International nosocomial infection control consortium (INICC) report, data summary of 36 countries, for 2004-2009

The results of a surveillance study conducted by the International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) from January 2004 through December 2009 in 422 intensive care units (ICUs) of 36 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe are reported. During the 6-year study period, using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN; formerly the National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance system [NNIS]) definitions for device-associated health care-associated infections, we gathered prospective data from 313,008 patients hospitalized in the consortium's ICUs for an aggregate of 2,194,897 ICU bed-days. Despite the fact that the use of devices in the developing countries' ICUs was remarkably similar to that reported in US ICUs in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were significantly higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals; the pooled rate of central line-associated bloodstream infection in the INICC ICUs of 6.8 per 1,000 central line-days was more than 3-fold higher than the 2.0 per 1,000 central line-days reported in comparable US ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia also was far higher (15.8 vs 3.3 per 1,000 ventilator-days), as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (6.3 vs. 3.3 per 1,000 catheter-days). Notably, the frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates to imipenem (47.2% vs 23.0%), Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (76.3% vs 27.1%), Escherichia coli isolates to ceftazidime (66.7% vs 8.1%), Staphylococcus aureus isolates to methicillin (84.4% vs 56.8%), were also higher in the consortium's ICUs, and the crude unadjusted excess mortalities of device-related infections ranged from 7.3% (for catheter-associated urinary tract infection) to 15.2% (for ventilator-associated pneumonia). Copyright © 2012 by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

UNION : UNderwater intelligent operation and navigation

Theme 4 - Simulation et optimisation de systemes complexes. Projet IcareSIGLEAvailable at INIST (FR), Document Supply Service, under shelf-number : 14802 E, issue : a.1996 n.3038 / INIST-CNRS - Institut de l'Information Scientifique et TechniqueFRFranc

Rare Earth Substitutions in M-Type Ferrites

In hexaferrites of the composition SrFe 12O 19 (SrM), Sr was substituted by R = La, Sm, and Nd. The precursors were weighed according to different Sm 3+/Sr 2+ ratios (n = Sm 3+/Sr 2+), where n was varied between 1/16 and 1/2. The samples were produced by hydrothermal synthesis. The effects of the rare earth substitution on the magnetic properties were investigated, measuring magnetization and magnetocrystalline anisotropy but also applying Mössbauer spectroscopy and nonmagnetic resonance. Nd and Sm substitution increases the intrinsic coercivity without causing any significant deterioration in either the saturation magnetization or the remanence, whereas La substitution has only a small effect on the intrinsic coercivity of SrM