352 research outputs found
Vaginal yeasts in the era of "over the counter" antifungals
OBJECTIVE: To establish whether there has been any rise in the prevalence of non-albicans
Candida species isolated from vaginal swabs since the introduction of “over the counter” antifungal
treatments.
METHOD: A retrospective review looking at all positive vaginal yeast isolates collected from
women attending one genitourinary medicine clinic during the 6 year period from 1993 to 1998
inclusive. All positive vaginal yeast isolates were included, regardless of whether or not the
patients were symptomatic. Isolates from HIV positive women were excluded from the analysis.
RESULT: No increase in non-albicans vaginal yeast isolates was shown during the period studied.
The proportion of non-albicans yeasts remained constant at approximately 5% of the total yeasts
isolated. The most common non-albicans yeast isolated was C glabrata.
CONCLUSION: There is no evidence from this study to suggest that the increasing use of “over the
counter” antifungal treatment has selected for atypical, possibly inherently azole resistant, strains
of vaginal yeasts in HIV seronegative women
An investigation into the pathogenesis of vulvo-vaginal candidosis
OBJECTIVE: To monitor yeasts isolated from women during and between episodes of recurrent
vulvo-vaginal candidosis (VVC) to determine whether vaginal relapse or re-infection occurred.
METHODS:Women presenting at the genitourinary medicine clinic with signs and symptoms of VVC
were recruited to the study (n = 121). A vaginal washing, high vaginal swab (HVS) and rectal swab
were taken and the women treated with a single 500 mg clotrimazole pessary.Women were asked to
re-attend after 1, 4, and 12 weeks, or when the VVC recurred, when vaginal washings and HVS were
repeated. Candida isolates recovered were strain typed using the Ca3 probe and their similarity
assessed. Antifungal susceptibility to fluconazole and clotrimazole were determined.
RESULTS: Of the women recruited, 47 completed the study, either returning for four visits or suffering
a recurrence during the study period. Of the 22 women who experienced recurrence, the
same strain was responsible for the initial and recurrent episode in 17 women. For the remaining
five women, four had strain replacement and one had a change of species. None of the isolates
recovered from the women demonstrated resistance to either clotrimazole or fluconazole.
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings support the theory of vaginal relapse and thus may support the use
of more prolonged courses of antifungal therapy initially to increase the chances of eradication of
the yeast
Pioneering sustainable delivery of world-class emergency medicine services for all Tanzanians: Muhimbili National Hospital in Tanzania
Natural Orbitals and BEC in traps, a diffusion Monte Carlo analysis
We investigate the properties of hard core Bosons in harmonic traps over a
wide range of densities. Bose-Einstein condensation is formulated using the
one-body Density Matrix (OBDM) which is equally valid at low and high
densities. The OBDM is calculated using diffusion Monte Carlo methods and it is
diagonalized to obtain the "natural" single particle orbitals and their
occupation, including the condensate fraction. At low Boson density, , where and is the hard core diameter, the condensate is
localized at the center of the trap. As increases, the condensate moves
to the edges of the trap. At high density it is localized at the edges of the
trap. At the Gross-Pitaevskii theory of the condensate
describes the whole system within 1%. At corrections are
3% to the GP energy but 30% to the Bogoliubov prediction of the condensate
depletion. At , mean field theory fails. At , the Bosons behave more like a liquid He droplet than a trapped Boson
gas.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures, submitted Phys. Rev.
Dynamic Evolution Model of Isothermal Voids and Shocks
We explore self-similar hydrodynamic evolution of central voids embedded in
an isothermal gas of spherical symmetry under the self-gravity. More
specifically, we study voids expanding at constant radial speeds in an
isothermal gas and construct all types of possible void solutions without or
with shocks in surrounding envelopes. We examine properties of void boundaries
and outer envelopes. Voids without shocks are all bounded by overdense shells
and either inflows or outflows in the outer envelope may occur. These
solutions, referred to as type void solutions, are further
divided into subtypes and
according to their characteristic behaviours across the sonic critical line
(SCL). Void solutions with shocks in envelopes are referred to as type
voids and can have both dense and quasi-smooth edges.
