Is pneumococcal vaccine effective in nursing home patients?

Evidence from clinical trials supports the use of pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine for prevention of pneumonia in nursing home patients (strength of recommendation: B, based on randomized, nonblinded clinical trials). Case-control studies have consistently shown the efficacy of pneumococcal vaccine in preventing invasive pneumococcal disease and bacteremia for patients with chronic medical illnesses and the elderly, patients typically found in nursing home populations (SOR: B, based on consistent case-control studies)

Treatments for Chronic Prostatitis

Because the etiology of chronic nonbacterial prostatitis is unknown, a variety of treatments have been proposed. The best- designed, largest clinical trials have not found the most commonly used therapies (i.e., alpha blockers, quinolone antibiotics, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, finasteride [Propecia]) to be effective. [Strength of recommendation: B, randomized controlled trials (RCTs)] Allopurinol (Zyloprim), phytochemicals, and transurethral thermotherapy have been suggested as treatment options, but evidence of their effectiveness is lacking. [Strength of recommendation: B, expert opinion or inconclusive trials

Testosterone Therapy and Risk of Recurrence After Treatment for Prostate Cancer

Evidence-Based Answer: Men with symptomatic androgen deprivation who have had clinically curative treatment for organ-confined prostate cancer may have symptomatic improvement with testosterone replacement therapy. (Strength of Recommendation [SOR]: C, based on two small case series.) There are no studies evaluating the risk of cancer recurrence in patients receiving testosterone replacement therapy. However, testosterone replacement therapy may be associated with increased prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels. (SOR: C, based on one case report.) Some men discontinue therapy because their symptoms do not improve. (SOR: C, based on a small case series.

Interaction-induced chaos in a two-electron quantum-dot system

A quasi-one-dimensional quantum dot containing two interacting electrons is analyzed in search of signatures of chaos. The two-electron energy spectrum is obtained by diagonalization of the Hamiltonian including the exact Coulomb interaction. We find that the level-spacing fluctuations follow closely a Wigner-Dyson distribution, which indicates the emergence of quantum signatures of chaos due to the Coulomb interaction in an otherwise non-chaotic system. In general, the Poincar\'e maps of a classical analog of this quantum mechanical problem can exhibit a mixed classical dynamics. However, for the range of energies involved in the present system, the dynamics is strongly chaotic, aside from small regular regions. The system we study models a realistic semiconductor nanostructure, with electronic parameters typical of gallium arsenide.Comment: 4 pages, 3ps figure

Evolution of the Mass-Metallicity relations in passive and star-forming galaxies from SPH-cosmological simulations

We present results from SPH-cosmological simulations, including self-consistent modelling of SN feedback and chemical evolution, of galaxies belonging to two clusters and twelve groups. We reproduce the mass-metallicity (ZM) relation of galaxies classified in two samples according to their star-forming activity, as parametrized by their sSFR, across a redshift range up to z=2. Its slope shows irrelevant evolution in the passive sample, being steeper in groups than in clusters. However, the sub-sample of high-mass passive galaxies only is characterized by a steep increase of the slope with redshift, from which it can be inferred that the bulk of the slope evolution of the ZM relation is driven by the more massive passive objects. (...ABRIDGED...) The ZM relation for the star-forming sample reveals an increasing scatter with redshift, indicating that it is still being built at early epochs. The star-forming galaxies make up a tight sequence in the SFR-M_* plane at high redshift, whose scatter increases with time alongside with the consolidation of the passive sequence. We also confirm the anti-correlation between sSFR and stellar mass, pointing at a key role of the former in determining the galaxy downsizing, as the most significant means of diagnostics of the star formation efficiency. Likewise, an anti-correlation between sSFR and metallicity can be established for the star-forming galaxies, while on the contrary more active galaxies in terms of simple SFR are also metal-richer. We discuss these results in terms of the mechanisms driving the evolution within the high- and low-mass regimes at different epochs: mergers, feedback-driven outflows and the intrinsic variation of the star formation efficiency.Comment: Emended list of author

Reporte de formación complementaria en área de concentración en Diseño de Sistemas Digitales

