Microbiological study of neonatal septicemia with special reference to metallo-beta-lactamase producing pseudomonas aeruginosa

Introduction: Metallo-beta-lactamase (MβL) producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa has emerged as a potential threat in cases of neonatal septicemia and poses great therapeutic challenge for physicians treating such infections. The emergence, selective multiplication & dissemination of antibacterial resistance are a serious global problem. Methods: This study was conducted with the objective to know the microbiological profile of neonatal septicemia cases and to examine the incidence of MβL producing strains among multidrug resistant (MDR) Pseudomonas aeruginosa from the suspected cases of neonatal sepsis between January 2012 – December 2014. A total of 994 cases admitted with the suspicion of neonatal sepsis were investigated. 295 (29.7%) isolates were obtained from the blood cultures of neonates. The isolates were identified and tested for the susceptibility to various antimicrobial agents. Results: Pseudomonas aeruginosa with 116 (48.3%) isolation among 240 Gram negative isolates was the predominant pathogen in our study. All the 74 (63.8%) multidrug resistant P. aeruginosa isolates were screened initially for Imipenem resistance, which were further tested for the presence of MβL by Imipenem-ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) disc method. MβL production was seen in 20 (71.4%) of the 28 Imipenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates. Conclusion:It creates a great therapeutic problem as it may spread rapidly to various other species of Gram-negative bacilli. Therefore, to prevent the further spread of MβL producers, it is essential to rapidly detect MβL-positive isolates

Prevalence of invasive Trichosporonosis by Trichosporon asahii and other Trichosporon species and their antifungal susceptibility pattern in Chhattisgarh

Introduction: Trichosporonosis is usually known to cause superficial mycoses, but now it is emerged as an opportunistic infectious disease. Trichosporon species is fairly uncommon fungus but can cause fatal mycosis in immunocompromised patients. Objective: This study is an attempt to know prevalence of invasive trichosporonosis and its antifungal susceptibility. Materials and Methods: All patients with a culture that was positive for Trichosporon species from February 2012 to February 2015 were included. Routine mycology works up done and suspected Trichosporon sp. were confirmed by automated miniAPI system. Antifungal susceptibility test was done for Fluconazole (F), Itraconazole(Itr), Voriconazole(V), Flucytosine(5Fc), AmphotericinB (AMB) done by minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) method by ATB Fungus3 ( Biomerieux, France). Result: 41 Trichosporon sp. was isolated from clinical specimen. Trichosporon asahii was the most common isolate (29 out of 41, 70.7%), followed by T. mucoides (5 of 41, 12.2%), T. inkin (2 of 41, 4.9%) and other Trichosporon sp. (5 out of 41,12.2%). Out of 41, 20 cases were proven to cause invasive trichosporonosis. Most invasive infections were associated with indwelling catheter (95%), associated bacterial infection(85%), ICU stay (85% each), prior antibiotic use (75%), cancer (65%), neutropenia, steroid use (55% each) and chemotherapy(50%). Amphotericin B was less susceptible against Trichosporon isolates whereas azole had good in vitro activity. Sensitivity of T.asahii towards Fluconazole, Itraconazole, Voriconazole, Amphotericin B and Flucytosine was 72.4%, 51.7%, 86.2%, 51.7% and 66.8% respectively. Conclusion: T. asahii and other unusual Trichosporon sp.species also cause invasive trichosporonosis. For optimal therapy for trichosporonosis azoles can play a potential role

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Not AvailableIn plants, GIGANTEA (GI) protein plays different biological functions including carbon and sucrose metabolism, cell wall deposition, transpiration and hypocotyl elongation. This suggests that GI is an important class of proteins. So far, the resource-intensive experimental methods have been mostly utilized for identification of GI proteins. Thus, we made an attempt in this study to develop a computational model for fast and accurate prediction of GI proteins. Ten different supervised learning algorithms i.e., SVM, RF, JRIP, J48, LMT, IBK, NB, PART, BAGG and LGB were employed for prediction, where the amino acid composition (AAC), FASGAI features and physico-chemical (PHYC) properties were used as numerical inputs for the learning algorithms. Higher accuracies i.e., 96.75% of AUC-ROC and 86.7% of AUC-PR were observed for SVM coupled with AAC + PHYC feature combination, while evaluated with five-fold cross validation. With leave-one-out cross validation, 97.29% of AUC-ROC and 87.89% of AUC-PR were respectively achieved. While the performance of the model was evaluated with an independent dataset of 18 GI sequences, 17 were observed as correctly predicted. We have also performed proteome-wide identification of GI proteins in wheat, followed by functional annotation using Gene Ontology terms. A prediction server “GIpred” is freely accessible at http://cabgrid.res.in:8080/gipred/ for proteome-wide recognition of GI proteins.Not Availabl

