Study of incidence and risk factors of urinary tract infection in catheterised patients admitted at tertiary care hospital

Background: Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) are the most common nosocomial infection and a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence and risk factors of urinary tract infection in catheterised patients in a tertiary care hospital.Methods: Total of 200 patients above 16 years in whom an indwelling Foley‘s catheter inserted were taken in the study. A urine specimen was obtained aseptically and culture done on nutrient agar, sheep blood agar and MacConkey agar plates. After incubation of 24 hours, colony count done for organisms showing growth and colony count ≥105 was taken significant.Results: The incidence of CAUTI in the present study was 31%. Higher incidence of CAUTI (56.46%) was found in female sex as compared to males (43.54%).Incidence of CAUTI was found higher in first weeks (54.83%). Incidence among diabetes patients is found more (63.33%). Most common isolate found was E.Coli (38.71%) among all uropathogens. Uropathogens isolated from CAUTI are more resistant to antimicrobials.Conclusions: It is must to implement following strategy for reducing the risk of infection due to indwelling catheters: 1. reducing the duration of catheterization 2. Use antibacterial substance coated catheter 3. Strict infection control measures.

Prevalence of nosocomial infections by multidrug resistant organisms in patients admitted to the critical care area of the Regional cancer center, Gujarat, India

Introduction: Nosocomial infection is a main cause of mortality and morbidity among patients admitted in different critical areas [post-operative, Intensive Care Units (ICU), and for bone marrow transplantation (BMT)] in a hospital. Availability of a clinical microbiology service for patients admitted to critical areas can significantly improve clinical outcome.Methods: During the study period (January 2014 to March 2014) 330 patients from different oncology departments were admitted to critical areas of the hospital. Conventional and molecular methods were used to determine resistance mechanisms [methicillin resistance (MRSA), extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL), carbapenemases and Amp C) of clinically significant isolates.Results: Of 330 patients admitted to critical care areas during the study period, 84 (25.4%) were identified as having acquired infection during their stay in the critical areas. Of these 84 patients 16 had dual infections. The mean age of patients was 44.5 yrs. The most common infection in the ICU was wound infection (49%) followed by respiratory infection (19%). The most common isolated organisms from wound infection were Escherichia coli (42.8%) followed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa (14.2%). The majority of bacterial isolates were multidrug resistant (MDR). Using both conventional and molecular methods of 88 isolated Gram negative bacilli (GNB), 45.9% were found to be ESBL producers, 16 % Amp C producers and 4.5% carbapenemase producers. The prevalence of MRSA was 30.7% (4/13) by a conventional method and 23% (3/13) using a molecular method.Conclusion: From this study, we concluded that cancer patients admitted to critical areas are at a greater risk of acquiring nosocomial infection. However, the increasing prevalence of MDR-GNBs, especially those resistant to cephalosporins and carbapenems, could contribute to both increased morbidity and mortality due to non-response to routinely used first line antibiotics and resultant recourse to colistin</p

Epidemiological and microbiological profile of infective keratitis in Ahmedabad

Context : Study of patients attending tertiary care ophthalmology institute at Ahmedabad. Aims : To study the microbiological etiology and epidemiological factors associated with suppurative keratitis. Settings and Design : A total of 150 corneal scrapings were evaluated from patients presenting with corneal ulcers at a tertiary ophthalmology center, Ahmedabad from July 2007 to June 2008. Materials and Methods : Scrapings were subjected to Gram stain, potassium hydroxide preparation and culture for bacterial and fungal pathogens. Socio-demographic data and risk factors were recorded. Results : Ninety percent (135/150) people with corneal ulcers had trauma as predisposing factor for keratitis. Trauma due to wooden objects was the leading cause (46/135) followed by vegetable matter and stone injury (23/135). Microbial etiology was established in 59.3% (89/150) of scrapings. Out of 89 positive isolates, 65.1% (58/89) were bacterial while 34.9% (31/89) were fungal. Among the bacterial isolates, 60.3% (35/58) were Gram-positive cocci while 39.7% (23/58) were Gram-negative bacilli. The most common bacterial isolate was Staphylococus aureus (32.7%, 19/58) followed by coagulase-negative Staphylococci (25.8%, 15/58) and Pseudomonas (18.9%, 11/58). Among the 31 fungal pathogens, Aspergillus species was the most common (35.4%11/31), followed by Fusarium species (22.5%, 7/31). Conclusion : Trauma with wooden material is the most common predisposing factor for suppurative keratitis. Males were more affected than females. Bacterial ulcers were more common than fungal in areas in and around Ahmedabad. Staphylococcus aureus and Aspergillus were the commonest bacterial and fungal isolates respectively. Geographical variation persists in microbial etiology of suppurative keratitis

