Detection of Neisseria meningitidis in a paediatric patient with septic arthritis using multiplexed diagnostic PCR targeting meningitis/encephalitis (ME).

Background: Neisseria meningitidis is associated with meningitis and septicemia. Septic meningococcal arthritis is relatively uncommon and its diagnosis associated with clinical and microbiological challenges. Early recognition and treatment is required to prevent joint destruction.

Specialized cleaning associated with antimicrobial coatings for reduction of hospital-acquired infection: opinion of the COST Action Network AMiCI (CA15114).

Recognized issues with poor hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers and reports of recontamination of previously chemically disinfected surfaces through hand contact emphasize the need for novel hygiene methods in addition to those currently available. One such approach involves antimicrobial (nano) coatings (AMCs), whereby integrated active ingredients are responsible for elimination of micro-organisms that come into contact with treated surfaces. While widely studied under laboratory conditions with promising results, studies under real-life healthcare conditions are scarce.

Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques for chronic pain.

Background: This is an updated version of the original Cochrane Review published in 2010, Issue 9, and last updated in 2014, Issue 4. Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques aim to induce an electrical stimulation of the brain in an attempt to reduce chronic pain by directly altering brain activity. They include repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES), transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) and reduced impedance non-invasive cortical electrostimulation (RINCE).

Effects of stocking density and string provision on welfare-related measures in commercial broiler chickens in windowed houses.

Lower stocking densities (SD) are sometimes used in windowed houses for broilers as part of systems designed to produce high-welfare products. However, there is little scientific information on the effects of SD on welfare-related measures in broilers in windowed houses, and on whether these effects are influenced by environmental enrichment. Commercial windowed broiler chicken houses were assigned to 4 target SD (30, 32, 34, and 36 kg/m2) and 2 levels of access to string [+S (one piece per 1,000 birds/house), -S] in a 4 × 2 factorial arrangement.

Identifying physiological measures of lifetime welfare status in pigs: exploring the usefulness of haptoglobin, C- reactive protein and hair cortisol sampled at the time of slaughter.

Background: Physiological measures indicative of the welfare status of animals during rearing could form part of an abattoir-based animal health and welfare assessment tool. A total of 66 pigs were used in this study, the aim of which was to assess how serum concentrations of haptoglobin (Hp) and C-reactive protein (CRP) (assessed in 51 pigs), and hair concentrations of cortisol (assessed in 65 pigs), measured at or close to slaughter, reflected welfare-related indicators recorded from the animal during its lifetime. These indicators were recorded at intervals between 7 and 21 weeks of age and included assigning scores for levels of tail and skin lesions, recording the presence or absence of certain health issues, and conducting qualitative behavioural assessments (QBA).

A comparative study of hand hygiene and alcohol-based hand rub use among Irish nursing and medical students.

Background: In Ireland, the setting for this study, the national prevalence rate of health care-associated infection (HCAI) in acute-care facilities is 5.2%. Hand hygiene and in particular hand rubbing using alcohol-based hand rub (ABHR) is highly efficacious in preventing HCAI transmission.

Neonatal and paediatric bloodstream infections: Pathogens, antimicrobial resistance patterns and prescribing practice at Khayelitsha District Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa.

Background: The epidemiology of neonatal and paediatric community-acquired and healthcare-associated bloodstream infections (BSI) at South African (SA) district hospitals is under-researched.

Objective: Retrospective review of neonatal and paediatric BSI (0 - 13 years) at Khayelitsha District Hospital, Cape Town, SA, over 3 years (1 March 2012 - 28 February 2015).

Methods: We used laboratory, hospital, patient and prescription data to determine BSI rates, blood culture yield and contamination rates, pathogen profile, antimicrobial resistance, patient demographics, BSI outcome and antibiotic prescribing practice.

Low Back Pain: What Have Clinical Guidelines Ever Done for Us?

The burden that low back pain (LBP) presents to sufferers and society is well established. This ubiquitous condition is served by a complex global clinical marketplace offering a wide range of assessment alternatives and accompanying interventions. Yet, while the costs of care are rising, the global burden does not appear to be diminishing.

Technical Note: The impact of deformable image registration methods on dose warping.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical-relevant discrepancy between doses warped by pure image based deformable image registration (IM-DIR) and by biomechanical model based DIR (BM-DIR) on intensity-homogeneous organs.

Methods And Materials: Ten patients (5Head&Neck, 5Prostate) were included. A research DIR tool (ADMRIE_v1.

Benefits and Threats to Using Social Media for Presenting and Implementing Evidence.

As a potential high-yield tool for disseminating information that can reach many people, social media is transforming how clinicians, the public, and policy makers are educated and find new knowledge associated with research-related information. Social media is available to all who access the internet, reducing selected barriers to acquiring original source documents such as journal articles or books and potentially improving implementation-the process of formulating a conclusion and moving on that decision. The use of social media for evidence dissemination/implementation of research has both benefits and threats.

Free Fermions and the Classical Compact Groups.

There is a close connection between the ground state of non-interacting fermions in a box with classical (absorbing, reflecting, and periodic) boundary conditions and the eigenvalue statistics of the classical compact groups. The associated determinantal point processes can be extended in two natural directions: (i) we consider the full family of admissible quantum boundary conditions (i.e.

An evaluation of potential dustbathing substrates for commercial broiler chickens.

