Introduction: Gastrointestinal infections are one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality throughout the world, particularly in the immunocompromised. Gastrointestinal PCR appears to be the technique of choice for establishing the molecular diagnosis of pathogenic gastrointestinal agents. The aim of this study was to establish the epidemiological, clinical and evolutionary profile of gastrointestinal infections and to study the impact of molecular diagnosis on the choice of a targeted therapy. Methods: This is a retrospective study carried out in the Microbiology Department of Arrazi Hospital of the Mohamed VI University Hospital Center, including all immunocompromised patients treated for a gastrointestinal infection and needing a hospitalization in the various departments, over a period of 15 months. Results: During the period studied, 124 patients were collected. The average age of the patients was 22 years. Signs of gastrointestinal infection were present in all patients. Of the patients sampled, 95.2% received probabilistic antibiotic therapy. Gastrointestinal infection has been documented in 57.26% of patients. A bacterial etiology was found in 76.81% of patients. A viral etiology was found in 13.04% of the patients and a parasitic etiology was found in 10.15% of the patients. Enteropathogenic E. coli was the most common infectious agent detected (19.53%). Co-infections were found in 29.84% of patients. Following PCR results, management was changed in 70 patients (56.45%), including initiation or modification of antibiotics in 40 patients (32.26%) and discontinuation of antibiotic therapy in 30 patients (24.19%). Conclusion: The diagnosis of gastrointestinal infections by multiplex PCR allowed us to provide optimal patient care with a reduction in the unnecessary use of antibiotics and an improvement in the course of care.


Introduction : Cutaneous larva migrans is a cutaneous infestation caused by zoonotic nematode larvae commonly due to hookworms such as the Ancylostoma braziliense. Case report : Herein we report a case of a 7-year-old child to the Emergency Department complaining of erythematous papular itching lesions on his right elbow, wrist and knee. He had no previous history of contact with sand or animals. The lesions in his right elbow presented impetiginization. Ivermectin 200mcg/kg/day treatment was initiated and oxacillin associated. On the third day of treatment, the patient was discharged with complete resolution of the lesions. Coclusion : The reported case assumes importance because it is a common and benign disease, but due to an unusual presentation was not diagnosed early. The disseminated form commonly may require hospitalization and prolonged treatment as presented


The poet, John Ashbery, said, "I've always felt myself to be a rather frustrated composer who was trying to do with words what musicians are able to do with notes. The importance of meaning that's beyond expression in words is what I've always been attracted to." Or "Songs without Words," as Mendelssohn had it. "Meaning that's beyond expression in words. . ." For many of us, this phrase could easily be our definition of music. So much so, that most of us generally fail at explaining why music makes us feel. Yes, feel. Full stop. Music is a mood-enhancer, -reflector, "-alterer." Our vulnerability to music's power is for many of us the true mystery of music. For some of us, scientists and writers alike, music presents a different type of mystery. Here's a roundup of some recent and not-so-recent books that explore their own definitions of music's mystery. Daniel J. Levitin views the mystery of music's biological effect on us through cognitive neuroscience. Levitin runs the Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University. In his book, This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession (2006, Plume, $15.00), he asserts that by studying the brain as it reacts to music, we can begin to understand more about how the brain works and, thereby, understand more about human nature itself. Because neuroscience has so many new tools—from brain imaging technologies to drugs that manipulate neurotransmitters to computer modeling—cognitive scientists are now much better equipped to "lift the fog" and observe the physical systems of "your brain on music." Levitin's book is a highly readable and elucidating summary of the latest research in the field. (There are 30 pages of bibliographic citations.) He begins with a comprehensive chapter on the elements of music (i.e., pitch, timbre, rhythm, spatial location, etc.) and describes how these elements combine to create melody and harmony. Levitin then goes beyond literal meanings to demonstrate how each element affects us. For example, he declares pitch to be one of the "primary means by which musical emotion is conveyed" and, then clearly describes why that is so. Here is an example of how well he visualizes a concept for the reader: A melody is an auditory object that maintains its identity in spite of transformations, just as a chair maintains its identity when you move it to the other side of the room, turn it upside down, or paint it red. In his chapter on rhythm, Levitin explains why I am always so perplexed when I see a certain famous pianist sit very straight-backed in a chair, rather than a bench, while performing. There is definitely a connection between body movements and the playing of a musical instrument. According to brain scans that Levitin and his colleagues have performed, both the motor cortex and the cerebellum (i.e., the parts of the brain responsible for initiating and coordinating movement) are active during music listening. I would think that is also true, if one is performing the music. In truth, a swaying and heaving pianist makes me feel he or she is "channeling" the music. There is a reason why you tap your foot to your favorite tune. Throughout his book, Levitin employs examples from many different musical types—classical, rock, jazz, pop—so that the reader who may be into rock and not classical or vice-versa will still find much to relate to. Levitin's background includes a career as a session musician, sound engineer, and record producer—work experiences which must surely have contributed to his ability to present research data in an enjoyable and enlightening manner. About three-quarters of the way through this book, I found one answer I had been looking for to the question: why is music so affecting? Dopamine! It increases in our nucleus accumbens in our brains. Like the newer antidepressants, music acts


For better describe forest-fire behavior to support saving decision in the forest-fire simulation research,the forest-fire spread simulation has become an important research subject.Choosing Rothermel forest-fire spreading model and combining with the forest region geographical environment,a kind of forest-fire spreading simulation method was proposed based on the OGRE particle system,the process of forest-fire spreading simulation was showed by the OGRE,and the forest-fire spreading process caused by a single fire was reproduced in computer.


