138 research outputs found
Update On South Dakota\u27s Hog Market
South Dakota farmers continue to produce a sizeable number of hogs despite recent contraction throughout the hog industry. USDA-NASS reports an inventory of over 1 million hogs in the state (SDASS). South Dakota ranked 11th among U.S. states in hog inventory and ranked 12th in pig crop size in 2000. Production practices vary from farrow-to-finish to specialization in farrowing, growing, and finishing. This paper seeks to highlight recent trends and new information related to South Dakota\u27s hog market. Several findings pertain to national (and global) structural changes that have implications for South Dakota. With the general trend toward continuous production by the remaining producers, producers need risk management tactics that accommodate selective hedging. Prices have returned to profitable levels and there has been an improvement of the basis in South Dakota. Mandatory price reporting and the monthly Hogs and Pigs report bring new information that may be useful when making management decisions
RVB Contribution to Superconductivity in
We view as electronically equivalent to (non-staggered) graphite
( layer) that has undergone a zero gap semiconductor to a superconductor
phase transition by a large c-axis (chemical) pressure due to layers.
Further, like the \ppi bonded planar organic molecules, graphite is an old
resonating valence bond (RVB) system. The RVB's are the `preexisting cooper
pairs' in the `parental' zero gap semiconducting (graphite) sheets that
manifests themselves as a superconducting ground state of the transformed
metal. Some consequences are pointed out.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure, RevTex. Based on a talk given at the Institute
Seminar Week, IMSc, Madras (12-16, Feb. 2001
Thermal conductivity of MgB in the superconducting state
We present thermal conductivity measurements on very pure and dense bulk
samples, as indicated by residual resistivity values as low as 0.5 mW cm and
thermal conductivity values higher than 200 W/mK. In the normal state we found
that the Wiedemann Franz law, in its generalized form, works well suggesting
that phonons do not contribute to the heat transport. The thermal conductivity
in the superconducting state has been analysed by using a two-gap model. Thank
to the large gap anisotropy we were able to evaluate quantitatively intraband
scattering relaxation times of and bands, which depend on the
disorder in different way; namely, as the disorder increases, it reduces more
effectively the relaxation times of than of bands, as
suggested by a recent calculation [1].Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure
Distinct Clinical and Laboratory Patterns of Pneumocystis jirovecii Pneumonia in Renal Transplant Recipients.
Late post-transplant Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PcP) has been reported in many renal transplant recipients (RTRs) centers using universal prophylaxis. Specific features of PcP compared to other respiratory infections in the same population are not well reported. We analyzed clinical, laboratory, administrative and radiological data of all confirmed PcP cases between January 2009 and December 2014. To identify factors specifically associated with PcP, we compared clinical and laboratory data of RTRs with non-PcP. Over the study period, 36 cases of PcP were identified. Respiratory distress was more frequent in PcP compared to non-PcP (tachypnea: 59%, 20/34 vs. 25%, 13/53, p = 0.0014; dyspnea: 70%, 23/33 vs. 44%, 24/55, p = 0.0181). In contrast, fever was less frequent in PcP compared to non-PcP pneumonia (35%, 11/31 vs. 76%, 42/55, p = 0.0002). In both cohorts, total lymphocyte count and serum sodium decreased, whereas lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) increased at diagnosis. Serum calcium increased in PcP and decreased in non-PcP. In most PcP cases (58%, 21/36), no formal indication for restart of PcP prophylaxis could be identified. Potential transmission encounters, suggestive of interhuman transmission, were found in 14/36, 39% of patients. Interhuman transmission seems to contribute importantly to PcP among RTRs. Hypercalcemia, but not elevated LDH, was associated with PcP when compared to non-PcP
Muon-spin-relaxation study of the magnetic penetration depth in MgB2
The magnetic vortex lattice (VL) of polycrystalline MgB2 has been
investigated by transverse-field muon-spin-relaxation (TF-MuSR). The evolution
of TF-MuSR depolarization rate, sigma, that is proportional to the second
moment of the field distribution of the VL has been studied as a function of
temperature and applied magnetic field. The low temperature value s exhibits a
pronounced peak near Hext = 75 mT. This behavior is characteristic of strong
pinning induced distortions of the VL which put into question the
interpretation of the low-field TF-MuSR data in terms of the magnetic
penetration depth lambda(T). An approximately constant value of sigma, such as
expected for an ideal VL in the London-limit, is observed at higher fields of
Hext > 0.4 T. The TF-MuSR data at Hext = 0.6 T are analyzed in terms of a
two-gap model. We obtain values for the gap size of D1 = 6.0 meV (2D1/kBTc =
3.6), D2 = 2.6 meV (2D2/kBTc = 1.6), a comparable spectral weight of the two
bands and a zero temperature value for the magnetic penetration depth of lambda
= 100 nm. In addition, we performed MuSR-measurements in zero external field
(ZF-MuSR). We obtain evidence that the muon site (at low temperature) is
located on a ring surrounding the center of the boron hexagon. Muon diffusion
sets in already at rather low temperature of T > 10 K. The nuclear magnetic
moments can account for the observed relaxation rate and no evidence for
electronic magnetic moments has been obtained.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure
Epidemiology and outcomes of medically attended and microbiologically confirmed bacterial foodborne infections in solid organ transplant recipients
Food-safety measures are recommended to solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients. However, the burden of foodborne infections in SOT recipients has not been established. We describe the epidemiology and outcomes of bacterial foodborne infections in a nationwide cohort including 4405 SOT recipients in Switzerland between 2008 and 2018. Participants were prospectively followed for a median of 4.2 years with systematic collection of data on infections, and patient and graft-related outcomes. We identified 151 episodes of microbiologically confirmed bacterial foodborne infections occurring in median 1.6 years (IQR 0.58-3.40) after transplantation (131 [88%] Campylobacter spp. and 15 [10%] non-typhoidal Salmonella). The cumulative incidence of bacterial foodborne infections was 4% (95% CI 3.4-4.8). Standardized incidence rates were 7.4 (95% CI 6.2-8.7) and 4.6 (95% CI 2.6-7.5) for Campylobacter and Salmonella infections, respectively. Invasive infection was more common with Salmonella (33.3% [5/15]) compared to Campylobacter (3.2% [4/125]; p = .001). Hospital and ICU admission rates were 47.7% (69/145) and 4.1% (6/145), respectively. A composite endpoint of acute rejection, graft loss, or death occurred within 30 days in 3.3% (5/151) of cases. In conclusion, in our cohort bacterial foodborne infections were late post-transplant infections and were associated with significant morbidity, supporting the need for implementation of food-safety recommendations
Infection Risk in the First Year After ABO-incompatible Kidney Transplantation: A Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study.
