OXA- and GES-type beta-lactamases predominate in extensively drug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii isolates from a Turkish University Hospital

This study was supported by grants from Recep Tayyip Erdogan University (BAP-2012.106.01.11 and BAP-2011.102.03.3). AYP was supported by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (APP1047916 and APP1010114).We determined the antibiotic susceptibility and genetic mechanisms of resistance in clinical strains of Acinetobacter baumannii from Istanbul, Turkey. A total of 101 clinical strains were collected between November 2011 and July 2012. Antimicrobial susceptibility was performed using the Vitek 2 Compact system and E-test. Multiplex PCR was used for detecting bla(OXA-51-like), bla(OXA-23-like), bla(OXA-40-like) and bla(OXA-58-like) genes. ISAba1, bla(IMP-like), bla(VIM-like), bla(GES), bla(VEB), bla(PER-2), aac-3-Ia and aac-6'-Ib and NDM-1 genes were detected by PCR and sequencing. By multiplex PCR, all strains were positive for bla(OXA-51), 79 strains carried bla(OXA-23) and one strain carried bla(OXA-40). bla(OXA-51) and bla(OXA-23) were found together in 79 strains. ISAba1 element was detected in 81 strains, and in all cases it was found upstream of bla(OXA-51). GES-type carbapenemases were found in 24 strains (GES-11 in 16 strains and GES-22 in 8 strains) while bla(PER-2), bla(VEB-1), bla(NDM-1), bla(IMP)- and bla(VIM)-type carbapenemases were not observed. Aminoglycoside modifying enzyme (aac-3-Ia and aac-6'Ib) genes were detected in 13 and 15 strains, respectively. Ninety-seven (96%) A. baumannii strains were defined as MDR and of these, 98% were extensively drug resistant (sensitive only to colistin). Colistin remains the only active compound against all clinical strains. As seen in other regions, OXA-type carbapenemases, with or without an upstream ISAba1, predominate but GES-type carbapenemases also appear to have a significant presence. REP-PCR analysis was performed for molecular typing and all strains were collected into 12 different groups. To our knowledge, this is the first report of GES-11 and OXA-40 in A. baumannii from Turkey

Competition and moral behavior: A meta-analysis of forty-five crowd-sourced experimental designs

Significance Using experiments involves leeway in choosing one out of many possible experimental designs. This choice constitutes a source of uncertainty in estimating the underlying effect size which is not incorporated into common research practices. This study presents the results of a crowd-sourced project in which 45 independent teams implemented research designs to address the same research question: Does competition affect moral behavior? We find a small adverse effect of competition on moral behavior in a meta-analysis involving 18,123 experimental participants. Importantly, however, the variation in effect size estimates across the 45 designs is substantially larger than the variation expected due to sampling errors. This “design heterogeneity” highlights that the generalizability and informativeness of individual experimental designs are limited. Abstract Does competition affect moral behavior? This fundamental question has been debated among leading scholars for centuries, and more recently, it has been tested in experimental studies yielding a body of rather inconclusive empirical evidence. A potential source of ambivalent empirical results on the same hypothesis is design heterogeneity—variation in true effect sizes across various reasonable experimental research protocols. To provide further evidence on whether competition affects moral behavior and to examine whether the generalizability of a single experimental study is jeopardized by design heterogeneity, we invited independent research teams to contribute experimental designs to a crowd-sourced project. In a large-scale online data collection, 18,123 experimental participants were randomly allocated to 45 randomly selected experimental designs out of 95 submitted designs. We find a small adverse effect of competition on moral behavior in a meta-analysis of the pooled data. The crowd-sourced design of our study allows for a clean identification and estimation of the variation in effect sizes above and beyond what could be expected due to sampling variance. We find substantial design heterogeneity—estimated to be about 1.6 times as large as the average standard error of effect size estimates of the 45 research designs—indicating that the informativeness and generalizability of results based on a single experimental design are limited. Drawing strong conclusions about the underlying hypotheses in the presence of substantive design heterogeneity requires moving toward much larger data collections on various experimental designs testing the same hypothesis