Asymptotically, outflows, breezes, inflows, accretions and static outer
envelopes may all surround such type voids. Both cases of
constant and varying temperatures across isothermal shock fronts are analyzed;
they are referred to as types and
void shock solutions. We apply the `phase net matching procedure' to construct
various self-similar void solutions. We also present analysis on void
generation mechanisms and describe several astrophysical applications. By
including self-gravity, gas pressure and shocks, our isothermal self-similar
void (ISSV) model is adaptable to various astrophysical systems such as
planetary nebulae, hot bubbles and superbubbles in the interstellar medium as
well as supernova remnants.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figuers, accepted by ApS
Fifteen-year trends in management and outcomes of non–ST-segment–elevation myocardial infarction among black and white patients: The ARIC community surveillance study, 2000–2014
Background—Standardization of evidence-based medical therapies has improved outcomes for patients with non–ST-segment– elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). Although racial differences in NSTEMI management have previously been reported, it is uncertain whether these differences have been ameliorated over time. Methods and Results—The ARIC (Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities) Community Surveillance study conducts hospital surveillance of acute myocardial infarction in 4 US communities. NSTEMI was classified by physician review, using a validated algorithm. From 2000 to 2014, 17 755 weighted hospitalizations for NSTEMI (patient race: 36% black, 64% white) were sampled by ARIC. Black patients were younger (aged 60 versus 66 years), more often female (45% versus 38%), and less likely to have medical insurance (88% versus 93%) but had more comorbidities. Black patients were less often administered aspirin (85% versus 92%), other antiplatelet therapy (45% versus 60%), b-blockers (85% versus 88%), and lipid-lowering medications (68% versus 76%). After adjustments, black patients had a 24% lower probability of receiving nonaspirin antiplatelets (relative risk: 0.76; 95% confidence interval, 0.71–0.81), a 29% lower probability of angiography (relative risk: 0.71; 95% confidence interval, 0.67–0.76), and a 45% lower probability of revascularization (relative risk: 0.55; 95% confidence interval, 0.50–0.60). No suggestion of a changing trend over time was observed for any NSTEMI therapy (P values for interaction, all >0.20). Conclusions—This longitudinal community surveillance of hospitalized NSTEMI patients suggests black patients have more comorbidities and less likelihood of receiving guideline-based NSTEMI therapies, and these findings persisted across the 15-year period. Focused efforts to reduce comorbidity burden and to more consistently implement guideline-directed treatments in this high-risk population are warranted
The Intentional Use of Service Recovery Strategies to Influence Consumer Emotion, Cognition and Behaviour
Service recovery strategies have been identified as a critical factor in the success of. service organizations. This study develops a conceptual frame work to investigate how specific service recovery strategies influence the emotional, cognitive and negative behavioural responses of . consumers., as well as how emotion and cognition influence negative behavior. Understanding the impact of specific service recovery strategies will allow service providers' to more deliberately and intentionally engage in strategies that result in positive organizational outcomes. This study was conducted using a 2 x 2 between-subjects quasi-experimental design. The results suggest that service recovery has a significant impact on emotion, cognition and negative behavior. Similarly, satisfaction, negative emotion and positive emotion all influence negative behavior but distributive justice has no effect
Application-Layer Connector Synthesis
International audienceThe heterogeneity characterizing the systems populating the Ubiquitous Computing environment prevents their seamless interoperability. Heterogeneous protocols may be willing to cooperate in order to reach some common goal even though they meet dynamically and do not have a priori knowledge of each other. Despite numerous e orts have been done in the literature, the automated and run-time interoperability is still an open challenge for such environment. We consider interoperability as the ability for two Networked Systems (NSs) to communicate and correctly coordinate to achieve their goal(s). In this chapter we report the main outcomes of our past and recent research on automatically achieving protocol interoperability via connector synthesis. We consider application-layer connectors by referring to two conceptually distinct notions of connector: coordinator and mediator. The former is used when the NSs to be connected are already able to communicate but they need to be speci cally coordinated in order to reach their goal(s). The latter goes a step forward representing a solution for both achieving correct coordination and enabling communication between highly heterogeneous NSs. In the past, most of the works in the literature described e orts to the automatic synthesis of coordinators while, in recent years the focus moved also to the automatic synthesis of mediators. Within the Connect project, by considering our past experience on automatic coordinator synthesis as a baseline, we propose a formal theory of mediators and a related method for automatically eliciting a way for the protocols to interoperate. The solution we propose is the automated synthesis of emerging mediating connectors (i.e., mediators for short)
Harnessing inter-disciplinary collaboration to improve emergency care in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): results of research prioritisation setting exercise
Background
More than half of deaths in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) result from conditions that could be treated with emergency care - an integral component of universal health coverage (UHC) - through timely access to lifesaving interventions.
Methods
The World Health Organization (WHO) aims to extend UHC to a further 1 billion people by 2023, yet evidence supporting improved emergency care coverage is lacking. In this article, we explore four phases of a research prioritisation setting (RPS) exercise conducted by researchers and stakeholders from South Africa, Egypt, Nepal, Jamaica, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Colombia, Ethiopia, Iran, Jordan, Malaysia, South Korea and Phillipines, USA and UK as a key step in gathering evidence required by policy makers and practitioners for the strengthening of emergency care systems in limited-resource settings.
Results
The RPS proposed seven priority research questions addressing: identification of context-relevant emergency care indicators, barriers to effective emergency care; accuracy and impact of triage tools; potential quality improvement via registries; characteristics of people seeking emergency care; best practices for staff training and retention; and cost effectiveness of critical care – all within LMICs.
Conclusions
Convened by WHO and facilitated by the University of Sheffield, the Global Emergency Care Research Network project (GEM-CARN) brought together a coalition of 16 countries to identify research priorities for strengthening emergency care in LMICs. Our article further assesses the quality of the RPS exercise and reviews the current evidence supporting the identified priorities
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