Ganglioneuroma in a child with chronic constipation and abdominal pain

Background: Ganglioneuromas are rare, benign, slow-growing tumors arising from the neural crest. They are most commonly in posterior mediastinum, retroperitoneum, adrenal medulla and neck. They are very rare in presacral region. Case Report: A 15 year old girl presented with abdominal pain and chronic constipation. A mass was seen between the uterus and sacrococcygeal bone in abdominal CT. It is resected totally and evaluated as ganglioneuroma. Conclusion: Presacral ganglioneuroma is a benign tumor which is rarely encountered. Patients might present with abdominal pain and constipation complaints as seen in our patient. Therefore, imaging methods should certainly be used for patients with chronic constipation which is resistance to treatment. [Med-Science 2018; 7(4.000): 956-8

GPU-ASIFT:A Fast Fully Affine-Invariant Feature Extraction Algorithm

This paper presents a method that takes advantage of powerful graphics hardware to obtain fully affine-invariant image feature detection and matching. The chosen approach is the accurate, but also very computationally expensive, ASIFT algorithm. We have created a CUDA version of this algorithm that is up to 70 times faster than the original implementation, while keeping the algorithm’s accuracy close to that of ASIFT. It’s matching performance is therefore much better than that of other non-fully affine-invariant algorithms. Also, this approach was adapted to fit the multi-GPU paradigm in order to assess the acceleration potential from modern GPU clusters.

The effect of hyperbaric oxygen therapy on the survival of random pattern skin flaps in nicotine-treated rats

Previous studies have shown that nicotine increases the risk of necrosis in skin flaps. We investigated the effect of hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) treatment on the survival of random skin flaps in nicotine-treated rats

Conservation Contracts and Political Regimes

This article provides a flexible model of resource extraction, such as deforestation, and derives the optimal conservation contract. When property rights are “strong” and districts are in charge of extracting their own resources to get revenues, conservation in one district benefits the others since the reduced supply raises the sales price. A central authority would internalize this positive externality and thus conserve more. When property rights are instead weak and extraction is illegal or costly control, conservation in one district increases the price and thus the profit from illegally depleting the resource in the other districts. The externality from conservation is then negative, and centralization would lead to less conservation. We also derive the optimal conservation contract, and we explain when the principal, who values conservation, benefits from contracting with the districts directly even when contracting with a central authority would have led to more conservation, and vice versa. © 2017 Oxford University Pres

International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium report, data summary of 50 countries for 2010-2015: Device-associated module

•We report INICC device-associated module data of 50 countries from 2010-2015.•We collected prospective data from 861,284 patients in 703 ICUs for 3,506,562 days.•DA-HAI rates and bacterial resistance were higher in the INICC ICUs than in CDC-NHSN's.•Device utilization ratio in the INICC ICUs was similar to CDC-NHSN's. Background: We report the results of International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) surveillance study from January 2010-December 2015 in 703 intensive care units (ICUs) in Latin America, Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, and Western Pacific. Methods: During the 6-year study period, using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Healthcare Safety Network (CDC-NHSN) definitions for device-associated health care-associated infection (DA-HAI), we collected prospective data from 861,284 patients hospitalized in INICC hospital ICUs for an aggregate of 3,506,562 days. Results: Although device use in INICC ICUs was similar to that reported from CDC-NHSN ICUs, DA-HAI rates were higher in the INICC ICUs: in the INICC medical-surgical ICUs, the pooled rate of central line-associated bloodstream infection, 4.1 per 1,000 central line-days, was nearly 5-fold higher than the 0.8 per 1,000 central line-days reported from comparable US ICUs, the overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia was also higher, 13.1 versus 0.9 per 1,000 ventilator-days, as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection, 5.07 versus 1.7 per 1,000 catheter-days. From blood cultures samples, frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas isolates to amikacin (29.87% vs 10%) and to imipenem (44.3% vs 26.1%), and of Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (73.2% vs 28.8%) and to imipenem (43.27% vs 12.8%) were also higher in the INICC ICUs compared with CDC-NHSN ICUs. Conclusions: Although DA-HAIs in INICC ICU patients continue to be higher than the rates reported in CDC-NSHN ICUs representing the developed world, we have observed a significant trend toward the reduction of DA-HAI rates in INICC ICUs as shown in each international report. It is INICC's main goal to continue facilitating education, training, and basic and cost-effective tools and resources, such as standardized forms and an online platform, to tackle this problem effectively and systematically