Preliminary Results of Initial Testing for Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the Emergency Department

Introduction: On March 10, 2020, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic due to widespread infection of the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). We report the preliminary results of a targeted program of COVID-19 infection testing in the ED in the first 10 days of its initiation at our institution.Methods: We conducted a review of prospectively collected data on all ED patients who had targeted testing for acute COVID-19 infection at two EDs during the initial 10 days of testing (March 10-19, 2020). During this initial period with limited resources, testing was targeted toward high-risk patients per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Data collected from patients who were tested included demographics, clinical characteristics, and test qualifying criteria. We present the data overall and by test results with descriptive statistics.Results: During the 10-day study period, the combined census of the study EDs was 2157 patient encounters. A total of 283 tests were ordered in the ED. The majority of patients were 18-64 years of age, male, non-Hispanic white, had an Emergency Severity Index score of three, did not have a fever, and were discharged from the ED. A total of 29 (10.2%) tested positive. Symptoms-based criteria most associated with COVID-19 were the most common criteria identified for testing (90.6%). All other criteria were reported in 5.51–43.0% of persons being tested. Having contact with a person under investigation was significantly more common in those who tested positive compared to those who tested negative (63% vs 24.5%, respectively). The majority of patients in both results groups had at least two qualifying criteria for testing (75.2%).Conclusion: In this review of prospectively collected data on all ED patients who had targeted testing for acute COVID-19 infection at two EDs in the first 10 days of testing, we found that 10.2% of those tested were identified as positive. The continued monitoring of testing and results will help providers understand how COVID-19 is progressing in the community

Anthropocenic culturecide: an epitaph

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Validity of Peck, Hanson and Thornburn\u27s SPT Correction Method and Soil Pressure Chart

Site investigation is a scientific process, its main objective being to provide definite values of soil properties and parameters for the foundation design and construction engineer, so that an economic and safe design can be prepared. For many years, plate loading tests have been used and yield dependable information. Geotechnical investigations of sands and sandy soils invariably involve the use of standard penetration tests (SPT) but the test results are apt to be variously interpreted with respect to foundation analysis. This paper attempts to set out a rational approach for the interpretation of the field N-values upon which the allowable soil pressure of cohesionless soils are normally predicted. The validity of Peck, Hanson & Thornburn (1974)\u27s SPT-correction method and allowable soil pressure chart are analysed and a new SPT-correction method and chart have been propounded in the background of a digest of available data and literature extent on the subject

Seneca's "Thyestes": myth and perspective

En el Tiestes de Séneca, un número grande de elementos son transformados en indicaciones de la época imperial, permitiendo así que el logos del mito se plasme en el tiempo, al mismo tiempo que la narrativa literaria se hace polivalente y abstracta hasta tocar los limites de lo simbólico y de lo atemporal. Esta tragedia, que recibe influencias no sólo de la retórica, sino también de la filosofía estoica, está basada en el equilibrio e intensidad de conceptos políticos, mientras que su perspectiva ofrece una colección de fuerzas interiores opuestas aunque combinadas y remite a una unidad de presente, pasado y futuro

Studies in Adsorption by Textile Fibres

This thesis describes a series of investigations designed to apply the available fundamental knowledge of the adsorption process to the understanding of some of the problems concerned with the surface characteristics of textile fibres, and its effect on adsorption process. Part I of the thesis is concerned with investigations to study the effect of the size of adsorbate molecule on the rate of adsorption on wool fibres and the influence of pores of varying sizes in the wool. The physical state of dye in air-dry wool fibres has also been investigated. The vapour phase adsorption technique has been followed and it is shown that vapours with similar active groups but different molecular size show a considerably slower rate of adsorption on wool fibres with increase in adsorbate molecule size, the saturation adsorption decreasing at the same time. This has been attributed to the presence of pores on the wool surface, the size and distribution of these pores determining both the rate of adsorption and the saturation adsorption. An attempt has been made to calculate the pore-size distribution in wool fibres. The similar experiments on dyed wool fibres indicate a lower rate of adsorption for these vapours and also a lower saturation adsorption. Since the rate and the saturation adsorption are not very much lower at high concentration of dye in fibres, it is suggested that the process is affected by the blocking of pores by dye aggregates rather than the inactivation of similar adsorption sites for dyes and vapours. Part II is concerned with the study of relative rates of adsorption by wool and gelatin for a number of series of sulphonated azo acid dyes and 2:1 dye-metal complexes. It is shown that: (i) The rate of adsorption of each dye by a given area of the external surface of gelatin is about four times that by the same area of the external surface of wool; (ii) the logarithm of the rates falls linearly with both the number of substituent groups in the dye molecule and with its molecular volume; each series of dyes giving points lying on a different line. A statistical study of wash fastness and migration property data for a number of acid dyes shows that these properties are significantly dependent on the total number of atoms or the number of carbon atoms alone, in a dye molecule. Thus wash fastness is shown to increase with increasing size of the dye molecule, while the ease of migration falls. A few experiments, including measurements of absorption spectra, are described in which benzyl alcohol, and to a less extent dioxan, tends to disaggregate dyes of low basicity when added to their aqueous solutions, but D-glucose and inositol do not do so. Of these solutes, only benzyl alcohol is effective in accelerating dyeing. It is considered that the mechanisms already proposed to account for the acceleration of dyeing by addition of solvents probably all operate, but the most important may be the effect of adsorption of the solvent by the fibre. On the basis of these results, the very rapid adsorption of benzyl alcohol by wool is attributed to its low molecular volume and non-ionic nature. Part III is concerned with the development of a new chemical method for the measurement of the external surface areas of textile fibres and the method has also been used on paper pulp fibres. The method is based on the solution adsorption method for measuring surface areas of powders etc., but modification was necessary when applying it to textile fibres because of their porous structure. The adsorption isotherms at short intervals of time are determined, instead of at equilibrium, and the surface areas calculated from these isotherms are extrapolated to zero time. The apparent surface area at zero time has then been assumed to be related to the true external surface area of fibres, and the results compared with those obtained by microscopic and air-permeability methods. A good agreement between the results by different methods has been observed. Chemically modified wool fibres and paper pulp fibres beaten for different intervals of time showed changes in external surface areas reflecting the changes in the fibre surface with different treatments. External surface areas are found to vary with different non-polar solvents when p-nitrophenol is the solute, and this has been related to the solubility of the solute in different solvents. Use of non-polar solvents in which p-nitrophenol is sparingly soluble is recommended