En este trabajo se presentan los proyectos en los que se trabajó dentro del área de especialidad de Diseño de Sistemas Digitales. En la asignatura de Diseño de sistemas digitales, se desarrolló un microprocesador MIPS Básico Multi-ciclo, con el que se mostró la implementación en físico del procesador MIPS en un FPGA Spartan II, con etapa para el manejo de datos externo (teclado) y externo (visualización de resultados en pantalla LCD), y al que se le proporcionó un programa en ensamblador que realizaba las funciones de una calculadora aritmética hexadecimal. Dicho programa era fácilmente intercambiable por medio de una memoria NVRAM y enmarcó las bases para la utilización de técnicas de optimización para mejorar el desempeño de las arquitecturas y algoritmos que favorecen la velocidad y la potencia de cómputo. En Diseño de microprocesadores, se conceptualizó la realización de un microprocesador superescalar de arquitectura avanzada que implementó el conjunto de instrucciones MIPS R4000. El resultado final fue la entrega del microprocesador superescalar implementado en un FPGA Virtex6; se logró la optimización y desempeño de las unidades de predicción y saltos (branch prediction), de control especulativo y buffers de reordenamiento (ROB), así como la preparación para el manejo de protocolos de coherencia en memorias cache y diseño de anillos. En Arquitectura de microprocesadores, se trabajó en el desarrollo de una propuesta para determinar dinámicamente el cálculo del tamaño ideal de un bloque de memoria cache utilizado en un microprocesador experimental y cuya inclusión del algoritmo se realizó en la etapa de issue, distpatch y writeback

Las competencias específicas delineadas por el proyecto Tuning Amercia Latina (PTAL) y la formación de los estudiantes de educación de la UANL

En los últimos años, las competencias laborales han resurgido como una temática de cambio en la formación de los profesionistas; las universidades han modificado sus currículos para satisfacer las necesidades requeridas en el mercado laboral global. La Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL) no es la excepción y se planteó como meta el cambio de los planes de estudios. A partir de las tendencias mundiales, nacionales y locales, surgió la inquietud de comparar, analizar y contrastar las competencias específicas de la carrera de educación de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (FFyL) de la UANL con las planteadas por el Programa Tuning en América Latina (PTAL) en Educación buscando la percepción que tienen los estudiantes. En este trabajo, que forma parte de una investigación mayor, se analizan algunos datos referenciales arrojados por un cuestionario aplicado a 100 estudiantes respecto a la percepción que tienen de su formación en competencias y lo establecido por el capítulo de Educación del PTAL

Análisis biogeográfico y clave de géneros de los helechos y licofitos del Parque Nacional Mburucuyá, Corrientes, Argentina

The diversity of ferns and lycophytes of Corrientes province, Argentina is not well understood. Our field work in the Mburucuyá National Park in Corrientes province as well as a literature review fi nds 29 genera and 48 infrageneric taxa of ferns and lycophytes for this Park. A comparison of the Park's species diversity with other protected areas in northeastern Argentina using Jaccard's similarity coeffi cient and the infrageneric taxa biodiversity index proposed by Squeo et al. (1998) are analized. A key to the Park's ferns and lycophytes genera is provided.El Parque Nacional Mburucuyá, cuenta con una superficie de 176.80 km2, se encuentra en la provincia de Corrientes, Argentina, dentro de una región ecotonal entre los dominios Chaqueños y Amazónicos. En esta área se registraron 29 géneros y 48 taxones infragenéricos de helechos y liocófi tos fueron registrados. Las especies registradas son comparadas con las áreas protegidas ya estudiadas del noreste de Argentina utilizando el coeficiente de similitud de Jaccard y el índice de biodiversidad de Squeo et al. (1998) a nivel infragenérico. En este trabajo se proporciona una clave para diferenciar los géneros presentes en el Parque.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

Irrigation efficiency and water-policy implications for river basin resilience

Rising demand for food, fiber, and biofuels drives expanding irrigation withdrawals from surface water and groundwater. Irrigation efficiency and water savings have become watchwords in response to climate-induced hydrological variability, increasing freshwater demand for other uses including ecosystem water needs, and low economic productivity of irrigation compared to most other uses. We identify three classes of unintended consequences, presented here as paradoxes. Ever-tighter cycling of water has been shown to increase resource use, an example of the <i>efficiency paradox</i>. In the absence of effective policy to constrain irrigated-area expansion using "saved water", efficiency can aggravate scarcity, deteriorate resource quality, and impair river basin resilience through loss of flexibility and redundancy. Water scarcity and salinity effects in the lower reaches of basins (symptomatic of the <i>scale paradox</i>) may partly be offset over the short-term through groundwater pumping or increasing surface water storage capacity. However, declining ecological flows and increasing salinity have important implications for riparian and estuarine ecosystems and for non-irrigation human uses of water including urban supply and energy generation, examples of the <i>sectoral paradox</i>. This paper briefly considers three regional contexts with broadly similar climatic and water-resource conditions – central Chile, southwestern US, and south-central Spain – where irrigation efficiency directly influences basin resilience. The comparison leads to more generic insights on water policy in relation to irrigation efficiency and emerging or overdue needs for environmental protection