The burden of clostridium difficile infection in patients with liver cirrhosis

Clostridium Difficile Infection (CDI) has registered a dramatically increasing incidence in the general population over the past decades. Nowadays, Clostridium Difficile is the leading cause of hospital-acquired diarrhea in Europe and North America. Liver cirrhosis is the final stage of any chronic liver disease (CLD). The most common causes are chronic hepatitis C or B and viral co-infections, alcohol misuse, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). CLD and cirrhosis are listed among the ten leading causes of death in the US. Cirrhosis due to any etiology disrupts the homeostatic role of the liver in the body. Cirrhosis-associated immune dysfunction (CAID) leads to alterations in both inherited and acquired systemic and local liver immunity. CAID is caused by increased systemic inflammation and immunodeficiency and it is responsible for 30% of mortality rates all over the world. Clostridium Difficile infection frequently affects patients suffering from liver cirrhosis because of the high number of prolonged hospitalizations, regular use of antibiotics for the prevention or treatment of SBP, proton pump inhibitor (PPI) use, and an overall immunocompromised state. Clostridium Difficile is a Gram-positive bacterium responsible for the high morbidity and mortality rates in patients with cirrhosis, with an essential increase in a 30-day mortality

Sociologists and the transformation of the peasantry in Romania, 1925-1940

This thesis examines the role of sociology in producing visions of rural transformation in interwar Romania. Focusing on the Bucharest School of Sociology, led by Dimitrie Gusti, whose studies in many ways shaped broader academic, social, and political views of the peasantry, it traces the establishment of the discipline as a reputable source of knowledge about the countryside and examines the ways in which sociologists conceptualised and sought to influence the ongoing transformation of rural Romania. The theme of transformation therefore runs through the various stages in the production of sociological knowledge, from the encounter between sociologists and the peasantry, to the intellectual debates over their findings, and to the various blueprints for rural transformation the School produced, considering how sociology shaped and was in turn shaped by its relationship with both the rural world and the state. It explores the constant shift between the lament over social and cultural change in the countryside and the desire to manage its modernisation scientifically. Examining the Bucharest School of Sociology challenges existing conceptual divisions used to understand the politics of interwar Romania. The thesis argues that the School's ethos drew in intellectuals of both the right and the left, all of whom believed that scientific knowledge harnessed to the power of the state was the only solution to Romania's 'agrarian question'. Moreover, this study makes an important contribution to the existing literature on the role of social sciences in state-building and modernisation processes by placing Romanian sociology in a wider interwar intellectual effort of finding the perfect balance between rurality and modernity. It complements and casts new light on studies concentrating mainly on Western states, colonial regimes and the Soviet Union, by looking at how the intellectuals of an independent agrarian state sought to aid its modernisation and integration into the world capitalist system. Finally, it uncovers issues that are very relevant for current debates about the fate of the peasantry in developing countries

The burden of clostridium difficile infection in patients with liver cirrhosis

Clostridium Difficile Infection (CDI) has registered a dramatically increasing incidence in the general population over the past decades. Nowadays, Clostridium Difficile is the leading cause of hospital-acquired diarrhea in Europe and North America. Liver cirrhosis is the final stage of any chronic liver disease (CLD). The most common causes are chronic hepatitis C or B and viral co-infections, alcohol misuse, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). CLD and cirrhosis are listed among the ten leading causes of death in the US. Cirrhosis due to any etiology disrupts the homeostatic role of the liver in the body. Cirrhosis-associated immune dysfunction (CAID) leads to alterations in both inherited and acquired systemic and local liver immunity. CAID is caused by increased systemic inflammation and immunodeficiency and it is responsible for 30% of mortality rates all over the world. Clostridium Difficile infection frequently affects patients suffering from liver cirrhosis because of the high number of prolonged hospitalizations, regular use of antibiotics for the prevention or treatment of SBP, proton pump inhibitor (PPI) use, and an overall immunocompromised state. Clostridium Difficile is a Gram-positive bacterium responsible for the high morbidity and mortality rates in patients with cirrhosis, with an essential increase in a 30-day mortality