Boron nitride(BN) thin films were prepared on Si(100) at different substrate bias by r.f. magnetron (sputtering) physical vapor deposition(PVD). It was found that the field emission characteristics of thin BN films (depended) evidently on substrate bias by using current density versus electric field(J-E) curves. A turn-on electric field of 8?V/μm is obtained for the BN film deposited at a substrate bias of -140?V. It is shown that electrons (are emitted) from BN to vacuum tunneling through the potential barrier at the surface of the BN thin film by using (F-N) curves.


This proposed 65 nm sub-1V multi-stage low-dropout (LDO) regulator aims to integrate of power management for SoC systems. The multi-stage structure can derive the high dc voltage gain from the short-channel core devices to insure the load/line regulation. The inserted flying capacitor used to separate the high-frequency non-dominant poles can increase the system phase margin. Moreover, a dynamic gain adjusting (DGA) mechanism can adjust the dc voltage gain based on the load condition to ensure the LDO operation at ultra light loads. The correct operation under sub-1V condition is achieved with 65 nm low-power core devices. Simulated load transient response shows the voltage recovery time is within 0.6 µs when load current changes from 50 µA to 100 mA and vice versa.


Central computer (10) for processing a decentralized determined device-specific data (18, 19) having a data communication interface (16), a database (14) and a central processing unit (12). The central processing unit (12) is designed, on the basis of device-specific data (18, 19) a first data acquisition device (26) and second data acquisition device (28) each comprise a representative data set (34, 36) to generate and store in the database (14). The central processing unit (12) linked to the first representative data set (34) to the second representative data set (36), so that a data communication (30) between the first (34) and second representative data set (36) is made possible.


Some popular missional church literature portrays the institutional church as a stale and mostly unattractive entity focused on maintaining its programs and buildings and increasingly unable to reach a secular society. Rather than reform or reboot church in its present structure, new missional communities need to be established in places where unchurched people are comfortable gathering. This article examines some of these assumptions in conversation with some of the critics of the missional church literature. It calls for a robust ecclesiology that takes into account the rich historical heritage of the church and the role aesthetics and rituals play in the formation of authentic missional communities.


lOBOTOMY and psychosurgery are upon us again! In Philadelphia a black man dies of an overdose of herbin, and a reporter notices peculiar scars on his head. A portion of his brain has been burned out in an experimental attempt to cure his addiction. The neurosurgeon is located by the reporter and admits that his monkey experiments were inconclusive before trying his operation on human addicts. In Louisville a woman is blinded by a prefrontal lobotomy. Testimony in a lawsuit against her surgeon indicates that this 30-year-old woman was lobotomized for pain of psychological origin without being given an opportunity in psychotherapy. In Jackson, Miss., a neurosurgeon uses a mutilating operation on hyperactive children as young as age 5. He describes one child whose brain he coagulated with electrodes half-a-dozen times. The child is now easier to manage on the ward, but intellectually he is deteriorating. This neurosurgeon refuses to answer questions about the race of his young patients and declines to let reporters and legal investigators see them. But someone slips onto the wards and discovers three of the children are black. In Ca1ifornia, the prison system denies plans to operate on "difficult" prisoners until letters are uncovered detailing extensive plans for a psychosurgical program in cooperation with the University Hospitals of California in San Francisco. When it is then discovered that three prisoners have already been subjected to multilating operations, the prison officials decide to boast publicly about their best case. But a lawyer discloses a prisoner's whereabouts, and he is found to be physically crippled and emot ionally worse off than before the operation.


Capacity providers often experience a mismatch between supply and demand that can be partially alleviated while improving revenues by allowing for product upgrades. When prices are fixed and demands are independent, the problem is to decide which customer demands to upgrade to which products and when. We show that a fairness constraint can be imposed without loss of optimality under mild conditions. We also investigate a model that limits upgrades to the next higher quality product, and we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for its revenues to be as high as that of any less restricted upgrade model. Resellers of capacity also have an incentive to use upgrades as a mechanism to entice customers to higher quality products with higher commission margins. We show that this practice can be very profitable and that the profits can be much larger than direct commissions from sales would indicate. We then investigate the case where sellers have pricing flexibility and customer demand is driven by a choice model. We derive pricing formulas under the assumption that demand for products follows a multinomial logit model, and we develop an algorithm for finding a global optimal solution to the capacity constrained profit function. For this model we show that neither upgrades nor upsells improve profits when margins are homogenous and there is complete freedom in selecting prices. However, upgrades can improve revenues significantly when sensible business constraints on prices are imposed and when margins are heterogenous.


