2,161 research outputs found
Pharmacokinetics, in-vitro activity, therapeutic efficacy and clinical safety of aztreonam vs. cefotaxime in the treatment of complicated urinary tract infections
The minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of aztreonam and cefotaxime were determined against 400 isolates from urological in-patients with complicated and/or hospital acquired urinary tract infections (UTI). Against the Gram-negative rods the activities of both antibiotics were comparable except for higher activity of aztreonam against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The pharmacokinetic study in nine elderly patients showed a prolonged plasma half life of aztreonam (2.7 h) as compared to younger volunteers (1.6-1.9 h). In a prospective randomized study 39 urological patients with complicated and/or hospital acquired UTI were treated with 1 g aztreonam or cefotaxime iv twice daily for 4 to 15 days. Cure was obtained in 5 out of 18 patients in the aztreonam and 7 out of 20 patients in the cefotaxime group. There were 3 superinfections, 7 relapses and 3 reinfections in the aztreonam group and 1 failure, 1 superinfection, 6 relapses and 5 reinfections in the cefotaxime group. There was no significant difference in therapeutic efficacy between the two antibiotics. Both antibiotics were tolerated well and seem to be equally effective in the treatment of complicated UTI caused by sensitive organisms
Extremal Properties of Ultraspherical Polynomials
AbstractFor the polynomials Pl(x) = al0 + al1x + ... + allxl (of degree l) we consider the problem of maximizing a weighted product of the absolute values of the highest coefficients ânl = 1 |allβl among all polynomials P1, ..., Pn for which the weighted sum of squares ânl = 1 βlP2l(x) is bounded by 1 on the interval [â1, 1]. By an application of a duality result the solutions (depending on the weights βl ⼠0) of these problems are determined. The "optimal" polynomials are the orthonormal polynomials with respect to a probability measure minimizing a weighted product of determinants of Hankel matrices (the solution of the dual problem). For a special class of weights β1, ..., βn the optimal polynomials can be represented in terms of ultraspherical polynomials. Thus some new extremal properties are obtained for these polynomials which generalize the well known fact that among all polynomials Pn of degree n with |Pn(x)| ⤠1 (on [â1, 1]) the maximum of the highest coefficient is obtained for the Chebyshev polynomial of the first kind. The results are illustrated in several examples
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A management architecture for active networks
In this paper we present an architecture for network and applications management, which is based on the Active Networks paradigm and shows the advantages of network programmability. The stimulus to develop this architecture arises from an actual need to manage a cluster of active nodes, where it is often required to redeploy network assets and modify nodes connectivity. In our architecture, a remote front-end of the managing entity allows the operator to design new network topologies, to check the status of the nodes and to configure them. Moreover, the proposed framework allows to explore an active network, to monitor the active applications, to query each node and to install programmable traps. In order to take advantage of the Active Networks technology, we introduce active SNMP-like MIBs and agents, which are dynamic and programmable. The programmable management agents make tracing distributed applications a feasible task. We propose a general framework that can inter-operate with any active execution environment. In this framework, both the manager and the monitor front-ends communicate with an active node (the Active Network Access Point) through the XML language. A gateway service performs the translation of the queries from XML to an active packet language and injects the code in the network. We demonstrate the implementation of an active network gateway for PLAN (Packet Language for Active Networks) in a forty active nodes testbed. Finally, we discuss an application of the active management architecture to detect the causes of network failures by tracing network events in time
D-optimal designs via a cocktail algorithm
A fast new algorithm is proposed for numerical computation of (approximate)
D-optimal designs. This "cocktail algorithm" extends the well-known vertex
direction method (VDM; Fedorov 1972) and the multiplicative algorithm (Silvey,
Titterington and Torsney, 1978), and shares their simplicity and monotonic
convergence properties. Numerical examples show that the cocktail algorithm can
lead to dramatically improved speed, sometimes by orders of magnitude, relative
to either the multiplicative algorithm or the vertex exchange method (a variant
of VDM). Key to the improved speed is a new nearest neighbor exchange strategy,
which acts locally and complements the global effect of the multiplicative
algorithm. Possible extensions to related problems such as nonparametric
maximum likelihood estimation are mentioned.Comment: A number of changes after accounting for the referees' comments
including new examples in Section 4 and more detailed explanations throughou
Anisotropic Radial Layout for Visualizing Centrality and Structure in Graphs
This paper presents a novel method for layout of undirected graphs, where
nodes (vertices) are constrained to lie on a set of nested, simple, closed
curves. Such a layout is useful to simultaneously display the structural
centrality and vertex distance information for graphs in many domains,
including social networks. Closed curves are a more general constraint than the
previously proposed circles, and afford our method more flexibility to preserve
vertex relationships compared to existing radial layout methods. The proposed
approach modifies the multidimensional scaling (MDS) stress to include the
estimation of a vertex depth or centrality field as well as a term that
penalizes discord between structural centrality of vertices and their alignment
with this carefully estimated field. We also propose a visualization strategy
for the proposed layout and demonstrate its effectiveness using three social
network datasets.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 25th International Symposium on
Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2017
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