Improvement of Photovoltaic Cells Efficiency by Reducing Contamination in Single Chamber PECVD System by Passivation with a-Si:H and μc-Si:H Thin Films

High performance solar cells, deposited in a single chamber, can be obtained when low levels of contamination exists for the p-,i-,n- layers. This is a recurrent problem not only in the laboratories, but also in the industrial single chamber plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) systems. In this paper an effective method of reducing the impurities, through the passivation with amorphous and nano/microcrystalline silicon thin film of the PECVD chamber walls, before and during the deposition of the solar cell layers is described

Hybrid (Ag)ZnO/Cs/PMMA nanocomposite thin films

Combining well known oxide materials with biocompatible polymers such as chitosan (Cs) and antimicrobial agents such as Ag can bring new functionalities to materials for electronics and lead to new border applications in the field of stretchable wearable bioelectronics and drug delivery systems. The paper reports on new hybrid thin films based on zinc oxide (ZnO) and Ag:ZnO nanoparticles dispersed in chitosan and incorporated in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) matrix by a modified sol-gel method. The structure, morphology, optical, electrical and antimicrobial properties of the obtained hybrid ZnO/Cs/PMMA and Ag:ZnO/Cs/PMMA thin films have been investigated. For electric characterization, current-voltage, capacitance-voltage and dielectric constant-frequency curves of the one and two-layers hybrid thin films deposed in MIS structure have been recorded. The dielectric constant values between 9.5 and 14.9 at 20 kHz, in addition with low surface roughness, optimal optical transmittance in visible and near-infrared region of about 90% and optical band gap (Eg) values between 3.543 and 3.737 eV, indicate high potential applications of the obtained hybrid films in transparent bioelectronics. The antimicrobial activity of the hybrid sols used for the film's deposition and the resulted thin films have been investigated using the paper disc method on Mueller-Hinton agar against Gram negative E. coli and Gram positive S. aureus bacteria. Ag:ZnO/Cs/PMMA films showed good antimicrobial activity against S. aureus and E. coli.authorsversionpublishe

Thermal comfort investigation of an outdoor air-conditioned area in a hot and arid environment

Thermal comfort in hot and arid outdoor environments is an industrial challenging field. An outdoor air-conditioned area was designed and built to host sport and social events during summers 2014 and 2015 in Qatar. This article presents a thermal comfort analysis of the outdoor air-conditioned area using computational fluid dynamics, on-site spectators surveys, and on-spot climatic measurements. The study utilized computational fluid dynamics to develop a thermal comfort model of the outdoor air-conditioned area to predict the thermal comfort of the occupants. Five different thermal comfort indices; mean comfort vote, cooling power index, wet-bulb globe temperature index, Humidex, discomfort index, were utilized to assess the thermal comfort of spectators within the conditioned space. The indices utilized different on site measurements of meteorological data and on-site interviews. In comparison to the mean comfort vote of the sampled survey, all thermal comfort indices underestimated the actual thermal comfort percentage except the wet-bulb globe temperature index that overestimated the comfort percentage. The computational fluid dynamics results reasonably predicted most of the thermal comfort indices values. The computational fluid dynamics results overestimated the comfort percentage of mean comfort vote, wet-bulb globe temperature index, and discomfort index, while the thermal comfort percentage was underestimated as indicated by the cooling power index, and Humidex

A detailed investigation of the onion structure of exchanged coupled magnetic Fe3-dO4@CoFe2O4@Fe3-dO4 nanoparticles

