Characteristics of subclinical tuberculosis compared to active symptomatic tuberculosis using nationwide registry cohort in Korea: prospective cohort study

ObjectiveThe clinical manifestations of tuberculosis (TB) range from asymptomatic to disseminated depending on the microbiological and immunological status, making the diagnosis challenging. To improve our understanding of the disease progression mechanism, we aimed to identify the characteristics of subclinical TB and important predictors of symptom development.MethodsFrom July 2018 to June 2019, we systemically collected data from the National Surveillance System of South Korea on patients with pulmonary TB, and compared the characteristics of subclinical and active symptomatic TB patients.ResultsA total of 4,636 patients with pulmonary TB were included, and the prevalence of subclinical TB was 37.1% (1,720/4,636). In subclinical TB patients, the positivity rates of acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smear and culture were 16.2 and 50.2%, respectively. Subclinical TB patients were younger (55.6 ± 19.2 vs. 60.7 ± 19.5, P < 0.001), had a higher body mass index (21.7 ± 3.1 vs. 21.0 ± 3.5, P < 0.001), less under Medicaid support, and had lower rates of chronic lung disease, AFB smear and culture positivity, and bilateral disease. Regarding the characteristic differences of individual TB-related symptoms, age was positively associated with dyspnoea and general weakness but negatively associated with chest pain, haemoptysis, and weight loss. Male patients were more prone to weight loss. Chronic lung disease was related to symptoms including cough/phlegm, dyspnoea, and haemoptysis, while autoimmune diseases were associated with fever and weight loss.ConclusionsThe development of TB-related symptoms was associated with microbiological burden and clinical characteristics including underlying comorbidities, which should be evaluated carefully

Serological Changes in Anti-Aspergillus IgG Antibody and Development of Chronic Pulmonary Aspergillosis in Patients Treated for Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (CPA) is an important infection to understand in survivors of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). However, limited data are available regarding CPA development and its predisposing factors following PTB. We investigated the development of, and the predisposing factors for, CPA following the completion of PTB treatment. A total of 345 patients, with newly diagnosed culture-positive PTB (between January 2015 and December 2018), were included. Enrolled cases were categorized into four groups (persistently seronegative, seroconversion, seroreversion, and persistently seropositive) according to serological changes in their anti-Aspergillus IgG antibodies before and after PTB treatment. The patients were followed up for a median of 25.8 months. Ten (10/345, 2.9%) patients developed CPA at a median of 13.5 months after treatment completion, including seven (7/24, 29.2%) and three (3/73, 4.1%) in the seroconversion and persistently seropositive groups, respectively. Upon multivariate analysis, seroconversion of anti-Aspergillus IgG antibody (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 25.21; 95% confidence interval [CI], 6.11–103.99; p < 0.001) and diabetic status (adjusted HR, 7.54; 95% CI, 1.93–29.50; p = 0.004) were independently associated with CPA development. The development of CPA in patients with PTB was observed in 2.9% of patients during post-treatment follow-up, and this was significantly associated with both the seroconversion of anti-Aspergillus IgG antibody and diabetes characteristics

Representing the Timbre of Traditional Musical Instruments Based On Contemporary Instrumental Samples Using DDSP

his project explores the potential of Differentiable Digital Signal Processing (DDSP) to represent and synthesize the timbre of five different notes of the Korean traditional musical instrument, Geo- mungo, using digital instrumental samples of the bass guitar, which has a similar mechanism to produce the sound. To evaluate the fea- sibility and quality of the digital recreation process, we compared hand-played Geomungo audio samples with digitally recreated au- dio samples using DDSP. The MFCC, spectral contrast, chroma features, and raw signal comparison, were used for assessment. Our findings show the possibility of applying DDSP to represent and synthesize the nuances of pitch and dynamics for expressive aspects of Geomungo???s five different notes effectively. We also pro- pose three audio features that can be used to evaluate the results quantitatively under the context of neural sound synthesis

High-Performance Hybrid Photovoltaics with Efficient Interfacial Contacts between Vertically Aligned ZnO Nanowire Arrays and Organic Semiconductors

Hybrid photovoltaics (HPVs) incorporating both organic and inorganic semiconducting materials have attracted much attention as next-generation photovoltaics because of their advantage of combining both materials. The hybridization of ZnO nanowires (NWs) and organic semiconductors is expected to be a suitable approach to overcome the limited exciton diffusion length and low electron mobility associated with current organic photovoltaics. The use of ZnO NWs allows researchers to tune nanoscale dimensions more precisely and to achieve rod-to-rod spacing below 10 nm. However, the perfect incorporation of organic semiconductors into densely packed ZnO NW arrays has yet to be achieved. In this study, we report the fabrication of ZnO NW arrays and various organic heterojunction-based HPVs using the feasible and effective vacuum-assisted double coating (VADC) method, achieving full coverage of the organic semiconductors on the compact ZnO NW arrays. The newly proposed VADC method ensures perfect infiltration and full coverage of the organic semiconductors on the densely packed NW arrays. Compared with the conventional single spin-coating process, the use of the VADC method led to 11 and 14% increases in the power conversion efficiency of P3HT:PCBM- and PBDTTT-C-T:PC71BM-based HPVs, respectively. Our studies provide a feasible method for the fabrication of efficient HPVs

Search for the production of a Higgs boson in association with top quarks and decaying into a b-quark pair and b-jet identification with the ATLAS experiment at LHC

In July 2012, the ATLAS and CMS experiments announced the discovery of a new particle, with a mass about $125$ GeV, compatible with the Standard Model Higgs boson. In order to assess if the observed particle is the one predicted by the Standard Model, the couplings if this Higgs boson to fermions have to be measured. In particular, the top quark has the strongest Yukawa coupling to the Higgs boson. The associated production of a Higgs boson with a pair of top quarks ($t\bar{t}H$) gives a direct access to this coupling. The $t\bar{t}H$ process is accessible for the first time in the Run 2 of the LHC thanks to an upgrade of the detector, especially the IBL which improves $b$-tagging, and the increase of the center of mass energy to $13$ TeV and of the integrated luminosity to $36.1$ fb$^{-1}$ in 2016. This thesis presents the search for $t\bar{t}H$ events with the Higgs boson decaying to a pair of $b$-quarks using data collected by the ATLAS detector in 2015 and 2016. The description of the background and the extraction of the $t\bar{t}H(H\rightarrow bb)$ signal in data are obtained by a statistical matching on predictions to data. In particular the $t\bar{t}+$jets background is the main limitation to signal sensitivity and is scrutinized. The identification of jets originating from $b$-quarks, called $b$-tagging, is a vital input to the search of $t\bar{t}H(H\rightarrow bb)$ events because of the four $b$-quarks in the final state. For Run 2 the definition of b-flavoured-jets in Monte Carlo simulations is revisited to improve the understanding of $b$-tagging algorithms and their performance. Standard $b$-tagging algorithms do not separate jets originating from a single $b$-quark from those originating from two $b$-quarks. Thus a specific method has been developed and is reviewed in this thesis

Microbiological etiology other than PTB according to the radiographic activities on chest CT.

<p>Microbiological etiology other than PTB according to the radiographic activities on chest CT.</p