A retrospective observational study of traumatic orthopaedic: related infections in Cambodia

Background: The objective of this study was to establish the type of microbiology along with antimicrobial resistance related to orthopedic related trauma infections in this area in order to help guide diagnosis and treatment regimens.Methods:This study evaluated the microbial etiology of orthopedic-related infections (ORI) between September 2015 and September 2016 in three tertiary hospitals in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Clinical records were for clinical features and demographics. Standard laboratory bacteriology was used to recover, identified and perform antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) by disk diffusion or broth microdilution.Results:119 patients were categorized as ORI cases. In the cases identified, median interquartile range (IQR) age was 38 (IQR: 26-46) years and 80.0% were male. Of the 119 ORI cases, a total of 156 bacterial strains were recovered, identified and after review, 128 of these pathogenic bacterial strains underwent AST. Among the gram-positive pathogens, the following susceptibilities were as follows: Staphylococcus aureus (n=57) (Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (n=35; 61.4%), (Methicillin‐sensitive S. aureus (n=22; 38.6%)), coagulase-negative staphylococcus (all MS-CoNS; n=6) and four isolates of Enterococcus sp. (non-VRE). A total of 44 gram-negative pathogens were recovered and AST was performed. Among these 44, a total of nine extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) producing strains (20.5%) were discovered including Escherichia coli (n=8), Klebsiella pneumoniae (n=1) and carbapenemase-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) (Morganella morganii). In addition, a single E. coli isolate contained both the ESBL and CRE genotypes was noted.Conclusions:This data suggests that ORI rates in Cambodia appear to be comparable to other studies in the literature. However, further studies need to be done in order to establish definitive data related to orthopedic infections in the region

Multiple populations in globular clusters. Lessons learned from the Milky Way globular clusters

Recent progress in studies of globular clusters has shown that they are not simple stellar populations, being rather made of multiple generations. Evidence stems both from photometry and spectroscopy. A new paradigm is then arising for the formation of massive star clusters, which includes several episodes of star formation. While this provides an explanation for several features of globular clusters, including the second parameter problem, it also opens new perspectives about the relation between globular clusters and the halo of our Galaxy, and by extension of all populations with a high specific frequency of globular clusters, such as, e.g., giant elliptical galaxies. We review progress in this area, focusing on the most recent studies. Several points remain to be properly understood, in particular those concerning the nature of the polluters producing the abundance pattern in the clusters and the typical timescale, the range of cluster masses where this phenomenon is active, and the relation between globular clusters and other satellites of our Galaxy.Comment: In press (The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review

DNA methylation subgroups and the CpG island methylator phenotype in gastric cancer: A comprehensive profiling approach

10.1186/1471-230X-14-55BMC Gastroenterology141-BGMA

EVpedia: a community web portal for extracellular vesicles research

Motivation: Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are spherical bilayered proteolipids, harboring various bioactive molecules. Due to the complexity of the vesicular nomenclatures and components, online searches for EV-related publications and vesicular components are currently challenging. Results: We present an improved version of EVpedia, a public database for EVs research. This community web portal contains a database of publications and vesicular components, identification of orthologous vesicular components, bioinformatic tools and a personalized function. EVpedia includes 6879 publications, 172 080 vesicular components from 263 high-throughput datasets, and has been accessed more than 65 000 times from more than 750 cities. In addition, about 350 members from 73 international research groups have participated in developing EVpedia. This free web-based database might serve as a useful resource to stimulate the emerging field of EV research.X1110478Ysciescopu

Varying constants, Gravitation and Cosmology

Fundamental constants are a cornerstone of our physical laws. Any constant varying in space and/or time would reflect the existence of an almost massless field that couples to matter. This will induce a violation of the universality of free fall. It is thus of utmost importance for our understanding of gravity and of the domain of validity of general relativity to test for their constancy. We thus detail the relations between the constants, the tests of the local position invariance and of the universality of free fall. We then review the main experimental and observational constraints that have been obtained from atomic clocks, the Oklo phenomenon, Solar system observations, meteorites dating, quasar absorption spectra, stellar physics, pulsar timing, the cosmic microwave background and big bang nucleosynthesis. At each step we describe the basics of each system, its dependence with respect to the constants, the known systematic effects and the most recent constraints that have been obtained. We then describe the main theoretical frameworks in which the low-energy constants may actually be varying and we focus on the unification mechanisms and the relations between the variation of different constants. To finish, we discuss the more speculative possibility of understanding their numerical values and the apparent fine-tuning that they confront us with.Comment: 145 pages, 10 figures, Review for Living Reviews in Relativit

Integrating environmental management practices with strategic planning process.

Integrating environmental issues into strategic planning: developing a self-assessment tool. This project studies the environmental practices of the ISO 14001 certified companies in Singapore and examine the extent to which such practices are integrated with the corporate strategy