Nationwide surveillance of bacterial respiratory pathogens conducted by the surveillance committee of Japanese Society of Chemotherapy, the Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases, and the Japanese Society for Clinical Microbiology in 2010: General view of the pathogens\u27 antibacterial susceptibility

The nationwide surveillance on antimicrobial susceptibility of bacterial respiratory pathogens from patients in Japan, was conducted by Japanese Society of Chemotherapy, Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases and Japanese Society for Clinical Microbiology in 2010.The isolates were collected from clinical specimens obtained from well-diagnosed adult patients with respiratory tract infections during the period from January and April 2010 by three societies. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was conducted at the central reference laboratory according to the method recommended by Clinical and Laboratory Standard Institutes using maximum 45 antibacterial agents.Susceptibility testing was evaluable with 954 strains (206 Staphylococcus aureus, 189 Streptococcus pneumoniae, 4 Streptococcus pyogenes, 182 Haemophilus influenzae, 74 Moraxella catarrhalis, 139 Klebsiella pneumoniae and 160 Pseudomonas aeruginosa). Ratio of methicillin-resistant S.aureus was as high as 50.5%, and those of penicillin-intermediate and -resistant S.pneumoniae were 1.1% and 0.0%, respectively. Among H.influenzae, 17.6% of them were found to be β-lactamase-non-producing ampicillin (ABPC)-intermediately resistant, 33.5% to be β-lactamase-non-producing ABPC-resistant and 11.0% to be β-lactamase-producing ABPC-resistant strains. Extended spectrum β-lactamase-producing K.pneumoniae and multi-drug resistant P.aeruginosa with metallo β-lactamase were 2.9% and 0.6%, respectively.Continuous national surveillance of antimicrobial susceptibility of respiratory pathogens is crucial in order to monitor changing patterns of susceptibility and to be able to update treatment recommendations on a regular basis

Intraoperative myocardial infarction and refractory cardiogenic shock during major hepatectomy : a case report

Background Myocardial infarction (MI) complicated by cardiogenic shock during non-cardiac surgery is a rare but fatal complication. The management of intraoperative MI is challenging. Case presentation A 77-year-old hypertensive man with good functional capacity was scheduled for hepatectomy. After the start of liver resection, the electrocardiogram monitor showed ST depression, and the patient developed refractory cardiogenic shock. Transesophageal echocardiography revealed severe hypokinesis of the anteroseptal wall. The surgery was suspended, and an intra-aortic balloon pump was placed following immediate abdominal closure. Coronary angiography revealed severe stenosis of the left main coronary trunk, and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) was performed. Myocardial wall motion improved, and blood pressure stabilized. Two days after PCI, hepatectomy, which had been suspended, was successfully completed. Conclusions Once intraoperative MI has occurred, early diagnosis and multidisciplinary approaches are important to manage the difficult clinical situation

An Evaluation of Orbital Angular Momentum Multiplexing Technology

This paper reports our investigation of wireless communication performance obtained using orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexing, from theoretical evaluation to experimental study. First, we show how we performed a basic theoretical study on wireless OAM multiplexing performance regarding modulation, demodulation, multiplexing, and demultiplexing. This provided a clear picture of the effects of mode attenuation and gave us insight into the potential and limitations of OAM wireless communications. Then, we expanded our study to experimental evaluation of a dielectric lens and end-to-end wireless transmission on 28 gigahertz frequency bands. To overcome the beam divergence of OAM multiplexing, we propose a combination of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) and OAM technology, named OAM-MIMO multiplexing. We achieved 45 Gbps (gigabits per second) throughput using OAM multiplexing with five OAM modes. We also experimentally demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed OAM-MIMO multiplexing using a total of 11 OAM modes. Experimental OAM-MIMO multiplexing results reached a new milestone for point-to-point transmission rates when 100 Gbps was achieved at a 10-m transmission distance

Effects of Interfacial Interactions on Electrocatalytic Activity of Cytochrome c Oxidase in Biomimetic Lipid Membranes on Gold Electrodes

Effects of interfacial interactions on the electrocatalytic activity of protein-tethered bilayer lipid membranes (ptBLMs) containing cytochrome c oxidase (CcO) for the oxygen reduction reaction are studied by using protein film electrochemistry and surface-enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA) spectroscopy. Mammalian CcO was immobilized on a gold electrode via self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of mixed alkanethiols. The protein orientation on the electrode is controlled by SAM–CcO interactions and is critical to the cytochrome c (cyt c) binding. The CcO–phospholipid and CcO–cyt c interactions modulate the electrocatalytic activity of CcO, and more densely packed ptBLMs show higher electrocatalytic activity. Our study indicates that spectroscopic and electrochemical studies of ptBLMs can provide insights into the effects of relatively weak protein–protein and protein–lipid interactions on the enzymatic activity of transmembrane enzymes