MALT90 molecular content on high-mass IR-dark clumps

Context. High mass stars form in groups or clusters in dense molecular clumps with sizes of 1 pc and masses of 200 M☉. Infrared-dark clumps and the individual cores within them with sizes &lt; 0.1 pc and masses &lt; 100 M☉ are important laboratories for high-mass star formation in order to study the initial conditions. Aims: We investigate the physical and chemical properties of high-mass clumps in order to better understand the early evolutionary stages and find targets that show star formation signs such as infall motions or outflows. Methods: We selected the high-mass clumps from ATLASGAL survey that were identified as dark at 8/24 μm wavelengths. We used MALT90 Survey data which provides a molecular line set (HCO+, HNC, HCN, N2H+, H13CO+, HN13C, SiO) to investigate the physical and chemical conditions in early stages of star formation. Results: Eleven sources have significant SiO detection (over 3σ) which usually indicates outflow activity. Thirteen sources are found with blue profiles in both or either HCO+ and/or HNC lines and clump mass infall rates are estimated to be in the range of 0.2 × 10-3 M☉ yr-1 - 1.8 × 10-2 M☉ yr-1. The excitation temperature is obtained as &lt; 24 K for all sources. The column densities for optically thin lines of H13CO+ and HN13C are in the range of 0.4-8.8 (×1012) cm-2, and 0.9-11.9 (×1012) cm-2, respectively, while it is in the range of 0.1-7.5 (×1014) cm-2 for HCO+ and HNC lines. The column densities for N2H+ were ranging between 4.4-275.7 (×1012) cm-2 as expected from cold dense regions. Large line widths of N2H+ might indicate turbulence and large line widths of HCO+, HNC, and SiO indicate outflow activities. Mean optical depths are 20.32, and 23.19 for optically thick HCO+ and HCN lines, and 0.39 and 0.45 for their optically thin isotopologues H13CO+ and HN13C, respectively. Conclusions: This study reveals the physical and chemical properties of 30 high-mass IR-dark clumps and the interesting targets among them based on their emission line morphology and kinematics. The reduced datacubes are only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (ftp://130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz- bin/qcat?J/A+A/620/A158</A

Endokrin hastaliklarda deri bulgulari

During the course of endocrine diseases, skin symptoms may be seen. Recognition of endocrin skin lesions have very important role in the diagnosis and treatment of endocrine diseases. In this study, we aimed to investigate the frequency of dermatological diseases and distribution of dermatological signs and symptoms according to age and sex in 272 patients diagnosed with endocrine disease. Total 272 patients were included in the study; 203 women, 69 men. Significant differences were seen at result of the statistical analysis of endocrine diseases according to age and sex (p<0.00). In examination of patients 94 (34.6%) hair disease, 80 (29.4%) nail disease, 48 (17.6%) skin infection, 43 (15.8%) chronic sun damage, 36 (13.2%) keratosis pilaris, 61 (22.4%) acne vulgaris, 74 (27.2%) xeroderma, 83 (30.5%) pruritus, 61 (22.4%) skin tag, 28 (10.3%) acanthosis nigricans were seen. Increased incidence with age in skin infections (the greatest 4. decade) and nail disease were seen (p<0.00). However, acne vulgaris is more in early age than elderly (p<0.00). Diagnosed patients with acne vulgaris were mainly in the fields of hirsutism group (p<0.00). As a result of these data, dermatological examinations should be performed in endocrine disease patients regularly. © 2011 OMU All rights reserved

Clinical and histopathologic findings of basal cell carcinomas on completely covered anatomical sites of the body

Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common cancer type seen among the Caucasian population. Sun exposure may play a less important role in the causation of BCC in completely covered body sites than in sun-exposed skin. The aim of this study was to analyze in detail the BCCs that occur on completely covered anatomical sites. A total of 322 primary BCC cases was diagnosed. Of these, 44 were located on completely covered anatomical sites. Completely covered anatomical sites were classified as follows: trunk (including mammillae, excluding the neck), arms (excluding forearms and hands), legs (excluding feet), the perianal area and genitalia, and the buttocks and groin areas. Twenty-four lesions were of the superficial type, 14 lesions were of the nodular type, four lesions were of the infiltrative type, one lesion was of the morpheiform type, and one lesion was of the adenoid type. The most frequently reported symptom was itching. Forty-two percent of patients had no related symptoms. A close clinical check revealed 13 lesions which seemed to contain pigment. The preoperative diagnosis was based on clinical grounds and punch biopsies. Punch biopsies were performed on 10 cases which had been treated for a different diagnosis. The findings of our retrospective study showed that BCCs which occur on completely covered anatomical sites differ from those on sun-exposed skin. The clinical appearance of these sites with BCC may be similar to that which has other skin lesions. All physicians should bear in mind that BCC may occur not only in sun-exposed areas, but also in regions which are normally protected from ultraviolet radiation. © 2010 Springer-Verlag