“To Study the Uropathogenic Profile and its Antibiotic Susceptibility Pattern among Immunocompromised Patients at a Tertiary Care Centre in Kashmir, India”.

Introduction: Immunocompromised patients have a higher tendency of developing all infections, especially infections of the genitourinary tract. Urinary tract infections cause considerable morbidity in immunocompromised patients, and if complicated, increase in the mortality. In Kashmir, the magnitude of immunocompromise-associated urinary tract infections have increased in the past few years. The successful management of urinary tract infections depends upon the identification of risk factors in the immunocompromised population. Aim and Objectives:To study the uropathogenic profile and its antibiotic susceptibility pattern among immunocompromised patients at a tertiary care centre in Kashmir. Material and Methods:This was a facility based cross-sectional study carried out in the Department of Microbiology, conducted on 405 immunocompromised patients visiting the study centre from April, 2021 to 31st March, 2022. Demographic data was collected through structured face-to-face interview. The Standard microbiological methods were used for identification of uropathogens and the antibiotic susceptibility testing was done by the Modified Kirby–Bauer disk diffusion technique according to the CLSI guidelines 2020. The study participants were stratified into 6 categories in order to evaluate the patternof antibiotic resistance among the heterogeneous immunocompromised patient population. Univariate logistic regression was used assess the significance of each factor level with respect to UTI positivity with p-value<0.05 as statistically significant. Adjusted and unadjusted odds ratios for risk factors along with 95% confidence intervals were reported. Results: In the present study a total of 405 immunocompromised patients were screened with the overall prevalence of UTI 34.81% (141/405). The mean age was observed to be 33.09 ± 23.73 years, with the maximum number of patients in the age group of 51-60 years of age group with the highest proportion of the immunocompromised UTI positive patients (29/141; 20.56%). Females accounted for 58.2% (82/141) of the patients with UTI as compared to 41.8% (59/141) of males.Amongst the 141 samples testing positive for UTI, 61 (43.26%) tested positive for bacterial isolates whereas, 80 (56.73%) tested positive for candida species. Among the bacterial isolates 46 (75.40%) were gram negative and 15 (24.59%) gram positive. The results also reflected high prevalence of UTI (68/141; 48.22%) among the diabetes mellitus category of immunocompromised patients The most typically grown organisms were E.coli (26%) followed by E.faecalis (14%) and K.pneumoniae (10%). The antibiotics Amikacin, piperacillin/tazobactam, cefoperazone/sulbactam, and carbapenems were all effective against Gram-negative isolates, while nitrofurantoin, linezolid, and vancomycin were effective against Gram-positive cocci. Conclusion: For empirical treatment, we cannot rely on commonly used oral antibiotics and specific groups such as fluoroquinolones, cephalosporins (excluding those containing sulbactam), and ampicillin. Those organisms were found in both controlled and uncontrolled diabetic groups and showed a similar pattern of antibiotic resistance. These findings emphasise the necessity of glycemic control in diabetic patients to minimise UTIs, independent of age or gender.&nbsp

Synthesis, Characterization and Antibacterial Activity of Some New 5,5'-diphenyl-4,4',5,5'-tetrahydro-1H,1'H-3,3'-bipyrazole Derivatives

An efficient and practical synthesis of five compounds of pyrazoline derivatives structures was achieved through cyclization of hydrazine hydrate with 1,6-diphenylhexa-1,5-diene-3,4-dione using glacial acetic acid as catalyst under thermal conditions. These compounds have been characterized by FT-IR, elemental analysis (C.H.N.) and 1H NMR spectroscopy. Keywords:pyrazoline, chalcone, heterocycli

Refining the accuracy of validated target identification through coding variant fine-mapping in type 2 diabetes.

We aggregated coding variant data for 81,412 type 2 diabetes cases and 370,832 controls of diverse ancestry, identifying 40 coding variant association signals (P < 2.2 × 10-7); of these, 16 map outside known risk-associated loci. We make two important observations. First, only five of these signals are driven by low-frequency variants: even for these, effect sizes are modest (odds ratio ≤1.29). Second, when we used large-scale genome-wide association data to fine-map the associated variants in their regional context, accounting for the global enrichment of complex trait associations in coding sequence, compelling evidence for coding variant causality was obtained for only 16 signals. At 13 others, the associated coding variants clearly represent 'false leads' with potential to generate erroneous mechanistic inference. Coding variant associations offer a direct route to biological insight for complex diseases and identification of validated therapeutic targets; however, appropriate mechanistic inference requires careful specification of their causal contribution to disease predisposition

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns

Areas of normal pulmonary parenchyma on HRCT exhibit increased FDG PET signal in IPF patients