BACKGROUND
ABO-incompatible (ABOi) kidney transplantation (KT) expands the kidney donor pool and may help to overcome organ shortage. Nonetheless, concerns about infectious complications associated with ABOi-KT have been raised.
METHODS
In a nationwide cohort (Swiss Transplant Cohort Study), we compared the risk for infectious complications among ABOi and ABO-compatible (ABOc) renal transplant recipients. Infections needed to fulfill rigorous, prespecified criteria to be classified as clinically relevant. Unadjusted and adjusted competing risk regression models were used to compare the time to the first clinically relevant infection among ABOi-KT and ABOc-KT recipients. Inverse probability weighted generalized mixed-effects Poisson regression was used to estimate incidence rate ratios for infection.
RESULTS
We included 757 living-donor KT recipients (639 ABOc; 118 ABOi) and identified 717 infection episodes. The spectrum of causative pathogens and the anatomical sites affected by infections were similar between ABOi-KT and ABOc-KT recipients. There was no significant difference in time to first posttransplant infection between ABOi-KT and ABOc-KT recipients (subhazard ratio, 1.24; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.93-1.66; P = 0.142). At 1 y, the crude infection rate was 1.11 (95% CI, 0.93-1.33) episodes per patient-year for ABOi patients and 0.94 (95% CI, 0.86-1.01) for ABOc-KT recipients. Inverse probability weighted infection rates were similar between groups (adjusted incidence rate ratio, 1.12; 95% CI, 0.83-1.52; P = 0.461).
CONCLUSIONS
The burden of infections during the first year posttransplant was high but not relevantly different in ABOi-KT and ABOc-KT recipients. Our results highlight that concerns regarding infectious complications should not affect the implementation of ABOi-KT programs
Specific heat of classical disordered elastic systems
We study the thermodynamics of disordered elastic systems, applied to vortex
lattices in the Bragg glass phase. Using the replica variational method we
compute the specific heat of pinned vortons in the classical limit. We find
that the contribution of disorder is positive, linear at low temperature, and
exhibits a maximum. It is found to be important compared to other
contributions, e.g. core electrons, mean field and non linear elasticity that
we evaluate. The contribution of droplets is subdominant at weak disorder in
.Comment: 4 pages, RevTe
Laurent inversion
There are well-understood methods, going back to Givental and Hori--Vafa, that to a Fano toric complete intersection X associate a Laurent polynomial f that corresponds to X under mirror symmetry. We describe a technique for inverting this process, constructing the toric complete intersection X directly from its Laurent polynomial mirror f. We use this technique to construct a new four-dimensional Fano manifold
Immunogenicity of High-Dose vs. MF59-adjuvanted vs. Standard Influenza Vaccine in Solid Organ Transplant Recipients: The STOP-FLU trial.
BACKGROUND
The immunogenicity of the standard influenza vaccine is reduced in solid-organ transplant (SOT) recipients, so that new vaccination strategies are needed in this population.
METHODS
Adult SOT recipients from nine transplant clinics in Switzerland and Spain were enrolled if they were >3 months after transplantation. High, with stratification by organ and time from transplant. The primary outcome was vaccine response rate, defined as a ≥4-fold increase of hemagglutination-inhibition titers to at least one vaccine strain at 28 days post-vaccination. Secondary outcomes included PCR-confirmed influenza and vaccine reactogenicity.
RESULTS
619 patients were randomized, 616 received the assigned vaccines, and 598 had serum available for analysis of the primary endpoint (standard, n=198; MF59-adjuvanted, n=205; high-dose, n=195 patients). Vaccine response rates were 42% (84/198) in the standard vaccine group, 60% (122/205) in the MF59-adjuvanted vaccine group, and 66% (129/195) in the high-dose vaccine group (difference in intervention vaccines vs. standard vaccine, 0.20 [97.5% CI 0.12-1]; p<0.001; difference in high-dose vs. standard vaccine, 0.24 [95% CI 0.16-1]; p<0.001; difference in MF59-adjuvanted vs. standard vaccine, 0.17 [97.5% CI 0.08-1]; p<0.001). Influenza occurred in 6% the standard, 5% in the MF59-adjuvanted, and 7% in the high-dose vaccine groups. Vaccine-related adverse events occurred more frequently in the intervention vaccine groups, but most of the events were mild.
CONCLUSIONS
In SOT recipients, use of an MF59-adjuvanted or a high-dose influenza vaccine was safe and resulted in a higher vaccine response rate.
TRIAL REGISTRATION
Clinicaltrials.gov NCT03699839
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