Aerococcus urinae is a Gram-positive bacterium that can cause invasive infection, including infectious endocarditis (IE), mainly in older men. A. urinae is often misclassified in routine diagnostic ...laboratories. Through searches in the laboratory databases we identify 16 isolates of A. urinae causing bacteraemia during a 6-year period in southern Sweden, indicating that bacteraemia with A. urinae occurs in at least three cases per million inhabitants per year. The identity of isolates was confirmed by sequencing of the 16S rRNA genes and antibiotic susceptibility testing identified two ciprofloxacin-resistant isolates. A. urinae was the only significant pathogen isolated in all cases. Fifteen of the 16 patients were male, 15/16 were more than 70 years old, and 12/16 had underlying urological conditions. Though a urinary tract focus was suspected in the majority of cases, the bacterium was rarely found in urinary samples. Nine patients fulfilled the criteria for severe sepsis and an additional four fulfilled the criteria for sepsis. Only one fatality was recorded. Patients were treated mainly with beta-lactam antibiotics but fluoroquinolones and clindamycin were also used. Three cases of IE were diagnosed and these were complicated by spondylodiscitis in one case and by septic embolization to the brain in one case. An increased awareness of A. urinae is crucial to establishing its role as an important pathogen in older men with urinary tract disease.
Summary
There is a need to expand the current temporomandibular disorders' (TMDs) classification to include less common but clinically important disorders. The immediate aim was to develop a ...consensus‐based classification system and associated diagnostic criteria that have clinical and research utility for less common TMDs. The long‐term aim was to establish a foundation, vis‐à‐vis this classification system, that will stimulate data collection, validity testing and further criteria refinement. A working group members of the International RDC/TMD Consortium Network of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR), members of the Orofacial Pain Special Interest Group (SIG) of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), and members from other professional societies reviewed disorders for inclusion based on clinical significance, the availability of plausible diagnostic criteria and the ability to operationalise and study the criteria. The disorders were derived from the literature when possible and based on expert opinion as necessary. The expanded TMDs taxonomy was presented for feedback at international meetings. Of 56 disorders considered, 37 were included in the expanded taxonomy and were placed into the following four categories: temporomandibular joint disorders, masticatory muscle disorders, headache disorders and disorders affecting associated structures. Those excluded were extremely uncommon, lacking operationalised diagnostic criteria, not clearly related to TMDs, or not sufficiently distinct from disorders already included within the taxonomy. The expanded TMDs taxonomy offers an integrated approach to clinical diagnosis and provides a framework for further research to operationalise and test the proposed taxonomy and diagnostic criteria.
Mejàre IA, Axelsson S, Davidson T, Frisk F, Hakeberg M, Kvist T, Norlund A, Petersson A, Portenier I, Sandberg H, Tranæus S, Bergenholtz G. Diagnosis of the condition of the dental pulp: a systematic ...review. International Endodontic Journal, 45, 597–613, 2012.
The aim of this systematic review was to appraise the diagnostic accuracy of signs/symptoms and tests used to determine the condition of the pulp in teeth affected by deep caries, trauma or other types of injury. Radiographic methods were not included. The electronic literature search included the databases PubMed, EMBASE, The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Cochrane Reviews from January 1950 to June 2011. The complete search strategy is given in an Appendix S1 (available online as Supporting Information). In addition, hand searches were made. Two reviewers independently assessed s and full‐text articles. An article was read in full text if at least one of the two reviewers considered an to be potentially relevant. Altogether, 155 articles were read in full text. Of these, 18 studies fulfilled pre‐specified inclusion criteria. The quality of included articles was assessed using the QUADAS tool. Based on studies of high or moderate quality, the quality of evidence of each diagnostic method/test was rated in four levels according to GRADE. No study reached high quality; two were of moderate quality. The overall evidence was insufficient to assess the value of toothache or abnormal reaction to heat/cold stimulation for determining the pulp condition. The same applies to methods for establishing pulp status, including electric or thermal pulp testing, or methods for measuring pulpal blood circulation. In general, there are major shortcomings in the design, conduct and reporting of studies in this domain of dental research.
While the onset of plate tectonics has been proposed as far back in time as the Hadean, there is no evidence for rigid crust that can accommodate linear dyke swarms until ca 2700 Ma in the Pilbara ...Craton, and at ca 2500 Ma in most other Archean cratons. Here, we provide a precise 3317.0 ± 1.1 Ma baddeleyite U-Pb ID-TIMS age determination for a dolerite from a regionally extensive dyke swarm underlying the Euro Basalt in the East Pilbara Terrane, with links to the Kaapvaal Craton that would establish it as part of what may be the oldest large igneous provinces on Earth. We link this event to the deposition of large volcano-sedimentary basins, reflecting the brittle fracturing that enables emplacement of the dyke swarm and the overlying thick succession of mafic-to-ultramafic lavas. This is the first time that a dyke swarm has been used as evidence for rigid crust prior to 3000 Ma, suggesting that lithospheric conditions appropriate for some form of plate tectonics existed at least as far back as the Paleoarchean.
