Aerococcus urinae - significance of detection in the paediatric urinary tract: a case series

Aerococcus urinae (A. urinae) is primarily recognized as a common pathogen in the geriatric population, causing urinary tract infection (UTI), sepsis, and endocarditis, predominantly in female patients. In the paediatric population, only a few case reports exist suggesting A. urinae causes malodorous urine in otherwise healthy boys. In this study, we investigated the spectrum of clinical and laboratory presentations of A. urinae detection in children. A retrospective, single-centre, case series including all patients with the detection of A. urinae during a 7-year study period. Patients with detection of A. urinae only in non-urogenital skin swabs were excluded. A total of 40 samples from 33 patients were identified of which 20 patients were included in the final analysis. The median (IQR) age was 6.8 (2.9-9.5) years; 18 (90%) patients were boys. Four patients were diagnosed with a UTI, six had malodorous urine without UTI, three were diagnosed with balanitis and seven showed A. urinae colonization in the urine culture. Urogenital disorders were present in 12 patients. Additional pathogens were detected in 13 patients. Recurrence of detection during our study period was observed in four (20%) patients. Conclusion: Beyond malodorous urine, A. urinae detection is associated with more severe presentations including UTI in the paediatric population. Pre-existing urogenital disorders were frequent, and therefore, a nephro-urological investigation should be considered in all cases of A. urinae detection in the paediatric population. What is Known: • Aerococcus urinae (A. urinae) is known to be a common pathogen in the geriatric population, causing urinary tract infection (UTI), sepsis, and endocarditis, predominantly in female patients. • In the paediatric population, A. urinae is mainly described as a low-grade pathogen. Some case reports describe A. urinae as the cause of extraordinary malodorous urine in otherwise healthy boys. What is New: • Beyond malodorous urine, A. urinae detection is associated with more severe presentations including UTI in the paediatric population. • A. urinae was mainly detected in boys with pre-existing urogenital disorders; therefore, a nephro-urological investigation should be considered in cases of A. urinae detection in the paediatric population. Keywords: CAKUT; Children; Malodorous; Pyelonephritis; Urinary tract infection; Urogenital disorder

COVID-19 Vaccination: Exploring the Behavioural Determinants and Interventions through a Literature Review

During the past two years, a large quantity of research has been conducted in different countries with various populations to study the behavioural factors that explain when and why people accept to get vaccinated against COVID-19. This report presents a comprehensive review of the literature on the behavioural factors and policies that can impact COVID-19 vaccination acceptance and demand. Based on the assessment of evidence from nearly 200 articles, the report highlights seven behavioural factors associated with the acceptance of vaccines and five policy interventions that increase demand for vaccines. Furthermore, to identify policies that can be implemented at scale (in contexts different from the originally studied ones), the report discusses the COVID-19 evidence in light of findings from other infectious diseases.JRC.S.1 - EU Policy Lab: Foresight, Design & Behavioural Insight

Evaluation of High Resolution Thermal Imaging to Determine the Effect of Vertebral Fractures on Associated Skin Surface Temperature in Children with Osteogenesis Imperfecta

Vertebral fractures are common in children with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI). Current imaging methods for fracture detection (X-ray and DXA) use ionising radiation. This pilot study explored whether the alteration in blood flow in vertebral fractures results in skin temperature changes that may be detected using high resolution thermal imaging (HRTI) and thus assist diagnosis and monitoring of fractures in OI patients. Eleven participants aged 5-18 years with OI and known vertebral fractures were enrolled. Small metal discs were placed on the skin surface alongside the vertebrae before participants had DXA and X-ray scans and thermal imaging of their backs. Visibility of the discs on the DXA and X-ray scans and thermal images allowed the temperatures of the skin surface above vertebrae without (healthy) and with fractures to be compared to their respective adjacent skin surface regions (Region of Reference, ROR) by calculating the temperature percentage change (TPC). The TPC between the skin temperature over the fractured thoracic vertebrae (n=11) and the ROR was significant (1.44%, p=0.002, 95% confidence). TPC between the skin temperature over healthy thoracic vertebrae and ROR was not (0.97%, p=0.15, 95% confidence). HRTI may provide a novel tool for assisting in detection of vertebral fractures in OI. Keywords: Computerised medical diagnosis, thermal imaging, vertebral fracture detection, osteogenesis imperfecta

