Throat and rectal swabs may have an important role in MRSA screening of critically ill patients.

OBJECTIVE: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a major problem in intensive care units (ICU). International guidelines recommend screening patients for MRSA on admission, although consensus on sites required for optimum detection has not been reached. Our aim was to determine whether throat and rectal swabs identified a significant number of additional MRSA-colonised patients not captured by swabbing at keratinized skin carriage sites (anterior nares, perineum and axillae). DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING: 30-Bed medical and surgical ICU in a tertiary teaching hospital. PATIENTS: One thousand four hundred and eighty adult patients consecutively admitted over 15 months. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Swabs from carriage sites (anterior nares, perineum, axillae, throat and rectum), wounds and clinical samples taken within 48 h of ICU admission were analysed to identify patients admitted with MRSA. A complete set of carriage swabs were received from 1,470 patients. 105 (7%) patients were admitted with MRSA of which 63 (60%) were detected by a pooled keratinized skin swab (anterior nares, perineum, axillae). A further 36 (34%) patients were detected only by throat or rectal swabs. Indeed, throat and rectal swabs combined had a higher sensitivity than pooled keratinised skin swabs (76 vs. 60% P = 0.0247). Swabs from all carriage sites together detected 95% (100) of MRSA positive patients, with five patients being positive at wound sites only. CONCLUSIONS: The throat and rectum are important and potentially hidden sites of MRSA carriage in critically ill patients. These findings prompt the need for larger studies to determine the most cost-effective screening strategy for MRSA detection. DESCRIPTOR: Non-pulmonary nosocomial infections

h→Υγh \to \Upsilon \gamma Decay: Smoking Gun Signature of Wrong-Sign hbbˉhb\bar{b} Coupling

We analyze in a model-independent way the potential to probe new physics using Higgs decay to $\Upsilon \gamma$. The $h \to \Upsilon \gamma$ decay width is unusually small in the Standard Model because of an accidental cancellation among the direct and indirect decay diagrams. Thus, any new physics that can modify the direct or the indirect decay amplitudes disrupts the accidental Standard Model cancellation and can potentially lead to a relatively large decay width for $h \to \Upsilon \gamma$. Here, we carry out a detailed model-independent analysis of the possible new physics that can disrupt this cancellation. We demonstrate that after taking into account all possible constraints on Higgs production and decay processes from experimental measurements, the wrong-sign $h b \bar{b}$ coupling is the only scenario in which the $h \to \Upsilon \gamma$ decay width can be changed by almost two orders of magnitude. We conclude that an observation of a significantly enhanced $h \to \Upsilon \gamma$ decay width at the LHC or any future collider will be a conclusive evidence of a wrong-sign $h b \bar{b}$ coupling.Comment: 39 pages, 30 figures, 12 table

Quantum secure non-malleable randomness encoder and its applications

"Non-Malleable Randomness Encoder"(NMRE) was introduced by Kanukurthi, Obbattu, and Sekar~[KOS18] as a useful cryptographic primitive helpful in the construction of non-malleable codes. To the best of our knowledge, their construction is not known to be quantum secure. We provide a construction of a first rate-$1/2$, $2$-split, quantum secure NMRE and use this in a black-box manner, to construct for the first time the following: 1) rate $1/11$, $3$-split, quantum non-malleable code, 2) rate $1/3$, $3$-split, quantum secure non-malleable code, 3) rate $1/5$, $2$-split, average case quantum secure non-malleable code.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2308.0646

Estimating the effect of healthcare-associated infections on excess length of hospital stay using inverse probability-weighted survival curves

Background: Studies estimating excess length of stay (LOS) attributable to nosocomial infections have failed to address time-varying confounding, likely leading to overestimation of their impact. We present a methodology based on inverse probability–weighted survival curves to address this limitation. Methods: A case study focusing on intensive care unit–acquired bacteremia using data from 2 general intensive care units (ICUs) from 2 London teaching hospitals were used to illustrate the methodology. The area under the curve of a conventional Kaplan-Meier curve applied to the observed data was compared with that of an inverse probability–weighted Kaplan-Meier curve applied after treating bacteremia as censoring events. Weights were based on the daily probability of acquiring bacteremia. The difference between the observed average LOS and the average LOS that would be observed if all bacteremia cases could be prevented was multiplied by the number of admitted patients to obtain the total excess LOS. Results: The estimated total number of extra ICU days caused by 666 bacteremia cases was estimated at 2453 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1803–3103) days. The excess number of days was overestimated when ignoring time-varying confounding (2845 [95% CI, 2276–3415]) or when completely ignoring confounding (2838 [95% CI, 2101–3575]). Conclusions: ICU-acquired bacteremia was associated with a substantial excess LOS. Wider adoption of inverse probability–weighted survival curves or alternative techniques that address time-varying confounding could lead to better informed decision making around nosocomial infections and other time-dependent exposures

A STUDY ON USE OF RICE HUSK ASH IN CONCRETE

The rice husk is an agricultural waste which is obtained from milling process of paddy and approximately 22% of the weight of paddy is rice husk. The waste is used as fuel in producing stream in parboiling process. The 25 % the weight of husk is converted into ash which is known as rice husk ash (RHA) and is again a waste which is disposed. This ash consists of amorphous silica which can be used as pozzolana in making concrete and cement instead of disposing it without compromising on the properties of cement or concrete if replaced in specific proportion with other constituents of cement or concrete. In this study the ordinary Portland cement is replaced in different proportion with RHA to obtain concrete with comparable and satisfactory strength and properties to that of normal concrete. The proportions of replacement chosen are at 2.5% interval starting from 5 % to 15 % and the casted concrete were tested under compression at different ages and results obtained are compared with normal concrete of same grade and it is concluded that the results are comparable

Phenomenology of the simplest linear seesaw mechanism

The linear seesaw mechanism provides a simple way to generate neutrino masses. In addition to Standard Model particles, it includes quasi-Dirac leptons as neutrino mass mediators, and a leptophilic scalar doublet seeding small neutrino masses. Here we review its associated physics, including restrictions from theory and phenomenology. The model yields potentially detectable $\mu\to e\gamma$ rates as well as distinctive signatures in the production and decay of heavy neutrinos ($N_i$) and the charged Higgs boson ($H^\pm$) arising from the second scalar doublet. We have found that production processes such as $e^+e^-\to NN$, $e^-\gamma\to NH^-$ and $e^+ e^-\to H^+ H^-$ followed by the decay chain $H^\pm\to\ell_i^\pm N$, $N\to \ell_j^{\pm}W^\mp$ leads to striking lepton number violation signatures at high energies which may probe the Majorana nature of neutrinos.Comment: 52 pages, 33 figures, 2 table

Heavy neutrino signatures from leptophilic Higgs portal in the linear seesaw

Lepton collider setups can probe the neutrino sector in the linear seesaw mechanism. Small neutrino masses are sourced by a tiny vacuum expectation value of a leptophilic scalar Higgs doublet and are mediated by Quasi-Dirac heavy neutrinos. These new particles can all be accessible to colliders. We describe novel charged Higgs and heavy neutrino production mechanisms that can be sizeable at $e^{+} e^{-}$ or $e^{-} {\gamma}$ colliders and discuss some of the associated signatures. These may shed light on the Majorana nature of neutrinos and the role of lepton number and lepton flavour symmetries.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure