Mechanical behaviour of polyethylene terephthalate & polyethylene naphthalate fibres under cyclic loading

International audiencePolyethylene naphthalate (PEN) fibres possess a higher initial stiffness than that of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibres and this makes them an attractive competitor for use in mooring ropes and other applications for which a low compliance would be an advantage. The two types of fibres have been characterised and compared in tension, creep and fatigue and found to behave in very similar ways. Failure of both fibres results in similar fracture morphologies although under high cyclic loading a new failure process has been observed for the PEN fibres which combines step by step crack propagation and final failure normal to the fibre axis. In the light of this observation, similar fracture behaviour has also been identified in PET fibres and which, until now had been overlooked. The loading criteria for fatigue failure are similar for both fibres and it has been shown that, for a given maximum cyclic load, lifetime is raised if the minimum cyclic load is increased

The 1980 earthquake in southern Italy: rescue of trapped victims and mortality.

A retrospective survey was undertaken on the health effects of the 1980 earthquake in southern Italy. The study population included 3619 people living in 7 villages situated near the epicentre of the disaster. The overall casualty rate (dead and injured) was 19.7%. Nearly all the deaths (192/202) occurred among trapped people who died before they could be rescued. Eighty per cent of all the trapped people were extricated within 2 days, mostly without the use of sophisticated means. The probability of survival decreased sharply, the longer the time before extrication. The crude mortality during the 18 months following the earthquake was 19.0 per thousand among the injured people who received treatment, and 14.1 per thousand among non-injured people. After age standardization, there was no significant difference between these two figures and the expected mortality figures for the Italian population in normal times (14.4 per thousand). These results stress the importance of providing rescue activities in the first 48 hours after the impact. Strengthening the self-reliance of the community in disaster preparedness is suggested as the best way to improve the effectiveness of relief operations. In disaster-prone areas, training and education in methods of rescue should be an integral part of any primary health care programme

Cumulative subgroup analysis to reduce waste in clinical research for individualised medicine

Background: Although subgroup analyses in clinical trials may provide evidence for individualised medicine, their conduct and interpretation remain controversial. Methods: Subgroup effect can be defined as the difference in treatment effect across patient subgroups. Cumulative subgroup analysis refers to a series of repeated pooling of subgroup effects after adding data from each of related trials chronologically, to investigate the accumulating evidence for subgroup effects. We illustrated the clinical relevance of cumulative subgroup analysis in two case studies using data from published individual patient data (IPD) meta-analyses. Computer simulations were also conducted to examine the statistical properties of cumulative subgroup analysis. Results: In case study 1, an IPD meta-analysis of 10 randomised trials (RCTs) on beta blockers for heart failure reported significant interaction of treatment effects with baseline rhythm. Cumulative subgroup analysis could have detected the subgroup effect 15 years earlier, with five fewer trials and 71% less patients, than the IPD meta-analysis which first reported it. Case study 2 involved an IPD meta-analysis of 11 RCTs on treatments for pulmonary arterial hypertension that reported significant subgroup effect by aetiology. Cumulative subgroup analysis could have detected the subgroup effect 6 years earlier, with three fewer trials and 40% less patients than the IPD meta-analysis. Computer simulations have indicated that cumulative subgroup analysis increases the statistical power and is not associated with inflated false positives. Conclusions: To reduce waste of research data, subgroup analyses in clinical trials should be more widely conducted and adequately reported so that cumulative subgroup analyses could be timely performed to inform clinical practice and further research

Oxacillin sensitization of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius by antisense peptide nucleic acids in vitro

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.BACKGROUND: Antibiotic resistance genes can be targeted by antisense agents, which can reduce their expression and thus restore cellular susceptibility to existing antibiotics. Antisense inhibitors can be gene and pathogen specific, or designed to inhibit a group of bacteria having conserved sequences within resistance genes. Here, we aimed to develop antisense peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) that could be used to effectively restore susceptibility to β-lactams in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius (MRSP). RESULTS: Antisense PNAs specific for conserved regions of the mobilisable gene mecA, and the growth essential gene, ftsZ, were designed. Clinical MRSA and MRSP strains of high oxacillin resistance were treated with PNAs and assayed for reduction in colony forming units on oxacillin plates, reduction in target gene mRNA levels, and cell size. Anti-mecA PNA at 7.5 and 2.5 μM reduced mecA mRNA in MRSA and MRSP (p < 0.05). At these PNA concentrations, 66 % of MRSA and 92 % of MRSP cells were killed by oxacillin (p < 0.01). Anti-ftsZ PNA at 7.5 and 2.5 μM reduced ftsZ mRNA in MRSA and MRSP, respectively (p ≤ 0.05). At these PNA concentrations, 86 % of MRSA cells and 95 % of MRSP cells were killed by oxacillin (p < 0.05). Anti-ftsZ PNAs resulted in swelling of bacterial cells. Scrambled PNA controls did not affect MRSA but sensitized MRSP moderately to oxacillin without affecting mRNA levels. CONCLUSIONS: The antisense PNAs effects observed provide in vitro proof of concept that this approach can be used to reverse β-lactam resistance in staphylococci. Further studies are warranted as clinical treatment alternatives are needed.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Autogestão: desafios políticos e metodológicos na incubação de empreendimentos econômicos solidários

