To say what is not being said : the radical literary strategies and sexual politics of Ana Castillo's Sapogonia

vi, 37 p. A print copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries under the call number: SCA Archiv Albrich 1993In her second novel, Sapogonia, Ana Castillo challenges and confronts the canon by dismantling and defying the dominant ideologies of Westem androcentric literature. Using Castillo's first novel, The Mixguiahuala Letters, as the framework within which to read Sapogonia, we discover that Castillo's experimentation with different genres, narrative voice, and intertextuality allows her to mock and to subvert male-authored texts. Castillo's literary strategies also facilitate her critique of the mestizo who denies his indigenous American ancestry. Finally, Sapogonia is a critique of the discourses and ideologies of patriarchal authority that have been used to oppress women. Despite the fact that Castillo's literary strategies and sexual politics establish her novel as feminist literature, Castillo refuses to romanticize the position of women in Sapogonia. Committed to telling the truth, Castllo presents a disturbingly realistic vision of society

Novel Approaches to the Identification of Streptococcus pneumoniae as the Cause of Community-Acquired Pneumonia

Current diagnostic tests lack sensitivity for the identification of the bacterial etiology of pneumonia. Attempts during the past 2 decades to improve sensitivity of detection of bacterial constituents in blood by use of antibody-antigen complexes and polymerase chain reaction have been disappointing. Recent data using pneumococcal conjugate vaccines as probes suggest that increased levels of both C-reactive protein and procalcitonin may be useful adjuncts to chest radiographs in the selection of patients with presumed bacterial pneumonia for inclusion in clinical trials. Among pneumococcal diagnostics currently under investigation, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction of respiratory secretions, as well as urinary antigen detection and pneumococcal surface adhesin A serological analysis for adults, are candidates for use in future clinical trials of antibiotic

Regulació de la caça de la fauna silvestre a Catalunya. Situació actual, problemàtica i tendències legislatives

Treball presentat a l'assignatura de Deontologia i Veterinària Legal (21223

PIRATE project: point-of-care, informatics-based randomised controlled trial for decreasing overuse of antibiotic therapy in Gram-negative bacteraemia.

Antibiotic overuse drives antibiotic resistance. The optimal duration of antibiotic therapy for Gram-negative bacteraemia (GNB), a common community and hospital-associated infection, remains unknown and unstudied via randomised controlled trials (RCTs). This investigator-initiated, multicentre, non-inferiority, informatics-based point-of-care RCT will randomly assign adult hospitalised patients receiving microbiologically efficacious antibiotic(s) for GNB to (1) 14 days of antibiotic therapy, (2) 7 days of therapy or (3) an individualised duration determined by clinical response and 75% reduction in peak C reactive protein (CRP) values. The randomisation will occur in equal proportions (1:1:1) on day 5 (±1) of efficacious antibiotic therapy as determined by antibiogram; patients, their physicians and study investigators will be blind to treatment duration allocation until the day of antibiotic discontinuation. Immunosuppressed patients and those with GNB due to complicated infections (endocarditis, osteomyelitis, etc) and/or non-fermenting bacilli ( <i>Acinetobacter</i> spp, <i>Burkholderia</i> spp, <i>Pseudomonas</i> spp) <i>Brucella</i> spp, <i>Fusobacterium</i> spp or polymicrobial growth with Gram-positive organisms will be ineligible. The primary outcome is incidence of clinical failure at day 30; secondary outcomes include clinical failure, all-cause mortality and incidence of <i>Clostridiumdifficile</i> infection in the 90-day study period. An interim safety analysis will be performed after the first 150 patients have been followed for ≤30 days. Given a chosen margin of 10%, the required sample size to determine non-inferiority is roughly 500 patients. Analyses will be performed on both intention-to-treat and per-protocol populations. Ethics approval was obtained from the cantonal ethics committees of all three participating sites. Results of the main trial and each of the secondary endpoints will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. This trial is registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03101072; pre-results)

Effectiveness of a procalcitonin algorithm to guide antibiotic therapy in respiratory tract infections outside of study conditions: a post-study survey

All published evidence on procalcitonin (PCT)-guided antibiotic therapy was obtained in trials where physicians knew that they were being monitored, possibly resulting in higher adherence to the PCT algorithm. This study investigates the effectiveness of PCT guidance in an observational quality control survey. We monitored antibiotic therapy and algorithm adherence in consecutive patients with respiratory tract infections admitted to the Kantonsspital Aarau, Switzerland, between May 2008 and February 2009. The results were compared to the site-specific results of the former ProHOSP study. Overall and more pronounced for patients with community-acquired pneumonia, the median duration of antibiotic treatment in this survey was shorter than the ProHOSP control patients (6 vs. 7days, P = 0.048 and 7 vs. 9days, P < 0.001). In 72.5% of patients, antibiotics were administered according to the prespecified PCT algorithm. No significant differences concerning adverse medical outcome could be detected. This study mirrors the use of PCT-guided antibiotic therapy in clinical practice, outside of trial conditions. If algorithm adherence is reinforced, antibiotic exposure can be markedly reduced with subsequent reduction of antibiotic-associated side effects and antibiotic resistance. The integration of the PCT algorithm into daily practice requires ongoing reinforcement and involves a learning process of the prescribing physician

