Effect of intraoperative constant rate infusion of lidocaine on short-term survival of dogs with septic peritonitis: 75 cases (2007-2011)

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether intraoperative administration of a lidocaine infusion to dogs with septic peritonitis was associated with short-term (48 hours) survival after surgery. DESIGN Retrospective case series. ANIMALS 75 dogs with septic peritonitis. PROCEDURES Medical records of dogs with septic peritonitis that underwent laparotomy between January 2007 and December 2011 at the Royal Veterinary College were reviewed. Select variables during the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative periods and short-term survival after surgery were compared between dogs that received an opioid only (group O; n = 33) and dogs that received lidocaine (50 \u3bcg/kg/min [22.7 \u3bcg/kg/min], IV; group L; 42) in addition to an opioid during surgery. RESULTS The proportion of dogs that survived for 48 hours after surgery was significantly greater for group L (35/42) than for group O (20/33). Intraoperative infusion of lidocaine increased the odds of short-term survival (OR, 8.77; 95% CI, 1.94 to 39.57). No significant differences were observed between the 2 treatment groups for variables assessed during the preoperative and postoperative periods. During the intraoperative period, more dogs in group L received an IV bolus of a synthetic colloid than did dogs in group O, but the number of IV boluses administered was not associated with short-term survival. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Results indicated that IV infusion of lidocaine might improve the short-term survival of dogs with septic peritonitis. Prospective clinical trials are necessary to determine the efficacy of lidocaine as a supportive treatment for dogs with septic peritonitis

The enigma of facial asymmetry:is there a gender specific pattern of facedness?

Although facial symmetry correlates with facial attractiveness, human faces are often far from symmetrical with one side frequently being larger than the other (Kowner, 1998). Smith (2000) reported that male and female faces were asymmetrical in opposite directions, with males having a larger area on the left side compared to the right side, and females having a larger right side compared to the left side. The present study attempted to replicate and extend this finding. Two databases of facial images from Stirling and St Andrews Universities, consisting of 180 and 122 faces respectively, and a third set of 62 faces collected at Abertay University, were used to examine Smith's findings. Smith's unique method of calculating the size of each hemiface was applied to each set. For the Stirling and St Andrews sets a computer program did this automatically and for the Abertay set it was done manually. No significant overall effect of gender on facial area asymmetry was found. However, the St Andrews sample demonstrated a similar effect to that found by Smith, with females having a significantly larger mean area of right hemiface and males having a larger left hemiface. In addition, for the Abertay faces handedness had a significant effect on facial asymmetry with right-handers having a larger left side of the face. These findings give limited support for Smith's results but also suggest that finding such an asymmetry may depend on some as yet unidentified factors inherent in some methods of image collection

LuxS-independent formation of AI-2 from ribulose-5-phosphate

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In many bacteria, the signal molecule AI-2 is generated from its precursor <it>S</it>-ribosyl-L-homocysteine in a reaction catalysed by the enzyme LuxS. However, generation of AI-2-like activity has also been reported for organisms lacking the <it>luxS </it>gene and the existence of alternative pathways for AI-2 formation in <it>Escherichia coli </it>has recently been predicted by stochastic modelling. Here, we investigate the possibility that spontaneous conversion of ribulose-5-phosphate could be responsible for AI-2 generation in the absence of <it>luxS</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Buffered solutions of ribulose-5-phosphate, but not ribose-5-phosphate, were found to contain high levels of AI-2 activity following incubation at concentrations similar to those reported <it>in vivo</it>. To test whether this process contributes to AI-2 formation by bacterial cells <it>in vivo</it>, an improved <it>Vibrio harveyi </it>bioassay was used. In agreement with previous studies, culture supernatants of <it>E. coli </it>and <it>Staphylococcus aureus luxS </it>mutants were found not to contain detectable levels of AI-2 activity. However, low activities were detected in an <it>E. coli pgi-eda-edd-luxS </it>mutant, a strain which degrades glucose entirely via the oxidative pentose phosphate pathway, with ribulose-5-phosphate as an obligatory intermediate.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results suggest that LuxS-independent formation of AI-2, via spontaneous conversion of ribulose-5-phosphate, may indeed occur <it>in vivo</it>. It does not contribute to AI-2 formation in wildtype <it>E. coli </it>and <it>S. aureus </it>under the conditions tested, but may be responsible for the AI-2-like activities reported for other organisms lacking the <it>luxS </it>gene.</p

A quasi classical approach to fully differential ionization cross sections

A classical approximation to time dependent quantum mechanical scattering in the M\o{}ller formalism is presented. Numerically, our approach is similar to a standard Classical-Trajectory-Monte-Carlo calculation. Conceptually, however, our formulation allows one to release the restriction to stationary initial distributions. This is achieved by a classical forward-backward propagation technique. As a first application and for comparison with experiment we present fully differential cross sections for electron impact ionization of atomic hydrogen in the Erhardt geometry.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

