Heavy Quark Production and PDF's Subgroup Report

We present a status report of a variety of projects related to heavy quark production and parton distributions for the Tevatron Run II.Comment: Latex. 8 pages, 7 eps figures. Contribution to the Physics at Run II Workshops: QCD and Weak Boson Physic

Summary of the Very Large Hadron Collider Physics and Detector Workshop

One of the options for an accelerator beyond the LHC is a hadron collider with higher energy. Work is going on to explore accelerator technologies that would make such a machine feasible. This workshop concentrated on the physics and detector issues associated with a hadron collider with an energy in the center of mass of the order of 100 to 200 TeV

Quinupristin/dalfopristin Bonding in Combination with Intraperitoneal Antibiotics Prevent Infection of Knitted Polyester Graft Material in a Subcutaneous Rat Pouch Model Infected with Resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis

AbstractObjective: to investigate the efficacy of quinupristin/dalfopristin in the prevention of prosthetic graft infection in a rat subcutaneous pouch model.Methods: graft infections were established in the subcutaneous tissue of 140 male Wistar rats by implantation of Dacron prostheses followed by topical inoculation withStaphylococcus epidermidis with intermediate resistance to glycopeptides. The study included one group without contamination, one contaminated group without prophylaxis, one contaminated group that received 50mg/l quinupristin/dalfopristin-soaked graft, one contaminated group that received 10mg/kg intraperitoneal levofloxacin, one contaminated group that received 3mg/kg intraperitoneal doxycycline, and two contaminated groups that received 50mg/l quinupristin/dalfopristin-soaked plus 10mg/kg intraperitoneal levofloxacin or 3mg/kg intraperitoneal doxycycline. Each group included 20 animals. The grafts were removed after 7 days and evaluated by quantitative culture.Results: quinupristin/dalfopristin showed a significantly higher efficacy than levofloxacin and doxycycline, even though quantitative graft cultures for rats that received only quinupristin/dalfopristin-soaked graft showed bacterial growth. Otherwise, the efficacy of levofloxacin was similar to that of doxycycline. Only the group treated with quinupristin/dalfopristin combined with levofloxacin or doxycycline showed no evidence of staphylococcal infection.Conclusions: quinupristin/dalfopristin as adjunctive topical antibiotic prophylaxis can be useful for the prevention of vascular graft infections caused by staphylococcal strains with high levels of resistance

RNAIII-inhibiting Peptide and/or Nisin Inhibit Experimental Vascular Graft Infection with Methicillin-susceptible and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis

AbstractObjective. To investigate the efficacy of RNAIII-inhibiting peptide (RIP) and nisin as prophylactic agents in a rat model of vascular graft infection.Design. Prospective, randomized, controlled animal study.Materials. Two hundred and twenty adult male Wistar rats. Staphylococcus epidermidis ATCC 12228 and one clinical isolate of methicillin-resistant S. epidermidis. Drugs: RIP, nisin and rifampin.Methods. Graft infections were established in the dorsal subcutaneous tissue by implantation of 1 cm2 sterile Dacron grafts, followed by topical bacterial inoculation: grafts were retrieved at 7 days. The study included a control group (without inoculation) and two series composed of five groups for each staphylococcal strain: one contaminated group that did not receive any antibiotic prophylaxis, three contaminated groups that received grafts soaked with 10 mg/l RIP, 10 mg/l nisin, 10 mg/l rifampin, or RIP+nisin. The main outcome measure was the extent of bacterial at graft harvest.Results. The bacterial counts for methicillin-resistant S. epidermidis on explanted grafts were 6.1±2.8×102, 7.8±3.0×103 and 5.5±2.9×104 for RIP, nisin and rifampin, respectively. RIP and nisin used in combination reduced the bacterial count to <10. The results for S. epidermidis were similar.Conclusions. RIP and nisin could be used in combination to coat medical devices to prevent drug resistant S. epidermidis infections

The Agile Alert System For Gamma-Ray Transients

In recent years, a new generation of space missions offered great opportunities of discovery in high-energy astrophysics. In this article we focus on the scientific operations of the Gamma-Ray Imaging Detector (GRID) onboard the AGILE space mission. The AGILE-GRID, sensitive in the energy range of 30 MeV-30 GeV, has detected many gamma-ray transients of galactic and extragalactic origins. This work presents the AGILE innovative approach to fast gamma-ray transient detection, which is a challenging task and a crucial part of the AGILE scientific program. The goals are to describe: (1) the AGILE Gamma-Ray Alert System, (2) a new algorithm for blind search identification of transients within a short processing time, (3) the AGILE procedure for gamma-ray transient alert management, and (4) the likelihood of ratio tests that are necessary to evaluate the post-trial statistical significance of the results. Special algorithms and an optimized sequence of tasks are necessary to reach our goal. Data are automatically analyzed at every orbital downlink by an alert pipeline operating on different timescales. As proper flux thresholds are exceeded, alerts are automatically generated and sent as SMS messages to cellular telephones, e-mails, and push notifications of an application for smartphones and tablets. These alerts are crosschecked with the results of two pipelines, and a manual analysis is performed. Being a small scientific-class mission, AGILE is characterized by optimization of both scientific analysis and ground-segment resources. The system is capable of generating alerts within two to three hours of a data downlink, an unprecedented reaction time in gamma-ray astrophysics.Comment: 34 pages, 9 figures, 5 table

Evaluation of the Disk Diffusion Method Compared to the Microdilution Method in Susceptibility Testing of Anidulafungin against Filamentous Fungi

Susceptibility testing of anidulafungin (AFG) against 32 mold isolates showed an excellent correlation between disk diffusion (DD) and broth microdilution methods. Based on our data, a 2-microg disk of AFG and a 24-h reading time might represent the best parameters for AFG DD testing against filamentous fungi

The formation of a Sn monolayer on Ge(1 0 0) studied at the atomic scale

The growth of multi-layer germanium-tin (GeSn) quantum wells offers an intriguing pathway towards the integration of lasers in a CMOS platform. An important step in growing high quality quantum well interfaces is the formation of an initial wetting layer. However, key atomic-scale details of this process have not previously been discussed. We use scanning tunneling microscopy combined with density functional theory to study the deposition of Sn on Ge(1 0 0) at room temperature over a coverage range of 0.01 to 1.24 monolayers. We demonstrate the formation of a sub-2% Ge content GeSn wetting layer from three atomic-scale characteristic ad-dimer structural components, and show that small quantities of Sn incorporate into the Ge surface forming two atomic configurations. The ratio of the ad-dimer structures changes with increasing Sn coverage, indicating a change in growth kinetics. At sub-monolayer coverage, the least densely packing ad-dimer structure is most abundant. As the layer closes, forming a two-dimensional wetting layer, the more densely packing ad-dimer structure become dominant. These results demonstrate the capability to form an atomically smooth wetting layer at room temperature, and provide critical atomic-scale insights for the optimization of growth processes of GeSn multi-quantum-wells to meet the quality requirements of optical GeSn-based devices