Optical Fiber-Based Needle Shape Sensing in Real Tissue: Single Core vs. Multicore Approaches

Flexible needle insertion procedures are common for minimally-invasive surgeries for diagnosing and treating prostate cancer. Bevel-tip needles provide physicians the capability to steer the needle during long insertions to avoid vital anatomical structures in the patient and reduce post-operative patient discomfort. To provide needle placement feedback to the physician, sensors are embedded into needles for determining the real-time 3D shape of the needle during operation without needing to visualize the needle intra-operatively. Through expansive research in fiber optics, a plethora of bio-compatible, MRI-compatible, optical shape-sensors have been developed to provide real-time shape feedback, such as single-core and multicore fiber Bragg gratings. In this paper, we directly compare single-core fiber-based and multicore fiber-based needle shape-sensing through identically constructed, four-active area sensorized bevel-tip needles inserted into phantom and \exvivo tissue on the same experimental platform. In this work, we found that for shape-sensing in phantom tissue, the two needles performed identically with a $p$-value of $0.164 > 0.05$, but in \exvivo real tissue, the single-core fiber sensorized needle significantly outperformed the multicore fiber configuration with a $p$-value of $0.0005 < 0.05$. This paper also presents the experimental platform and method for directly comparing these optical shape sensors for the needle shape-sensing task, as well as provides direction, insight and required considerations for future work in constructively optimizing sensorized needles

Sentiment Analysis on the Ratification of Penghapusan Kekerasan Seksual Bill on Twitter

Rancangan Undang-Undang Penghapusan Kekerasan Seksual (RUU PKS), or the bill of the Republic of Indonesia on the Elimination of Sexual Violence, is a bill that discusses sexual violence, victim protection and its scope concern the matters related to sexual violence. Elimination of sexual violence according to the PKS Bill aims to prevent all forms of violence. These discussions and conversations also occur on social media, especially on Twitter. Taking public sentiment is significant in choosing the proper messages, interference, and policy. Sentiment analysis is a field of study that analyses opinions, sentiments, judgments, evaluations of a person attitudes and emotions regarding a particular topic, service, product, individual, organization or activity. This study used the method of crawling to get data from Twitter. Then data cleansing, data processing is carried out using Bernoulli, Logistic Regression, and Support Vector Classification (SVC) algorithm. The data is then evaluated using three methods: accuracy, classification report, and confusion matrix. Based on the three algorithms used, it is found that all methods are equally accurate with 0.65. This study found positive, negative, and neutral sentiments expressed to the bill of Elimination of Sexual Violence through comments. It is shown that most people using the keyword “RUU PKS” are positive to the bill of Elimination of Sexual Violence (RUU PKS) while most people’s sentiments using #RUUPKSBukanSolusi are negative to the bill

ANTONIO GUERRA MARRERO, PRESIDENTE CÁMARA DE COMERCIO ESPAÑOLA EN INGLATERRA [Material gráfico]

Esta fotografía se incluye en un álbum fotográfico que se encuentra en el Archivo Histórico Municipal de Arucas, publicado por la empresa Guerra & Co. Ldt. en 1952 aproximadamente, con motivo de la Feria de la Alimentación celebrada en Londres en julio de ese año. La nota del reverso se encuentra en la página anterior, dentro de dicho álbum, como entradilla a la presente fotografía.Imagen de don Antonio Guerra Marrero, en su despachoCopia digital. Madrid : Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Subdirección General de Coordinación Bibliotecaria, 201