Purpose: Patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) show increased PET signal at sites of morphological abnormality on high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT). The purpose of this investigation was to investigate the PET signal at sites of normal-appearing lung on HRCT in IPF. Methods: Consecutive IPF patients (22 men, 3 women) were prospectively recruited. The patients underwent 18F-FDG PET/HRCT. The pulmonary imaging findings in the IPF patients were compared to the findings in a control population. Pulmonary uptake of 18F-FDG (mean SUV) was quantified at sites of morphologically normal parenchyma on HRCT. SUVs were also corrected for tissue fraction (TF). The mean SUV in IPF patients was compared with that in 25 controls (patients with lymphoma in remission or suspected paraneoplastic syndrome with normal PET/CT appearances). Results: The pulmonary SUV (mean ± SD) uncorrected for TF in the controls was 0.48 ± 0.14 and 0.78 ± 0.24 taken from normal lung regions in IPF patients (p < 0.001). The TF-corrected mean SUV in the controls was 2.24 ± 0.29 and 3.24 ± 0.84 in IPF patients (p < 0.001). Conclusion: IPF patients have increased pulmonary uptake of 18F-FDG on PET in areas of lung with a normal morphological appearance on HRCT. This may have implications for determining disease mechanisms and treatment monitoring. © 2013 The Author(s)

Performance and Operation of the CMS Electromagnetic Calorimeter

The operation and general performance of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter using cosmic-ray muons are described. These muons were recorded after the closure of the CMS detector in late 2008. The calorimeter is made of lead tungstate crystals and the overall status of the 75848 channels corresponding to the barrel and endcap detectors is reported. The stability of crucial operational parameters, such as high voltage, temperature and electronic noise, is summarised and the performance of the light monitoring system is presented

Linear and non-linear optical response of Mg(x)Zn(1-x)O: A Density Functional study

Total and partial density of states, frequency dependent complex refractive index including extinction coefficient, optical conductivity and transmission of MgxZn1-xO (0 \leq x \leq 1) in rocksalt and wurtzite phases are calculated using full potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method. The real part of refractive index decreases while the extinction coefficient, optical conductivity and transmission for rocksalt phase increases with the increase in Mg concentration. In wurtzite phase, ordinary and extraordinary indices decreases while extinction coefficient, optical conductivity and transmission increases in parallel as well as perpendicular to c-axis with the increase in the Mg concentration

The genera Melanothamnus Bornet & Falkenberg and Vertebrata S.F. Gray constitute well-defined clades of the red algal tribe Polysiphonieae (Rhodomelaceae, Ceramiales).

Polysiphonia is the largest genus of red algae, and several schemes subdividing it into smaller taxa have been proposed since its original description. Most of these proposals were not generally accepted, and currently the tribe Polysiphonieae consists of the large genus Polysiphonia (190 species), the segregate genus Neosiphonia (43 species), and 13 smaller genera (< 10 species each). In this paper, phylogenetic relationships of the tribe Polysiphonieae are analysed, with particular emphasis on the genera Carradoriella, Fernandosiphonia, Melanothamnus, Neosiphonia, Polysiphonia sensu stricto, Streblocladia and Vertebrata. We evaluated the consistency of 14 selected morphological characters in the identified clades. Based on molecular phylogenetic (rbcL and 18S genes) and morphological evidence, two speciose genera are recognized: Vertebrata (including the type species of the genera Ctenosiphonia, Enelittosiphonia, Boergeseniella and Brongniartella) and Melanothamnus (including the type species of the genera Fernandosiphonia and Neosiphonia). Both genera are distinguished from other members of the Polysiphonieae by synapomorphic characters, the emergence of which could have provided evolutionarily selective advantages for these two lineages. In Vertebrata trichoblast cells are multinucleate, possibly associated with the development of extraordinarily long, photoprotective, trichoblasts. Melanothamnus has 3-celled carpogonial branches and plastids lying exclusively on radial walls of the pericentral cells, which similarly may improve resistance to damage caused by excessive light. Other relevant characters that are constant in each genus are also shared with other clades. The evolutionary origin of the genera Melanothamnus and Vertebrata is estimated as 75.7-95.78 and 90.7-138.66 Ma, respectively. Despite arising in the Cretaceous, before the closure of the Tethys Seaway, Melanothamnus is a predominantly Indo-Pacific genus and its near-absence from the northeastern Atlantic is enigmatic. The nomenclatural implications of this work are that 46 species are here transferred to Melanothamnus, six species are transferred to Vertebrata and 13 names are resurrected for Vertebrata

The CMS High Level Trigger System

The CMS Data Acquisition (DAQ) System relies on a purely software driven High Level Trigger (HLT) to reduce the full Level-1 accept rate of 100 kHz to approximately 100 Hz for archiving and later offline analysis. The HLT operates on the full information of events assembled by an event builder collecting detector data from the CMS front-end systems. The HLT software consists of a sequence of reconstruction and filtering modules executed on a farm of O(1000) CPUs built from commodity hardware. This paper presents the architecture of the CMS HLT, which integrates the CMS reconstruction framework in the online environment. The mechanisms to configure, control, and monitor the Filter Farm and the procedures to validate the filtering code within the DAQ environment are described