Comparison of positive BioFire FilmArray meningitis/encephalitis (ME) panels, CSF cultures, CSF parameters, clinical presentation and in-patient mortality among patients with bacterial and fungal meningitis.

Unlabelled: The BioFire FilmArray meningitis/encephalitis panel (MEP) was brought to the University of Kentucky in 2016 to aid in the identification of community-acquired meningitis and encephalitis (ME). This panel has shown variable performance with some institutions showing high sensitivity and specificity for many pathogens but others seeing false positives during clinical use. We evaluated the panel's performance using retrospective chart review of patients at the University of Kentucky from October 2016 to September 2022, including 7,551 MEP results.

The significance of low titer serum cryptococcal antigen testing from 2017 to 2023 performed in a tertiary care center.

Several false positive low serum cryptococcal antigen (SCrAg) reports by lateral flow assay (LFA) were identified in late 2016 at our tertiary care hospital. After the recall and correction of the problem in the reagent, we studied the significance of SCrAg LFA ≤ 1:10 from January 2017 to October 2023. Of 20 patients with 31 samples of SCrAg LFA ≤ 1:10, 14 patients (70%) were classified as true positives, four (20%) were indeterminate, and only two (10%) patients were false positives.

Strengthening education and training programmes for medical physics in Asia and the Pacific: the IAEA non-agreement technical cooperation (TC) regional RAS6088 project.

This article documents the work conducted in implementing the IAEA non-agreement TC regional RAS6088 project "Strengthening Education and Training Programmes for Medical Physics". Necessary information on the project was collected from the project counterparts via emails for a period of one month, starting from 21st September 2023, and verified at the Final Regional Coordination Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand from 30th October 2023 to 3rd November 2023. Sixty-three participants were trained in 5 Regional Training Courses (RTCs), with 48%, 32% and 20% in radiation therapy, diagnostic radiology, and nuclear medicine, respectively.

Group mating in Cretaceous water striders.

Fossilized mating insects are irreplaceable material for comprehending the evolution of the mating behaviours and life-history traits in the deep-time record of insects as well as the potential sexual conflict. However, cases of mating pairs are particularly rare in fossil insects, especially aquatic or semi-aquatic species. Here, we report the first fossil record of a group of water striders in copulation (including three pairs and a single adult male) based on fossils from the mid-Cretaceous of northern Myanmar.