The Role of rescue therapies in the treatment of severe ARDS

ARDS is characterized by a non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema with bilateral chest radiograph opacities and hypoxemia refractory to oxygen therapy. It is a common cause of admission to the ICU due to hypoxemic respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation. Corticosteroids are not recommended in ARDS patients. Rescue therapies alleviate hypoxemia in patients unable to maintain reasonable oxygenation: recruitment maneuvers, prone positioning, inhaled nitric oxide, high-frequency oscillatory ventilation, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation improve oxygenation, but their impact on mortality remains unproven. Restrictive fluid management seems to be a favorable strategy with no significant reduction in 60-d mortality. Future studies are needed to clarify the efficacy of these therapies on outcomes in patients with severe ARDS, and institution of these therapies may be considered on a case-by-case basis

Charm nonleptonic decays and final state interactions

A global previous analysis of two-body nonleptonic decays of $D$ mesons has been extended to the decays involving light scalar mesons. The allowance for final state interaction also in nonresonant channels provides a fit of much improved quality and with less symmetry breaking in the axial charges. We give predictions for about 50 decay branching ratios yet to be measured. We also discuss long distance contributions to the difference $\Delta \Gamma$ between the $D_S$ and $D_L$ widths.Comment: 14 pages, no figures, plain TeX, uses harvmac.tex and tables.te

Effect of compost against soil-borne plant pathogens and its impact on rhizosphere microbiota

Compost microbiota and microbial activity play a key role in suppressing soil-borne plant pathogens, starting from rhizosphere, The objective of the present work was to summarize results achieved evaluating compost efficacy against soil-borne pathogens such as Phytophthora capsici on courgette and Fusarium oxysporum on lettuce and tomato, and explain possible relationships among the targeted host/pathogen and the rhizosphere microbiota due to compost applications. Experimental trials were carried out on potted plants (by mixing compost into the potting substrate) and in two infested fields (by transplanting plants previously grown using potting substrate containing compost). Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction - qPCR and the next generation amplicon sequencing technologies were applied on rhizosphere samples. Compost suppressed the diseases by 50-70%, compared to the untreated controls. Moreover, a reduction of the abundance of the soil-borne pathogens up to 100 folds was observed in the soils where compost was applied. The abundance of beneficial microorganisms, such as Bacillus and Trichoderma, was also influenced and a 10-100 folds increase of it was observed in the rhizosphere of plants treated with compost. However, compost application did not affect the microbial diversity observed applying next generation amplicon sequencing. These findings suggest that compost can be used to reduce plant diseases caused by soil-borne pathogens, most probably improving the abundance of beneficial microorganisms and reducing that of pathogens, but not increasing rhizosphere microbial diversity

A rare case of leiomyoma of the bladder

Bladder leiomyoma is a benign tumour of the bladder and constitute <0.5% of all bladder tumors. We report a clinical case of a 51‑year‑old female who presented with with symptomatic bladder leiomyoma. An ultrasound examination showed well-defined bladder leiomyoma in the right posterior bladder wall, which was excised through a transurethral resection. The pathologic diagnosis was bladder leiomyoma

On the Polish doughnut accretion disk via the effective potential approach

We revisit the Polish doughnut model of accretion disks providing a comprehensive analytical description of the Polish doughnut structure. We describe a perfect fluid circularly orbiting around a Schwarzschild black hole, source of the gravitational field, by the effective potential approach for the exact gravitational and centrifugal effects. This analysis leads to a detailed, analytical description of the accretion disk, its toroidal surface, the thickness, the distance from the source. We determine the variation of these features with the effective potential and the fluid angular momentum. Many analytical formulas are given. In particular it turns out that the distance from the source of the inner surface of the torus increases with increasing fluid angular momentum but decreases with increasing energy function defined as the value of the effective potential for that momentum. The location of torus maximum thickness moves towards the external regions of the surface with increasing angular momentum, until it reaches a maximum an then decreases. Assuming a polytropic equation of state we investigate some specific cases.Comment: 33 pages, 28 figures, 1 table. This is a revised version to meet the published articl

Boards of Directors’ Contribution to Strategy: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

Manuscript Type: Literature review.Research Question/Issue: Over the last four decades, research on the relationship between boards of directors and strategy has proliferated. Yet to date there is little theoretical and empirical agreement regarding the question of how boards of directors contribute to strategy. This review assesses the extant literature by highlighting emerging trends and identifying several avenues for future research.Research Findings/Insights: Using a content-analysis of 150 articles published in 23 manage-ment journals until 2007, we describe and analyze how research on boards of directors and strategy has evolved over time. We illustrate how topics, theories, settings and sources of data interact and influence insights about board-strategy relationships during three specific periods.Theoretical/Academic Implications: Our study illustrates that research on boards of directors and strategy evolved from normative and structural approaches to behavioral and cognitive approaches. Our results encourage future studies (i) to examine the impact of institutional and context-specific factors on the (expected) contribution of boards to strategy, and (ii) to apply alternative methods to fully capture the impact of board processes and dynamics on strategy-making.Practical/Policy Implications: The increasing interest in boards of directors’ contribution to strategy echoes a movement towards more strategic involvement of boards of directors. However, best governance practices and the emphasis on board independence and control may hinder the board contribution to the strategic decision-making. Our study invites investors and policy-makers to consider the requirements for an effective strategic task when they nominee board members and develop new regulations.boards of directors;contribution to strategy;literature review