Provision of an appropriate dustbathing substrate may allow broiler chickens to satisfy a natural motivation and give them an opportunity to exercise. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the extent to which different substrates promote dustbathing behaviour in broilers. The trial was replicated over three production cycles in one commercial broiler house, with ~22 000 Ross broilers housed per cycle.

Structure-Based Design of Selective Noncovalent CDK12 Inhibitors.

Cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 12 knockdown via siRNA decreases the transcription of DNA-damage-response genes and sensitizes BRCA wild-type cells to poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibition. To recapitulate this effect with a small molecule, we sought a potent, selective CDK12 inhibitor. Crystal structures and modeling informed hybridization between dinaciclib and SR-3029, resulting in lead compound 5 [(S)-2-(1-(6-(((6,7-difluoro-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl)methyl)amino)-9-ethyl-9H-purin-2-yl)piperidin-2-yl)ethan-1-ol].

Youngest survivor of perinatal infection by : case analysis and literature review highlighting the merits of placental swab culture.

has been noted as a causative organism in both neonatal and perinatal sepsis. Positivity of blood cultures at birth among preterm infants may be influenced by the maternal use of peripartum antimicrobials and a normal C-reactive protein result within the first 24 hours need not always reflect the absence of fetal invasion by the highly pathogenic organisms. For these reasons, supportive and adjunctive approaches such as appropriately collected placental swabs for culture would be of value in optimizing the antimicrobial choice for sick preterm infants during the early neonatal period.

Differences in intestinal size, structure, and function contributing to feed efficiency in broiler chickens reared at geographically distant locations.

The contribution of the intestinal tract to differences in residual feed intake (RFI) has been inconclusively studied in chickens so far. It is also not clear if RFI-related differences in intestinal function are similar in chickens raised in different environments. The objective was to investigate differences in nutrient retention, visceral organ size, intestinal morphology, jejunal permeability and expression of genes related to barrier function, and innate immune response in chickens of diverging RFI raised at 2 locations (L1: Austria; L2: UK).

Current practice in the rehabilitation of complex regional pain syndrome: a survey of practitioners.

Introduction: International clinical guidelines for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome recommend a wide range and variation of rehabilitation therapies as the core treatment. It is likely that most therapists employ a range of approaches when managing people with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome but a recent Cochrane review identified little evidence relating to the effectiveness of multi-modal rehabilitation. There is need for up to date trials of rehabilitation for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, but in order to develop a clear model of best practice that can be rigorously evaluated we need to understand current practice.

Patient preferences for direct-to-consumer telemedicine services: a nationwide survey.

Background: Direct-to-consumer (DTC) telemedicine providers has the potential to change the traditional patient-physician relationship. Professional medical organizations recommend that telemedicine exist within the medical home. This study aims to understand patients' preferences and desires for DTC telemedicine.

Altered Primary Motor Cortex Structure, Organization, and Function in Chronic Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Unlabelled: Chronic pain can be associated with movement abnormalities. The primary motor cortex (M1) has an essential role in the formulation and execution of movement. A number of changes in M1 function have been reported in studies of people with chronic pain.

Intestinal microbiota profiles associated with low and high residual feed intake in chickens across two geographical locations.

Intestinal microbe-host interactions can affect the feed efficiency (FE) of chickens. As inconsistent findings for FE-associated bacterial taxa were reported across studies, the present objective was to identify whether bacterial profiles and predicted metabolic functions that were associated with residual feed intake (RFI) and performance traits in female and male chickens were consistent across two different geographical locations. At six weeks of life, the microbiota in ileal, cecal and fecal samples of low (n = 34) and high (n = 35) RFI chickens were investigated by sequencing the V3-5 region of the 16S rRNA gene.

Clinical guidelines for low back pain: A critical review of consensus and inconsistencies across three major guidelines.

Given the scale and cost of the low back pain problem, it is imperative that healthcare professionals involved in the care of people with low back pain have access to up-to-date, evidence-based information to assist them in treatment decision-making. Clinical guidelines exist to promote the consistent best practice, to reduce unwarranted variation and to reduce the use of low-value interventions in patient care. Recent decades have witnessed the publication of a number of such guidelines.

Fecal Microbiota Transplant from Highly Feed-Efficient Donors Shows Little Effect on Age-Related Changes in Feed-Efficiency-Associated Fecal Microbiota from Chickens.

Chickens with good or poor feed efficiency (FE) have been shown to differ in their intestinal microbiota composition. This study investigated differences in the fecal bacterial community of highly and poorly feed-efficient chickens at 16 and 29 days posthatch (dph) and evaluated whether a fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) from feed-efficient donors early in life can affect the fecal microbiota in chickens at 16 and 29 dph and chicken FE and nutrient retention at 4 weeks of age. A total of 110 chickens were inoculated with a FMT or a control transplant (CT) on dph 1, 6, and 9 and ranked according to residual feed intake (RFI; the metric for FE) on 30 dph.

Clustered interventions to reduce inappropriate duplicate laboratory tests in an Irish tertiary hospital.

Background: There is increasing emphasis on understanding the rate, and avoidable costs, of inappropriate laboratory testing in hospitals, especially associated with duplication of tests following transfer of patients from one hospital to another. While studies of inappropriate testing have been reported previously, there are no published data relevant to Ireland.

Aims: To determine the baseline rate of inappropriate testing for a subset of clinical parameters, specifically, full blood counts (FBC), biochemistry profiles (Bio) and coagulation (Coag) screens for geriatric patients transferring to and from University Hospital Limerick (UHL).