Pulmonary cavitary lesions may be one of the presenting features in Ig A nephropathy

Immunoglobulin A (Ig A) nephropathy is the most frequent primary glomerulonephritis. Renal limited disease is the most widespread clinical form of the disease. Pulmonary involvement may also be seen concomitantly and capillaritis with pulmonary hemorrhage is the most frequent pulmonary involvement. In this paper, for the first time in literature, we describe an Ig A nephropathy patient with multiple pulmonary cavities as one of the presenting features of the disease. Also, no other etiology for the cavities was found other than Ig A nephropathy. Herein, possible pathogenesis might be capillaritis or deposition of immune complexes. As a result, it should be kept in mind that pulmonary cavity may be the presenting feature of Ig A nephropathy especially with other frequent signs of the disease

Energy aware approach for HPC systems

International audienceHigh‐performance computing (HPC) systems require energy during their full life cycle from design and production to transportation to usage and recycling/dismanteling. Because of increase of ecological and cost awareness, energy performance is now a primary focus. This chapter focuses on the usage aspect of HPC and how adapted and optimized software solutions could improve energy efficiency. It provides a detailed explanation of server power consumption, and discusses the application of HPC, phase detection, and phase identification. The chapter also suggests that having the load and memory access profiles is insufficient for an effective evaluation of the power consumed by an application. The available leverages in HPC systems are also shown in detail. The chapter proposes some solutions for modeling the power consumption of servers, which allows designing power prediction models for better decision making.These approaches allow the deployment and usage of a set of available green leverages, permitting energy reduction

Burnout among surgeons before and during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: an international survey

Background: SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has had many significant impacts within the surgical realm, and surgeons have been obligated to reconsider almost every aspect of daily clinical practice. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study reported in compliance with the CHERRIES guidelines and conducted through an online platform from June 14th to July 15th, 2020. The primary outcome was the burden of burnout during the pandemic indicated by the validated Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure. Results: Nine hundred fifty-four surgeons completed the survey. The median length of practice was 10 years; 78.2% included were male with a median age of 37 years old, 39.5% were consultants, 68.9% were general surgeons, and 55.7% were affiliated with an academic institution. Overall, there was a significant increase in the mean burnout score during the pandemic; longer years of practice and older age were significantly associated with less burnout. There were significant reductions in the median number of outpatient visits, operated cases, on-call hours, emergency visits, and research work, so, 48.2% of respondents felt that the training resources were insufficient. The majority (81.3%) of respondents reported that their hospitals were included in the management of COVID-19, 66.5% felt their roles had been minimized; 41% were asked to assist in non-surgical medical practices, and 37.6% of respondents were included in COVID-19 management. Conclusions: There was a significant burnout among trainees. Almost all aspects of clinical and research activities were affected with a significant reduction in the volume of research, outpatient clinic visits, surgical procedures, on-call hours, and emergency cases hindering the training. Trial registration: The study was registered on clicaltrials.gov "NCT04433286" on 16/06/2020

Chromo- and Fluorogenic Organometallic Sensors

Compounds that change their absorption and/or emission properties in the presence of a target ion or molecule have been studied for many years as the basis for optical sensing. Within this group of compounds, a variety of organometallic complexes have been proposed for the detection of a wide range of analytes such as cations (including H+), anions, gases (e.g. O 2, SO2, organic vapours), small organic molecules, and large biomolecules (e.g. proteins, DNA). This chapter focuses on work reported within the last few years in the area of organometallic sensors. Some of the most extensively studied systems incorporate metal moieties with intense long-lived metal-to-ligand charge transfer (MLCT) excited states as the reporter or indicator unit, such as fac-tricarbonyl Re(I) complexes, cyclometallated Ir(III) species, and diimine Ru(II) or Os(II) derivatives. Other commonly used organometallic sensors are based on Pt-alkynyls and ferrocene fragments. To these reporters, an appropriate recognition or analyte-binding unit is usually attached so that a detectable modification on the colour and/or the emission of the complex occurs upon binding of the analyte. Examples of recognition sites include macrocycles for the binding of cations, H-bonding units selective to specific anions, and DNA intercalating fragments. A different approach is used for the detection of some gases or vapours, where the sensor's response is associated with changes in the crystal packing of the complex on absorption of the gas, or to direct coordination of the analyte to the metal centre

