Antibacterial Activity of Grepafloxacin

Grepafloxin has an extremely broad spectrum of activity. Its activity against Gram-positive bacteria exceeds that of currently available quinolones. Grepafloxacin-resistant mutants seem to occur less frequently than ciprofloxacin - or ofloxacin-resistant mutants, and the increase in minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) against the former mutants is less than that of the latter. This applies only to the relative differences (in dilution steps); the absolute values are similar. Grepafloxacin kills Gram-positive bacteria at concentrations little above the MIC. Its pharmacodynamic profile against pneumococci is promising, favouring use of this drug for respiratory tract infections

Why trust? A mixed-method investigation of the origins and meaning of trust during the COVID-19 lockdown in Denmark

Trust is highlighted as central to effective disease management. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Denmark seemed to embody this understanding. Characterizing the Danish response were high levels of public compliance with government regulations and restrictions coupled with high trust in the government and other members of society. In this article, we first revisit prior claims about the importance of trust in securing compliant citizen behaviour based on a weekly time-use survey that we conducted during the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic (2 April–18 May 2020). Analysis of activity episodes, rather than merely self-reported compliance, both reconfirms the importance of institutional trust and nuances prior suggestions of detrimental effects of trust in other citizens. These survey-based results are further augmented through thematic analysis of 21 in-depth interviews with respondents sampled from the survey participants. The qualitative analysis reveals two themes, the first focusing on trust in others in Danish society and the second on the history of trust in Denmark. Both themes are based on narratives layered in cultural, institutional and inter-personal levels and further underline that institutional and social trust are complementary and not countervailing. We conclude by discussing how our analysis suggests pathways towards an increased social contract between governments, institutions and individuals that might be of use during future global emergencies and to the overall functioning of democracies

Prevalence and molecular-basis of fluoroquinolone resistance of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica field isolates

Nowadays fluoroquinolones are used in human and veterinary medicine. In the last decade Salmonella isolates with reduced susceptibility to quinolones have been isolated with increasing prevalence. Among these isolates high-level resistant strains were detected. The present study aimed at investigating Salmonella field isolates (n=56) with reduced quinolone susceptibility with respect to comparative susceptibilities to various fluoroquinolones used in human and veterinary medicine and the genetic basis of quinolone resistance

Imagining Life Beyond a Crisis: A Four Quadrant Model to Conceptualize Possible Futures

In this article we report evidence from a series of semi-structured interviews with a broad sample of people living in Denmark (n = 21), about their perspectives on the future during the first months of the global Covid-19 pandemic. The thematic and discursive analyses, based on an abductive ontology, illustrate imaginings of the future along two vectors: individual to collective and descriptive to moral. On a descriptive and individual level, people imagined getting through the pandemic on a myopic day-by-day basis; on a descriptive and collective level, people imagined changes to work and socializing. Their future was bound and curtailed by their immediate present. On a moral and individual level, respondents were less detailed in their reports, but some vowed to change their behaviors. On a moral and collective level, respondents reported what the world should be like and discussed changes to environmental behaviors such as traveling, commuting, and work. The model suggests the domain of individual moral imaginings is the most difficult domain for people to imagine beyond the practicalities of their everyday lives. The implications of this model for comprehending imaginations of the future are discussed

Decision Models and Technology Can Help Psychiatry Develop Biomarkers

Why is psychiatry unable to define clinically useful biomarkers? We explore this question from the vantage of data and decision science and consider biomarkers as a form of phenotypic data that resolves a well-defined clinical decision. We introduce a framework that systematizes different forms of phenotypic data and further introduce the concept of decision model to describe the strategies a clinician uses to seek out, combine, and act on clinical data. Though many medical specialties rely on quantitative clinical data and operationalized decision models, we observe that, in psychiatry, clinical data are gathered and used in idiosyncratic decision models that exist solely in the clinician's mind and therefore are outside empirical evaluation. This, we argue, is a fundamental reason why psychiatry is unable to define clinically useful biomarkers: because psychiatry does not currently quantify clinical data, decision models cannot be operationalized and, in the absence of an operationalized decision model, it is impossible to define how a biomarker might be of use. Here, psychiatry might benefit from digital technologies that have recently emerged specifically to quantify clinically relevant facets of human behavior. We propose that digital tools might help psychiatry in two ways: first, by quantifying data already present in the standard clinical interaction and by allowing decision models to be operationalized and evaluated; second, by testing whether new forms of data might have value within an operationalized decision model. We reference successes from other medical specialties to illustrate how quantitative data and operationalized decision models improve patient care