AI-2 does not function as a quorum sensing molecule in Campylobacter jejuni during exponential growth in vitro

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Campylobacter jejuni </it>contains a homologue of the <it>luxS </it>gene shown to be responsible for the production of the signalling molecule autoinducer-2 (AI-2) in <it>Vibrio harveyi </it>and <it>Vibrio cholerae</it>. The aim of this study was to determine whether AI-2 acted as a diffusible quorum sensing signal controlling <it>C. jejuni </it>gene expression when it is produced at high levels during mid exponential growth phase.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>AI-2 activity was produced by the parental strain NCTC 11168 when grown in rich Mueller-Hinton broth (MHB) as expected, but interestingly was not present in defined Modified Eagles Medium (MEM-α). Consistent with previous studies, the <it>luxS </it>mutant showed comparable growth rates to the parental strain and exhibited decreased motility halos in both MEM-α and MHB. Microarray analysis of genes differentially expressed in wild type and <it>luxS </it>mutant strains showed that many effects on mRNA transcript abundance were dependent on the growth medium and linked to metabolic functions including methionine metabolism. Addition of exogenously produced AI-2 to the wild type and the <it>luxS </it>mutant, growing exponentially in either MHB or MEM-α did not induce any transcriptional changes as analysed by microarray.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Taken together these results led us to conclude that there is no evidence for the role of AI-2 in cell-to-cell communication in <it>C. jejuni </it>strain NCTC 11168 under the growth conditions used, and that the effects of the <it>luxS </it>mutation on the transcriptome are related to the consequential loss of function in the activated methyl cycle.</p

Identification and Energy Measurements of Light Particles with a CsI(Tl)-Photodiode Combination

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

A semi-classical over-barrier model for charge exchange between highly charged ions and one-optical electron atoms

Absolute total cross sections for electron capture between slow, highly charged ions and alkali targets have been recently measured. It is found that these cross sections follow a scaling law with the projectile charge which is different from the one previously proposed basing on a classical over-barrier model (OBM) and verified using rare gases and molecules as targets. In this paper we develop a "semi-classical" (i.e. including some quantal features) OBM attempting to recover experimental results. The method is then applied to ion-hydrogen collisions and compared with the result of a sophisticated quantum-mechanical calculation. In the former case the accordance is very good, while in the latter one no so satisfactory results are found. A qualitative explanation for the discrepancies is attempted.Comment: RevTeX, uses epsf; 6 pages text + 3 EPS figures Journal of Physics B (scehduled March 2000). This revision corrects fig.

Smash products for secondary homotopy groups

We construct a smash product operation on secondary homotopy groups yielding the structure of a lax symmetric monoidal functor. Applications on cup-one products, Toda brackets and Whitehead products are considered. In particular we prove a formula for the crossed effect of the cup-one product operation on unstable homotopy groups of spheres which was claimed by Barratt-Jones-Mahowald.Comment: We give a clearer description of the tensor product of symmetric sequences of quadratic pair module

A quasi classical approach to electron impact ionization

A quasi classical approximation to quantum mechanical scattering in the Moeller formalism is developed. While keeping the numerical advantage of a standard Classical--Trajectory--Monte--Carlo calculation, our approach is no longer restricted to use stationary initial distributions. This allows one to improve the results by using better suited initial phase space distributions than the microcanonical one and to gain insight into the collision mechanism by studying the influence of different initial distributions on the cross section. A comprehensive account of results for single, double and triple differential cross sections for atomic hydrogen will be given, in comparison with experiment and other theories.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures, submitted to J Phys

Surprising variations in the rotation of the chemically peculiar stars CU Virginis and V901 Orionis

CU Vir and V901 Ori belong among these few magnetic chemically peculiar stars whose rotation periods vary on timescales of decades. We aim to study the stability of the periods in CU Vir and V901 Ori using all accessible observational data containing phase information. We collected all available relevant archived observations supplemented with our new measurements of these stars and analysed the period variations of the stars using a novel method that allows for the combination of data of diverse sorts. We found that the shapes of their phase curves were constant, while the periods were changing. Both stars exhibit alternating intervals of rotational braking and acceleration. The rotation period of CU Vir was gradually shortening until the year 1968, when it reached its local minimum of 0.52067198 d. The period then started increasing, reaching its local maximum of 0.5207163 d in the year 2005. Since that time the rotation has begun to accelerate again. We also found much smaller period changes in CU Vir on a timescale of several years. The rotation period of V901 Ori was increasing for the past quarter-century, reaching a maximum of 1.538771 d in the year 2003, when the rotation period began to decrease. A theoretically unexpected alternating variability of rotation periods in these stars would remove the spin-down time paradox and brings a new insight into structure and evolution of magnetic upper-main-sequence stars.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure