Methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus
(MRSA) is a
S. aureus
strain with resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics, making it a global human and veterinary health concern. Specifically, ...immunosuppressed patients have a remarkably higher risk of clinical MRSA infections with significantly increased rates of prolonged clinical recovery, morbidity, and mortality. The current treatment of choice for MRSA is vancomycin. Importantly, we report the first known vancomycin-resistant
S. aureus
(VRSA) carriers in a cohort of Mauritian cynomolgus macaques (CM) imported to the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC), with a MRSA carrier rate of 76.9% (10/13 animals). All MRSA isolates also demonstrated resistance to vancomycin with prevalence of vancomycin-intermediate
Staphylococcus aureus
(VISA) at 30% (3/10 MRSA-positive CMs) and VRSA at 70% (7/10 MRSA-positive CMs). Additionally, we identified VRSA in a rhesus macaque (RM) housed within the same room as the VRSA-positive CMs and identified a MRSA/VISA carrier rate of 18.8% in RMs (3/16 positive for both MRSA and VISA) in unexposed recently assigned animals directly from the ONPRC RM breeding colony. Considering that the MRSA and VRSA/VISA-positive CMs future study aims included significant immunosuppression, MRSA/VRSA/VISA decolonization treatment and expanded “MRSA-free” practices were employed to maintain this status. We report the first controlled study using in-depth analyses with appropriate diagnostic serial testing to definitively show an MRSA decolonization therapy (90% success rate) and expanded barrier practice techniques to successfully prevent recolonization (100%) of a cohort of CMs MRSA-free (up to 529 days with a total of 4,806 MRSA-free NHP days).
For the large-scale offshore wind turbine blades, the governing equations in fluid domain and the motion equations in structural domain with geometric nonlinearity were developed based on ALE ...description, and the corresponding discrete equations were obtained. Blade entity model was built up using Pro/E, and the blade vibration characteristics under fluid–structure interaction (FSI) were simulated using ANSYS. Numerical results show that wind shear effect greatly increases the peak values of response curves for displacement and stress, makes the effect of bi-directional fluid–structure interaction (BFSI) more obvious, and also accelerates the attenuation of vibration curves. The displacement of blade airfoil increases nonlinearly along the span direction, and reaches the maximum at the blade tip. The maximum Mises stress appears in the middle of the blade, and reduces gradually towards each end of the blade. Furthermore, the contribution of wind shear effect (WSE) to displacement and Mises stress is much greater than that of FSI.
•The maximum peaks of displacement and Mises stress occur under WSE and BFSI.•WSE greatly increases the peaks of response curves for displacement and stress.•WSE also accelerates the attenuation of vibration curves.•The contribution of WSE to displacement and stress is much greater than that of FSI.•The influences of WSE and FSI on displacement and stress are revealed.
CD8
T cells are key mediators of antiviral and antitumor immunity. The isolation and study of Ag-specific CD8
T cells, as well as mapping of their MHC restriction, has practical importance to the ...study of disease and the development of therapeutics. Unfortunately, most experimental approaches are cumbersome, owing to the highly variable and donor-specific nature of MHC-bound peptide/TCR interactions. Here we present a novel system for rapid identification and characterization of Ag-specific CD8
T cells, particularly well suited for samples with limited primary cells. Cells are stimulated ex vivo with Ag of interest, followed by live cell sorting based on surface-trapped TNF-α. We take advantage of major advances in single-cell sequencing to generate full-length sequence data from the paired TCR α- and β-chains from these Ag-specific cells. The paired TCR chains are cloned into retroviral vectors and used to transduce donor CD8
T cells. These TCR transductants provide a virtually unlimited experimental reagent, which can be used for further characterization, such as minimal epitope mapping or identification of MHC restriction, without depleting primary cells. We validated this system using CMV-specific CD8
T cells from rhesus macaques, characterizing an immunodominant Mamu-A1*002:01-restricted epitope. We further demonstrated the utility of this system by mapping a novel HLA-A*68:02-restricted HIV Gag epitope from an HIV-infected donor. Collectively, these data validate a new strategy to rapidly identify novel Ags and characterize Ag-specific CD8
T cells, with applications ranging from the study of infectious disease to immunotherapeutics and precision medicine.
In this paper, accelerated life tests of white organic light-emitting diodes (WOLEDs) are conducted to obtain failure data at normal operation conditions. The lognormal distribution function was ...applied to describe WOLED life distribution. Log mean and log standard deviation were determined by maximum likelihood estimation. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was performed, and the results further confirmed that WOLED life met the lognormal distribution. Numerical results indicated that WOLED life followed the lognormal distribution. It was also found that the acceleration model was consistent with inverse power law.
In order to acquire the life information of organic light emitting diode (OLED), three groups of constant stress accelerated degradation tests are performed to obtain the luminance decaying data of ...samples under the condition that the luminance and the current are respectively selected as the indicator of performance degradation and the test stress. Weibull function is applied to describe the relationship between luminance decaying and time, least square method (LSM) is employed to calculate the shape parameter and scale parameter, and the life prediction of OLED is achieved. The numerical results indicate that the accelerated degradation test and the luminance decaying model reveal the luminance decaying law of OLED. The luminance decaying formula fits the test data very well, and the average error of fitting value compared with the test data is small. Furthermore, the accuracy of the OLED life predicted by luminance decaying model is high, which enable rapid estimation of OLED life and provide significant guidelines to help engineers make decisions in design and manufacturing strategy from the aspect of reliability life.