After reviewing the historic origins of self-management in France and Brazil, this article questions people’s ability for selfmanagement, or the situation in which without a boss there is no viable society. It turns to Clastres to show that, if political power is an inherent need of social life, it does not need to be hierarchical. There is no innate human nature, but our specificity as human beings is precisely our ability to transform ourselves and the world. Self-management is a central concept of the Brazilian solidarity economics movement because it distances itself from capitalist and welfare relations and encourages radical democracy. Self-management has a multidimensional character (being social, economic, political and technical) and therefore, it is not enough to want to implant selfmanagement. It is also necessary to create the conditions for its realization. The article also reflects on the methodology of selfmanagement practiced by members of a university incubator of solidarity economics.Após sobrevoar origens históricas da autogestão na França e no Brasil, o texto questiona a capacidade de os homens se autogerirem, ou a situação de que sem chefe não há sociedade viável. Recorre a Clastres para mostrar que, se o poder político é uma necessidade inerente à vida social, ele não precisa ser hierárquico. Não há natureza humana em si, mas nossa especificidade como ser humano é justamente nossa capacidade de transformar a nós mesmos e ao mundo. Para o movimento da economia solidária brasileira, a autogestão é um conceito central, pois marca distância com as relações capitalistas, assistencialistas e acena por uma democracia radical. A autogestão possui um caráter multidimensional (social, econômico, político e técnico) e, portanto, não basta querer implantar a autogestão, ainda é preciso criar as condições para a sua efetivação. O artigo apresenta, ainda, uma reflexão sobre a metodologia autogestionária praticada pelos membros de uma incubadora universitária de economia solidária

Brain abscesses in a patient with a patent foramen ovale: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Brain abscesses arising from right-to-left cardiac shunting are very rare in adults.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We describe the case of a 47-year-old non-hispanic white male with periodontal disease who developed several brain abscesses caused by <it>Streptococcus intermedius</it>. A comprehensive workup revealed a patent foramen ovale with oral flora as the only plausible explanation for the brain abscesses.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Based on this case and the relevant literature, we suggest an association between a silent patent foramen ovale, paradoxical microbial dissemination to the brain, and the development of brain abscesses.</p

Desafíos políticos de los países de inmigración

13 págs.-- Publicado en "Confluencia XXI. Revista de Pensamiento Político" (México), nº 3 (Oct-Dic 2008) bajo el título monográfico "Migrantes: ¿Por qué se van? ¿Por qué se quedan?".Las migraciones, una práctica tan antigua como la propia condición humana, se han convertido en un factor estructural de primer orden, en uno de los macrofenómenos más definitorios de nuestra época y en un complejo reto para las sociedades contemporáneas. En prácticamente todos los países del mundo, todo lo que concierne a este complejo fenómeno ocupa un lugar destacado en la agenda política. La gestión, el control y la integración de los movimientos internacionales de personas se presentan como un policy field de creciente y prioritaria relevancia. No se trata, sin embargo, de una cuestión de mera moda: el número de países implicados de manera significativa en las migraciones internacionales ha aumentado considerablemente, hasta el punto de que resulta realmente difícil encontrar algún Estado que no sea bien un país de inmigración, bien un país de emigración o bien ambas cosas a la vez, cuando no al menos un país de tránsito. No ha de extrañar entonces que la mayoría de los gobiernos haya tomado conciencia de la necesidad de ofrecer una respuesta en términos legales e institucionales a un fenómeno de carácter permanente que puede llegar a alterar la estructura demográfica, social, cultural, económica y laboral de un país. Dada la complejidad de la cuestión, y por cuestiones de economía argumentativa, aquí se abordará de manera fundamental desde la perspectiva de los países receptores, que, por lo demás, es también la adoptada en forma habitual por los países europeos que registran mayor inmigración. Sin embargo, el fenómeno migratorio es fundamentalmente transnacional y tiene fehacientes repercusiones en los países de emigración.Peer reviewe

Beyond traditional wind farm noise characterisation using transfer learning

Published Online: 10 May 2022This study proposes an approach for the characterisation and assessment of wind farm noise (WFN), which is based on extraction of acoustic features between 125 and 7500 Hz from a pretrained deep learning model (referred to as deep acoustic features). Using data measured at a variety of locations, this study shows that deep acoustic features can be linked to meaningful characteristics of the noise. This study finds that deep acoustic features can reveal an improved spatial and temporal representation of WFN compared to what is revealed using traditional spectral analysis and overall noise descriptors. These results showed that this approach is promising, and thus it could provide the basis for an improved framework for WFN assessment in the future.Phuc D. Nguyen, Kristy L. Hansen, Bastien Lechat, Branko Zajamsek, Colin Hansen, and Peter Catchesid

Reply to Martinez-Garcia et al. and to Abreu and Punjabi

Abstract not availableBastien Lechat, Ph.D., Peter Catcheside, Ph.D. Amy Reynolds, Ph.D. Robert J. Adams, M.D. R. Doug McEvoy, M.D. Danny J. Eckert, Ph.D

Unusual presentation of basilar artery stroke secondary to patent foramen ovale: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>We report a case of a patient presenting with neuropsychiatric manifestations secondary to paradoxical embolism</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>Unexplained rapid onset of confusion with amnesia and minimal neurological deficits can be a manifestation of various systemic causes of which stroke, either ischemic or hemorrhagic, is one. Thorough and systematic evaluation of these patients can be highly rewarding in terms of optimizing patient outcome. We report the case of a 45-year-old woman whose initial presentation was with acute onset of confusion, memory loss with personality change and headaches. A differential diagnosis of systemic illness and cerebral pathology was entertained. She was empirically treated for neurological infection. Brain imaging revealed bilateral thalamic and cerebellar infarction. Further evaluation with an aim to define the etiology, revealed the diagnosis of Patent Foramen Ovale with paradoxical embolism. The differential diagnosis of unexplained rapid onset of confusion, amnesia with minimal motor neurological deficits and relevant appropriate investigations are discussed in this case report.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This case highlights the importance of recognising the atypical manifestations of posterior fossa stroke. In young patients presenting with non-focal neuropsychiatric manifestations, paradoxical embolism, secondary to patent foramen ovale is a possible cause.</p