A hybrid individual-based mathematical model to study bladder infections

RB was supported by a fellowship funded by the Medical Research Council, MR/P014704/1, and also acknowledges funding from the Academy of Medical Sciences (London), the Wellcome Trust (London), the UK Government Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (London), the British Heart Foundation (London), and the Global Challenges Research Fund (Swindon, UK; grant number SBF003\1052). TL gratefully acknowledges support from the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR) through the grant Dipartimenti di Eccellenza 2018-2022 (Project no. E11G18000350001) and the PRIN 2020 project (No. 2020JLWP23) Integrated Mathematical Approaches to Socio-Epidemiological Dynamics (CUP: E15F21005420006).Introduction: Bladder infections are common, affecting millions each year, and are often recurrent problems. Methods: We have developed a spatial mathematical framework consisting of a hybrid individual-based model to simulate these infections in order to understand more about the bacterial mechanisms and immune dynamics. We integrate a varying bacterial replication rate and model bacterial shedding as an immune mechanism. Results: We investigate the effect that varying the initial bacterial load has on infection outcome, where we find that higher bacterial burden leads to poorer outcomes, but also find that only a single bacterium is needed to establish infection in some cases. We also simulate an immunocompromised environment, confirming the intuitive result that bacterial spread typically progresses at a higher rate. Conclusions: With future model developments, this framework is capable of providing new clinical insight into bladder infections.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

THE IRON SPIN TEXTURE IN ANNEALED AMORPHOUS Fe/Tb MULTI-LAYERS

Fe/Tb multilayers have been obtained by vacuum evaporation with Tb-layer thickness fixed to 40Å and amorphous Fe-layer thickness fixed to 19Å. 57Fe-Mössbauer spectrometry was used to obtain information on the structure and the spin texture of the multilayers before and after annealing at 530K for different durations of the annealing. The Mössbauer results indicate that the Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy (PMA) was stabilised and reinforced after annealing.Fe/Tb multilayers have been obtained by vacuum evaporation with Tb-layer thickness fixed to 40Å and amorphous Fe-layer thickness fixed to 19Å. 57Fe-Mössbauer spectrometry was used to obtain information on the structure and the spin texture of the multilayers before and after annealing at 530K for different durations of the annealing. The Mössbauer results indicate that the Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy (PMA) was stabilised and reinforced after annealing

Optoelectronic Oscillators for Communication Systems

International audienceWe introduce and report recent developments on a novel five port optoelectronic voltage controlled oscillator consisting of a resonant tunneling diode (RTD) optical-waveguide integrated with a laser diode. The RTD-based optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) has both optical and electrical input and output ports, with the fifth port allowing voltage control. The RTD-OEO locks to reference radio-frequency (RF) sources by either optical or electrical injection locking techniques allowing remote synchronization, eliminating the need of impedance matching between traditional RF oscillators. RTD-OEO functions include generation, amplification and distribution of RF carriers, clock recovery, carrier recovery, modulation and demodulation and frequency synthesis. Self-injection locking operation modes, where small portions of the output electrical/optical signals are fed back into the electrical/optical input ports, are also proposed. The self-phase locked loop configuration can give rise to low-noise high-stable oscillations, not limited by the RF source performance and with no need of external optoelectronic conversion

Crystal structure of trans-di­chloridobis­[N-(5,5-di­methyl-4,5-di­hydro-3H-pyrrol-2-yl-κN)acetamide]palladium(II) dihydrate

The title complex, [PdCl2(C8H14N2O)2]2H2O, was obtained by N–O bond cleavage of the oxadiazoline rings of the trans-[dichlorido-bis(2,5,5-trimethyl- 5,6,7,7a-tetrahydropyrrolo[1,2-b][1,2,4]oxadiazole-N1 )]palladium(II) complex. The palladium(II) atom exhibits an almost square-planar coordination provided by two trans-arranged chloride anions and a nitrogen atom from each of the two neutral organic ligands. In the crystal, N—HO, O—HO and O—HCl hydrogen bonds link complex molecules into double layers parallel to the bc plane.peerReviewe

Broadband dielectric characterization of flexible substrates using organic conductive polymer microstrip lines

International audienc

Atomic Structure Of Submonolayer Nacl Grown On Ag(110) Surface

We report results on the growth of an NaCl film on Ag(110) under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. At room temperature, low-energy electron diffraction and scanning tunneling microscopy show that the NaCl film forms a (4×1) superstructure. At RT, the film consists of small-sized islands that coalesce into larger islands at 410 K. These large islands preserve the (4×1) superstructure and cover the entire surface. The apparent heights obtained from the STM images show that the initial thickness of the NaCl islands is one atomic layer, and they present a very small height corrugation. The density functional theory calculations, with and without the inclusion of van der Waals effects, confirm the coexistence of two domains in agreement with the observed structure