Beeldvorming over biologische varkenshouderij

Gangbare varkenshouders weten vaak niet zoveel van biologische varkenshouderij. Daardoor missen ze ook de kans om van hen te leren. Onderzoek laat zien dat de kruisbestuiving over en weer groot kan zijn

Infectious complications in hematology patients: A clinical focus on prevention

The aim of this thesis was to contribute to infection preventive strategies in hematology patients with prolonged neutropenia. Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) develops by pulmonary deposition of conidia. A placebo-controlled trial on the efficacy of prophylactic aerosolized liposomal amphotericin-B (L-AmB) was performed in hematology patients during treatment-related neutropenia. For the intent-to-treat analysis, 18 of 132 placebo patients developed IPA, versus 6 of 139 in L-AmB patients (P=.005). Short-term prophylactic nebulization of liposomal amphotericin B was not associated with decline in pulmonary function or systemic adverse effects, only coughing was significantly more reported. In a study among acute leukemia patients, the mortality rate was 26% and 16%, respectively, in patients with and without IPA (P=.08), with corrected additional IPA-related costs of €15280 (P<.001), which makes IPA prevention both efficacious and cost-effective. Current guidelines advocate administration of 7-14 days of broad-spectrum antibiotics for unexplained ferver (UF) in neutropenic hematology patients. Effective antimicrobial prophylaxis reduces the incidence of gram-negative infections, which may allow shorter treatment. In the Erasmus MC, broad-spectrum antibiotics are initially administered, but discontinued when after 72 hours no bacterial etiology is documented. Among 166 hematology patients on selective antibiotic prophylaxis, 317 febrile episodes were observed; 56% were due to UF. Due to the restrictive antibiotic policy, the mean treatment duration was only 3.7 days. Overall-mortality after neutrophil recovery was 3.6% (6 of 166 patients). No patient died from untreated bacterial infection, suggesting that discontinuation of broad-spectrum antibiotics in this setting is safe, provided that no infectious etiology is documented. Diagnosing catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI) often involves tip culture, using the conventional semi-quantitative roll-plate method. The quantitative sonication technique could have additional value, as it may also detect endoluminal microorganisms. However, in a prospective study of 313 tunnelled catheters from 279 hematology patients, the diagnostic performance in patients with suspected CRBSI was equally limited for both methods. Finally, in a placebo-controlled trial on the efficacy of a daily prophylactic 70%-ethanol lock on the prevention of endoluminal CRBSI in tunneled devices, a 3.6-fold, non-significant, reduction was observed for ethanol-treated hematology patients. Partially, the lack of significance may reflect a lack of power. More patients receiving ethanol discontinued lock-therapy, because of non-severe adverse events

Relatório de viagem as plantações de dendê e coco no Estado do Pará (17/08 a 23/08/1987).

bitstream/item/66782/1/Belem-Doc5-Rel.pdfPublicação não convencional. Datilografado

Two patients with ciguatera toxicity:A seafood poisoning in travellers to (sub) tropical areas

Ciguatera toxicity is a type of seafood poisoning caused by the consumption of ciguatoxic reef fish. We describe two patients with characteristic gastrointestinal and neurological symptoms, both of whom had eaten local seafood. Although mortality is low, morbidity can be considerable due to debilitating symptoms. Most cases originate in the (sub) tropics but due to expanding tourism and fish exportation, it may be encountered in more temperate regions. Treatment is supportive, but some benefit from intravenous mannitol has been reported.</p

Spatiotemporal interpolation of elevation changes derived from satellite altimetry for Jakobshavn Isbræ, Greenland

Estimation of ice sheet mass balance from satellite altimetry requires interpolation of point-scale elevation change (dHdt) data over the area of interest. The largest dHdt values occur over narrow, fast-flowing outlet glaciers, where data coverage of current satellite altimetry is poorest. In those areas, straightforward interpolation of data is unlikely to reflect the true patterns of dHdt. Here, four interpolation methods are compared and evaluated over Jakobshavn Isbr, an outlet glacier for which widespread airborne validation data are available from NASAs Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM). The four methods are ordinary kriging (OK), kriging with external drift (KED), where the spatial pattern of surface velocity is used as a proxy for that of dHdt, and their spatiotemporal equivalents (ST-OK and ST-KED)

Keeping venomous snakes in the netherlands:A harmless hobby or a public health threat?

Objective: To describe the incidence of venomous snakebites and the hospital treatment thereof (if any) amongst private individuals who keep venomous snakes as a hobby. Structure: Descriptive study. Method: Private keepers of venomous snakes were invited via the social media Facebook, Hyves, Twitter, Google Plus, Linked In and two large discussion forums to fill in an online questionnaire on a purely voluntary and anonymous basis. Results: In the period from 1 September 2012 to 31 December 2012, 86 questionnaires were completed by individuals who keep venomous snakes as a hobby. One-third of the venomous snake keepers stated that they had at some point been bitten by a venomous snake. Out of those, two-thirds needed hospital treatment and one-third of those bitten required at least one, sometimes more, doses of antiserum. The chances of being bitten increased the more venomous snakes a person kept. An inventory of the collections of venomous snakes being kept further revealed that no antiserum exists for 16 of the species, including for the most commonly held venomous snake, the coral cobra. Conclusion: Keeping venomous snakes as a hobby is not without danger. Although in the majority of snakebite cases no antiserum had to be administered, there is nevertheless a significant risk of morbidity and sequel. Preventing snakebites in the first place remains the most important safety measure since there are no antiserums available for a substantial number of venomous snakes.</p

Scalar and vector Slepian functions, spherical signal estimation and spectral analysis

It is a well-known fact that mathematical functions that are timelimited (or spacelimited) cannot be simultaneously bandlimited (in frequency). Yet the finite precision of measurement and computation unavoidably bandlimits our observation and modeling scientific data, and we often only have access to, or are only interested in, a study area that is temporally or spatially bounded. In the geosciences we may be interested in spectrally modeling a time series defined only on a certain interval, or we may want to characterize a specific geographical area observed using an effectively bandlimited measurement device. It is clear that analyzing and representing scientific data of this kind will be facilitated if a basis of functions can be found that are "spatiospectrally" concentrated, i.e. "localized" in both domains at the same time. Here, we give a theoretical overview of one particular approach to this "concentration" problem, as originally proposed for time series by Slepian and coworkers, in the 1960s. We show how this framework leads to practical algorithms and statistically performant methods for the analysis of signals and their power spectra in one and two dimensions, and, particularly for applications in the geosciences, for scalar and vectorial signals defined on the surface of a unit sphere.Comment: Submitted to the 2nd Edition of the Handbook of Geomathematics, edited by Willi Freeden, Zuhair M. Nashed and Thomas Sonar, and to be published by Springer Verlag. This is a slightly modified but expanded version of the paper arxiv:0909.5368 that appeared in the 1st Edition of the Handbook, when it was called: Slepian functions and their use in signal estimation and spectral analysi