KEY POINTS
We provide a precise 3317.0 ± 1.1 Ma baddeleyite U-Pb ID-TIMS age determination for a dolerite in the Pilbara Craton.
The dated dyke is part of the potentially oldest large igneous province on Earth.
The dolerite dyke swarm was emplaced into rigid crust at ca 3.32 Ga.
Lithospheric conditions that accommodated plate tectonics existed as least as far back as the Paleoarchean.
Summary
This in vitro investigation was conducted to study the relationship between resonance frequency analysis (RFA) and lateral displacement measurements of dental implants. A total of 30 implant ...sites were prepared in nine fresh bovine bone specimens. The bone density around each preparation was determined by using cone beam computerized tomography (CBCT) and imaging software. Dental implants were then inserted during continuous registration of insertion torque. RFA measurements were performed in perpendicular and parallel to the long axis of the specimens. The bone blocks were embedded in plaster and fixated in a specially designed rig for displacement measurements. A lateral force of 25 N was applied via an abutment perpendicular and parallel to each implant and the displacement measured in μm. In addition, a flex constant (μm N−1) was calculated for each measurement. There was a significant inverse correlation between RFA and lateral implant displacement (μm) measurements and between RFA measurements and the flex constant in both perpendicular and parallel directions in bone (P ≤ 0·001). Moreover, both RFA and displacement measurements correlated with bone density (P ≤ 0·001). It is concluded that RFA measurements reflect the micromobility of dental implants, which in turn is determined by the bone density at the implant site.
In this paper, different rotor current control methods are investigated with the objective of eliminating the influence of the back electromotive force (EMF), which is that of, in control ...terminology, a load disturbance, on the rotor current. It is found that the method that utilizes both feed-forward of the back EMF and so-called "active resistance" manages best to suppress the influence of the back EMF on the rotor current, particularly when voltage sags occur, of the investigated methods. This method also has the best stability properties. In addition it is found that this method also has the best robustness to parameter deviations.
We report on an air-clad large-core single-transverse-mode ytterbium-doped photonic crystal fiber with a mode-field-diameter of 35 microm, corresponding to a mode-field-area of ~1000 microm(2). In a ...first experiment this fiber is used to amplify 10-ps pulses to a peak power of 60 kW without significant spectral broadening due to self-phase modulation allowing for the frequency up-conversion of these pulses using narrow-bandwidth phase matched nonlinear crystals.
This study investigated whether more patients with contact allergies were detected by patch testing with mercapto mix with a higher concentration of 2-mercaptobenzothiazolinone (MBT) than the ...commonly used mercapto mix. A total of 3,143 dermatitis patients in 5 Swedish dermatology departments were patch- tested with 3 mercapto test preparations: MBT 2.0% petrolatum (pet.); mercapto mix 2.0% pet.; and mercapto mix 3.5% pet. Positive reactions to these mercapto mixes varied between 0-0.50%, 0-0.93%, and 0-1.4%, respectively, in the 5 centres. Numerically, mercapto mix 3.5% pet. detected all positive patients and more patch-test positive patients than did the 2 other substances, but the difference was not statistically significant. The authors recommend replacing mercapto mix 2.0% pet. in the Swedish baseline series with mercapto mix 3.5% pet., since the latter also detected those patients who would have been missed because MBT 2.0% is not included in the Swedish baseline series.
We report on a 2.3 m long air-clad ytterbium-doped large-modearea photonic crystal fiber laser generating up to 80 W output power with a slope efficiency of 78%. Single transverse mode operation is ...achieved with a mode-field area of 350 microm2. No thermo-optical limitations are observed at the extracted ~35W/m, therefore such fibers allow scaling to even higher powers.
The thylakoid membrane of the chloroplast is the center of oxygenic photosynthesis. To better understand the function of the luminal compartment within the thylakoid network, we have carried out a ...systematic characterization of the luminal thylakoid proteins from the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana. Our data show that the thylakoid lumen has its own specific proteome, of which 36 proteins were identified. Besides a large group of peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerases and proteases, a family of novel PsbP domain proteins was found. An analysis of the luminal signal peptides showed that 19 of 36 luminal precursors were marked by a twin-arginine motif for import via the Tat pathway. To compare the model organismArabidopsis with another typical higher plant, we investigated the proteome from the thylakoid lumen of spinach and found that the luminal proteins from both plants corresponded well. As a complement to our experimental investigation, we made a theoretical prediction of the luminal proteins from the whole Arabidopsisgenome and estimated that the thylakoid lumen of the chloroplast contains ∼80 proteins.
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