Analysis of Potential Risk Factors for Multidrug-Resistance at a Burn Unit.

Background: Infections by multidrug-resistant (MDR) microorganisms are associated with increased morbidity and mortality in burn patients. This study aimed to analyze the evolution of MDR bacteria over a five-year period at Coimbra Burns Unit (CBU) in Portugal, seeking to assess the possible associations of specific bacteria with presumed risk factors.

Methods: The data obtained consisted of identified bacteria present in any microbiological sample from each patient (including blood, central venous catheter, urine, tracheal aspirate and/or wound exudate).

COPD profiles and treatable traits using minimal resources: identification, decision tree and stability over time.

Background And Objective: Profiles of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often do not describe treatable traits, lack validation and/or their stability over time is unknown. We aimed to identify COPD profiles and their treatable traits based on simple and meaningful measures; to develop and validate a decision tree and to explore profile stability over time.

Methods: An observational, prospective study was conducted.

Comparing Reverse Complementary Genomic Words Based on Their Distance Distributions and Frequencies.

In this work, we study reverse complementary genomic word pairs in the human DNA, by comparing both the distance distribution and the frequency of a word to those of its reverse complement. Several measures of dissimilarity between distance distributions are considered, and it is found that the peak dissimilarity works best in this setting. We report the existence of reverse complementary word pairs with very dissimilar distance distributions, as well as word pairs with very similar distance distributions even when both distributions are irregular and contain strong peaks.

Exceptional Symmetry by Genomic Word : A Statistical Analysis.

Single-strand DNA symmetry is pointed as a universal law observed in the genomes from all living organisms. It is a somewhat broadly defined concept, which has been refined into some more specific measurable effects. Here we discuss the exceptional symmetry effect.