Effects of Sodium Hypochlorite and Chlorhexidine Solutions on Resilon (Synthetic Polymer Based Root Canal Filling Material) Cones: An Atomic Force Microscopy Study

PubMedID: 16982275The aim of the present study is to evaluate the effects of 2% chlorhexidine and 5.25% sodium hypochlorite on the surface properties of Resilon cones with the atomic force microscopy. The Resilon cones were immersed in disinfecting agents (5.25% sodium hypochlorite and 2% chlorhexidine) at 1 and 5 min time intervals. Atomic force microscopy was used to evaluate topographical deviations of Resilon cones. Root mean square (RMS) parameters for topographic amplitudes were calculated. The cones exhibited statistically significant low RMS values at 5-min immersion in sodium hypochlorite and chlorhexidine groups compared to the all other groups (p 0.05). In conclusion, sodium hypochlorite and chlorhexidine solutions used for disinfection significantly decreased (p < 0.05) the RMS values of Resilon cones at 5-min applications. © 2006 American Association of Endodontists

Changes in protein synthesis and identification of proteins specifically induced during solventogenesis in Clostridium acetobutylicum

At the end of the exponential growth phase the Gram-positive bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum performs a metabolic switch from classical sugar fermentation accompanied by the production of acetate and butyrate to reinternalization and oxidation of these acids to acetone and butanol. Protein synthesis in acidogenic and solventogenic C. acetobutylicum cells was compared by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis of radioactively labeled proteins. The results show that the switch from acid to solvent production is accompanied by dramatic changes in the protein pattern. During solventogenesis, the synthesis of 52 proteins out of 130 analyzed was increased more than twofold, the synthesis of 34 proteins decreased to less than half as compared with synthesis in acidogenic cells. The changes in protein synthesis were generally reflected by changes in the abundance of the respective proteins, as determined from quantitative analysis of silver-stained second-dimensional gels. Nine proteins induced during solventogenesis were identified by N-terminal microsequencing. One of these proteins, the acetoacetate decarboxylase, is directly involved in solventogenesis. Other proteins synthesized in higher amounts during solventogenesis were three general stress proteins (DnaK, GroEL, Hsp 18), two enzymes involved in serine biosynthesis (serine aminotransferase and 3-phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase) as well as a seryl-tRNA synthetase. mRNA analysis provided evidence that the latter three are encoded by genes organized in an operon and are transcriptionally induced at the onset of solventogenesis. The proteins acetoacetate decarboxylase and Hsp 18 occurred in two variants, indicating possible covalent modification of these proteins

Axial water substitution kinetics of sulphato- and hydrogenphosphato-bridged binuclear platinum(III) complexes

The kinetics of the axial water substitution reactions for [Pt-2(B-B)(4)(H2O)(2)](2-) (B-B = SO42-, HpO(4)(2-)) with Cl-, Br- and SCN- are reported in acidic aqueous solution. With a large excess of entering ligand and hydrogen ion, only the disubstituted product complex was formed. The reaction rates are first order with respect to the substrate complex and entering ligand and decrease with increasing H+ concentration. In the presence of 0.10 M H+, the rate constants for the replacement of the first water ligand by Cl-, Br- and SCN- are (7.84+/-0.46) x 10(-2), (6.65+/-0.41) x 10(-2) and (20.5+/-1.1) x 10(-2) M-1 s(-1) in [Pt-2(SO4)(4)(H2O)(2)](2-) (35.5+/-3.7) x 10(-2) (30.3+/-1.4) x 10(-2) and (84.9+/-13.4) x 10(-2) M-1 s(-1) in [Pt-2(HPO4)(4)(H2O)(2)](2-), respectively, at 24 degreesC and a constant ionic strength of 0.66. The entropies of activation for the reactions are negative and, in the range of -141 and -59 J K-1 mol(-1). These results support an associative-interchange, I-a, mechanism