Epidemiological alteration in pathogens found in ground meat in Iran: unexpected predominance of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecalis

Colonization of the human and animal intestinal tract with potential pathogenic bacteria is correlated with the risk of contamination of food products. The current study analyzed the prevalence of Enterococcus faecalis and Escherichia coli O157H7 in ground meat in Ilam, Iran. Both index organisms were identified following standard food microbiological methods. For E. faecalis, the susceptibility to vancomycin was tested, and PCR was used to check for the vanA gene. E. faecalis was present in all 24 ground meat samples, with no E. coli O157H7 detected in samples. The analysis showed the presence of the vanA gene in 5/24 vancomycin resistant enterococci. In conclusion, this study for the first time demonstrates the presence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci in ground meat in Iran. This observation warrants further epidemiologic investigation and should be followed up in the future

A Multi-Armed Bandit to Smartly Select a Training Set from Big Medical Data

With the availability of big medical image data, the selection of an adequate training set is becoming more important to address the heterogeneity of different datasets. Simply including all the data does not only incur high processing costs but can even harm the prediction. We formulate the smart and efficient selection of a training dataset from big medical image data as a multi-armed bandit problem, solved by Thompson sampling. Our method assumes that image features are not available at the time of the selection of the samples, and therefore relies only on meta information associated with the images. Our strategy simultaneously exploits data sources with high chances of yielding useful samples and explores new data regions. For our evaluation, we focus on the application of estimating the age from a brain MRI. Our results on 7,250 subjects from 10 datasets show that our approach leads to higher accuracy while only requiring a fraction of the training data.Comment: MICCAI 2017 Proceeding

Is coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) associated with renal involvement? A review of century infection

Context: The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is one of the most threatening pandemics in history involving multiple organs, including the kidney. This study aimed to review the association of COVID-19 with renal involvement. Evidence Acquisition: International databases, including the Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar, were searched for articles by April 1, 2020. Keywords were COVID-19, coronavirus disease, SARS-CoV-2, kidney, renal function, acute kidney injury, and acute renal failure, or a combination of them in title/abstracts. Results: There were a few studies concerning COVID-19 and renal failure due to the short time elapsed from the epidemic onset. The results showed that hematuria and proteinuria were common in patients with COVID-19. Conclusions: Patients with elevated creatinine are at risk of mortality two times more than patients with normal creatinine. Also, elevated BUN, proteinuria, and hematuria can increase the risk of mortality in patients with COVID-19 up to four times compared to patients with normal tests. Therefore, it is important to check creatinine, BUN, proteinuria, and hematuria in primary assessments. Generally, all routine measures for people affected with COVID-19 can be done for COVID-19 patients with acute renal failure until the current knowledge is changed. Chloroquine phosphate may improve the chance of treatment. © 2020, Author(s)

Determination of pumping and dynamic vacuum properties of conductive quaternary alloy of TiZrVAg non-evaporable getter

Non Evaporable Getter (NEG) coating has been employed extensively in the particle accelerator especial-ly where the vacuum conductance of the vessel is se-verely restricted and ultra-high vacuum condition is required. NEG coating will significantly reduce the outgassing rate and provides active pumping surface for H2, CO and CO2. In addition, it has been proven that NEG coated surfaces have a very low secondary electron yield, as well as low photon and electron stimulated desorption yields. However, the existing NEG film increases the RF surface resistance of the beam pipe. In order to increase NEG coating conductivity, at ASTeC, in the past several years, the alternative NEG composition have been studied by adding more con-ductive element such as Cu, Au, Al and Ag. In this study, we report on the photon stimulated desorption, activation temperature and surface resistance from room temperature to cryogenic temperature for a new NEG quaternary alloy of TiVZrAg as function of the film composition.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Role of surface morphology on bed material activation during indirect gasification of wood

Olivine and alkali-feldspar were utilized in separate campaigns in an indirect dual fluidized bed gasification campaign with woody biomass as fuel. After three days, both bed materials were reported to be active towards tar removal and exhibited oxygen-carrying abilities and had formed an ash layer consisting of an outer ash deposition layer and an inner interaction layer. X-ray microtomography analysis concluded that a preferred deposition of ash happens onto convex regions of the bed particles, which results in an increase in thickness of the ash layer over convex regions. This effect is most pronounced for the outer layer which is a product of ash deposition. The inner layer exhibits a homogeneous thickness and is probably formed by interaction of Ca from the outer layer with the particles. Transmission electron microscopy revealed the presence of Fe and Mn on the surface of the particles in a solid solution with Mg. The oxygen-carrying effect which is found for aged particles is therefore attributed to the presence of Fe and Mn on the surface of aged particles. Alkali were found on the surface of both particles which are likely contributing to the catalytic activity of the material towards tar removal

Alterations in global DNA methylation and hydroxymethylation are not detected in Alzheimer's disease.

Genetic factors do not seem to account fully for Alzheimer disease (AD) pathogenesis. There is evidence for the contribution of environmental factors, whose effect may be mediated by epigenetic mechanisms. Epigenetics involves the regulation of gene expression independently of DNA sequence and these epigenetic changes are influenced by age and environmental factors, with DNA methylation being one of the best characterized epigenetic mechanisms. The human genome is predominantly methylated on CpG motifs, which results in gene silencing; however methylation within the body of the gene may mark active transcription. There is evidence suggesting an involvement of environmental factors in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), which prompted our study examining DNA methylation in this disorder

Is physical activity related to renal cell carcinoma? A systematic review

Introduction: Relationship between renal cell carcinoma and physical activity is not clear. Objectives: This study aimed to review the relationship between renal cell carcinoma and physical activity. Methods: We searched valid databases such as PubMed/Medline, Web of Science and Scopus for search of English papers by 30/12/2018. Eleven articles were selected for final assessment. We used Kidney cancer, Exercise, Kidney Neoplasm, Renal cancer, Physical activity, Renal cell carcinoma, Physical inactivity and Sedentary Lifestyle or a combination of them in the title/abstracts as the keywords. Results: There were 37,742 subjects reviewed in this systematic review of eleven published papers including five standard case-control, three cohorts and three population-based case-control design. Conclusion: According to the results, physical activity has a reverse relationship with renal cell carcinoma. © 2020 The Author(s); Published by So