Evaluation of a fourth-generation latex agglutination test for the identification of Staphylococcus aureus

 In this study, we evaluated a fourth-generation agglutination assay (Staph Plus; DiaMondiaL[DML]) for the rapid identification of Staphylococcus aureus. First, comparison with three third-generation assays (Slidex Staph Plus, bioMérieux; Staphaurex Plus, Murex Diagnostics; Pastorex Staph-Plus, Sanofi Diagnostics Pasteur) was performed on a predefined strain collection: 265 coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS), 266 methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and 262 methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) strains (“strain study”). Second, patient material-derived strains (883 CNS, 847 MSSA and 135 MRSA) were tested concurrently with both the DML and Slidex assays (“daily practice study”). In the strain study, the overall sensitivity and specificity of the DML, Slidex, Staphaurex and Pastorex assays were 99.2% and 100%, 98.1% and 100%, 95.2% and 100%, and 98.2% and 98.8%, respectively. Using the respective tests, the result was indeterminate in 0.0%, 0.6%, 0.4% and 1.5% of the strains. Overall, the sensitivity of the DML and Slidex assays were comparable in both sub-studies. However, in MRSA strains, the sensitivity of the DML assay was significantly lower than the Slidex assay. The specificity of the Slidex assay was significantly higher than the DML assay. However, the percentage of indeterminate results was much higher for the Slidex than the DML assay. In conclusion, the presumptive identification of S. aureus by the DML assay proved to be equal to third-generation latex agglutination assays

LHC sensitivity to lepton flavour violating Z boson decays

We estimate that the LHC could set bounds BR(Z -> mu^\pm e^\mp) < 4.1 * 10^{-7} and BR(Z -> tau^\pm mu^\mp)< 3.5 * 10^{-6} (at 95% C.L.) with 20 inverse fb of data at 8 TeV. A similar sensitivity can be anticipated for Z -> tau^\pm e^\mp, because we consider leptonic tau decays such that Z -> tau^+ mu^- gives e^+ \mu^- +$ invisibles. These limits can be compared to the LEP1 bounds of order 10^{-5} to 10^{-6}. Such collider searches are sensitive to a flavour-changing effective Z coupling which is energy dependent, so are complementary to bounds obtained from tau to 3mu and mu to 3e.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, version for publicatio

Early-onset ventilator-associated pneumonia incidence in intensive care units: a surveillance-based study

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) within the first 48 hours of intensive care unit (ICU) stay has been poorly investigated. The objective was to estimate early-onset VAP occurrence in ICUs within 48 hours after admission. METHODS: We analyzed data from prospective surveillance between 01/01/2001 and 31/12/2009 in 11 ICUs of Lyon hospitals (France). The inclusion criteria were: first ICU admission, not hospitalized before admission, invasive mechanical ventilation during first ICU day, free of antibiotics at admission, and ICU stay &gt;=48 hours. VAP was defined according to a national protocol. Its incidence was the number of events per 1,000 invasive mechanical ventilation-days. The Poisson regression model was fitted from day 2 (D2) to D8 to incident VAP to estimate the expected VAP incidence from D0 to D1 of ICU stay. RESULTS: Totally, 367 (10.8%) of 3,387 patients in 45,760 patient-days developed VAP within the first 9 days. The predicted cumulative VAP incidence at D0 and D1 was 5.3 (2.6-9.8) and 8.3 (6.1-11.1), respectively. The predicted cumulative VAP incidence was 23.0 (20.8-25.3) at D8. The proportion of missed VAP within 48 hours from admission was 11% (9%-17%). CONCLUSIONS: Our study indicates underestimation of early-onset VAP incidence in ICUs, if only VAP occurring [greater than or equal to]48 hours is considered to be hospital-acquired. Clinicians should be encouraged to develop a strategy for early detection after ICU admission

A comparative analysis of Patient-Reported Expanded Disability Status Scale tools.

BACKGROUND: Patient-Reported Expanded Disability Status Scale (PREDSS) tools are an attractive alternative to the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) during long term or geographically challenging studies, or in pressured clinical service environments. OBJECTIVES: Because the studies reporting these tools have used different metrics to compare the PREDSS and EDSS, we undertook an individual patient data level analysis of all available tools. METHODS: Spearman's rho and the Bland-Altman method were used to assess correlation and agreement respectively. RESULTS: A systematic search for validated PREDSS tools covering the full EDSS range identified eight such tools. Individual patient data were available for five PREDSS tools. Excellent correlation was observed between EDSS and PREDSS with all tools. A higher level of agreement was observed with increasing levels of disability. In all tools, the 95% limits of agreement were greater than the minimum EDSS difference considered to be clinically significant. However, the intra-class coefficient was greater than that reported for EDSS raters of mixed seniority. The visual functional system was identified as the most significant predictor of the PREDSS-EDSS difference. CONCLUSION: This analysis will (1) enable researchers and service providers to make an informed choice of PREDSS tool, depending on their individual requirements, and (2) facilitate improvement of current PREDSS tools.University of Southampton and National Institute of Health Research (NIHR)

SEIS: Insight's Seismic Experiment for Internal Structure of Mars.

By the end of 2018, 42 years after the landing of the two Viking seismometers on Mars, InSight will deploy onto Mars' surface the SEIS (Seismic Experiment for Internal Structure) instrument; a six-axes seismometer equipped with both a long-period three-axes Very Broad Band (VBB) instrument and a three-axes short-period (SP) instrument. These six sensors will cover a broad range of the seismic bandwidth, from 0.01&nbsp;Hz to 50&nbsp;Hz, with possible extension to longer periods. Data will be transmitted in the form of three continuous VBB components at 2 sample per second (sps), an estimation of the short period energy content from the SP at 1&nbsp;sps and a continuous compound VBB/SP vertical axis at 10&nbsp;sps. The continuous streams will be augmented by requested event data with sample rates from 20 to 100 sps. SEIS will improve upon the existing resolution of Viking's Mars seismic monitoring by a factor of ∼ 2500 at 1&nbsp;Hz and ∼ 200 000 at 0.1&nbsp;Hz. An additional major improvement is that, contrary to Viking, the seismometers will be deployed via a robotic arm directly onto Mars' surface and will be protected against temperature and wind by highly efficient thermal and wind shielding. Based on existing knowledge of Mars, it is reasonable to infer a moment magnitude detection threshold of M w ∼ 3 at 40 ∘ epicentral distance and a potential to detect several tens of quakes and about five impacts per year. In this paper, we first describe the science goals of the experiment and the rationale used to define its requirements. We then provide a detailed description of the hardware, from the sensors to the deployment system and associated performance, including transfer functions of the seismic sensors and temperature sensors. We conclude by describing the experiment ground segment, including data processing services, outreach and education networks and provide a description of the format to be used for future data distribution.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s11214-018-0574-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Search for time-dependent B0s - B0s-bar oscillations using a vertex charge dipole technique

We report a search for B0s - B0s-bar oscillations using a sample of 400,000 hadronic Z0 decays collected by the SLD experiment. The analysis takes advantage of the electron beam polarization as well as information from the hemisphere opposite that of the reconstructed B decay to tag the B production flavor. The excellent resolution provided by the pixel CCD vertex detector is exploited to cleanly reconstruct both B and cascade D decay vertices, and tag the B decay flavor from the charge difference between them. We exclude the following values of the B0s - B0s-bar oscillation frequency: Delta m_s < 4.9 ps-1 and 7.9 < Delta m_s < 10.3 ps-1 at the 95% confidence level.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, replaced by version accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.D; results differ slightly from first versio

Measurement and Interpretation of Fermion-Pair Production at LEP energies above the Z Resonance

This paper presents DELPHI measurements and interpretations of cross-sections, forward-backward asymmetries, and angular distributions, for the e+e- -> ffbar process for centre-of-mass energies above the Z resonance, from sqrt(s) ~ 130 - 207 GeV at the LEP collider. The measurements are consistent with the predictions of the Standard Model and are used to study a variety of models including the S-Matrix ansatz for e+e- -> ffbar scattering and several models which include physics beyond the Standard Model: the exchange of Z' bosons, contact interactions between fermions, the exchange of gravitons in large extra dimensions and the exchange of sneutrino in R-parity violating supersymmetry.Comment: 79 pages, 16 figures, Accepted by Eur. Phys. J.