Asymptomatic Bacteriuria and Antibacterial Susceptibility Patterns in an Obstetric Population

Introduction. Asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB), occurring in 2–11% of pregnancies, is a major predisposition to the development of pyelonephritis, which is associated with obstetrical complications, such as preterm labor and low birth weight infants. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of ASB, the antibacterial susceptibilities of the isolated microorganisms and the associated risk factors in an outpatient clinical setting in Zekai Tahir Burak Women's Health Education and Research Hospital in Ankara, Turkey. Material and Methods. Between December 2009 and May 2010, pregnant women admitted to the antenatal outpatient clinic were included in this study. The results of a complete urine analysis, midstream urine culture and antibacterial susceptibility were evaluated. Results. Of the 2011 pregnant women included, 171 had ASB (8.5%). E. coli was the most frequently isolated microorganism (76.6%), followed by Klebsiella pneumonia (14.6%). Both microorganisms were highly sensitive to fosfomycin, sensivity being 99.2% for E. coli and 88% for Klebsiella pneumonia. Conclusions. In this certain geographical region, we found E. coli as the most common causative agent of ASB in the obstetric population and it is very sensitive to fosfomycin. We recommend fosfomycin for ASB in pregnant women due to its high sensitivity, ease of administration and safety for use in pregnancy

PPAR-alpha L162V polymorphism in human hepatocellular carcinoma

Background/aims: Several lines of evidence suggest that peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha may be involved in hepatocarcinogenesis. L162V polymorphism of the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha gene enhances the transactivation activity of this transcription factor. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency and clinical correlates of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha L162V polymorphism in hepatitis virus-induced hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods: 90 hepatocellular carcinoma patients diagnosed at Ankara University Gastroenterology Clinic between January 2002 and July 2003 and 80 healthy controls with normal body mass index, blood chemistry and with negative viral serology were included. peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha L162V polymorphism was determined by PCR-RFLP. Results: hepatocellular carcinoma etiologies were as follows: 56 HBV, 12 HBV+HDV, 22 HCV. Eighty-seven patients (97%) were cirrhotic, and 60 patients (67.5%) had advanced tumors. In 83 (92%) of 90 hepatocellular carcinoma patients, gene segment including polymorphic region could be amplified by PCR (50 HBV, 12 HBV+HDV, 21 HCV) and 6 of them (7.2%, all infected with HBV) had L162V polymorphism, while 2 (2.5%) of 80 controls had this polymorphism (p=0.162). This trend became more remarkable when only HBV (HBV+HDV)-infected patients were compared with controls (6/62, 9.7% vs. 2/80, 2.5%, respectively, p=0.071). Five of 6 patients with L162V had advanced disease. Conclusions: Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha L162V polymorphism tends to occur in HBV-induced epatocellular carcinoma and is absent in HCV-related epatocellular carcinoma. These findings may show clues for the existence of different carcinogenesis mechanisms in these two common etiologies. Frequent occurrence of advanced disease in patients with L162V polymorphism suggests a role for this polymorphism in tumor progression

On the use of ResNet architec- tures for Side-Channel Analysis

Some of the most prominent types of attacks against modern cryptographic implementations are side-channel attacks. These attacks leverage some unintended, often physical, leakage of the implementation to retrieve secret information. In recent times, a large part of the focus of side-channel research has been on deep learning methods. These methods operate in a profiled setting where a model is learned based on a copy of the device that is being attacked. This model is subsequently used to create significantly more potent attacks against the target. Attacks using deep learning methods can often defeat even implementations protected with countermeasures, but as implementations become more protected, novel methods are required to successfully generate attacks. Recently, residual neural networks have been used for side-channel attacks, and these networks show promising attacking performance. However, these novel networks are relatively limited, and a more thorough investigation into the construction of residual networks in the side-channel context is required. Our contribution is a more thorough investigation into the construction of these residual architectures. We explore several important factors to the construction of these models and generate insights into various methods for this construction. The resulting architectures we find show attacking performance that is competitive with the state-of-the-art methods across various data sets and feature selection scenarios.Computer Scienc

Improving rippled: Leveraging passive model inference techniques to test large decentralized systems

Blockchains and cryptocurrencies, like Ripple, are becoming more widely used. Testing the large decentralized systems these technologies on is complex, as the behavior of the system is dependent on many external factors. We will examine the viability of using passive model inference techniques to test the systems based on the network traffic they produce. Passive inference techniques have been used extensively to model and test different types of systems. However, it is unclear how well passive model inference techniques work for inferring models of large decentralized systems based on the network traffic that these systems produce. Here we show that detecting bugs in the implementations of decentralized protocols is possible. These results were achieved by simulating a version of the Ripple network and modeling the workings of a node in this network. We also simulated the network with defective nodes and by observing the different models generated, were able to detect these bugs. Our results suggest that using passive model inference techniques on network traffic can help test large decentralized systems.CSE3000 Research ProjectComputer Science and Engineerin

Hemingway’s Fishing Rod: A Study of the First African Plane Crash and Rescue

Compares Hemingway’s accounts of his 1954 African plane crashes for Look magazine to the secondhand recollections of Gino Abreo whose father rescued Hemingway after the first crash and the version appearing in Mary Hemingway’s autobiography, How It Was (1977). Draws on biographies, correspondence, journals, and other sources to show how Hemingway downplayed his experiences to maintain his legendary macho image

Capital internacional e mobilidade da mão de obra: vazão para o trabalho excedente?

The paper discusses the effects of international capital and labor mobility in a North-South setting. It shows that the word capital stock and Southern employment in the modern sector expands in proportion to the migration quota imposed by the North. On the other hand, international capital mobility results in a contraction of the word economy under a "reasonable assumption".Este artigo discute os efeitos da mobilidade do capital internacional e da mão de obra em um contexto norte-sul. Demonstra-se que o estoque de capital mundial e o emprego no setor moderno do Sul expandem-se em proporção a quota de imigração imposta pelo norte. Por outro lado, a mobilidade do capital internacional resulta nacontração da economia mundial, sob uma "hipótese razoável"

Divided We Stand, United We Fall: The Hume-Weber-Jones Mechanism for the Rise of Europe

The great divergence in incomes between Europe and the rest of the world occurred relatively recently. Why was it that Western Europe, once a backward outpost on the fringes of the Eurasian continent, able to dominate in terms of income and technology the previously successful Eastern economies? Several mechanisms have been identiÞed to account for the rise of Europe. This pa-per formalizes one important mechanism, the intellectual origins of which can be traced back to Hume and Weber and which was fully, though informally, articulated by E.L. Jones. This mechanism emphasizes the contrast between the European states-system and the Eastern empires. Political competition for a mobile tax-base in a states-system forces rulers to expropriate less from their subjects and to supply relatively more public services. By effectively limiting the exit options of the ruled, an empire rewards its ruler with a captive tax-base that can be subjected to relatively higher levels of expropri-ation without a similar rise in public services provided. The states-system thus encourages higher levels of capital accumulation, while the empire stißes it. The successes of the Eastern empires in their consolidation phase are due to the competition they initially faced from neighboring states. Since Europe escaped such consolidation, the process of accumulation there never faced the impediments its Eastern counterparts did. The paper, thus, also provides a structural explanation for the emergence of institutions in Europe that led to relatively secure property rights. ∗I would like to thank Andre Burgstaller, Ronald Findlay, Mira Wilkins, and participants of the 2004 Lucca Conference on Economic Growth and Distribution for helpful comments. All remaining errors are mine.

Trade in Goods and Trade in Assets

Abstract A two-good, two-country intertemporal general equilibrium model of pure exchange is presented, in which whatever causes intratemporal trade also causes intertemporal trade, so that simple textbook separability fails. The framework allows financial market phenomena such as international yield arbitrage, portfolio composition shifts, and capital-flow-financed current account deficits to interact dynamically with the real phenomena of pure exchange