706 research outputs found
The occurrence and characterization of Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli in organic pigs and their outdoor environment
The occurrence and species distribution of thermophilic Campylobacter was investigated in organic outdoor pigs. An increased exposure of outdoor pigs to C. jejuni from the environment may cause a shift from a normal dominance of C. coli to more C. jejuni, which may imply a concern of reduced food safety.
Bacteriological methods for determination of Campylobacter excretion level were combined with colony-blot hybridization and real-time PCR for specific detection of C. jejuni in pigs. Campylobacter was isolated from pigs (n = 47), paddock environment (n = 126) and wildlife (n = 44), identified to species by real-time PCR and sub-typed by serotyping (Penner) and pulse-field gel electrophorsis (PFGE) genotyping.
All pigs excreted Campylobacter (103â107 CFU g1 faeces) from the age of 8â13-weeks old. C. jejuni was found in 29% of pigs in three consecutive trials and always in minority to C. coli (0.3â46%). C. jejuni and C. coli were isolated from 10% and 29% of the environmental samples, respectively, while crow-birds and rats harboured C. jejuni. Individual pigs hosted several strains (up to nine serotypes). The paddock environment was contaminated with C. coli serotypes similar to pig isolates, while most of the C. jejuni serotypes differed. C. jejuni isolates of different origin comprised few similar serotypes, just one identical genotype was common between pigs, environment and birds.
In conclusion, the occurrence of C. jejuni varied considerably between the three groups of outdoor pigs. Furthermore, transfer of C. jejuni to the outdoor pigs from the nearby environment was not predominant according to the subtype dissimilarities of the obtained isolates
The Nucleon-Nucleon Interaction in the Chromo-Dielectric Soliton Model: Dynamics
The present work is an extension of a previous study of the nucleon-nucleon
interaction based on the chromo-dielectric soliton model. The former approach
was static, leading to an adiabatic potential. Here we perform a dynamical
study in the framework of the Generator Coordinate Method. In practice, we
derive an approximate Hill-Wheeler differential equation and obtain a local
nucleon-nucleon potential as a function of a mean generator coordinate. This
coordinate is related to an effective separation distance between the two
nucleons by a Fujiwara transformation. This latter relationship is especially
useful in studying the quark substructure of light nuclei. We investigate the
explicit contribution of the one-gluon exchange part of the six-quark
Hamiltonian to the nucleon-nucleon potential, and we find that the dynamics are
responsible for a significant part of the short-range N-N repulsion.Comment: 16 pages (REVTEX), 6 figures (uuencoded Postscript) optionally
included using epsfig.st
Can sexual selection drive female life histories? A comparative study on Galliform birds
Sexual selection is an important driver of many of the most spectacular morphological traits that we find in the animal kingdom (for example see Andersson, 1994). As such, sexual selection is most often emphasized as
Changes in physical activity during hospital admission for chronic respiratory disease: Inpatient step count does not recover
Background and objectiveEstablishing the amount of inpatient physical activity (PA) undertaken by individuals hospitalized for chronic respiratory disease is needed to inform interventions. This observational study investigated whether PA changes when a person is an inpatient, how long is required to obtain representative PA measures and whether PA varies within a day and between patients of differing lengths of stay.MethodsA total of 389 participants were recruited as early as possible into their hospitalization. Patients wore a PA monitor from recruitment until discharge. Step count was extracted for a range of wear time criteria. Singleâday intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated, with an ICCââ„â0.80 deemed acceptable.ResultsPA data were available for 259 participants. No changes in daily step count were observed during the inpatient stay (586 (95% CI: 427â744) vs 652 (95% CI: 493â812) steps/day for day 2 and 7, respectively). ICC across all wear time criteria wereâ>â0.80. The most stringent wear time criterion, retaining 80% of the sample, was â„11âh on â„1 day. More steps were taken during the morning and afternoon than overnight and evening. After controlling for the Medical Research Council (MRC) grade or oxygen use, there was no difference in step count between patients admitted for 2â3 days (short stay) and those admitted for 7â14âdays (long stay).ConclusionPatients move little during their hospitalization, and inpatient PA did not increase during their stay. A wear time criterion of 11 waking hours on any single day was representative of the entire admission whilst retaining an acceptable proportion of the initial sample size. Patients may need encouragement to move more during their hospital stay
Recommendations for The Conduct of Economic Evaluations in Osteoporosis: Outcomes of An Expertsâ Consensus Meeting Organized by The European Society for Clinical and Economic Aspects of Osteoporosis, Osteoarthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases (ESCEO) And the US Branch of The International Osteoporosis Foundation
Summary
Economic evaluations are increasingly used to assess the value of health interventions, but variable quality and heterogeneity limit the use of these evaluations by decision-makers. These recommendations provide guidance for the design, conduct, and reporting of economic evaluations in osteoporosis to improve their transparency, comparability, and methodologic standards. Introduction
This paper aims to provide recommendations for the conduct of economic evaluations in osteoporosis in order to improve their transparency, comparability, and methodologic standards. Methods
A working group was convened by the European Society for Clinical and Economic Aspects of Osteoporosis and Osteoarthritis to make recommendations for the design, conduct, and reporting of economic evaluations in osteoporosis, to define an osteoporosis-specific reference case to serve a minimum standard for all economic analyses in osteoporosis, to discuss methodologic challenges and initiate a call for research. A literature review, a face-to-face meeting in New York City (including 11 experts), and a review/approval by a larger group of experts worldwide (including 23 experts in total) were conducted. Results
Recommendations on the type of economic evaluation, methods for economic evaluation, modeling aspects, base-case analysis and population, excess mortality, fracture costs and disutility, treatment characteristics, and model validation were provided. Recommendations for reporting economic evaluations in osteoporosis were also made and an osteoporosis-specific checklist was designed that includes items to report when performing an economic evaluation in osteoporosis. Further, 12 minimum criteria for economic evaluations in osteoporosis were identified and 12 methodologic challenges and need for further research were discussed. Conclusion
While the working group acknowledges challenges and the need for further research, these recommendations are intended to supplement general and national guidelines for economic evaluations, improve transparency, quality, and comparability of economic evaluations in osteoporosis, and maintain methodologic standards to increase their use by decision-makers
Prospects for asteroseismology
The observational basis for asteroseismology is being dramatically
strengthened, through more than two years of data from the CoRoT satellite, the
flood of data coming from the Kepler mission and, in the slightly longer term,
from dedicated ground-based facilities. Our ability to utilize these data
depends on further development of techniques for basic data analysis, as well
as on an improved understanding of the relation between the observed
frequencies and the underlying properties of the stars. Also, stellar modelling
must be further developed, to match the increasing diagnostic potential of the
data. Here we discuss some aspects of data interpretation and modelling,
focussing on the important case of stars with solar-like oscillations.Comment: Proc. HELAS Workshop on 'Synergies between solar and stellar
modelling', eds M. Marconi, D. Cardini & M. P. Di Mauro, Astrophys. Space
Sci., in the press Revision: correcting abscissa labels on Figs 1 and
Risk Categorization Using New American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Guidelines for Cholesterol Management and Its Relation to Alirocumab Treatment Following Acute Coronary Syndromes
BACKGROUND: The 2018 US cholesterol management guidelines recommend
additional lipid-lowering therapies for secondary prevention in patients with lowdensity lipoprotein cholesterol â„70 mg/dL or nonâhigh-density lipoprotein cholesterol
â„100 mg/dL despite maximum tolerated statin therapy. Such patients are considered
at very high risk (VHR) based on a history of >1 major atherosclerotic cardiovascular
disease (ASCVD) event or a single ASCVD event and multiple high-risk conditions.
We investigated the association of US guideline-defined risk categories with the
occurrence of ischemic events after acute coronary syndrome and reduction of
those events by alirocumab, a PCSK9 (proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9)
inhibitor.
METHODS: In the ODYSSEY OUTCOMES trial (Evaluation of Cardiovascular
Outcomes After an Acute Coronary Syndrome During Treatment With Alirocumab),
patients with recent acute coronary syndrome and residual dyslipidemia despite
optimal statin therapy were randomly assigned to alirocumab or placebo. The primary
trial outcome (major adverse cardiovascular events, ie, coronary heart disease death,
nonfatal myocardial infarction, is
Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy, Endocrine Therapy, and Targeted Therapy for Breast Cancer: ASCO Guideline
PURPOSE: To develop guideline recommendations concerning optimal neoadjuvant therapy for breast cancer. METHODS: ASCO convened an Expert Panel to conduct a systematic review of the literature on neoadjuvant therapy for breast cancer and provide recommended care options. RESULTS: A total of 41 articles met eligibility criteria and form the evidentiary basis for the guideline recommendations. RECOMMENDATIONS: Patients undergoing neoadjuvant therapy should be managed by a multidisciplinary care team. Appropriate candidates for neoadjuvant therapy include patients with inflammatory breast cancer and those in whom residual disease may prompt a change in therapy. Neoadjuvant therapy can also be used to reduce the extent of local therapy or reduce delays in initiating therapy. Although tumor histology, grade, stage, and estrogen, progesterone, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) expression should routinely be used to guide clinical decisions, there is insufficient evidence to support the use of other markers or genomic profiles. Patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) who have clinically node-positive and/or at least T1c disease should be offered an anthracycline- and taxane-containing regimen; those with cT1a or cT1bN0 TNBC should not routinely be offered neoadjuvant therapy. Carboplatin may be offered to patients with TNBC to increase pathologic complete response. There is currently insufficient evidence to support adding immune checkpoint inhibitors to standard chemotherapy. In patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive (HR-positive), HER2-negative tumors, neoadjuvant chemotherapy can be used when a treatment decision can be made without surgical information. Among postmenopausal patients with HR-positive, HER2-negative disease, hormone therapy can be used to downstage disease. Patients with node-positive or high-risk node-negative, HER2-positive disease should be offered neoadjuvant therapy in combination with anti-HER2-positive therapy. Patients with T1aN0 and T1bN0, HER2-positive disease should not be routinely offered neoadjuvant therapy.Additional information is available at www.asco.org/breast-cancer-guidelines
Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in âs = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector
A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fbâ1 of protonâproton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results
Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC
provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of
lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with
a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the
transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the
anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the
nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of
the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp.
Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in
the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies
smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating
nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and
transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of
inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous
measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables,
submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are
available at
http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02
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