A rare case of acyanotic congenital heart disease, large patent ductus arteriosus with pre-ductal coarctation of descending thoracic aorta with patent ductus arteriosus closure and extra anatomical bypass grafting

We report a case of 18-year-old female patient with large patent ductus arteriosus (PDA)-preductal coarctation of descending thoracic aorta. She underwent large PDA closure with a prosthetic graft from ascending aorta to descending thoracic aorta by mid-sternotomy on cardiopulmonary bypass machine under total hypothermic circulatory arrest

Water-Based Synthesis of Novel Hybrid Material of Sulfated Polysaccharide Through Radical Polymerization Process

Water-soluble “sulfated polysaccharides of Chaetomorpha antennina” (CMsps) seaweed were isolated and fractionated (charged & neutral) using column chromatography followed by modification with acrylamide (AAm) to get novel hybrid materials. This polysaccharide comprises 6.356 polydispersity which ascribes to their branching behavior. The crude polysaccharides consist of ribose, arabinose, xylose, and galactose, carbohydrates units. The peak that appeared in the FT-IR spectrum at 1250 cm−1 confirms the sulfated nature of polysaccharides. The charged polysaccharides, pronounced “control CMsps” before the modification, were modified with AAm under microwave irradiation and characterized to investigate potential grafting. FT-IR, SEM, C13NMR, TGA, XRD, CD, and optical rotation were applied for control CMsps and CMsps-g-PAAm (grafted product). The FT-IR and SEM tools have significant capability to prove occurring successful potential grating with fluctuating peaks and morphology, respectively. XRD graphs for materials “control CMsps and CMsps-g-PAAm” reaffirm the successful grafting, leading to symmetrical molecular construction. TGA graphs support the exclusive thermal stability of CMsps-g-PAAm rather than control CMsps. The varying peak/trough ratio was evaluated by the CD spectrum, which identified the reversal change in the chirotopical profile with the insertion of polyacrylamide (PAAm) in polysaccharide chains. The materials, control CMsps and CMsps-g-PAAm were capable to develop hydrogel hence it can be exploited as a promising rheological modifier for food industry applications. The materials can also be useful in the biomedical field as demulcent drug formulation, dental impression product, and drug delivery for local therapy

Silicon Photonics Interfaced with Microelectronics for Integrated Photonic Quantum Technologies: a New Era in Advanced Quantum Computers and Quantum Communications?

Silicon photonics is rapidly evolving as an advanced chip framework for implementing quantum technologies. With the help of silicon photonics, general-purpose programmable networks with hundreds of discrete components have been developed. These networks can compute quantum states generated on-chip as well as more extraordinary functions like quantum transmission and random number generation. In particular, the interfacing of silicon photonics with complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) microelectronics enables us to build miniaturized quantum devices for next-generation sensing, communication, and generating randomness for assembling quantum computers. In this review, we assess the significance of silicon photonics and its interfacing with microelectronics for achieving the technology milestones in the next generation of quantum computers and quantum communication. To this end, especially, we have provided an overview of the mechanism of a homodyne detector and the latest state-of-the-art of measuring squeezed light along with its integration on a photonic chip. Finally, we present an outlook on future studies that are considered beneficial for the wide implementation of silicon photonics for distinct data-driven applications with maximum throughput

International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortiu (INICC) report, data summary of 43 countries for 2007-2012. Device-associated module

We report the results of an International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) surveillance study from January 2007-December 2012 in 503 intensive care units (ICUs) in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. During the 6-year study using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) U.S. National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) definitions for device-associated health care–associated infection (DA-HAI), we collected prospective data from 605,310 patients hospitalized in the INICC's ICUs for an aggregate of 3,338,396 days. Although device utilization in the INICC's ICUs was similar to that reported from ICUs in the U.S. in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals: the pooled rate of central line–associated bloodstream infection in the INICC's ICUs, 4.9 per 1,000 central line days, is nearly 5-fold higher than the 0.9 per 1,000 central line days reported from comparable U.S. ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia was also higher (16.8 vs 1.1 per 1,000 ventilator days) as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (5.5 vs 1.3 per 1,000 catheter days). Frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas isolates to amikacin (42.8% vs 10%) and imipenem (42.4% vs 26.1%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (71.2% vs 28.8%) and imipenem (19.6% vs 12.8%) were also higher in the INICC's ICUs compared with the ICUs of the CDC's NHSN