Profile of Indian adults consulting nurses/midwives for healthcare

The article aims to explore and characterize Indian adults who seek nursing consultations. Nursing professionals constitute two-fifth of the Indian healthcare workforce, but their consultation with patients is limited. Hence investigating the profile of Indian adults who consult nurses is necessary. The study used Secondary data of 72,250 nationally representative adults from the first wave of the Longitudinal Ageing Study of India, which was analyzed for nursing consultation sought by the participants during the 12 months preceding the survey using appropriate statistical methods and weights. Out of 257.1 million adult’s ≥45 years old and their spouses, 69.3% had consulted one or more healthcare workers during the last 12 months preceding the survey, and only 1.30% of adults had consulted nurses/midwives. Those, who consulted nurses/midwives, 16.7%, 26.2%, and 13.3% had consulted at community health facilities such as sub-centers, primary-health-centers, and community-health-centres respectively. Rural residency, female gender, adults with non-chronic diseases, caste, religion, education, and wealth status were found to be significant influencers of nursing consultation. The study concluded that nursing consultation is under-utilized, but serves the need of vulnerable population groups

Biofilm production by uropathogens causing catheter associated urinary tract infection

Background: The microbial populations within urinary catheter frequently develop as biofilms, directly attaching to the surface of catheters. Bacteria in biofilm are protected from antimicrobial chemotherapy as well as host defence mechanisms, establishing chronic persistent infections, septicemia and death if not treated. Material and Method: The present study, includes 200 patients, catheterized for >48 hours at CIMS, Bilaspur. Urine samples were collected and inoculated in nutrient agar, blood agar and MacConkey agar plates and identification done as per standard procedure. This study was conducted to detect biofilm formation ability of uropathogens by two different methods (Tube and Congo red agar method) and compare their antibiotic sensitivity by using Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. Results: Out of 200 urine samples significant bacteriuria were detected in 148(74%) of samples and no growth found in 52(26%) samples and 14 samples showed growth of 2 microorganisms. A total no. of 162 microorganisms were isolated from 200 urine samples. Among these 162 isolates E. Coli was 29.62%, Pseudomonas aeruginosa 11.72%, Klebsiella sp 18.51%, Citrobactor sp 7.40%, Staphylococcus aureus 3.08%, and Coagulase negative Staphylococci 11%. Among these 162 isolates, a total of 91(56.17%) isolates showed biofilm production. Percentage of biofilm formation was highest in P. aeruginosa (63.15%). Conclusion: Tube test method was found to be more reliable method. The in vitro antibiotic susceptibility pattern of biofilm producing organisms showed less sensitivity as compared to non-biofilm producing organisms

Measurements of inclusive J/ψ\psi production at midrapidity and forward rapidity in Pb−-Pb collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}} = 5.02 TeV

International audienceThe measurements of the inclusive J/$\psi$ yield at midrapidity ($\left | y \right | < 0.9$) and forward rapidity (2.5 $< y <$ 4) in Pb$-$Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=5.02$ TeV with the ALICE detector at the LHC are reported. The inclusive J/$\psi$ production yields and nuclear modification factors, $R_{\rm AA}$, are measured as a function of the collision centrality, J/$\psi$ transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$), and rapidity. The J/$\psi$ average transverse momentum and squared transverse momentum ($\langle p_{\mathrm{T}}\rangle$ and $\langle p_{\mathrm{T}}^{\mathrm{2}}\rangle$) are evaluated as a function of the centrality at midrapidity. Compared to the previous ALICE publications, here the entire Pb$-$Pb collisions dataset collected during the LHC Run 2 is used, which improves the precision of the measurements and extends the $p_{\rm T}$ coverage. The $p_{\rm T}$-integrated $R_{\rm AA}$ shows a hint of an increasing trend towards unity from semicentral to central collisions at midrapidity, while it is flat at forward rapidity. The $p_{\rm T}$-differential $R_{\rm AA}$ shows a strong suppression at high $p_{\rm T}$ with less suppression at low $p_{\rm T}$ where it reaches a larger value at midrapidity compared to forward rapidity. The ratio of the $p_{\rm T}$-integrated yields of J/$\psi$ to those of D$^{0}$ mesons is reported for the first time for the central and semicentral event classes at midrapidity. Model calculations implementing charmonium production via the coalescence of charm quarks and antiquarks during the fireball evolution (transport models) or in a statistical approach with thermal weights are in good agreement with the data at low $p_{\rm T}$. At higher $p_{\rm T}$, the data are well described by transport models and a model based on energy loss in the strongly-interacting medium produced in nuclear collisions at the LHC

