Treatment of acute otitis externa with ciprofloxacin otic 0.2% antibiotic ear solution

R Mösges, M Nematian-Samani, A EichelInstitute of Medical Statistics, Informatics and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Cologne, GermanyBackground/objective: An inflammation of the cutis and subcutis of the external auditory canal is a primary symptom in cases of acute otitis externa. It is usually treated locally, since this type of therapy ensures a high concentration of the drug and interacts at the site of inflammation with no systemic effects. This systematic review compares the efficacy of treatment using a ciprofloxacin 0.2% solution with other therapeutic options.Methods: After compiling a catalog of search terms, medical databases were searched systematically for randomized, controlled studies. This search initially yielded a total of 38 studies which were then evaluated by three independent reviewers. The number of studies was subsequently reduced to 14: six studies using a ciprofloxacin 0.2% solution, and eight studies using both 0.2% and 0.3% solutions.Results: The studies included in the review demonstrate the statistical equivalence between the ciprofloxacin solution (0.2%) and the reference products PNH (a combination of polymyxin B, neomycin sulfate and hydrocortisone), auriculum powder, and a ciprofloxacin foam with respect to the cure rate. The research groups consistently observed high in vitro activity of ciprofloxacin against Pseudomonas aeruginosa.Conclusion: This systematic review confirms the hypothesis of ciprofloxacin's noninferiority in the treatment of otitis externa, in terms of the cure rate and microbiological eradication.Keywords: otitis externa, ciprofloxacin, antibiotic, ear solution, efficac

Higher-order nonlinear electromechanical effects in wurtzite GaN/AlN quantum dots

As we demonstrated earlier, conventional mathematical models based on linear approximations may be inadequate in the analysis of properties of low-dimensional nanostructures and band structure calculations. In this work, a general three-dimensional axisymmetric coupled electromechanical model accounting for lattice mismatch, spontaneous polarization and higher-order nonlinear electrostriction effects has been applied to analyze properties of GaN/AlN quantum dots coupled with wetting layer. The generalized model that accounts for five independent electrostriction coefficients has been solved numerically via a finite-element implementation. The results, exemplified for truncated conical GaN/AlN quantum dots, demonstrate that the effect of nonlinear electrostriction in GaN/AlN nanoheterostructure quantum dots could be significant. In particular, the influence of nonlinear electromechanical effects on optoelectronic properties is highlighted by the results on band structure calculations based on a multiband effective mass theory

Remote sensing techology

Presented at Irrigation district sustainability - strategies to meet the challenges: USCID irrigation district specialty conference held on June 3-6, 2009 in Reno, Nevada.Includes bibliographical references.Irrigated agriculture is the largest water user in New Mexico; in southern New Mexico's Lower Rio Grande region, agriculture uses about one million acre-feet of water each year. Previous research has estimated that the average irrigation efficiency in the area is 44%. This relatively low aggregate efficiency indicates a large potential for water savings from agriculture. In order to determine the potential water savings, the amount of water depleted by crop evapotranspiration (ET) in the Mesilla Valley section of the EBID was estimated using satellite information and ground-level measurements to calculate plant consumptive water use on scales ranging from individual farms to the larger watershed. Two areas of potential water savings were evaluated using the satellite-generated consumptive use information: 1) potential water saving at the farm level and 2) potential water saving at the district level. This study found that the majority of farms in the study region were growing crops under deficit irrigation conditions. Therefore, irrigation improvements at the farm-level are likely to increase both yields and water depletion. Potential water savings at the district level were evaluated by comparing the total volume of water diverted for irrigation versus aggregate ET. From the satellite-generated ET data, district-level efficiency was determined to be 55% in 2002 (a full allocation year). Thus, there appears to be a potential for improving district-level efficiency. This can be accomplished by using regional ET depletion values to plan water releases from the reservoir and improve the diversion and distribution within the canal networks

New Mexico pecan production

Presented at Urbanization of irrigated land and water transfers: a USCID water management conference on May 28-31, 2008 in Scottsdale, Arizona.Includes bibliographical references.Pecans are a major agricultural crop in New Mexico. Currently there are approximately 11,000 hectares of pecans in the Elephant Butte Irrigation District, consuming more than one third of the annual diversion. The research presented here provides previously unavailable broad-scale estimates of pecan ET and pecan yield response to water. The data at the foundation of this paper were generated using the Regional ET Estimation Model (REEM) developed at New Mexico State University for agricultural and riparian vegetation (Samani et al. 2005, 2006, 2007). REEM uses remotely sensed satellite data to calculate ET as a residual of the energy balance. This research extends the results of REEM to an analysis of yield response to water in irrigated pecan production in the EBID. The study region is rapidly urbanizing and experiencing growing competition for scarce surface and groundwater supplies. The results of this research provide new insight into pecan water use and yields. This research illustrates the linkages that can be made between remote sensing technology, farm-level water management, and yield outcomes. This research sheds new light on the long-standing practice of deficit irrigation in pecans, the yield and conservation impacts of this practice, as well as water conservation policy implications

On the Representation Theory of Orthofermions and Orthosupersymmetric Realization of Parasupersymmetry and Fractional Supersymmetry

We construct a canonical irreducible representation for the orthofermion algebra of arbitrary order, and show that every representation decomposes into irreducible representations that are isomorphic to either the canonical representation or the trivial representation. We use these results to show that every orthosupersymmetric system of order $p$ has a parasupersymmetry of order $p$ and a fractional supersymmetry of order $p+1$.Comment: 13 pages, to appear in J. Phys. A: Math. Ge