•We gain luminance decaying data by accelerated degradation tests on OLED.•The luminance decaying model objectively reveals the decaying law of OLED luminance.•The least square method (LSM) is employed to calculate Weibull parameters.•The plan designed for accelerated degradation tests proves to be feasible.•The accuracy of the OLED life and the luminance decaying fitting formula is high.
Many physicians do not feel competent providing nutritional counseling to patients. A minimum of 25 hours dedicated to nutrition is recommended in preclinical years, but only 40% of U.S. medical ...schools achieve this goal. Nutrition counseling is best done when physicians work collaboratively with registered dietitians (RDs). We sought to introduce this interprofessional approach in our preclinical curriculum.
In our first-year doctoring course, students viewed a nutrition lecture from a physician and RD. Teams of two to three medical students and one dietetics student were formed. The medical students took a history and performed nutrition counseling on the dietetics student role-playing a patient. The RD student provided feedback and reviewed clinical questions pertaining to the nutrition case. Medical students presented answers to their assigned case to the whole group. Medical students completed pre-/postsurveys assessing satisfaction and perceived confidence with nutrition counseling and were formally assessed using a standardized patient. The scores were compared to students from the year before who received the lecture but not the RD student activity.
Eighty-one medical students participated. After the activity, there was an increase in confidence with nutrition counseling (
< .001), and 74% found working with dietetics students to be helpful or extremely helpful. The nutrition counseling mean score increased from 68% (historical control,
= 76) to 84% (
= 75;
< .001) on the standardized patient assessment.
This format is an effective method of teaching nutrition counseling and promoting interprofessional behavior among rising physicians and RDs.
This study involved healthy community-living older adults in an investigation of the association between moderate alcohol consumption (AC) and acute changes in postural stability and whether the ...association differed according to pre-AC balance skills. Thirty-nine moderate drinkers aged ≥ 65 years (62% women; mean age: 73.9 ± 6.1 years) consumed a moderate dose of alcohol (0.4 g/kg; administered as two drinks). Breath alcohol concentration and postural stability were measured at five time points (pre-AC and 40, 80, 120, and 160 minutes post-AC) using unipedal stance time (UPST) and center of pressure (CoP) displacement. Pre-AC UPST was used to categorize participants into good-balance (≥30 seconds) and poor-balance (<30 seconds) groups. Peak breath alcohol concentration was 30 mg/dL at 40 minutes post-AC. For all participants, postural stability declined significantly at 80 minutes post-AC (UPST, p = .005; anterior–posterior CoP displacement, p = .029). While the poor-balance group did not show a significant decrease in UPST duration over the course of the study, the good-balance group experienced significant decline at 80 minutes compared with baseline (p < .001) and remained above the 30-second UPST cutoff. Both groups experienced similar worsening in anterior–posterior CoP displacement at 80 minutes post-AC. Thus, moderate AC was associated with acute decline in postural stability in older adults. The worsened anterior–posterior CoP displacement post-AC in the poor-balance group was of particular concern because these participants were already at lower balance functioning pre-AC. Larger, more representative studies of varying groups of participants are needed to further explore how this change relates to fall incidents and fall risk.
Alterations in the RAS signaling cascade are almost uniformly present in melanoma. RAS itself is only infrequently mutated in melanoma although downstream of RAS lie BRAF on the mitogen-activated ...protein kinase pathway and PTEN on the protein kinase B/Akt pathway. These genes are often altered in melanomas; indeed, the most frequent target of mutation in melanomas is BRAF, which is mutated in approximately 60% to 70% of superficial spreading melanomas. These mutations occur in a background that is not normal, with the CDKN2A locus also typically being mutated. We review herein the data that suggest that the distribution of the signaling mutations is important. In general, melanomas carry a mutated NRAS, a mutated BRAF, or concurrent BRAF and PTEN mutations. These data support the hypothesis that the biochemical functions of RAS are portioned by mutations in the pathways lying downstream. Moreover, these mutations have no apparent relationship to the patterns of alteration of CDKN2A and its downstream effectors. Thus, the data also suggest that successful exploitation of mutations in melanoma will be dependent on understanding not only mutations and their frequency but their genetic context as well.
A floating oscillating water column (OWC) wave energy converter (WEC) supported by mooring lines can be modelled as an elastically supported OWC. The main objective of this paper is to investigate ...the effects of the frequency ratio on the performance of floating OWC (oscillating water column) devices that oscillate either vertically or horizontally at two different mass ratios (m = 2 and 3) through two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics simulations. The frequency ratio is the ratio of the natural frequency of the system to the wave frequency. Simulations are conducted for nine frequency ratios in the range between 1 and 10. The hydrodynamic efficiency achieves its maximum at the smallest frequency ratio of 1 if the OWC oscillates horizontally and at the largest frequency ratio of 10 if the OWC oscillates vertically. The frequency ratio affects the hydraulic efficiency of the vertical oscillating OWC significantly stronger than that of the horizontal oscillating OWC, especially when it is small. The air pressure and the volume oscillation in OWC is not affected much by the horizontal motion of the OWC but is significantly affected by the vertical motion, especially at small frequency ratios.
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