System size dependence of hadronic rescattering effect at LHC energies

International audienceThe first measurements of $\mathrm{K^{*}(892)^{0}}$ resonance production as a function of charged-particle multiplicity in Xe$-$Xe collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=$ 5.44 TeV and pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=$ 5.02 TeV using the ALICE detector are presented. The resonance is reconstructed at midrapidity ($|y|< 0.5$) using the hadronic decay channel $\mathrm{K^{*0}} \rightarrow \mathrm{K^{\pm} \pi^{\mp}}$. Measurements of transverse-momentum integrated yield, mean transverse-momentum, nuclear modification factor of $\mathrm{K^{*0}}$, and yield ratios of resonance to stable hadron ($\mathrm{K^{*0}}$/K) are compared across different collision systems (pp, p$-$Pb, Xe$-$Xe, and Pb$-$Pb) at similar collision energies to investigate how the production of $\mathrm{K^{*0}}$ resonances depends on the size of the system formed in these collisions. The hadronic rescattering effect is found to be independent of the size of colliding systems and mainly driven by the produced charged-particle multiplicity, which is a proxy of the volume of produced matter at the chemical freeze-out. In addition, the production yields of $\mathrm{K^{*0}}$ in Xe$-$Xe collisions are utilized to constrain the dependence of the kinetic freeze-out temperature on the system size using HRG-PCE model

Studying strangeness and baryon production mechanisms through angular correlations between charged Ξ\Xi baryons and identified hadrons in pp collisions at s\sqrt{s} = 13 TeV

International audienceThe angular correlations between charged $\Xi$ baryons and associated identified hadrons (pions, kaons, protons, $\Lambda$ baryons, and $\Xi$ baryons) are measured in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV with the ALICE detector to give insight into the particle production mechanisms and balancing of quantum numbers on the microscopic level. In particular, the distribution of strangeness is investigated in the correlations between the doubly-strange $\Xi$ baryon and mesons and baryons that contain a single strange quark, K and $\Lambda$. As a reference, the results are compared to $\Xi\pi$ and $\Xi\mathrm{p}$ correlations, where the associated mesons and baryons do not contain a strange valence quark. These measurements are expected to be sensitive to whether strangeness is produced through string breaking or in a thermal production scenario. Furthermore, the multiplicity dependence of the correlation functions is measured to look for the turn-on of additional particle production mechanisms with event activity. The results are compared to predictions from the string-breaking model PYTHIA 8, including tunes with baryon junctions and rope hadronisation enabled, the cluster hadronisation model HERWIG 7, and the core-corona model EPOS-LHC. While some aspects of the experimental data are described quantitatively or qualitatively by the Monte Carlo models, no one model can match all features of the data. These results provide stringent constraints on the strangeness and baryon number production mechanisms in pp collisions

Multiplicity-dependent production of Σ(1385)±\Sigma(1385)^{\pm} and Ξ(1530)0\Xi(1530)^{0} in pp collisions at s=13\sqrt{s}=13 TeV

International audienceThe production yields of the $\Sigma(1385)^{\pm}$ and $\Xi(1530)^{0}$ resonances are measured in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV with ALICE. The measurements are performed as a function of the charged particle multiplicity $\langle \mathrm{d}N_\mathrm{ch}/\mathrm{d}\eta \rangle$, which is related to the energy density produced in the collision. The results include transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) distributions, $p_{\rm T}$-integrated yields, mean transverse momenta of $\Sigma(1385)^{\pm}$ and $\Xi(1530)^{0}$, as well as ratios of the $p_{\rm T}$-integrated resonance yields relative to yields of other hadron species. The $\Sigma(1385)^{\pm}/\pi^{\pm}$ and $\Xi(1530)^{0}/\pi^{\pm}$ yield ratios are consistent with the trend of the enhancement of strangeness production from low to high multiplicity pp collisions, which was previously observed for strange and multi-strange baryons. The yield ratio between the measured resonances and the long-lived baryons with the same strangeness content exhibits a hint of a mild increasing trend at low multiplicity, despite too large uncertainties to exclude the flat behaviour. The results are compared to predictions from models such as EPOS-LHC and PYTHIA 8 with Rope shoving. The latter provides the best description of the multiplicity dependence of the $\Sigma(1385)^{\pm}$ and $\Xi(1530)^{0}$ production in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV