1,440 research outputs found
Clinical Usefulness of Streptococcus pneumoniae Urinary Antigen in Patients Hospitalized with Non-Nosocomial Pneumonia
Introduction : Community acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a major cause of hospital admissions and mortality in developed countries. Nevertheless, in about half of the cases a microbial etiology can`t be determined. The need to improve the diagnostic tools of this disease has led to the development of new techniques, such as Streptococcus pneumoniae urinary antigen. Objectives : To analyse the usefulness of the urinary antigen in determining the etiologic diagnosis of pneumonias and its influence in the antibiotherapy modification. Methods : Retrospective analysis of hospitalized patients in 2010 with CAP (n=226) and healthcare associated pneumonia (HCAP) [n=64] diagnosis whose urinary pneumococcal antigen has been analyzed. Results: Median age was significantly greater in HCAP. HCAP patients had more co-morbidities and higher severity scores. Twenty-one patients in the CAP group and 4 patients in the HCAP group had positive pneumococcal antigen. The sensibility of urinary antigen in determining pneumococcal pneumonias was 36% and the specificity 89%. Almost one quarter of the 25 patients with positive urinary antigen had appropriate reductions in antimicrobial spectra, which was not statistically significant when compared with the group with negative urinary antigen. There was a significant relation between a positive urinary antigen and pneumonia severity. Conclusions: Considering its high specificity, the urinary antigen is useful to confirm the presence of pneumococcal pneumonia.
Potentially urinary antigen can help to avoid unnecessary treatments in hospitalized patients with CAP
Von Meyenburg Complex or Liver Metastasis? Case Report and Literature Review
Hepatic lesions represent a common finding in clinical practice. Bile ducts hamartomas, also known as Von Meyenburg complex, are benign hepatic malformations composed of small dilated cystic bile ducts lined by fibrous stroma. They represent a rare and asymptomatic clinic-pathological entity. Imagiological findings are variable, and may present as multiple small scattered lesions, or rarely as a single nodule. These findings may resemble secondary lesions and, although benign, there are cases of progression to colangiocarcinoma. Thus it is important to include this complex in the differential diagnoses of focal hepatic lesions, being necessary a detailed investigation for their differentiation. This case represents an atypical presentation of a rare and not frequently considered entity in clinical practic
Ground state correlations and mean-field in O
We use the coupled cluster expansion ( method) to generate the
complete ground state correlations due to the NN interaction. Part of this
procedure is the calculation of the two-body G matrix inside the nucleus in
which it is being used. This formalism is being applied to in a
configuration space of 50 . The resulting ground state wave
function is used to calculate the binding energy and one- and two-body
densities for the ground state of .Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, LaTe
A Measurement of Stimulated Emission From 83m-Kr(m)
This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478
Neutron Drops and Skyrme Energy-Density Functionals
The J=0 ground state of a drop of 8 neutrons and the lowest
1/2 and 3/2 states of 7-neutron drops, all in an external well, are
computed accurately with variational and Green's function Monte Carlo methods
for a Hamiltonian containing the Argonne two-nucleon and Urbana IX
three-nucleon potentials. These states are also calculated using Skyrme-type
energy-density functionals. Commonly used functionals overestimate the central
density of these drops and the spin-orbit splitting of 7-neutron drops.
Improvements in the functionals are suggested
Observation of a large parity nonconserving analyzing power in Xe
A large parity nonconserving longitudinal analyzing power was discovered in polarized-neutron transmission through Xe. An analyzing power of 4.3±0.2% was observed in a p-wave resonance at En=3.2 eV. The measurement was performed with a liquid Xe target of natural isotopic abundance that was placed in the polarized epithermal neutron beam, flight path 2, at the Manuel Lujan Neutron Science Center. This apparatus was constructed by the TRIPLE Collaboration, and has been used for studies of parity symmetry in compound nuclear resonances. Part of the motivation of the experiment was to discover a nucleus appropriate for a sensitive test of time-reversal invariance in polarized-neutron transmission. The large analyzing power of the observed resonance may make it possible to design a test of time reversal invariance using a polarized-Xe target
Plastic strain arrangement in copper single crystals in sliding
Deformation of tribologically loaded contact zone is one of the wear mechanisms in spite of the fact that no mass loss may occur during this process. Generation of optimal crystallographic orientations of the grains in a polycrystalline materials (texturing) may cause hardening and reducing the deformation wear. To reveal the orientation dependence of an individual gain and simplify the task we use copper single crystals with the orientations of the compression axis along [11 1] and [110]. The plastic deformation was investigated by means of optical, scanning electron microscopy and EBSD techniques. It was established that at least four different zones were generated in the course of sliding test, such as non-deformed base metal, plastic deformation layer sliding, crystalline lattice reorientation layer and subsurface grain structure layer. The maximum plastic strain penetration depth was observed on [110]-single crystals. The minimum stability of [11 1]-crystals with respect to rotation deformation mode as well as activation of shear in the sliding contact plane provide for rotation deformation localization below the worn surface. The high-rate accumulation of misorientations and less strain penetration depth was observed on [11 1]-crystals as compared to those of [110]-oriented ones
Wavelet Based Fractal Analysis of Airborne Pollen
The most abundant biological particles in the atmosphere are pollen grains
and spores. Self protection of pollen allergy is possible through the
information of future pollen contents in the air. In spite of the importance of
airborne pol len concentration forecasting, it has not been possible to predict
the pollen concentrations with great accuracy, and about 25% of the daily
pollen forecasts have resulted in failures. Previous analysis of the dynamic
characteristics of atmospheric pollen time series indicate that the system can
be described by a low dimensional chaotic map. We apply the wavelet transform
to study the multifractal characteristics of an a irborne pollen time series.
We find the persistence behaviour associated to low pollen concentration values
and to the most rare events of highest pollen co ncentration values. The
information and the correlation dimensions correspond to a chaotic system
showing loss of information with time evolution.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure
- …