A metal–organic framework/α-alumina composite with a novel geometry for enhanced adsorptive separation

The development of a metal–organic framework/α-alumina composite leads to a novel concept: efficient adsorption occurs within a plurality of radial micro-channels with no loss of the active adsorbents during the process. This composite can effectively remediate arsenic contaminated water producing potable water recovery, whereas the conventional fixed bed requires eight times the amount of active adsorbents to achieve a similar performance

Glass ionomer art sealant and fluoride-releasing resin sealant in fissure caries prevention - Results from a randomized clinical trial

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Randomized clinical trial on arresting dental root caries through silver diammine fluoride applications in community-dwelling elders

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Genotypic analysis of Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates in a Beijing hospital reveals high genetic diversity and clonal population structure of drug-resistant isolates.

Background The genetic diversity and the clinical relevance of the drug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates from hospital settings are largely unknown. We thus conducted this prospective study to analyze the molecular epidemiology of K. pneumoniae isolates from patients being treated in the 306 Hospital in Beijing, China for the period of November 1, 2010–October 31, 2011. Methodology/Principal Findings Antibiotic susceptibility testing, PCR amplification and sequencing of the drug resistance-associated genes, and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) were conducted. A total of 163 isolates were analyzed. The percentage of MDR, XDR and PDR isolates were 63.8% (104), 20.9 (34), and 1.8% (3), respectively. MLST results showed that 60 sequence types (STs) were identified, which were further separated by eBURST into 13 clonal complexes and 18 singletons. The most dominant ST was ST15 (10.4%). Seven new alleles and 24 new STs were first identified in this study. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that certain clinical characteristics were associated with those prevalent STs such as: from ICU, from medical ward, from community acquired infection, from patients without heart disease, from patients with treatment success, susceptible to extended spectrum cephalosporin, susceptible to cephamycins, susceptible to fluoroquinolones, and with MDR. Conclusions/Significance Our data indicate that certain drug-resistant K. pneumoniae clones are highly prevalent and are associated with certain clinical characteristics in hospital settings. Our study provides evidence demonstrating that intensive nosocomial infection control measures are urgently needed.published_or_final_versio

Structural Diversity of Class 1 integrons and their associated gene cassettes in Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates from a hospital in China

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High-efficiency Urban-traffic Management in Context-aware Computing and 5G Communication

With the increasing number of vehicle and traffic jams, urban-traffic management is becoming a serious issue. In this article, we propose novel four-tier architecture for urban-traffic management with the convergence of vehicle ad hoc networks (VANETs), 5G wireless network, software-defined network (SDN), and mobile-edge computing (MEC) technologies. The proposed architecture provides better communication and rapider responsive speed in a more distributed and dynamic manner. The practical case of rapid accident rescue can significantly cut down the time for rescue. Key technologies with respect to vehicle localization, data pre-fetching, traffic lights control, and traffic prediction are also discussed. Obviously, the novel architecture shows noteworthy potential for alleviating the traffic congestion and improving the efficiency of urban-traffic management

The ubiquitin ligase TRIM27 functions as a host restriction factor antagonized by Mycobacterium tuberculosis PtpA during mycobacterial infection

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Analysis of drug resistance determinants in Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates from a tertiary-care hospital in Beijing, China.

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Muon-spin-relaxation study of the magnetic penetration depth in MgB2

The magnetic vortex lattice (VL) of polycrystalline MgB2 has been investigated by transverse-field muon-spin-relaxation (TF-MuSR). The evolution of TF-MuSR depolarization rate, sigma, that is proportional to the second moment of the field distribution of the VL has been studied as a function of temperature and applied magnetic field. The low temperature value s exhibits a pronounced peak near Hext = 75 mT. This behavior is characteristic of strong pinning induced distortions of the VL which put into question the interpretation of the low-field TF-MuSR data in terms of the magnetic penetration depth lambda(T). An approximately constant value of sigma, such as expected for an ideal VL in the London-limit, is observed at higher fields of Hext > 0.4 T. The TF-MuSR data at Hext = 0.6 T are analyzed in terms of a two-gap model. We obtain values for the gap size of D1 = 6.0 meV (2D1/kBTc = 3.6), D2 = 2.6 meV (2D2/kBTc = 1.6), a comparable spectral weight of the two bands and a zero temperature value for the magnetic penetration depth of lambda = 100 nm. In addition, we performed MuSR-measurements in zero external field (ZF-MuSR). We obtain evidence that the muon site (at low temperature) is located on a ring surrounding the center of the boron hexagon. Muon diffusion sets in already at rather low temperature of T > 10 K. The nuclear magnetic moments can account for the observed relaxation rate and no evidence for electronic magnetic moments has been obtained.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Time scales of epidemic spread and risk perception on adaptive networks

Incorporating dynamic contact networks and delayed awareness into a contagion model with memory, we study the spreading patterns of infectious diseases in connected populations. It is found that the spread of an infectious disease is not only related to the past exposures of an individual to the infected but also to the time scales of risk perception reflected in the social network adaptation. The epidemic threshold $p_{c}$ is found to decrease with the rise of the time scale parameter s and the memory length T, they satisfy the equation $p_{c} =\frac{1}{T}+ \frac{\omega T}{a^s(1-e^{-\omega T^2/a^s})}$. Both the lifetime of the epidemic and the topological property of the evolved network are considered. The standard deviation $\sigma_{d}$ of the degree distribution increases with the rise of the absorbing time $t_{c}$, a power-law relation $\sigma_{d}=mt_{c}^\gamma$ is found