Polymorphisms in the WNK1 gene are asociated with blood pressure variation and urinary potassium excretion

WNK1 - a serine/threonine kinase involved in electrolyte homeostasis and blood pressure (BP) control - is an excellent candidate gene for essential hypertension (EH). We and others have previously reported association between WNK1 and BP variation. Using tag SNPs (tSNPs) that capture 100% of common WNK1 variation in HapMap, we aimed to replicate our findings with BP and to test for association with phenotypes relating to WNK1 function in the British Genetics of Hypertension (BRIGHT) study case-control resource (1700 hypertensive cases and 1700 normotensive controls). We found multiple variants to be associated with systolic blood pressure, SBP (7/28 tSNPs min-p = 0.0005), diastolic blood pressure, DBP (7/28 tSNPs min-p = 0.002) and 24 hour urinary potassium excretion (10/28 tSNPs min-p = 0.0004). Associations with SBP and urine potassium remained significant after correction for multiple testing (p = 0.02 and p = 0.01 respectively). The major allele (A) of rs765250, located in intron 1, demonstrated the strongest evidence for association with SBP, effect size 3.14 mmHg (95%CI:1.23–4.9), DBP 1.9 mmHg (95%CI:0.7–3.2) and hypertension, odds ratio (OR: 1.3 [95%CI: 1.0–1.7]).We genotyped this variant in six independent populations (n = 14,451) and replicated the association between rs765250 and SBP in a meta-analysis (p = 7×10−3, combined with BRIGHT data-set p = 2×10−4, n = 17,851). The associations of WNK1 with DBP and EH were not confirmed. Haplotype analysis revealed striking associations with hypertension and BP variation (global permutation p10 mmHg reduction) and risk for hypertension (OR<0.60). Our data indicates that multiple rare and common WNK1 variants contribute to BP variation and hypertension, and provide compelling evidence to initiate further genetic and functional studies to explore the role of WNK1 in BP regulation and EH

Preparation and quality control of 177Lu-[tris(1,10-phenanthroline) lutetium(III)] complex for therapy

The 177Lu-[tris(1,10-phenanthroline)lutetium(III)] complex (177Lu-PQ3) was prepared successfully with high radiochemical purity (> 99%). Lu-177 chloride was obtained by thermal neutron flux (4 × 1013 n.cm&#8211;2.s&#8211;1) of natural Lu2(NO3)3 sample, dissolved in acidic media. The radiochemical yield was checked by measuring the radiochemical purity of the 177Lu-PQ complex by ITLC (10 mM DTPA, pH = 5, as mobile phase). The final complex solution was injected intravenously into wild-type male rats and bio-distribution of the complex was checked for up to 48 hours. The dose limiting organs were shown to be the reticulu-endothelial system. The bio-distribution of the labelled compounds in tumour-bearing animals is under investigation. Nuclear Med Rev 2010; 13, 2: 49&#8211;5

Analytical Solution for the Free Over-Fall Weir Flow Using Conformal Mapping and Potential Flow Theory

Abstract In this study an analytical approach is presented based on the potential flow theory and conformal mapping technique to solve the problem of an ideal and steady flow over a free over-fall weir. The results are arranged for rectangular sharp-crested over-fall weirs with different vertical aspect ratios (h/P, h is the water head above the weir and P is the weir height). To validate the results of this approach, the free over-fall weir d ischarge equation and the water free-surface profiles obtained with the potential flow theory have been calibrated with the experimental data. In conclusion, the information made available and the close correlation among the results of present analytical ap proach and the experimental data are adequate to warrant the reco mmendation of this method as a valuable supplement to existing methods employed in engineering design

Coherent state of a nonlinear oscillator and its revival dynamics

The coherent state of a nonlinear oscillator having a nonlinear spectrum is constructed using Gazeau Klauder formalism. The weighting distribution and the Mandel parameter are studied. Details of the revival structure arising from different time scales underlying the quadratic energy spectrum are investigated by the phase analysis of the autocorrelation function

LLM: Realizing Low-Latency Memory by Exploiting Embedded Silicon Photonics for Irregular Workloads

As emerging workloads exhibit irregular memory access patterns with poor data reuse and locality, they would benefit from a DRAM that achieves low latency without sacrificing bandwidth and energy efficiency. We propose LLM (Low Latency Memory), a codesign of the DRAM microarchitecture, the memory controller and the LLC/DRAM interconnect by leveraging embedded silicon photonics in 2.5D/3D integrated system on chip. LLM relies on Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM)-based photonic interconnects to reduce the contention throughout the memory subsystem. LLM also increases the bank-level parallelism, eliminates bus conflicts by using dedicated optical data paths, and reduces the access energy per bit with shorter global bitlines and smaller row buffers. We evaluate the design space of LLM for a variety of synthetic benchmarks and representative graph workloads on a full-system simulator (gem5). LLM exhibits low memory access latency for traffics with both regular and irregular access patterns. For irregular traffic, LLM achieves high bandwidth utilization (over 80% peak throughput compared to 20% of HBM2.0). For real workloads, LLM achieves 3 × and 1.8 × lower execution time compared to HBM2.0 and a state-of-the-art memory system with high memory level parallelism, respectively. This study also demonstrates that by reducing queuing on the data path, LLM can achieve on average 3.4 × lower memory latency variation compared to HBM2.0