The Effect of Sub-MIC β-Lactam Antibiotic Exposure of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Strains from People with Cystic Fibrosis in a Desiccation Survival Model

Prior to modern typing methods, cross-infection of P. aeruginosa between people with cystic fibrosis (CF) was felt to be rare. Recently a number of studies have demonstrated the presence of clonal strains of P. aeruginosa infecting people with CF. The aim of this study was to determine whether strains of P. aeruginosa demonstrated differences in resistance to desiccation and whether preincubation in subminimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of β-lactam affected desiccation resistance. The experimental data were modelled to a first-order decay model and a Weibull decay model using least squares nonlinear regression. The Weibull model was the preferred model for the desiccation survival. The presence of a mucoid phenotype promoted desiccation survival. Preincubation with antibiotics did not have a consistent effect on the strains of P. aeruginosa. Meropenem reduced desiccation resistance, whereas ceftazidime had much less effect on the strains studied

Finite Element Analysis of the Magneto-mechanical Coupling Due to Punching Process in Electrical Steel Sheet

In this article, a finite element (FE) modeling of the punching effect on the magnetic properties of electrical steel sheet is carried out. For that, the modified anhysteretic Sablik model is applied together with the plastic strain distribution obtained from a punching process simulation performed using the software ABAQUS. First, a synchronous electrical machine is simulated including the effect of the punching process, and it shows the degradation of the magnetic flux density at the lamination edges and an increase of the iron losses. Then, results obtained from the magneto-mechanical simulation are investigated in terms of the method used to implement the plastic strain distribution in the FE computation. Two examples have been investigated: a square steel sheet and a tooth of an electrical machine.Peer reviewe