Graphical Visualization of MAC Traces for Wireless Ad-hoc Networks Simulated in ns2 1

Abstract- Many network simulators (e.g., ns2) are already being used for performing wired and wireless network simulations. But, with the current graphical visualization support in-built in ns2, it is difficult to understand the node status, packet status and the MAC level events particularly for Ad-hoc networks. In this paper, we extend the visualization support in ns-2 that should help research community in the area of wireless networks to analyze different MAC level events in an efficient manner. In particular, we have developed two types of visualizations namely, temporal and spatial. Temporal visualization helps to analyze success or failure of a packet with respect to time while spatial visualization helps to understand the effects due to proximity of nodes. The trace is made highly configurable in terms of different attributes like specific nodes and time duration. Index terms- Network event tracing, wireless networks, networ

Dynamics of free-surface mutually perpendicular twin liquid sheets and their atomization characteristics

International audienceThe radially expanding twin (circular and vertical) liquid sheets produced by impingement of a vertical cylindrical liquid jet onto a horizontally placed cone-disk deflector with a single slot were examined experimentally in the present work. Dynamics of these liquid sheets and the events leading to their breakup were studied by carrying out high-speed shadowgraphy simultaneously from side, front, and top views at a 5.4 kHz framing rate and for the jet Weber number (Wejet) range of 993 &lt; Wejet &lt; 3776. In the presence of the slot, the variation of the radial breakup distance of the circular sheet (Rb,CS) with Wejet changed from the monotonically decreasing trend (Rb,CS∼Wejet−0.44) to a nonmonotonic increasing and decreasing one. Furthermore, Rb,CS was found to be lowered by about 42% compared to the breakup distance Rb,CS,no-slot of the circular sheet for the no-slot deflector. The vertical sheet breakup distance (Rb,Vs) was found to increase monotonically with the slot Weber number Weslot0.44. Three primary sources of droplet production, namely, the lower and front edges of the vertical sheet and the rim of the circular sheet, were identified. The smallest droplets were seen to originate from the front edge (D32,FE) and the largest droplets from the lower edge (D32,LE) of the vertical sheet. The measured droplet diameters followed D32,LE∼Wejet−1/3 and D32,FE∼Wejet−1/4, whereas the droplets originating at the rim of the circular sheet followed D32,rim∼Wejet−2/3. The droplets at all three edges were found to depend more strongly on the ligament thickness than the ligament length. Following conservation of mass, a linear relation between the droplet diameter, D32, and the ligament thickness, tlig, at each edge has been obtained

Throughput assurance of wireless body area networks coexistence based on stochastic geometry

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are expected to influence the traditional medical model by assisting caretakers with health telemonitoring. Within WBANs, the transmit power of the nodes should be as small as possible owing to their limited energy capacity but should be sufficiently large to guarantee the quality of the signal at the receiving nodes. When multiple WBANs coexist in a small area, the communication reliability and overall throughput can be seriously affected due to resource competition and interference. We show that the total network throughput largely depends on the WBANs distribution density (λp), transmit power of their nodes (Pt), and their carrier-sensing threshold (γ). Using stochastic geometry, a joint carrier-sensing threshold and power control strategy is proposed to meet the demand of coexisting WBANs based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Given different network distributions and carrier-sensing thresholds, the proposed strategy derives a minimum transmit power according to varying surrounding environment. We obtain expressions for transmission success probability and throughput adopting this strategy. Using numerical examples, we show that joint carrier-sensing thresholds and transmit power strategy can effectively improve the overall system throughput and reduce interference. Additionally, this paper studies the effects of a guard zone on the throughput using a Matern hard-core point process (HCPP) type II model. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the HCPP model can increase the success probability and throughput of networks