Search results for "fluids"
showing 10 items of 1936 documents
Culture and Real-time Polymerase Chain reaction sensitivity in the diagnosis of invasive meningococcal disease: Does culture miss less severe cases?
2019
BackgroundInvasive meningococcal disease (IMD) is a highly lethal disease. Diagnosis is commonly performed by culture or Realtime-PCR (qPCR).AimsOur aim was to evaluate, retrospectively, whether culture positivity correlates with higher bacterial load and fatal outcome. Our secondary aim was to compare culture and qPCR sensitivity.MethodsThe National Register for Molecular Surveillance was used as data source. Cycle threshold (CT), known to be inversely correlated with bacterial load, was used to compare bacterial load in different samples.ResultsThree-hundred-thirteen patients were found positive for Neisseria meningitidis by qPCR, or culture, or both; 41 died (case fatality rate 13.1%); 1…
Stimulated and unstimulated saliva samples have significantly different bacterial profiles
2018
Epidemiological studies use saliva on a regular basis as a non-invasive and easy-to-take sample, which is assumed to be a microbial representative of the oral cavity ecosystem. However, comparative studies between different kinds of saliva samples normally used in microbial studies are scarce. The aim of the current study was to compare oral microbiota composition between two different saliva samples collected simultaneously: non-stimulated saliva with paper points and stimulated saliva collected after chewing paraffin gum. DNA was extracted from saliva samples of ten individuals, then analyzed by 16S rRNA pyrosequencing to describe bacterial diversity. The results demonstrate significant d…
Re: The Clinical Impact of Bacteremia on Outcomes in Elderly Patients with Pyelonephritis or Urinary Sepsis: A Prospective Multicenter Study
2018
Background Bacteremia is common in severe urinary infections, but its influence on the outcomes is not well established. The aim of this study was to assess the association of bacteremia with outcomes in elderly patients admitted to hospital with pyelonephritis or urinary sepsis. Methods This prospective muticenter observational study was conducted at 5 Spanish hospitals. All patients aged >65 years with pyelonephritis or urinary sepsis admitted to the departments of internal medicine and with urine and blood cultures obtained at admission to hospital were eligible. Transfer to ICU, length of hospital stay, hospital mortality and all cause 30-day mortality in bacteremic and non-bacteremic g…
Importance of Propionibacterium acnes hemolytic activity in human intervertebral discs: A microbiological study
2018
Most patients with chronic lower back pain (CLBP) exhibit degenerative disc disease. Disc specimens obtained during initial therapeutic discectomies are often infected/colonized with Propionibacterium acnes, a Gram-positive commensal of the human skin. Although pain associated with infection is typically ascribed to the body's inflammatory response, the Gram-positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus was recently observed to directly activate nociceptors by secreting pore-forming α-hemolysins that disrupt neuronal cell membranes. The hemolytic activity of P. acnes in cultured disc specimens obtained during routine therapeutic discectomies was assessed through incubation on sheep-blood agar. T…
Polyelectrolyte properties of filamentous biopolymers and their consequences in biological fluids.
2014
Anionic polyelectrolyte filaments are common in biological cells. DNA, RNA, the cytoskeletal filaments F-actin, microtubules, and intermediate filaments, and polysaccharides such as hyaluronan that form the pericellular matrix all have large net negative charge densities distributed over their surfaces. Several filamentous viruses with diameters and stiffnesses similar to those of cytoskeletal polymers also have similar negative charge densities. Extracellular protein filaments such collagen, fibrin and elastin, in contrast, have notably smaller charge densities and do not behave as highly charged polyelectrolytes in solution. This review summarizes data that demonstrate generic counterion-…
Pre-conceptual design of EU-DEMO Divertor primary heat transfer systems
2021
Abstract In the frame of the activities promoted and encouraged by the EUROfusion Power Plant Physics and Technology (PPPT) department aimed at developing the EU-DEMO fusion reactor, strong emphasis has been recently addressed to the whole Balance of Plant (BoP) which represents the set of systems devoted to convert the plasma generated thermal power into electricity and to deliver it to the grid. Among these systems, the Divertor Primary Heat Transfer Systems (PHTSs) are intended to feed coolant to the two main components of the Divertor assembly, namely the Plasma Facing Components (PFCs) and the Cassette Body (CB). Since the DEMO Divertor must withstand high heat flux loads together with…
Progress in the design development of EU DEMO helium-cooled pebble bed primary heat transfer system
2019
Abstract In the frame of the activities promoted and encouraged by the EURO-fusion Power Plant Physics and Technology (PPPT) department aimed at developing the EU-DEMO fusion reactor, strong emphasis has been recently posed to the whole Balance of Plant (BoP) which represents the set of systems devoted to convert the plasma generated thermal power into electricity and to deliver it to the grid. Among these systems, a very important role is played by the Breeding Blanket (BB) Primary Heat Transfer System (PHTS) as it is responsible to extract more than 80% of the fusion plasma power. In this framework, University of Palermo, Ansaldo Nucleare and CREATE have focused their work to improve ther…
Integration of a Dirac comb and the Bernoulli polynomials
2016
Abstract For any positive integer n , we consider the ordinary differential equations of the form y ( n ) = 1 − Ш + F where Ш denotes the Dirac comb distribution and F is a piecewise- C ∞ periodic function with null average integral. We prove the existence and uniqueness of periodic solutions of maximal regularity. Above all, these solutions are given by means of finite explicit formulae involving a minimal number of Bernoulli polynomials. We generalize this approach to a larger class of differential equations for which the computation of periodic solutions is also sharp, finite and effective.
Synthesis of new, UV-photoactive dansyl derivatives for flow cytometric studies on bile acid uptake.
2009
Four new fluorescent derivatives of cholic acid have been synthesized; they incorporate a dansyl moiety at 3 alpha-, 3 beta-, 7 alpha- or 7 beta- positions. These cholic acid analogs are UV photoactive and also exhibit green fluorescence. In addition, they have been demonstrated to be suitable for studying the kinetics of bile acid transport by flow cytometry.
Nanomaterials for biosensors and biomedical applications, International conference (Jurmala, Latvia, July 2-4, 2019) : Book of Abstracts
2019
The conference is supported by the University of Latvia under the ERDF project No. 1.1.1.5/18/I/016 and European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 778157-CanBioSe and No 777926-NanoSurf