Fusobacterium Chorioamnionitis: Report of Two Cases in Preterm Labor With Intact Amniotic Membranes

Background: Preterm labor (PTL) in women with intact membranes may be caused by developing chorioamnionitis. Fusobacterium displays the ability to cause chorioamnionitis in the presence of intact amniotic membrane

Nitride Fuel Development Using Cryo-process Technique

A new cryo-process technique has been developed for the fabrication of advanced fuel for nuclear systems. The process uses a new cryo-processing technique whereby small, porous microspheres (<2000 µm) are formed from sub-micron oxide powder. A simple aqueous particle slurry of oxide powder is pumped through a microsphere generator consisting of a vibrating needle with controlled amplitude and frequency. As the water-based droplets are formed and pass through the microsphere generator they are frozen in a bath of liquid nitrogen and promptly vacuum freeze-dried to remove the water. The resulting porous microspheres consist of half micron sized oxide particles held together by electrostatic forces and mechanical interlocking of the particles. Oxide powder microspheres ranging from 750 µm to 2000 µm are then converted into a nitride form using a high temperature fluidized particle bed. Carbon black can be added to the oxide powder before microsphere formation to augment the carbothermic reaction during conversion to a nitride. Also, the addition of ethyl alcohol to the aqueous slurry reduces the surface tension energy of the droplets resulting in even smaller droplets forming in the microsphere generator. Initial results from this new process indicate a lower impurity contamination in the final nitrides due to the single feed stream of particles, material handling and conversion are greatly simplified, a minimum of waste and personnel exposure are anticipated, and finally the conversion kinetics may be greatly increased because of the small oxide powder size (sub-micron) forming the porous microsphere. Thus far the fabrication process has been successful in demonstrating all of these improvements with surrogate ZrO2 powder. Further tests will be conducted in the future using the technique on UO2 powders

Effect of parallel surface cuts on bonding to dentine

The strength of adhesive joints has been found to result from combinations of micromechanical, chemical and diffusion components depending on the system1. The development of adhesives that bond dental restorative materials to human dentine has been a major advance in the science of dental materials. The purpose of this investigation was to study the contribution of parallel surface cuts on the joint strength of dentine adhesives. Half of the specimens were finished with 60 grit SiC paper as a control. The other half were polished with 600 grit SiC paper and then finished with an instrument that produced a series of parallel surface cuts. A two-way analysis of variance showed that both the surface preparation and the adhesive system had a significant effect on shear bond strength (p &lt; 0.0001). In general, the samples finished with parallel surface cuts gave shear bond strength values about double those finished with silicon carbide alone. For those control samples prepared with a 60 grit surface, the predominant type of failure was at the tooth/adhesive interface. The majority of samples with parallel surface cuts failed cohesively within the adhesive system. The experimental instrument is designed to produce retentive grooves or undercuts in the dentine surface which enhance micromechanical adhesion.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31465/1/0000387.pd

Bone marrow cell derived arginase I is the major source of allergen-induced lung arginase but is not required for airway hyperresponsiveness, remodeling and lung inflammatory responses in mice

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Arginase is significantly upregulated in the lungs in murine models of asthma, as well as in human asthma, but its role in allergic airway inflammation has not been fully elucidated in mice.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In order to test the hypothesis that arginase has a role in allergic airway inflammation we generated arginase I-deficient bone marrow (BM) chimeric mice. Following transfer of arginase I-deficient BM into irradiated recipient mice, arginase I expression was not required for hematopoietic reconstitution and baseline immunity. Arginase I deficiency in bone marrow-derived cells decreased allergen-induced lung arginase by 85.8 ± 5.6%. In contrast, arginase II-deficient mice had increased lung arginase activity following allergen challenge to a similar level to wild type mice. BM-derived arginase I was not required for allergen-elicited sensitization, recruitment of inflammatory cells in the lung, and proliferation of cells. Furthermore, allergen-induced airway hyperresponsiveness and collagen deposition were similar in arginase-deficient and wild type mice. Additionally, arginase II-deficient mice respond similarly to their control wild type mice with allergen-induced inflammation, airway hyperresponsiveness, proliferation and collagen deposition.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Bone marrow cell derived arginase I is the predominant source of allergen-induced lung arginase but is not required for allergen-induced inflammation, airway hyperresponsiveness or collagen deposition.</p

Virtual Distillation for Quantum Error Mitigation

Contemporary quantum computers have relatively high levels of noise, making it difficult to use them to perform useful calculations, even with a large number of qubits. Quantum error correction is expected to eventually enable fault-tolerant quantum computation at large scales, but until then it will be necessary to use alternative strategies to mitigate the impact of errors. We propose a near-term friendly strategy to mitigate errors by entangling and measuring $M$ copies of a noisy state $\rho$. This enables us to estimate expectation values with respect to a state with dramatically reduced error, $\rho^M/ \mathrm{Tr}(\rho^M)$, without explicitly preparing it, hence the name "virtual distillation". As $M$ increases, this state approaches the closest pure state to $\rho$, exponentially quickly. We analyze the effectiveness of virtual distillation and find that it is governed in many regimes by the behavior of this pure state (corresponding to the dominant eigenvector of $\rho$). We numerically demonstrate that virtual distillation is capable of suppressing errors by multiple orders of magnitude and explain how this effect is enhanced as the system size grows. Finally, we show that this technique can improve the convergence of randomized quantum algorithms, even in the absence of device noise

Training and HIV-Treatment Scale-Up: Establishing an Implementation Research Agenda

McCarthy and colleagues discuss the various approaches to training the health workforce for an expanding HIV treatment program in a resource-limited setting