Hyponatremia and anti-diuretic hormone in Legionnaires’ disease

BACKGROUND: Medical textbooks often list Legionnaires’ disease as a differential diagnosis of the syndrome of inappropriate secretion of anti-diuretic hormone (ADH) (SIADH), but evidence supporting this association is largely lacking. We tested the hypothesis whether hyponatremia in patients with Legionnaires’ disease would be caused by increased CT-ProVasopressin. METHODS: We measured CT-ProVasopressin and sodium levels in a prospective cohort of 873 pneumonia patients from a previous multicentre study with 27 patients having positive antigen tests for Legionella pneumophila. RESULTS: Patients with Legionnaires’ disease more frequently had low sodium levels (Na < 130 mmol/L) (44.4% vs 8.2%, p < 0.01), but similar mean CT-ProVasopressin levels (pmol/l) (39.4 [±7] vs 51.2 [±2.7], p = 0.43) as compared to patients with pneumonia of other etiologies. In patients with Legionnaires’ disease, CT-ProVasopressin levels showed a positive correlation with sodium (r = 0.42, p < 0.05). Independent of pneumonia etiology, CT-ProVasopressin correlated significantly with the pneumonia severity index (r = 0.56, p < 0.05), ICU admission (adjusted odds ratio per decile, 95% CI) (1.6, 1.2 - 2.0), and 30-day-mortality (1.8, 1.3 - 2.4). CONCLUSION: While Legionnaires’ disease was associated with hyponatremia, no concurrent increase in CT-ProVasopressin levels was found, which argues against elevated ADH levels as the causal pathway to hyponatremia. Rather, Vasopressin precursors were upregulated as response to stress in severe disease, which seems to overrule the osmoregulatory regulation of ADH

When once is not enough – further evidence of procalcitonin-guided antibiotic stewardship

Every day, critical care physicians around the world face the same challenge of the optimal timing of antimicrobial administration: when to start and when to stop antibiotics. Duration of antibiotic therapy for sepsis is mostly based on expert opinion, but its reduction is arguably the most promising approach to decrease emergence and selection of antibiotic resistance. The study by Hochreiter and colleagues presents another piece of evidence suggesting that procalcitonin may indeed be a valuable diagnostic parameter to guide antibiotic treatment duration, despite the ongoing controversy about the diagnostic accuracy of pro-calcitonin

Nationalität und Herkunft in der Kriminalberichterstattung: Umgang österreichischer KriminalberichterstatterInnen mit personenbezogenen Daten der Tatverdächtigen in Printmedien und ihren Online-Auftritten

Die auf einer Online-Befragung von 64 KriminalberichterstatterInnen der tagesaktuellen österreichischen Print- und Online-Medien basierende Erhebung, bietet einen Einblick in die Ansichten und Einstellungen der befragten JournalistInnen zum Umgang mit der Nationalität und Ethnie in der Kriminalberichterstattung von Printmedien und ihren Onlinauftritten. So wurden Einflüsse auf die Handhabung, die Bedeutung der Information, die Akzeptanz verschiedener Regelungen zum Umgang mit der Information sowie das Problembewusstsein der Befragten erhoben. Die KriminalberichterstatterInnen messen Staatsbürgerschaft und Herkunft, vor allem im Kontext organisierter und grenzübergreifender Kriminalität sowie bei Straftaten, die ihrer Meinung nach verstärkt einer Nationalität zuordenbar sind, große Relevanz zu. Als Einflussfaktoren ließen unter anderem die persönlichen Einstellungen der JournalistInnen zum Zusammenhang von Staatsbürgerschaft, Herkunft und Kriminalität sowie das Publikumsbild identifizieren. Die Entscheidung über den Umgang mit den Informationen soll für die JournalistInnen primär medienintern fallen. Ein Nichtnennen wird von den Befragten aus verschiedenen Gründen allgemein abgelehnt. Der Migrationshintergrund sollte eher nicht kenntlich gemacht werden. Obwohl über die Hälfte der Meinung ist, dass die Kriminalberichterstattung Vorurteile schüre, glauben sie nicht, dass der Verzicht auf die Nennung etwas an den Vorurteilen in der Bevölkerung ändern würde

Estudi i descripció d’una planta de gasificació integrada a una central de cicle combinat, i la seva aplicació per la crema de carbons de les conques carboníferes catalanes

The aim of this work is to design, through program Cycle-Tempo, a gasification plant integrated with a combined cycle plant. To validate the model of the gasification island, used coals coal basins in Catalonia. In the first point is a description of methods of gasification and the different existing gasifiers. It also describes the different types of combined cycle power plants, as well as the methods of calculating the different parts of these plants. The following is a description of the integration of a gasification plant to a combined cycle plant, as well as the elements that make it up. At work is a description of the location of the various coal basins, as well as a description of each of coals and indicating the composition of these. Once the coals are described step in the design of the combined cycle. The plant has been designed with a level of pressure to do roughly the energy raising could get different coals. It follows that the most efficient way to produce energy through coal gasification technology is integrated combined cycle, although its yield is lower than conventional combined cycle plant fueled with natural gas. The last point is a small economic study of the gasification plant integrated in the combined cycle for different coals