Meaningful use of digital games can create a more potent schooling environment where students are engaged, focussed and motivated to learn. However, the potential impact of games in the classroom will not be realised until teachers learn to embrace the strengths of digital games. This paper presents the Game Uses Model for Classrooms (GUMC), a Model to help teachers explore the use of digital games in their unique classroom context. The GUMC was directly derived from experiences of educators in Queensland, Australia. It aims to make explicit the intuitive thought processes of teachers who use games effectively, and can be used as a planning tool for all teachers to help them to richly and elaborately intertwine games into their curricula. The GUMC can also be used by game designers to help them create games that have subtle but powerful classroom relevance.; ;


The necessity of developing a new design for automatic control of the optical signal gain to ensure the stability of the output parameters of the atomic frequency standard (AFS) based on rubidium-87 atoms under various external conditions of its operation is substantiated. This is especially true during the operation of this AFS as part of mobile objects for various purposes. A new scheme for automatic gain control in the optical path of an AFS based on rubidium-87 atoms is presented. The amplifier of the error signal formed on the photodetector for controlling the microwave signal is considered in detail. An experiment was carried out, and its final metrological characteristics were presented for the atomic frequency standard based on rubidium atoms - 87 with automatic gain control. The validity of the developed automatic amplification scheme for the new frequency standard based on rubidium atoms-87 is confirmed.


The Precambrian metamorphic rocks are developed at the margins of Tarim basin of Xinjiang, among which the Archean metamorphic rocks are distributed in Kuruktag-Xingxingxia area and Altun forelands. The neo-Archean rocks possibly exist in Tieklik metamorphic rocks. The metamorphic rocks in Kuruktag with dated isotopic ages are completely exposed and comprise paleo-to meso-Archean and neo-Archean rocks. The neo-Archean rocks also exist in Altun forelands, South Tianshan area, and Weiya area of Central Tianshan. The Archean metamorphic rocks are composed of extrusive rocks and metamorphosed plutonic rocks. The former usually exists as inclusions of various size in the latter. The regional high-temperature metamorphism and regional dynamic hydrothermal metamorphism are the predominant ones. The metamorphic facies is intermediate to high with hornblend-granulite facies. Features of plastic flow of middle to great depth are present.


Abstract Aging Effects of one-layer Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films of 2-alkyl-7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (alkyl-TCNQ) have been investigated by means of infrared (IR) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Time-dependent infrared (IR) reflection-absorption (RA) spectral changes of a one-layer LB film of pentadecyl-TCNQ on a gold-evaporated glass slide indicate that the alkyl chain becomes more tilted with respect to the surface normal while the TCNQ plane becomes more perpendicular with time. Similar time-dependent changes in the molecular orientation were observed also for a one-layer LB film of pentadecyl-TCNQ on a CaF2 plate and for one-layer LB films of dodecyl-TCNQ on the gold-evaporated glass slide and CaF2 plate. However, one-layer LB films of octadecyl-TCNQ did not show a significant change in the molecular orientation. Time-dependent changes in the AFM image of a one-layer LB film of pentadecyl-TCNQ on mica show that the thickness of the LB film varies from 4.6 to 8.2 nm during the time course fr...


Here a collection of 1169 abstracts, which corresponds to articles that the Journal of Marketing Research has published from 2005 to 2014, are analysed under a novel approach. We apply several statistical methods, such as Principal Components Analysis and Correspondence Analysis to identify the way Marketing vocabulary is evolving. Similarly those articles that introduce new vocabulary are identified and the preferred words by authors are also detected. In order to provide an easy-to-understand explanation, we provide our results graphically. A word-cloud with the most frequent words is given first. Secondly abstracts-words are represented on the factorial plane. Finally one representation of word-years allows us to detect changes on the vocabulary through the passing of time.


The recently observed narrow resonance $Z_{b}(10610)$ is examined with the assumptions both as a $B^{*}\bar{B}$ molecular state and a $[bd][\bar{b}\bar{u}]$ tetraquark state with quantum numbers $I^{G}J^{P}=1^{+}1^{+}$. Possible interpolating currents are constructed to describe the $Z_{b}(10650)$ as an axial-vector $B^{*}\bar{B}^{*}$ molecular state or a $[bd][\bar{b}\bar{u}]$ tetraquark state. Using QCD sum rules (QCDSR), we consider contributions up to dimension six in the operator product expansion (OPE) at the leading order in $\alpha_{s}$. The mass is obtained as $(10.44\pm0.23) GeV$ for molecular state and $(10.50\pm0.19) GeV$ for tetraquark state, both of which coincide with the $Z_{b}(10610)$. The results $m_{B^{*}\bar{B}^{*}}=(10.45\pm0.31) GeV$ and $m_{[bd][\bar{b}\bar{u}]}=(10.48\pm0.33) GeV$ are consistent with the $Z_{b}(10650)$.