pages; uses axodraw.sty. v2: References added, minor clarification

Recommended reading list of early publications on atomic layer deposition-Outcome of the "Virtual Project on the History of ALD"

Atomic layer deposition (ALD), a gas-phase thin film deposition technique based on repeated, self-terminating gas-solid reactions, has become the method of choice in semiconductor manufacturing and many other technological areas for depositing thin conformal inorganic material layers for various applications. ALD has been discovered and developed independently, at least twice, under different names: atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) and molecular layering. ALE, dating back to 1974 in Finland, has been commonly known as the origin of ALD, while work done since the 1960s in the Soviet Union under the name "molecular layering" (and sometimes other names) has remained much less known. The virtual project on the history of ALD (VPHA) is a volunteer-based effort with open participation, set up to make the early days of ALD more transparent. In VPHA, started in July 2013, the target is to list, read and comment on all early ALD academic and patent literature up to 1986. VPHA has resulted in two essays and several presentations at international conferences. This paper, based on a poster presentation at the 16th International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition in Dublin, Ireland, 2016, presents a recommended reading list of early ALD publications, created collectively by the VPHA participants through voting. The list contains 22 publications from Finland, Japan, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and United States. Up to now, a balanced overview regarding the early history of ALD has been missing; the current list is an attempt to remedy this deficiency. (C) 2016 Author(s).Peer reviewe

Search for scalar leptoquarks in the acoplanar jet topology in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV

A search for leptoquarks has been performed in 310 pb-1 of data from ppbar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV, collected by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The topology analyzed consists of acoplanar jets with missing transverse energy. The data show good agreement with standard model expectations, and a lower mass limit of 136 GeV has been set at the 95% C.L. for a scalar leptoquark decaying exclusively into a quark and a neutrino.Comment: Minor changes in v2 to match the published version, 8 pages, 5 figure