Application of center for disease control and prevention standardized antimicrobial administration ratio to an Indian hospital.

Background: Rigorous antibiotic stewardship is advised by international societies to combat rising antibiotic resistance. A major component of these programs is the metric used for antibiotic consumption measurement. A method for standardized antimicrobial administration ratio (SAAR) is suggested by the Centre for Disease Control & Prevention-National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).

Drug resistance pattern and mutation pattern in pediatric tuberculosis: Study from north India.

Background: The emergence of multidrug-resistant MDR-TB and extensively drug-resistant XDR-TB are serious threats to global TB control. Molecular tests like GenoType MTBDRplus has revolutionized MDR-TB diagnosis by rapid detection of resistance, leading to early and appropriate management of DR-TB. Information about common mutations imparting resistance to RIF and INH, helps in understanding the disease epidemiology in various regions.

Occurrence of blaTEM and blaROB in Haemophilus species Causing Respiratory Tract Infections.

Background: Emergence of resistance to some antibiotics in Haemophilus influenzae, a respiratory pathogen is a cause of concern. The aim is to study the antibiotic susceptibility pattern of Haemophilus isolates from respiratory infections with reference to beta-lactam resistance.

Methods: This is a laboratory based prospective study done in the department of microbiology in a tertiary care center after institutional ethics committee clearance.

Matrix factorization from non-linear projections: application in estimating T2 maps from few echoes.

This work addresses the problem of estimating T2 maps from very few (two) echoes. Existing multi-parametric non-linear curve fitting techniques require a large number (16 or 32) of echoes to estimate T2 values. We show that our method yields very accurate and robust results from only two echoes, where as the curve-fitting techniques require about 16 echoes to achieve the same level of accuracy.