Nanoparticles that combine several magnetic phases offer wide perspectives for cutting edge applications because of the high modularity of their magnetic properties. Besides the addition of the magnetic characteristics intrinsic to each phase, the interface that results from core-shell and, further, from onion structures leads to synergistic properties such as magnetic exchange coupling. Such a phenomenon is of high interest to overcome the superparamagnetic limit of iron oxide nanoparticles which hampers potential applications such as data storage or sensors. In this manuscript, we report on the design of nanoparticles with an onion-like structure which has been scarcely reported yet. These nanoparticles consist of a Fe3-dO4 core covered by a first shell of CoFe2O4 and a second shell of Fe3-dO4, e.g., a Fe3-dO4@CoFe2O4@Fe3-dO4 onion-like structure. They were synthesized through a multistep seed-mediated growth approach which consists consists in performing three successive thermal decomposition of metal complexes in a high-boiling-point solvent (about 300 °C). Although TEM micrographs clearly show the growth of each shell from the iron oxide core, core sizes and shell thicknesses markedly differ from what is suggested by the size increasing. We investigated very precisely the structure of nanoparticles in performing high resolution (scanning) TEM imaging and geometrical phase analysis (GPA). The chemical composition and spatial distribution of atoms were studied by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) mapping and spectroscopy. The chemical environment and oxidation state of cations were investigated by 57Fe Mössbauer spectrometry, soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). The combination of these techniques allowed us to estimate the increase of Fe2+ content in the iron oxide core of the core@shell structure and the increase of the cobalt ferrite shell thickness in the core@shell@shell one, whereas the iron oxide shell appears to be much thinner than expected. Thus, the modification of the chemical composition as well as the size of the Fe3-dO4 core and the thickness of the cobalt ferrite shell have a high impact on the magnetic properties. Furthermore, the growth of the iron oxide shell also markedly modifies the magnetic properties of the core-shell nanoparticles, thus demonstrating the high potential of onion-like nanoparticles to accurately tune the magnetic properties of nanoparticles according to the desired applications. © 2021 American Chemical Society

Testing the Higgs Mechanism in the Lepton Sector with multi-TeV e+e- Collisions

Multi-TeV e+e- collisions provide with a large enough sample of Higgs bosons to enable measurements of its suppressed decays. Results of a detailed study of the determination of the muon Yukawa coupling at 3 TeV, based on full detector simulation and event reconstruction, are presented. The muon Yukawa coupling can be determined with a relative accuracy of 0.04 to 0.08 for Higgs bosons masses from 120 GeV to 150 GeV, with an integrated luminosity of 5 inverse-ab. The result is not affected by overlapping two-photon background.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, submitted to J Phys G.: Nucl. Phy

Surface cleaning and sample carrier for complementary high-resolution imaging techniques

Nowadays, high-resolution imaging techniques are extensively applied in a complementary way to gain insights into complex phenomena. For a truly complementary analytical approach, a common sample carrier is required that is suitable for the different preparation methods necessary for each analytical technique. This sample carrier should be capable of accommodating diverse analytes and maintaining their pristine composition and arrangement during deposition and preparation. In this work, a new type of sample carrier consisting of a silicon wafer with a hydrophilic polymer coating was developed. The robustness of the polymer coating toward solvents was strengthened by cross-linking and stoving. Furthermore, a new method of UV-ozone cleaning was developed that enhances the adhesion of the polymer coating to the wafer and ensures reproducible surface-properties of the resulting sample carrier. The hydrophilicity of the sample carrier was recovered applying the new method of UV-ozone cleaning, while avoiding UV-induced damages to the polymer. Noncontact 3D optical profilometry and contact angle measurements were used to monitor the hydrophilicity of the coating. The hydrophilicity of the polymer coating ensures its spongelike behavior so that upon the deposition of an analyte suspension, the solvent and solutes are separated from the analyte by absorption into the polymer. This feature is essential to limit the coffee-ring effect and preserve the native identity of an analyte upon deposition. The suitability of the sample carrier for various sample types was tested using nanoparticles from suspension, bacterial cells, and tissue sections. To assess the homogeneity of the analyte distribution and preservation of sample integrity, optical and scanning electron microscopy, helium ion microscopy, laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry were used. This demonstrates the broad applicability of the newly developed sample carrier and its value for complementary imaging. © 2020 Author(s)