EUCAST expert rules in antimicrobial susceptibility testing

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Leptoquark manoeuvres in the dark: a simultaneous solution of the dark matter problem and the RD(*) anomalies

The measured branching fractions of B-mesons into leptonic final states derived by the LHCb, Belle and BaBar collaborations hint towards the breakdown of lepton flavour universality. In this work we take at face value the so-called RD(*) observables that are defined as the ratios of neutral B-meson charged-current decays into a D-meson, a charged lepton and a neutrino final state in the tau and light lepton channels. A well-studied and simple solution to this charged current anomaly is to introduce a scalar leptoquark S that couples to the second and third generation of fermions. We investigate how S can also serve as a mediator between the Standard Model and a dark sector. We study this scenario in detail and estimate the constraints arising from collider searches for leptoquarks, collider searches for missing energy signals, direct detection experiments and the dark matter relic abundance. We stress that the production of a pair of leptoquarks that decays into different final states (i.e. the commonly called “mixed” channels) provides critical information for identifying the underlying dynamics, and we exemplify this by studying the tτbν and the resonant S plus missing energy channels. We find that direct detection data provides non-negligible constraints on the leptoquark coupling to the dark sector, which in turn affects the relic abundance. We also show that the correct relic abundance can not only arise via standard freeze-out, but also through conversion-driven freeze-out. We illustrate the rich phenomenology of the model with a few selected benchmark points, providing a broad stroke of the interesting connection between lepton flavour universality violation and dark matter.The work of AJ is supported in part by a KIAS Individual Grant No. QP084401 via the Quantum Universe Center at Korea Institute for Advanced Study and by the National Research Foundation of Korea, Grant No. NRF-2019R1A2C1009419. The work of AL was supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), project 2015/20570-1. JH acknowledges support from the DFG via the Collaborative Research Center TRR 257 and the F.R.S.-FNRS as a Chargé de recherche. The work of AP and GB was funded by the RFBR and CNRS project number 20-52-15005. The work of AP was also supported in part by an AAP-USMB grant and by the Interdisciplinary Scientific and Educational School of Moscow University for Fundamental and Applied Space Research. The work of DS is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-1915147. JZ is supported by the Generalitat Valenciana (Spain) through the plan GenT program (CIDEGENT/2019/068), by the Spanish Government (Agencia Estatal de Investigación) and ERDF funds from European Commission (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, Grant No. PID2020-114473GB-I00)

A European lens upon adult and lifelong learning in Asia

In this article, we seek to assess the extent to which adult and lifelong learning policies and practices in Asia have distinctiveness by comparison to those found in western societies, through an analysis of inter-governmental, national and regional policies in the field. We also inform our study through the analysis of the work of organisations with an international remit with a specific focus on Asia and Europe. In one case, the Asia–Europe Meeting Lifelong Learning (ASEM LLL) Hub has a specific function of bringing together researchers in Asia and Europe. In another, the PASCAL Observatory has had a particular focus on one aspect of lifelong learning, that of learning cities, with a concentration in its work on Asia and Europe. We focus on learning city development as a particular case of distinction in the field. We seek to identify the extent to which developments in the field in Asia have influenced and have been influenced by practices elsewhere in world, especially in Europe, and undertake our analysis using theories of societal learning/the learning society, learning communities and life-deep learning. We complement our analysis through assessment of material contained in three dominant journals in the field, the International Journal of Lifelong Education, the International Review of Education and Adult Education Quarterly, each edited in the west